Free Agents Availability?

Legend7 · Post by **Legend7** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 4:46 pm

Greg,

When are we going to be able to make our first bids on Free Agents? And is true you will probably have our rosters posted by Wednesday?

Don

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Build it and they will come...

viper · Post by **viper** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 1:45 am

Previously, it was stated that the first FA bidding period would end on Sunday April 4 - and yes, that is too late to adjust for the 2 games in Japan or the ESPN Sunday night game between Boston and Baltimore.

Players won in the bidding would be available for games starting April 5. This is why having legal lineups coming out of the draft was important.

I am not sure when rosters for the 3-game week need to be set. I suspect there may be gametime freezes but I am not sure. This will assuredly be addressed by Greg over the next few days.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:39 am

The first free agent acquisition bidding period will be Sunday, April 4th, so there is no need to try and pick up free agents now. You should have enough starters to get through the two Japan games and the Sunday ESPN game. I need to talk with STATS to see when everyone must set their starting lineup, but I have a feeling it will be the day of the first Japan game. We hope to have the rosters online by Wednesday, but that's easy for me to say because I'm still in Las Vegas. The guys back at the office are entering them right now with STATS' help, so we'll see how long it takes to do that and then double-check everyone's lineup. We want to check with each team owner as well to make sure they have the exact lineup they drafted on Saturday.

Thanks for your patience and we're getting closer to Opening Day.

TBill · Post by **TBill** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 1:14 pm

viper said;Previously, it was stated that the first FA bidding period would end on Sunday April 4 - But you seem to be saying that it starts on April 4. So when does the bidding start and end? Also in the Q&A it gave an example where teams bid $2, $30 and $50 for the player. Are our bids "up to" bids? If so the winning team would pay $31 instead of 50. I was assuming $50 but would prefer $31. Thanks

Legend7 · Post by **Legend7** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 4:15 pm

T-Bill,

The way I understood the bidding process is it a closed bid process, every Sunday (during the season if you see a Free Agent that is performing well or you want for any reason you can bid on that player. Ok, let's say Cy Young a great new pitcher enters the majors and throws a one hit shut-out. I want him you want him, we are given 1,000 imaginary dollars to spend. You bid $1 dollar hoping nobody else saw his performance, I will not know what your bid is. I'm high on Mr. Young (and know other people may bid on him and bid $50 on him. You did not get to see my bid. On Sunday night come to find out, we are both shocked because another owner bid 1,000 dollars blew his entire free agent money on this young phenom (not a smart move because he now can not pick up a free agent to replace anyone injured later on). Team #3 won the bid with a 1,000 dollar bid. I'm sure you can post a bid anytime during the week for a free agent but it will not be processed until a certain time on Sunday Night each week (I think we were still debating what time that would be just before the draft). The person who made the highest bid gets that free agent. (sort of like a closed auction bid) you bid 1 dollar, I bidded 50 dollars and Team 3 won the bid with 1,000 dollar bid. The beauty of this bidding system is... Team 3 could have acquired this player for 51 dollars but he did not know what our bids were. That is what your going to have to assess when you eye a potential pick-up, how high do you go in a bid to get him...

[ March 22, 2004, 10:22 PM: Message edited by: Legend7 ]

TBill · Post by **TBill** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:36 pm

Legend 7: Thanks, I believe that I've got the closed bidding nature of the process down now. I'm still not sure of when we start bidding. I know we won't be able to start until all the league info gets posted on our team page. Can we start bidding for FA's then or will we have to wait for the season to start? (I'm a compulsive tinkerer.)

[ March 23, 2004, 12:44 AM: Message edited by: TBill ]

rmurph3 · Post by **rmurph3** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 2:59 am

Why would you *want* to bid as early as possible? There's no advantage at all to bidding early. There is an advantage to bidding right before the deadline, to wait for late information, further assess what your needs are (late spring injuries, surprise cuts, etc). Patience is the name of the game here...

Plymouth · Post by **Plymouth** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 4:07 am

A question on conditional FA bids. Does this mean that you make conditional bids where you put in a bid for player B if you don't get player A and then Player C if you don't get players A and B? Or can you submit conditional bids of say $24 for Player A but if that does not do the job I want to bid $30 on player A and then $40 etc.?

nnoy · Post by **nnoy** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 4:59 am

Originally posted by Plymouth:

A question on conditional FA bids. Does this mean that you make conditional bids where you put in a bid for player B if you don't get player A and then Player C if you don't get players A and B? Or can you submit conditional bids of say $24 for Player A but if that does not do the job I want to bid $30 on player A and then $40 etc.? Conditional bids refers to the players, NOT the bid amount. You get ONE bid per player, but you can list an infinite number of player contingencies to assure you fill a blank spot.

TBill · Post by **TBill** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 6:54 am

Originally posted by rmurph3:

Why would you *want* to bid as early as possible? There's no advantage at all to bidding early. There is an advantage to bidding right before the deadline, to wait for late information, further assess what your needs are (late spring injuries, surprise cuts, etc). Patience is the name of the game here... Of course, you're absolutely right on all of the above. However, if a bidding deadline is next Sunday, for example, I might be willing to bid with less info and maybe get a better rate than waiting for the bidding period right before the season starts. This is why I wanted to know when the first bidding period ended. I see now on the other thread that the first week will be 3/29-4/4 ending 7PM EST. Thanks, all.

[ March 23, 2004, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: TBill ]

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 9:34 am

Bidding will open on Monday and you will have up to Sunday at 7 p.m. EST to change your bids or add more bids. Each player requires one dollar amount and if you win that bid you pay exactly what you bid. There is no lesser amount based on the second highest bid. If you bid $50 for Joe Smith and the only other bid is $1 for Joe Smith, $50 comes off your FAAB.

You can make conditional bids based on filling a position of need. In other words, if you need a second catcher, you can list $50 for Joe Smith as your first option, $30 for Ron Smith and $10 for Bobbie Smith. If the first two guys are gone and you're the high bid for Bobbie Smith, you'll get that player and have $10 subtracted from your FAAB total. Easy as that.

There are no FAAB bids this week. Since there are only three games next week, everyone should have enough players and backups to make their lineup legal for that week. I hope this helps.