UFA "value" idea - Page 2 - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

TurdFerguson · 08-28-2013, 03:29 PM

The problems I have with the current UFA system are:
-It seems like a lot of work for admins
-the bid process is error prone and email based
-it doesn't produce the best contract for a player, it produces the best initial offer. Different things entirely.
-the bidding process is largly random guessing. I mean, you get close with broad strokes...this player is a 1-2M player but how you get to your actual bid is guesswork. Some call it strategy, but i dont buy that. Bidding 1.78M and 36% ahl so that i beat out someone potentially bidding 1.75 and 30% is just silly, so is losing out on a player by pennies when you would happily go higher if needed but you 'guessed wrong'. As with any competative bid process, interested parties should know what they need to beat and have the opportunity to out bid that. Bidding should continue until there is only one bidder. That is the only method that produces the true market contract for a UFA.

All that said, without new technology (online bidding program. cough David) I really don't see how it gets much better.

Swayze11 · 08-28-2013, 03:34 PM

I am curious to know opinions on teams that have very little cap space on how they feel about this suggestion.

I personally think this would help them but I may be way off.

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 03:37 PM

Keep in mind that mirroring the nhl is just one part if this. The system is designed to have the game function in a relatively fair and simple way.

Again I ask what is the problem that is trying to be solved by these other options? Better distribution of talent? Even more power for cap blessed teams?

Why do we care that a team gets the max possible deal? That's not a requirement for our game.

All elements of the game work together. Cap, cap awards, rfa, ufa, the draft. They all connect.

Anyways I'm just not seeing what the weakness of the current system is.

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swayze11

I am curious to know opinions on teams that have very little cap space on how they feel about this suggestion.

I personally think this would help them but I may be way off.

How would it help them?

dsavillian · 08-28-2013, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Again I ask what is the problem that is trying to be solved by these other options? Better distribution of talent? Even more power for cap blessed teams?

Well, my biggest gripe is that the current bidding process is a guessing game.

Say I have 2M to spend and I need one forward. There's a batch of UFAs that will realistically get anywhere from 1M to 4M.

I'm willing to spend my entire 2M on one player to ensure I have the best chance at getting him.

I now have to pick one player to bid on and hope that no one bids 2.01 or more on that one player.

Lets say I pick player X and someone bids 3m on him... no big deal, I couldn't afford him. But then I see that player Y and Z both went for 1.5M. I'd have offered them more than that, but I couldn't because my cap was locked up on player X.

If I had known that I was out of the running on player X, I'd have bid on player Y. I may not have gotten him (someone else may have outbid me) but at least I'd have had a shot.

I think the current UFA process is a lottery/guessing game and not strategic at all. If that's the intention, then no big deal. If the intention is to be more strategic though, I think there could be a better way to do it. The current system does not allow for me to get a feel for the market and how much players are going for.

That being said, if UFAs were bid on one at a time or in much smaller groups, then I think that the current sealed bidding would be fine. I don't think that's feasible though.

TurdFerguson · 08-28-2013, 03:52 PM

David hit the nail on the head for me, that is exactly the problem I see as well.

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 03:55 PM

I don't think it is a guessing game. It is about anticipating the market, and trying to make smart bids. Plus the current system helps distribute the talent by forcing GMs to choose where to throw their dollars

dsavillian · 08-28-2013, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I don't think it is a guessing game. It is about anticipating the market, and trying to make smart bids. Plus the current system helps distribute the talent by forcing GMs to choose where to throw their dollars

In my example, if I have 2M to spend and am willing to give it to player Y who got 1.5M, do you think that I should miss out on that player because I bid on player X?

heh, we really should have waited until after UFA to have this talk... now it looks like I'm trying to game the system so I can get some sweet player for my remaining 800k this year :/

Swayze11 · 08-28-2013, 04:02 PM

How can you anticipate the market? It is all over the place. Some get 9.99, some get 1M and its nowhere close to their actual value.

