Monday, June 29, 2009

BWB Primer #8 - Multiyear Contracts

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

Now that the time has come to think seriously about contract extensions, a little further explanation on how this works.

The idea is quite simple - lock in a player for another year (or more) based on his salary this season.

There are three primary advantages to this:
  1. You can sign successful rookies or other young players for significantly less money than they might make next season. Often, you can lock them in for several years at a reduced rate.
  2. Established players coming off a bad season or two (and thus a reduced salary) may also see a significant rise in salary if they play at their normal level again this season. Now's your chance to grab him again for a low price.
  3. You use this year's money to pay future salaries, theoretically giving you more money to work with next year. In reality, you're not going to have any money taken away from you in the off-season (unless you're over the limit in April)...and all teams get the same amount of cash in November. So if you don't spend a million bucks now, you'll still have it in December when you want to re-sign the same player for next year (however, you'll be spending that cash on the new 2010 salary, not the 2009 level). But by spending a lot less cash on a rising player now, you'll be able to better afford higher-priced players over the winter.

The basic formula is that you can re-sign any player for next year for the exact same salary he makes this year. The only caveat to that is the minimum contract is for 250, so those rookies you've got making 100 this year will cost you 250 to sign for next year.

For additional seasons, figure a 33% rise in salary each year after the first. The minimums go up significantly in successive years. For example, the minimum salary for the second year of a contract is 1250.

You must complete the contracts by the last transaction date in July. You must have the available cash at that time to sign the player.

If you trade a player, the contract goes with him. You don't get any rebate for any future years. However, you can use this as a bargaining chip in your trade negotiations (a cheap player signed for multiple years suddenly has more value).

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And now the risks -
  • Contracts are fully guaranteed. If you cut a player next season, you don't get any of that money back. If you cut him later this year, you don't get any future money back, but will get a rebate for this season's salary, if applicable (assuming that you paid his salary for the current season). Once a player is back in the free agent pool, the contract is gone.
  • Another aspect of "fully guaranteed" is that during the off season period, you cannot expose your player in the Redistribution Draft - he must be one of the 28 players that you retain in December. Once the draft is complete, you can cut him if you want.
  • You must pay the full amount of the contract immediately. Unlike real life, the money is not paid out over time. You must have the cash on hand for the full contract and it is subtracted from your balance right away. The risk here is that you could leave yourself short for late-season transactions or - if you have chosen contracts unwisely - you may limit your possible moves over the winter.
  • Be careful of signing too early. If you sign a player in early June and he goes out for the rest of the season a few days after that, you may have ended up paying too much for him for the next season (a lot of a player's salary is based on at bats or innings pitched). You have until the end of July to extend contracts - it may be wise to wait until then.
  • Your risk increases with the length of the contract. On multiyear deals, there's always the chance that you make out in the first year, but if that season is bad (or if he is out of baseball), you may have ended up overpaying for the later years.
  • Extending minor league prospects gets you nothing. If they don't play in the majors this year, or only in September callups, or only with limited success, you're going to spend 250 on a player that will be making only 100 or slightly more next year - plus you are obligated to keep them during the Redistribution Draft.

Let me say this again - clearly - once you pay the money for future seasons in a contract you will never - ever - get that money back.

However, the multiyear contract can be an effective tool for building your team in the future. You can use them to turn around a dismal franchise or turn your team into a perennial title contender.

BWB Primer #7 - Off-season Money

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

Hopefully, none of you has lost enough hope that you're simply planning out for next year, but as we near the halfway mark of the season I just want to quickly explain how cash works from one season to the next.

2010 Salaries and Salary Cap
Salaries are determined by player performance. 2/3 of the 2010 salary will be based on performances in 2009 and 1/3 of the salary is the player's 2009 salary. In addition, players ranking in the top of certain hitting/pitching categories and for post-season awards will have a bonus attached to the 2010 salary - making premium players worth a premium price.

The salary calculations are shown in the rule book.

Once the salaries are complete (usually mid-November), the salry cap is calculated. Again, see the rules for the actual formulas, but the idea is to allocate so much money for the top salaries, an additional amount for mid-tier players, and an additional amount for minor leaguers. As overall salary levels themselves rise and fall, the salary cap will also change.

