Talent Issues 2020 Edition

[dejota]

I know I sound like a broken record but I know a few more GMs have noticed it's becoming a problem this year so I'd like to propose another potential solution.

First the Facts:
-Currently 150 90+ Overalls in the File (Up 15 from 2019, IIRC)
-Currently 651 80+ Overalls in the File
-Current settings should only produce 90 90s+ and 350 80s+. We're almost double our intended levels and it's seemingly getting worse every year.
-Stats are stretched thin: the game only allows for so many hits, home runs, stolen bases, etc. in a season. Since we have too many players capable of great things, the game isn't distributing stats well. On a personal note, I fielded a lineup full of players with 90+ contact. Only 2 of my regular hit over .300
-Both Chicago teams and the Yanks are fielding an arguably better roto than Philly is in IRL. I know this may come across as bitching on the surface, but Philly's 2011 roto is considered historic, we've fielded a similair roto somewhere in FCM (sometimes on multiple teams) every year for nearly a decade.

My idea to help out talent is two fold:

A) In free agency 10% of the 80s overall (or higher and not compensated) players are randomly selected to be killed and they're dropped off to 79 or lower. We drop talent levels a proportionate amount

B) Solicit volunteers/suggestions for drops. If you have a player who maybe didn't develop the vitals (but developed the overall) or have an aging veteran on the backside of his career you don't need FCM asks that you volunteer them to be dropped. The biggest key here is that the player you're cutting and killing must benefit FCM more than your franchise to do so. For example, ATL couldn't volunteer Soria to be cut since his contract was a big point during the trade and being rid of that salary would give him an advantage in his division. However, Gabe Anwyl would be a great volunteer since his contract/talents aren't making a difference in the grand scheme of things.

Another group of players that would be great to consider here would be injured players who would potentially drop anyways.

For players who don't have a giant contract, horrific injury that will kill them off already or some other inherent benefit to volunteering them I think it would be in the league's best interest to help support this. Whether it's a free WB spot (for a 90s overall perhaps) or maybe a small cash bonus I figure the incentives would be easy to work out and the league would cry foul if anybody was getting an advantage by abusing this process.

To go along with this I think lowering Farm System from Excellent to Good would also go along way. But between volunteering, watering down talent through FA and lowering the farm system setting we could get talent issues down relatively quickly without having the game randomly penalize rebuilding teams or singling out a few franchises to take the brunt of a forced lowered talent level (which I will not do).

Here's the goal:
20 90s overalls over 2 years - Lower 90s+ overall by 1% (and 90s peak proportionately)
100 80s overalls over 3 years - Lower 80s+ overall by 5% (and 80s peak proportionately)

Thoughts?

[dejota]

HOU Volunteers: (Example offers, if this is supported by the league official)
OF Andrew Lambo (93) - There was 0 interest in FA and we have too many OFers. I still owe him 30M so I'd need opinions on what's fair about handling that if approved since my intent could be questionable here
1B Steve Turberville (90) - Passed on my DC, was going to try and flip him in the offseason but I feel more strongly about talent issues than my team at this point honestly
OF Domonic Brown (90) - Just release him for free or I could pay 50% if people feel I'm trying to get out of his contract
2B Cam Sullivan (84) - Going to likely nontender him anyways, not making anything yet
RF Jason Wolverton (83) - I'll pay the 2M owed
SP Albert Fuents (81) - Got hurt and now pretty awful. Might as well put him out of our misery.

There's 6 players, if you support this please post your own volunteers and maybe this will be really easy to implement and has the obvious benefit of nobody having to suffer miserably.

[Drubbman]

Not sure if it works with the intent purpose, but I'll try. My team is full of younger players who are key to my rebuild, except 1.

I'd love to kill off Bumgarner. He was a 90 or 91 when I signed him and after his 8th start tore his rotator cuff and is now worthless(currently rated 81). His contract is hurting my rebuild and without it I'd be able o rebound a little faster.

Here's what I propose: Take all the cash I currently have(something like 15m) and my 2nd rounder in next years draft and put Bumgarner out of his misery.

[HansLanda]

I'm okay with lowering talent levels and all that stuff but I'm not as attached to my team as most of the GM's here are so I can see how it might bother some people but I think we have to do what is best for the league long term.

