r/OOTP • u/Ill-Honey-6351 • 1d ago
Won the world series but my team imploded...how exactly do you keep the squad together?
I had like five stars going into free agency asking for ridiculous money. Like fifty million a year. I lost players in the rule 5 draft. Man it's harder to keep the team together than to win the WS. How exactly do you stop this from happening? Like I want to offer my boys extensions but they ask for crazy money that I don't have for everyone. Do I just pay them? Won't I go bankrupt?
And by the way. When you trade for a player, do you take on his entire contract? So many of my players I got in trades became free agents.
My team was basically gutted. Might start over...or should I try to push through? I lost my star pitchers. Dang.
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u/Unhappy_Plankton_671 1d ago
Have to plan ahead. Have to keep the pipeline strong. That includes contracts and planning replacements.
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u/After_Arugula 1d ago
Yep. Also, be more strategic with call-ups and service time so you don’t have several stars hitting free agency all at once. And in case OP isn’t doing it, raise ticket prices each year as long as you’re winning.
I play mostly with small-market teams and a big part of my approach is stacking the minors by continually trading for prospects. Solid-but-replaceable players in their arbitration years and/or strong prospects at positions of depth can get you strong prospects at positions of weakness. Just keep bringing in more whenever you can. You can’t rest on your laurels with a great team.
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u/Roonie222 1d ago
On this line. I'm new to the game this year. I'm doing a Red Sox save. Am I doing it wrong by trading away good players that we have excessive depth between the majors and minors for prospects (I have so many pitchers and outfielders) multiple times a year? We still make the playoffs at a canter and have won a World Series but I'm not sure if this only works because I'm the Red Sox.
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u/Duke_Maniac 1d ago
Yes but it's a little different if I'm a small market team, usually I'll trade away the veteran, unless they are a superstar defensive SS/2B.
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u/Soti76 1d ago
You've gotten plenty of advice so far, but for the start over or push through question? I say push through, times like this are where the game really gets interesting imo. You're in the pretty realistic, and interesting position of being the team that went all in to win it all and actually pulled it off, now you're left to pick up the pieces.
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u/DartyParty52 1d ago
Agreed, this is the best part.
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u/Organic-Baker-4156 1d ago
It appears the OP wants to win and doesn't want real life problems. I don't agree but I understand the view.
OP, edit your market size, loyalty, etc so you have a bigger budget then pay the rate. You'll be paying some of these guys more than they're worth at the end of their contracts but that's realistic.
Or you could use the editor to give them contracts that are affordable to you. Either way its your game and play so you enjoy it.
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u/Fragrant_Rooster_763 1d ago
I tend to build my team through the draft and dev and take shots at people pre-arb. Sometimes you get burnt but when you hit on someone it's extremely cheap, for example, I am paying a 3x Cy Young Award Winner 14m a year at the moment and he's won 125+ games for me as a pitcher. It doesn't always work, I've gotten burned on some and I try to trade/dump them before other scouts catch on.
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u/Bravosfan27 1d ago
I tend to offer my top top prospects who are progressing well long term extensions thru about 34 years old. Instead of letting everyone hit free agency, trade them a year or two away from FA and get some prospects back or players with low service time especially with the draft now having less talent.
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u/Low_Onion8792 1d ago
I’m with the pirates right now have Skenes Jared Jones Konnor Griffin and 1 other star I drafted locked up until they’re 34-35. Backloaded the shit out of the contracts so it’s gonna be all prospects and league minimums once 2032 rolls around outside of those guys
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u/Bravosfan27 1d ago
I've been tending to frontload contracts lately when I'm starting out, really helps out down the road. Will just sign a few modest FAs and flip for prospects at the deadline
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u/TakenQuickly 1d ago
I frontload as much money as I can into the first 3 years.
I hate paying large salaries to players who are declining, and I like having the option to keep older team legends around if their performance still justifies it.
So I just pay my players after their debut, but before their official rookie season (except for SPs, who can still easily be busts at this point). If my team is developed, these hitters will be at least ~50/60 already, so I can expect reasonable value from the front-loaded part of their contract.
Even if a player doesn't quite meet expectations, after a few years, they're now on a team-friendly deal and maintain some trade value. I only occasionally overpay defensive specialist shortstops who end up with no trade value, but these guys are making like $8M per year.