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 04:02 PM

Sure if you didn't make that guy your priority target. This game is all about making hard decisions

dsavillian · 08-28-2013, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I don't think it is a guessing game. It is about anticipating the market, and trying to make smart bids. Plus the current system helps distribute the talent by forcing GMs to choose where to throw their dollars

Also, I interpret those as being the same.

There are no indicators as to what the market will be except speculation and what you hear from other GMs that may or may not be misleading you. Oh, and the total cap space available to teams.

Either way, I have no way to realistically ball park what player X, Y and Z will go for until the bids are revealed.

dsavillian · 08-28-2013, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Sure if you didn't make that guy your priority target. This game is all about making hard decisions

I respectfully disagree

I think UFA season is more about gambling than making hard decisions.

Food for thought for next year, but if there was interest, we could probably develop a UFA website that would take care of the behind the scenes stuff - regardless of what direction UFA bidding takes/maintains.

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 04:10 PM

Honestly it's not about the work it is about how the whole system works and the overall game approach. Seems to me some are looking for a system with more certainty. So if you have more cap you are pretty much guaranteed to get the guy you want. That's not necessarily how we want the game played. Always open to ideas but I'm not seeing a lot if issues with the current system

dsavillian · 08-28-2013, 04:12 PM

More food for thought, but what would be the downside of an open auction UFA system where the team and contract terms were hidden and there was a system in place to eliminate ebay style bid sniping at the last minute?

What would be the downside of having a minimum bid for UFAs in the current closed bid system?

Just want to bounce some ideas around... we have 12 months until the next UFA season. Lots of time to brainstorm ideas, even if they don't go anywhere. I'm sure your current rule set has evolved a lot since the start of the CPHL - ideas have to start somewhere!

TurdFerguson · 08-28-2013, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Honestly it's not about the work it is about how the whole system works and the overall game approach. Seems to me some are looking for a system with more certainty. So if you have more cap you are pretty much guaranteed to get the guy you want. That's not necessarily how we want the game played. Always open to ideas but I'm not seeing a lot if issues with the current system

Sorry, why is that not wanted? Salary is the the only real determining factor in UFA (aside from years etc..). Why should the team willing and able to pay the player the most not get the player. That team made choices to put them self in a position to pay top dollar, where as other teams made choices that may inhibit there ability to do so.

Swayze11 · 08-28-2013, 04:15 PM

How do you evaluate the market? serious question.

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 05:13 PM

Anticipate what players will be most popular and bid accordingly

JiriHrdina · 08-28-2013, 05:30 PM

Just a few people posting so far would love to hear from others

Daradon · 08-28-2013, 05:37 PM

Not having participated in the process yet, I can't really evaluate it properly.

From reading the suggestions, the min contract makes a lot of sense. It would be the easiest and least work to implement. You could set it at half the corresponding grid amount for instance. It's as self regulating as the rest of the process, the admins wouldn't have to do anything.

It would lend a little more realism to it as crazy bargains would be eliminated. However, as I mentioned, not having participated yet, I don't know how often that happens or if it's really a problem anyway.

Slava · 08-28-2013, 05:42 PM

I'm sort of ambivalent here. I think that the steals are unrealistic, but to be honest I think its fun and interesting to see the players that get signed for next to nothing. It also gives those teams a bargaining chip when you have say a stud dman like Aaron Johnson and he's paid a mere $500k. OK, maybe not him, but there are some players with great deals and they're worth a little more over that contract. Those would basically disappear, or at least the advantage would be reduced.

In this batch I think we all know Kari Ramo is a hot commodity, so teams that want him have to bid more. I think my offer was a three year one way at $8M, so that means Anaheim will have at least $8.01M of his $9.46 available ponied up to land him. Do we need him finding out early that Ramo could be signed for $2.2M? I'm not sure that's a benefit to other teams?