11-04-2010, 03:56 PM
First and foremost, this is meant to be informational, not dictate rules. It's meant to help you utilize and understand the intents of the Agent Feature.
Why have agents?
When Fink and I were cooking up the process our main goal was to spice up the free agent markets. As we all know, FA classes tend to be very weak in a league setting and we thought that by creating Agents with more realistic demands would lead to fewer re-signings. While it's not as effective as imagined, it still leads to better free agent classes than if we let mogul determine all contracts/extensions.
The other main reason for creating agents is to take market control away from the game and put it directly in GM's hands. With agents, The GMs have final say in almost every contract exceeding 5M annually. Whether it's through re-signings done by the agent or in free agency itself no "crazy" contract will be given without a GM approving it first.
If guys like Haren or JJ weren't getting 15M for 7 years the agents wouldn't have a leg to stand on when trying to get you to sign your players to similar deals. On the other side of that coin GMs can't sign their star players for pennies and hoard talent. Indirectly this means agents also contribute to parity.
How are agents best utilized
- Agents are best utilized when you refuse to overpay for a guy. If you put your foot down and move on, as teams are often forced to do in real life, you take away most if not all the power an Agent has.
Until agents are costing players money by holding out for top shelf deals, there's ZERO precedent for discounted deals.
- Offer extensions early in a contract. What most people don't seem to realize is that most discounted deals signed in the MLB are in exchange for more salary elsewhere. The best example of this is Hanley Ramirez's contract.
For his first 3 years Florida basically paid him the minimum, which is all they are required to do. During his 3rd year they realized two things: A) He was good enough to keep around long-term B) Miguel Tejada's deal, which was already a couple years old, was going to set his market value.
Being Florida they knew they couldn't afford the 16-17M he'd get annually on the open market. So they offered him a slight raise over his expected arbitration earnings for the next three seasons in exchange for 3 free agency seasons at CURRENT market value. Essentially what would (and has) become a bargain by the time the free agency years took effect.
They paid him 5.5M in '09, 7M in '10 and 11M for '11. Those are all slightly above what he was projecting to earn for those three years. In exchange hanley gave them a very similar discount for his 3 FA years. Without an agent figure there'd be no way to replicate this deal. He'd either get signed for the intro arb value long term or get market value after his arby years (arguably 20-25M in the mogul universe).
When you bid for your guys try to mimic this model. It's a win-win for the player and the team. If you average the annual value in mogul Hanley only earns 11.66M per year for that span.
- Keep in mind that the agent does owe your team anything. The agent will always bear the players best interest in mind. While that's seemingly one-dimensional ($$$) it's not.
We try to reflect this in how we determine which agent a player signs on with. The role on a team, the location of a team (especially relevant to home), being the face of the franchise, etc. all are factors. If you're player is scoring high in any of the areas it's important to highlight them in your pitch. If there's other motivations to stay with a team, it's ridiculous for a player to maintain top dollar demands. It's your job as a GM to highlight these areas and, if necessary, shove your players nose it in it if their agents don't agree.
However, at the end of the day, players and agents have no loyalties to your team. There's no reason to EXPECT that your player's will remain with your team when their contracts are up. If anything, the agent means you should expect the opposite. If you operate with that mindset it's easier to cut ties and manipulate the market to your advantage. If you can't get on board with that you'll be stuck in an endless cycle of overpaying your players.
- Lastly, negotiations are fluid and generally don't happen all night. If you come with vague propositions such as "what does he want to stay on my team" the answer will be the same every time: every last penny you think my client is worth. You've already pigeon holed the entire negotiations to one dimension: money. Not only are you vague in your offer, you're vague in your opinions of the player's talents and value.
When you negotiate it's important to have a very firm starting point and a good reason for starting there. Simply put, the more you put on the table initially the more avenues for the negotiation to go down. Some avenues end in discounts, others end in being stone walled. The agent wont tip his hand, so be prepared to negotiate!
I apologize in advance if this is rambling lunacy, I did it quickly on my lunch break and will edit/reread it after work. I just really wanted to get this out there and hopefully a discussion going because very few GMs seem interested in taking advantage of the agent feature fully. Considering FCM's love of the loophole, I figured maybe I wasn't doing a good enough job explaining it. So please, post any questions/thoughts/etc. here and hopefully we can make this a more interesting feature.
Why have agents?