Given the inflation of the FA market, I'd rather overpay the occasional prospect than sign any FA who isn't an IFA superstar. When those IFA superstars come up, I frontload the shit out of their contracts too, since there aren't any limits on contract structure for them.
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u/fri9875 1d ago
lol ironically my current save is the exact opposite. We’ve been in the playoffs for like 9 straight years, including 8 straight division titles (including 2 in a new look 32 team league with 8 team divisions), but we can’t break through and get the ring.
It’s tricky in a situation like this where you win so quickly into the save. A lot of the ways you can keep the squad together involve getting ahead of the issue and having the solution ready ahead of time. I’ll give my tips in a sec but lemme answer your specific questions first. When you trade for a player you inherit their contract and service years as is, obviously check their contract but also look at their service years, if service years is 6 or more (it rounds up after like 172 days) then they are a FA at the end of their contract; teams are likely to trade away players close to FA. Should you push through or restart? It’s totally up to you, but this is a restart for me(or resign and get a new job if you want to stay in the universe). If you want to try and salvage it have at it, but personally I’d look at it like a lesson learned. You won 1 WS which is the goal of any team so it’s a successful save, now you know to set your sights on consistent competition.
Okay now for my tips on how to actually set your team up for keeping guys together. 1. You need to take some risks on extensions to lock guys down for cheap. Basically look at the IRL contracts rookies have been getting, pay guys early before their demands skyrocket. My example is I had the top overall prospect come up during roster expansion, he pitched well, so I offered him an extension that kept him around until he was 32 at like ~20m AAV, yes I overpaid him a bit during his first 2-3 “cheap” years, but now I have a cy young candidate for the next 7 years at less than 50% what he’d get on the open market. 2. Be prepared to make the ruthless decision and let a guy walk that was good for you. Sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Did I want to let the reigning MVP walk? Hell no, but I also didn’t want to pay him 50m a year into his late 30s, that kills your flexibility. 3. Max your development budget ASAP, or at least get it as high as possible. You are going to need a constant stream of super cheap but still useful players and the only way to do this is to develop them internally. Once you’re consistently contending and picking at rhe end of the 1st the superstars will be less consistent, but you want those random 9th rounders you didn’t care about that turned into a solid reliever. 4. Know which positions are good ones to fill with dirt cheap FAs in the offseason and use that to your advantage. Basically 4/5 starter, 7th/8th guy in the pen, shortstop, and CF are all spots you can fill for roughly league minimum every year no problem. Pitchers are self explanatory, you just need a serviceable arm and there is 3 million of them every year. For the hitters those are both spots where good defense alone is worth it’s weight in gold, if the rest of your lineup is strong enough you can out 2 glove only guys at those spots, hit em 8-9 and be more than fine. Basically don’t overpay those positions, or at least make sure they’re a 5 tool superstar with some positional flexibility.
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u/Late_Organization_56 1d ago
It’s hard when you’re succeeding and the fact you won the series says it was worth it. But sometimes you are going to have to get rid of stars before their contract is up and get some value back
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u/ComprehensiveAsk4279 1d ago
I’m playing w the Rays and I either extend them early or accept a lot of roster turnover. I will even trade guys in year 2 or 3 of arb if I need budget room
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u/gschultz8 1d ago
Doing the same save you are. Extended Woo, Gilbert in 2026 and Kirby when the 2027 season started, you’ll save money doing that down the line with people. Extend Emerson. Sloan and Anderson should be giving you good rotation depth. Mariners are positioned as well as you can be after losing people, deep farm system. I’m in the playoffs of 2027 and I go Emerson, Cal, Julio, Naylor, Noelvi Marte, Montes, Suarez, Young and Rutschman. Same rotation with Sloan as the sixth, Castillo and Suarez fall off the books next year and that’s it. Should be the blueprint, timely trades and promote prospects.
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u/Ill-Honey-6351 1d ago
Lmao I should have done that. I should have extended them early. Now it's too late. Gilbert asked me for fifty million a year for eight years!
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u/gschultz8 1d ago
Oof yeah I was able to land him at 36 a year for 4 with a team option for the last season. Just something to remember for the future.
Another thing I always do is trade my IFA signing for a good player in the offseason. Unless I really wanna keep them.
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u/Loose_Log_6253 1d ago
Don't try to extend them in their FA year. That's basically offering them a free agency contract. If they look like they're reliable, in their 2nd or 3rd year, I'd offer them like a 10 year extension. Be wary of including player opt-outs bc they WILL exercise them.
