In-Season Claim Prices

[zac]

Looks like in 2024 game, the in-season free agency now uses unique "demand" prices instead of league minimum as the "claim" price. Is there any setting that could be added to either go back to using minimums or adjust the price levels at least? I assume adjusting the salary settings could help but we already have that balanced for extension demands so lowering that will throw off how much players ask for extensions. It makes sense for players to ask a tad high for extensions because they can test the market in offseason free agency. But right now players that have gone unsigned all offseason, are demanding prices that wouldn't be expected in 99% of cases for a player that is trying to make a roster.

For example, the WORST QB in the league (46 OVR) is demanding $1.1 million when the league minimum is $350,000. He's saying he'd need to be paid better than 33 QBs currently on rosters or he won't play. Or in another example, 73 OVR DE is demanding to be paid $2.06 million or he won't play. He'd be paid better than 77 DE in the league even though he's gone all offseason without any offers and gone a sim in preseason without an offer.

Basically without some ability to specifically adjust this for leagues, solid players that could be half-decent depth guys on rosters will instead just sit in free agency because they won't sign for any decent amount. I understand there could be a very select few top free agents that somehow still go unsigned that should demand over the league minimum but for 95+% of guys in free agency in-season, they should NOT be demanding more than the league minimum. In a perfect world, teams would have the ability to make real offers and players take the best offer or take highest claim offer. But without this ability to take highest claim offer, it's better in my opinion to just have players request minimum even if means adding a new setting. Just my thoughts.

And I checked if asking prices go down after pre-season but they do not appear to. So players still ask for 3-4 times league minimum despite being the worst player in the league at their psotion.

[Santoro5]

Yeah this would be a a great idea to adjust/make more flexible as now it is really hard to meet the roster requirements with only 1-2-3M under cap

[brooks_piggott]

It used to just default to league minimum. Now it defaults to the minimum for a player at that OVR level. If you want to adjust this you can change the salary min amounts for those positions and then further adjust it by the quality rating of the player. For a 46 OVR you would adjust the last rating in the table downwards at least for min. It shouldn't affect the higher tiers of players.

[zac]

Appreciate the response!. We will look at that solution but I'd expect that'd also make 60-75 ovr players on roster demand way less as well. So for example, a really solid young player on a team's roster that's say 74 ovr / 24 year old would just see teams always sign them to 7 year extensions for say 450k (because we had to lower the settings for in-season free agent demands).. Tieing the same system used for extensions and offseason free agency with the same demand prices for non-rostered players inseason will, by it's nature, always make one be too high or too low in my opinion. Extenion demands by their nature will want to be on the higher side especially when it can be used to lock players under contract for 7 years. Vs players doing anything to make a roster will take any offer they can get (minus maybe a very select few veterans that'd rather retire than play for less than a certain $$ amount).

As a league, our choices are to make extension demands extremely low or make it super hard for teams to fill their last roster spots or respond to injuries without spending millions on guys that aren't any good.

[drummerJ99]

I'll be devils advocate. It always really bugged me that I could sign a 80 overall free agent in week one for league minimum. So I personally am glad to see that has been changed. In the real world no 80 overall free agent is signing for league minimum whether it's week 1 or week 16.

[zac]

yeah there are for sure a select few guys that should be paid more. But while system is better in many ways, just noting coulb room for improvement since now the other 97% of free agents are demanding too much IMO. Main issue being is teams are now required to spend a lot of roster filler guys. But yes, there are a handful of veteran types that in real life demand more or they retire.

And at the core issue of it all, non-rostered in-season free agents to me should not demand the exact same as a player on roster ask for extensions in most cases. Extensions by their nature will always be on the higher end of salary request that you don't see in guys trying to just make a roster (in 99% of cases).

I'll be first to say that I wasn't a big fan either of everyone just signing for league min so apprecate change. Maybe just have the demands be like 50% of the same system used for extensions? I don't think new system is bad or bugged at all. Just some thoughts as admin for league to balance both extension and in-season free agent demands

[brooks_piggott]

That's why I left it configurable. You can set min/max for each position, and then set min/max percentages based on player level (not OVR, but similar). So if you want lower level players cheaper, just drop the percentages for the lower level config option.

Not to mention this makes free agency a bit more important so people aren't just spending small amounts and then signing guys for basically free in-season. It also makes draft picks more valuable as roster filler.

But again, it's already configurable, so I'm not planning on making any drastic changes at the moment.

[zac]

Agreed on draft picks and other roster moves pre-in season free agency being more important now so overall think a great addition in its entirety with at least signings not all being at the minimum. I do think it’ll hard to balance demand prices between inseason free agents while not making extension demands too cheap for the 70-79 ovr types but we’ll find a balance that works good enough. We already dropped the demand price at least for the under 70 ovr so that has helped. Appreciate review and other quick fixes today in other areas with patch 8.0.1! Much appreciated on attention to these boards and addressing key issues that come up (which this post wasn’t a bug or anything)

[brooks_piggott]

I think I have it set where their expectations in free agency are higher than their expectations as an extension (depending on if they like you) and that is higher than their expectations/requirements for in-season free agency. But they all should be in the configurable range you set.

[servo75]

Question though. Does the league salary cap have any affect on player demands, whether in-season, off-season free agency, and extensions? And are the three connected, where raising/lowering min/max will affect all three?
In one of my leagues, I had the experience of a player who was pretty good but getting up in years and was "insulted" by anything less than $15M (average for his position and skill at that time was about $10M). So I let him walk and during the free agency period I signed him for $4M. I think that should be the opposite, I always wondered why players seem to accept less money during the free agency period than for contract extensions.