When Fink and I were cooking up the process our main goal was to spice up the free agent markets. As we all know, FA classes tend to be very weak in a league setting and we thought that by creating Agents with more realistic demands would lead to fewer re-signings. While it's not as effective as imagined, it still leads to better free agent classes than if we let mogul determine all contracts/extensions.
The other main reason for creating agents is to take market control away from the game and put it directly in GM's hands. With agents, The GMs have final say in almost every contract exceeding 5M annually. Whether it's through re-signings done by the agent or in free agency itself no "crazy" contract will be given without a GM approving it first.
If guys like Haren or JJ weren't getting 15M for 7 years the agents wouldn't have a leg to stand on when trying to get you to sign your players to similar deals. On the other side of that coin GMs can't sign their star players for pennies and hoard talent. Indirectly this means agents also contribute to parity.
How are agents best utilized
- Agents are best utilized when you refuse to overpay for a guy. If you put your foot down and move on, as teams are often forced to do in real life, you take away most if not all the power an Agent has.
Until agents are costing players money by holding out for top shelf deals, there's ZERO precedent for discounted deals.
- Offer extensions early in a contract. What most people don't seem to realize is that most discounted deals signed in the MLB are in exchange for more salary elsewhere. The best example of this is Hanley Ramirez's contract.
For his first 3 years Florida basically paid him the minimum, which is all they are required to do. During his 3rd year they realized two things: A) He was good enough to keep around long-term B) Miguel Tejada's deal, which was already a couple years old, was going to set his market value.
Being Florida they knew they couldn't afford the 16-17M he'd get annually on the open market. So they offered him a slight raise over his expected arbitration earnings for the next three seasons in exchange for 3 free agency seasons at CURRENT market value. Essentially what would (and has) become a bargain by the time the free agency years took effect.
They paid him 5.5M in '09, 7M in '10 and 11M for '11. Those are all slightly above what he was projecting to earn for those three years. In exchange hanley gave them a very similar discount for his 3 FA years. Without an agent figure there'd be no way to replicate this deal. He'd either get signed for the intro arb value long term or get market value after his arby years (arguably 20-25M in the mogul universe).
When you bid for your guys try to mimic this model. It's a win-win for the player and the team. If you average the annual value in mogul Hanley only earns 11.66M per year for that span.
- Keep in mind that the agent does owe your team anything. The agent will always bear the players best interest in mind. While that's seemingly one-dimensional ($$$) it's not.
We try to reflect this in how we determine which agent a player signs on with. The role on a team, the location of a team (especially relevant to home), being the face of the franchise, etc. all are factors. If you're player is scoring high in any of the areas it's important to highlight them in your pitch. If there's other motivations to stay with a team, it's ridiculous for a player to maintain top dollar demands. It's your job as a GM to highlight these areas and, if necessary, shove your players nose it in it if their agents don't agree.
However, at the end of the day, players and agents have no loyalties to your team. There's no reason to EXPECT that your player's will remain with your team when their contracts are up. If anything, the agent means you should expect the opposite. If you operate with that mindset it's easier to cut ties and manipulate the market to your advantage. If you can't get on board with that you'll be stuck in an endless cycle of overpaying your players.
- Lastly, negotiations are fluid and generally don't happen all night. If you come with vague propositions such as "what does he want to stay on my team" the answer will be the same every time: every last penny you think my client is worth. You've already pigeon holed the entire negotiations to one dimension: money. Not only are you vague in your offer, you're vague in your opinions of the player's talents and value.
When you negotiate it's important to have a very firm starting point and a good reason for starting there. Simply put, the more you put on the table initially the more avenues for the negotiation to go down. Some avenues end in discounts, others end in being stone walled. The agent wont tip his hand, so be prepared to negotiate!
I apologize in advance if this is rambling lunacy, I did it quickly on my lunch break and will edit/reread it after work. I just really wanted to get this out there and hopefully a discussion going because very few GMs seem interested in taking advantage of the agent feature fully. Considering FCM's love of the loophole, I figured maybe I wasn't doing a good enough job explaining it. So please, post any questions/thoughts/etc. here and hopefully we can make this a more interesting feature.
Houston Astros - 2012/2016/2023/2025 Champs!
Cumulative Record: 1894 - 1184 (.615%)
Cumulative Record: 1894 - 1184 (.615%)