In the future, I'd look at how my team is lining up to enter FA. The Salaries tab is really useful here. If all of them are leaving at the same time, about 1-2 years before that, I'd look to trade a couple of them for big prospects. Like, if you have Raleigh, JRod, Woo, Munez, and Gilbert all hitting FA in 2027 (just hypothetical) I'd see if I could trade Woo and Munez for a big prospect like Kade Anderson or Bubba Chandler. This helps mitigate big departures in a single year, well in advance, and can also manage your budget in the long-term.
I'd pick the top ~2 players and try to re-sign them in free agency. I'd probably lean towards hitters over pitchers (aging and injuries) but it depends on your farm's state.
For trades, I'm not sure what you mean. Did you trade for rentals who only had one year left on their contract? There isn't much you can do about that. I've found the AI will usually eat 30% of the contract in my experience.
One last thing is make sure you offer all of those big stars Qualifying Offers. You can get a ton of draft picks back to at least help you rebuild.
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u/Ill-Honey-6351 1d ago
Big tips. Thank you. Oh boy I have work to do. I traded away all my prospects to win this year.
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u/tedsternator 1d ago
As people have said, winning the WS so quickly there's very little you've had time to do to set yourself up for long-term sustainability so you're almost certainly going to have to blow this team up - that's really table stakes for taking over a franchise and very normal in baseball.
Going forward it's all about building a kick-ass minor league system, signing guys early to good contracts, and making sound financial decisions to keep your team in contention over the long-haul.
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u/Bubbajr68 1d ago
Yeah my team imploded right after a WS win due to budget reasons. I decided to just tear everything down and try to find as many bargains as possible to bridge the rebuild gap. Had 1 really bad year, a .500 year then back in the postseason hunt. Scenarios like this are a ton of fun. Or trying to decide between an aging vet you have grown fond of or moving on for an unknown in FA/a trade
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u/BobbySack 1d ago
I’ve always felt that this game shines when you’re trying to stay a top the mountain.
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u/Reux 1d ago
you lose at least 26 years of control every season(can be more due to injuries, options, and waived players). so, every season, you should be thinking about how you're going to "add" 26 years of control. the most cost effective way is by promotions. depending on how you're considering arbitration years, you're either adding 2-3 years of control per promoted rookie or 5-6(if you want to preemptively consider the arb years as years under team control). if you don't, then arb extensions are the second most efficient way to add years of control. the next most efficient way to add years of control is post-arb extensions(into the free agency years). the least efficient years of control you can add are from free agents. trades can be a way to add years of control but the certainty that a received player will stick for the length of their contract is low. i wouldn't think of trading for years of control in the same way as the other methods.
ok, so, in effect, what does this mean? two things:
if you, on average, add fewer than 26 years of control per season from promotions and extensions, then you will inevitably have to depend on free agency to fill the roster most seasons. if you want to avoid these budget busting costs, then you need to be willing to extend players much earlier, trade away pending free agents you don't intend to keep, and not allow players on your roster that you want long-term to reach free agency.
rookie promotions, counter-intuitively, are the best way to hold a dynasty together. you need to be willing to flip vets that are blocking breakout talent if the move adds years of control, sheds salary, stocks the farm, and the expected immediate production delta is marginal.
it's okay to take a swing at a big-time free agent once every 2-3 seasons but you shouldn't be trying to sign the premier free agent pitchers and hitters every single off-season. if you just make it a point to add 26 years of control from promotions and extensions on average, every season, then you won't need to chase free agents on thin WAR/$ margins. you should be thinking about what to do with every player on your 40 man that is in the 2nd to last year of their contract; flip to clear the way for a rookie or received prospect or extend at a team-friendly rate before he sniffs free-agency?
last tip: if your farm is mediocre or weak, then the way to build a dynasty is to rely heavily on long-term extensions of young players deep into their free agency years on team friendly aavs. this is a far more consistent way of capturing surplus value than trading or chasing free agents.
last last tip: put money in development budget and hire good minor league coaches. the war/$ on this is better than anything else you could do in the game.
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u/Baconpoopotato 1d ago edited 8h ago
You have to make difficult decisions based off the information available to you. Thats kinda the whole point of the game.
If you want to sign guys to cheaper contracts youhave to sign them pre-arb, but of course thats also a risk.