RFA bids

[Pensacola Pelicans]

Before we start making RFA decisions for MLB, I'd like to see us consider requiring RFA bids to be a minimum of 3 years. Teams extending qualifying offers are required to offer 3 years. Why should other teams have the option of proposing a shorter contract? And then when the original team has to make a decision, they may be forced to accept a shorter term even though they might be more than willing to pay the same annual rate for at least three years.

I encountered this scenario with Isiah Thomas before the current NBA season. I extended the QO because I wanted him 3 years. I knew he was going to be out half of this season and I knew my team would not be ready to compete anyway. So my hope was that he'd contribute in 2nd and, more importantly, 3rd years of the contract when his contributions would matter more. I was forced to accept a comp pick or keep Thomas on a shorter contract than I really wanted.

Is there a reason QOs are required to be 3 years, but RFA bids on those same players are not?

[St. Louis Sting]

This was actually a proposal I had thought about and was working on, though accomplished in a different way. Rather than requiring offers to RFA be three years in length, I was going to propose the following:

The original owner of an RFA can choose to add extra years to the winning offer for an extra 10% per year. For example, in the Isaiah Thomas bidding he was offered a 2 year, $20 per year contract. The original owner (in Thomas' case, the Pelicans), would have the following options:

- Match the 2 year, $20 per year offer
- Raise to 3 years, $22 per year
- Raise to 4 years, $24 per year
- Raise to 5 years, $26 per year

This would keep owners from being restricted by whatever the final winning bid is, but in order to retain the player longer the team would have to pay more.



Again, this is just where my mind went on this problem but I believe both solutions make sense to solve the problem. It's just whatever everyone prefers. Please discuss!

[Jimmy (Desperados)]

I like this idea. It gives more flexibility to RFA’s.

[St. Louis Stars (Defunct)]

I think they are both great ideas, I kind of side with the addition of 10% each extra year, that way the owner is locked in to the deal and must strongly consider if they want the player since they're going to progressively be paying more each season

[Pensacola Pelicans]

On the surface, I'm ok with the escalation for additional years. But let's look at an example:
- Let's say Team A extends a QO for 3 years, $30/$30/$30
- Then Team B submits a bid for 1 year @ $36 (20% more on 1 yr bid, so valid bid)
- If Team A wants to keep the player for 3 years, it would have to commit to $36/$40/$44

Is that the result we want? Team A now has a decision to make, and Team B has successfully stifled Team A's intentions while taking on very little risk. There's nothing wrong with Team B making things difficult for Team A, but it shouldn't be that easy without taking on equal risk.

A few of questions . . .
- Why do QOs have to be 3 years? Is there any reason we couldn't allow QOs to be any term (1-5 yrs)?
- As a "restricted" free agent, wouldn't it make more sense to require bids to at least match the term of the QO? If not, why? In the above scenario, if Team B wants to bid, they'd have to commit to 3 yrs and the risk that goes with it.

[St. Louis Sting]

All very good points, though I would argue that the risk would be surrendering a 1st round pick for a single year of a player. I do agree though that this needs more thought put into it.

As for your question, I would be open to allowing owners to decide the length of their QO, though requiring others to match the length of a QO would likely stifle bidding entirely in a lot of cases. I think there is an opportunity to improve the system, but it definitely needs more thought (which we luckily have time to do before MLB)

[Bill (Ragin' Cajuns)]

IMO, we are over complicating things.

RFA minimum of 3 years, wouldn't it be much easier to make all RFA bids 3 years?

[St. Louis Sting]

Jan 18, 2018 0:16:08 GMT -5 Bill (Ragin' Cajuns) said:

IMO, we are over complicating things.

RFA minimum of 3 years, wouldn't it be much easier to make all RFA bids 3 years?

That is also a route we could explore. Would give owners up to 8 years of control of players depending on length of the original contract, and then after 8 years (if they make it through all 8 without being cut) the player is guaranteed to be an RFA. Not opposed to this solution either

[Bill (Ragin' Cajuns)]

It will be interesting to see if any player makes it 8 years on a team. With all the trading within 4Sport, it is gonna be rare.