Cash Distribution
There's not really a hard cap on team salary - instead the "cap" is used to determine how much cash each team gets in the off season. The cash distribution for every team in a league will be the amount needed to get the team with the lowest balance up to the cap level.

For example, if Team X has the lowest cash balance in the league at 100,000 at the end of the season and the salary cap is 48 million, each team in that league will get 47.9 million. Any bonuses for playoff performance or player of the year awards will come after that.

Off-season signings
You get to keep up to 28 players from your roster. You must pay for those players immediately when you select them in December. You'll get only a 50% rebate if you cut them later in the off-season. Your remaining cash is all you'll have to sign players in the Redistribution Draft or in free agency until the season begins. Note - you do NOT have to sign a player to a contract during the season in order to keep him next season (more on that in Primer #8 regarding multiyear contracts)

Maximum cash
Just before the 2010 season will begin, any team with more than 5 million in the bank will have their cash balances reduced to 5 million. So you need to spend wisely in the off-season, but you can't hoard your cash either.

Multiyear Contracts
One way to save cash for the next year is to sign players for 2010 at their 2009 salary. This is the subject of the next chapter to come soon.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

BWB Primer #6 - The Bullpen

Oops - should have posted this one in April right after the starting pitching queue...sorry.

The BWB Primer is a series of commentaries to provide rule interpretations and hints - something a bit more than you get out of the rules. See the Primer Index for the entire series.

This is perhaps the most confusing thing of the entire game-scoring formula. This goes back to the idea that bullpen appearances are so unpredictable. So the basic idea is that rather than try to match up bullpen stats on a game-by-game basis, we let the relievers accumulate stats over a 6-game span. In trying to put the bullpen stats into the BWB game, then, we use averages to fill in the score.

The bullpen score, then, is a 3-step process.

1. How many innings will the bullpen be needed?
If your starter goes 9 innings, you don't need the bullpen. If your starter goes 3 innings, you need 6 bullpen innings. If your starter goes 7 2/3 innings, you need 1 1/3 innings from the bullpen. You get the idea.

2. How many relievers' stats will be used?
This is based on how many bullpen innings are needed:
0.3 to 1.0 - 1 guy
1.3 to 2.0 - 2 guys
2.3 to 3.0 - 3
3.3 to 4.0 - 4
4.3+ - all 5 relievers

We always start with the top of your bullpen and then take the next guy in order, as needed. If, by chance, one of the pitchers has no appearances in that 6-game span, then the ones below him move up a spot. But, in doing that, it's possible that you could run out of pitchers. For example, reliever #2 is on the DL, so 3,4 & 5 automatically move up. Now, let's say you have a game where you need 5 relievers. In the past, we'd just ignore it. But starting in 2004, you now get a special Pinesitter Pitcher who will give you the stats of 5 IP, 10 H, 10 BB, 0 K, 10 ER. This adds a little higher penalty for keeping injured/minor-league pitchers on your team by storing them in your bullpen. (Later on, after a couple of seasons with incredibly high bullpen ERAs, the Pinesitter stats were adjusted...the first one isn't good, but each one gets worse...see the rules for details).

*** A 2005 Rule change allows the spot pitchers to fill in the bullpen, if your normal 5 guys don't all have stats, as long as the spot pitcher has relief stats.

3. Add up all the stats for the number of relievers you need. Come up with a per-inning average for hits, strikeouts, and earned runs, then multiply by the number of innings your bullpen needs to pitch (see step #1). Plug those numbers, along with saves, into the pitching half of the scoring formula.

An added twist here is to make sure that not only do you have active pitchers in your bullpen, but that they reach a certain level of participation - based on achieving a minimum number of innings pitched in that 6-game span. If you don't have enough innings, your per-inning average for hits and earned runs will go up. See the rules for more details on how many innings you need to reach and what the penalty is for each inning you fall short.

**** Although the minimum innings penalties appear to be large, they are actually increases in RAW NUMBERS, and are subsequently turned into the per-inning values. It won't always make a difference in the outcome, but it could decide the game if it is close enough.

The key with this is to have 5 healthy, active pitchers in your bullpen and don't fill your bullpen with closers - you need some guys who eat up a lot of innings.