SPEC TROLLING

[J-Nels]

Hi all,

I want to take a minute to vocalize my opinion about PC offers and how we go about signing FA specs. I'm pretty frustrated that I can put in time and energy researching guys, cross checking to ensure no other team has these guys on their rosters (for the sake of our commish) and posting, just to be outbid by teams who have done no research besides clicking on my posted link.  AKA SPEC TROLLING. This is complete garbage!!! We need to either find a way to make these offers in private or another alternative to stop this behavior.

For those of you who are doing real research and posting your own guys, I give you mad props! We all have our methods but this process is never quick and easy. I hate seeing teams win/steal future studs without putting in the work!

Please feel free to comment below. I will be happy to administer any changes to this process the league and commish agree to!
-Jeff aka PISSED!!!

[Jonathan]

Why do you think I start mine so high? If you want to steal my guys, there is a price. This is a deep league with 30 teams........ this is always gonna happen and you got to deal with it. The double initial bid helps if you ask me, never seen that before in a league. Guys will always piggyback. Its a lot of work  just to find 1 guy.

[Maydab23]

The doubling of the initial bid is a thing we just started this year for MiLB FAs to help with this issue.

The problem with doing things private is parity will diminish in this league and the owners who can’t devote as much time will be even more at a disadvantage. Putting the extra work in whether via trades, researching who to draft, MiLB signings, IFA signings, etc already gives an owner a huge leg up.

With a league this deep it’s very hard from a commish standpoint to keep the league near full capacity.

In an ideal world we have 30 dedicated owners who have lots of time to devote to such a deep league but that’s not realistic in the 5 or so years I’ve been in this league and we can’t always placate the handful of owners that spend the most time because then we will have 5-7 super competitive teams and the rest will be mostly orphan teams with high owner turnover. (Frankly, that’s already a concern of mine) And if that’s the case we may as well downsize the league but that goes against what makes AFB special in the first place.

We had discussed all this last year before you joined.

[J-Nels]

Bunch of Democrats! 

HAHAHA.

[J-Nels]

On a more serious note, I would be happy to administer a private, weekly or monthly, spec endorsements. This is where teams can endorse a spec they are interested in, in private. When the endorsements are announced, teams will have exclusive rights to their players as long as they are not shared. If they are shared, they are go into a bidding process between endorsing teams only - similar to what we have now.

This forces teams to do their own research/scouting and doesn't promote complacency. Right now, its run like a welfare program!

[chrisetc21]

I recommended a 4x increase for the initial bid rather than 2x.  I think it works better that way, people who don't do the research should have to pay 4x what I post a player at to compensate me for my time.  There's too much money out there for 2x to be effective.  I think we're already seeing that. 

J-Nels, if you're interested in helping there are already a lot of things that could be done to help run the league. 

[GlorifiedG]

This is the most annoying part about this league and the reason I really don't bother participating in minor league free agency at all. Personally I think we should hold a minor league free agent draft each year instead of having open free agency for specs.

[J-Nels]

I recommended a 4x increase for the initial bid rather than 2x.  I think it works better that way, people who don't do the research should have to pay 4x what I post a player at to compensate me for my time.  There's too much money out there for 2x to be effective.  I think we're already seeing that. 

J-Nels, if you're interested in helping there are already a lot of things that could be done to help run the league.

I personally like the idea of 4X increase...I would even consider a 5, 8, or 10x (500k must be bid @ 5M). I believe individuals should get a huge benefit for doing their own research.

I am down to help in this area; however, I am still getting my feet wet in the league. If there is something easy I can take on, just let me know. Again, I could easily run a private spec commission...make it a monthly drop. i can create timelines and publish which will make this process much more fair, clean, and rewarding.