['PR']

HOU Volunteers: (Example offers, if this is supported by the league official)
OF Andrew Lambo (93) - There was 0 interest in FA and we have too many OFers. I still owe him 30M so I'd need opinions on what's fair about handling that if approved since my intent could be questionable here
1B Steve Turberville (90) - Passed on my DC, was going to try and flip him in the offseason but I feel more strongly about talent issues than my team at this point honestly
OF Domonic Brown (90) - Just release him for free or I could pay 50% if people feel I'm trying to get out of his contract
2B Cam Sullivan (84) - Going to likely nontender him anyways, not making anything yet
RF Jason Wolverton (83) - I'll pay the 2M owed
SP Albert Fuents (81) - Got hurt and now pretty awful. Might as well put him out of our misery.

There's 6 players, if you support this please post your own volunteers and maybe this will be really easy to implement and has the obvious benefit of nobody having to suffer miserably.

I like option #1 better than the second option. Cincy could only give you a bunch of low 80s players to kill off, we couldn't help much with the 90s players. I just can't help but see people being able to justify killing off a guy who would have cost them $20M+ and even if they are able to I don't think it would necessarily be fair to the league as a whole. If someone saves more money than someone else in this process, the process isn't fair enough to take place IMO.

[Peter]

dj, why dont you just lower down the talent percentages. the same ones that you increased that apparantly created the problem. i think lowering the farm system rating directly hurts rebuilding teams more than established franchises and wouldn't really seem fair in my eyes. i dont think volunteering players to be killed off is a good idea at all and will only create arguements i believe.

i guess my sugestion would be look at the designated percentages for talent before the change and after the change and split the differenceto hopefully incure a change that isnt too crazy.

[dejota]

I don't know how productive volunteering talent will be but if you don't want to kill of your players don't. I'm banking on GMs recognizing the issue and volunteering guys who fit the profile. The BAL/OAK/CIN of the world shouldn't have many guys that would qualify for this but teams like HOU or NYY who've been able to pretty much constantly acquire talent does have excess. That's part of the reason I think this works. I don't expect the volunteer process to net the majority of these players, obviously FA is the easiest place to find excess/unneeded talent, however allowing certain teams to do so is fine, I don't see anybody rushing to save me from myself on my 6 volunteers lol.

Peter - just killing off talent is random and could devastate a team, particularly teams who just start a rebuild stand to lose the most. The reason I really like this approach is we don't expose teams to talent drop that can't afford it.

[hokeyrules]

I would volunteer

Jeff Buckley 84 overall soon to be an FA
Christopher Carter 82 overall same thing
Craig Winters 84 overall

RP Dan Ruhl 81 overall
SP Dan George 90 overall to 89 overall?

[rockybull]

I wouldn't mind killing off Gabe Anwyl, but I did just trade for him and gave up something decent to get him and he is owed $6.5 million per year for 2 more years, and I was hoping he would be a solid number 5 for me for a very young rotation that I will have next year. So unless I can get that contract bought out for free(I would be doing a lot considering that I actually traded a young spec for him) then I wouldn't kill Gabe then.

I would volunteer this:

Temko Honzo - 1B 87 overall(this is last guaranteed year he has, he has 1 PO worth $12 million), I would be fine with him killed if its best for league.

Gabe Anwyl - SP 84 overall(ONLY IF HE CAN BE CUT FOR FREE)

That is about all that I can actually volunteer to get rid of.

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another thing that should happen is we do completely away with IFA latin players and Japanese players. No more of them period. Also, winterball after this offseason needs to be done away with as well. I am fine with lowering farm from excellent to good, cause in the grand scheme of things it isn't going to destroy rebuilding teams(I was also fine with this 2-3 mogul years ago as well). You don't have to have excellent farm to develop good players, good I have seen works just as good in other leagues that I have been in.

[dejota]

Honzo will be a FA killed off I'd imagine and with Anwyl I don't see a problem there. He was just a guy I noted on your team to juxtapose against Soria so I wasn't trying to hint. The game will knock the 80s overall players down to 515 after the playoffs (that's still a little over 17 per team) so I think the 80s players are going to take longer if we go purely by volunteering. I think if we get close we can afford to just let the computer randomly select the rest of the 80s guys that get dropped off without risking too much. The goal is to get the ball rolling using players who don't make too much of a difference big picture.