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I was watching some players going on the TL today and noticed this $236K player get sold for just $11,000:



And I had this thought ... Does anyone ever try to buy very expensive players on the super cheap, then fire them before having to pay the salary?

So you'd get 2-3 games out of them (heck, forget GS and use them in the Cup, too, if you need it) for a very low cost.

I see one downside is your fan survey showing they don't know the players. But if you were winning, I'm guessing they would still show up.

Last edited by Manon at 6/18/2013 5:37:37 AM

11000 ? I think it's a clear job for a GM .
On the other side, you would literally throw away players and multiple seasons of training. I doubt also that you'll find similar cases, because they usually are sold for a much higher price.

I did a simple search for players with salaries over 150K with current price under 50K and found dozens right now. Lots of 200K guys starting at $1.

I'm not saying they will all go that cheap, but clearly some will. That's why this idea popped into my head. If you were really active and watching a ton of auctions, you could probably pull off some great bargains.

I don't suspect anything was suspicious about that other player's sale. That team sold pretty much his whole roster at once, and I was bidding on a couple players. So I was curious how much the expensive guys went for, too, and saw that one.

"As an alternative, starting from season 24, transferred players will require at least a couple of weeks to get used to their new teammates and surroundings. Newly acquired players will receive a hit in game shape so that they cannot directly perform at their best upon arrival to their new team, with players in better game shape receiving a larger hit than players in bad game shape."

I would expect this change to be implemented starting next week. So this does dampen this strategy some.

It does dampen it some, but the more I think about it, the potential is actually very high anyway.

Let's do the math on it. Let's suppose I have the choice of having three key players who are 50K each or trying out this idea (one that I'm not courageous enough to actually do, but I like theorizing).

If I have those three 50K players at optimum game shape, they might play to the value of (what?) 60K players. Not much more, I'd guess.

On the flip side, I buy three guys for 50K each average every Monday and Tuesday with an average salary of over 200K. I never pay their salaries, so it doesn't matter. Even if they have inept or lower GS, they are still going to play like at least (what?) 150K players? And I have three of them.

There has to be a downside besides the possibility of not actually finding the talent each week, which is certainly possible.

Of course, those players after being fired will go on TL at very high starting prices and probably retire. So the pool thins out, especially if people actually were doing on this on any kind of scale. And it's a big net waste of training time and talent.

But my real only question is whether it's actually possible to be better by a decent bit this way. And then come playoff time you're screwed because you have to keep them for a couple salary weeks ... but if all you wanted to do was finish 5th or chose some weeks to save a little extra money, it might be fine.

My only thought is that it's really not a long-term strategy.

Let's say you buy one of these players a week at, let's say, $50,000 (not exact, but it's somewhere in the ballpark). A rundown of the way I see it...

-As a Division I team, I can't imagine doing this. The players who sell for that, while maybe high salaried, are often not well-rounded, and as such aren't going to be difference makers at the top level. To me, it's not worth giving away $500k+ a season (~10 weeks x $50,000) in one-time auction fees for players that I won't be able to use for more than two games. The economic margin at the top is too thin for this to be a viable strategy.

-As a lower division team (say V-VI), that $50,000 a week is much better invested long term in building up your arena. If you have that money, you either ought to be saving it or investing it in guys that can help you climb the ladder, not short-term, 1-2 game fixes. I think you probably agree with me on this one.

-The mid-division teams, Div II-IV, is where I'd imagine the strategy would really get kicked around. Obviously the goal in this case is promotion. I'd imagine the team would fall into two camps here- either they're good enough to be promoted without having to bring in that ringer, in which case why waste the money, or they're not, and they need the extra boost to promote. The problem in this case is that if the team needs that $200k player to promote, they're likely not ready to promote- assuming you buy a C- this means your PG, SG, SF, PF aren't good enough to beat the other teams, and if they can't do that at level IV, they'll get killed at level III, regardless of whether the team keeps buying that $200K player even after promotion. Also, there's really no way to use the $200k guy in the playoffs, so you'd essentially have to bank on a 22-0 season, and assume that's enough to get a promotion.

-As a 1-week fix for a big Cup game, or for TV/rivalry games I'd imagine there's some draw, but often it's one of those "is it really worth it" scenarios. Up until the last 4 or so rounds of the cup, the payoff is only $50k to win, which means you're essentially spending $50k to try and get it back in a game. There would be the fan survey boost, but again, it wouldn't be a long-term benefit from only a few games.

I suspect there's some rambling there. Hopefully some of that makes sense.

And I had this thought ... Does anyone ever try to buy very expensive players on the super cheap, then fire them before having to pay the salary?

Ever since last season or the season before, you can't do this. Players can't be fired or transferred until they've been on a team for 7 days.

please edit your post. advertising transfer listed players is not allowed!

Sorry, he must have gone back on the TL. I only posted anything after he sold.