You’ll have to excuse me in replying to this, but at this stage I feel as though it’s necessary considering what has publicly been stated multiple times now since I’ve joined the league about a year ago and as I feel as though this is to some degree clearly directed at myself. Knowing me this will be TLDR, but I care and so be it.
–First and foremost, let me say that I’ve really enjoyed this league. It has cost me plenty of sleep when it’s comes to trades, free agency and even submitting lineups believe it or not. That said, I’ve known this league existed for probably over a decade as Evilo, Mark and Curt to name a few guys had kind of mentioned it on another forum and I was always keen to be a part of such a thing. For me, I love the idea of building not just a team but an entire organization of clubs because I can get players that I think are talented, interesting or whom I just like. Take Riqui Puig for example. I’ve been a big fan of his since day one and while I’m sure if he wasn’t in my Freiburg side he’d be available on the market. Still I love having him in the team, he’d actually still be with Barca in real life if I had a say, and actually being able to utilize him. How fun is that? And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say how much I appreciate the work that Zizou, James and Santi (and anyone else if I’m missing someone) put in.
–Second, if anyone would like me to exit the league I will happily do so. I don’t want to be here if I’m going to be considered a problem or if my making counter bids is going to be an issue every time. Assuming I don’t bow out of my own accord at this point, happily let me know either publicly or privately. I approach the league in good faith, which wasn’t the case from someone last year who is no longer with us, and bid on players and make trades accordingly.
–With regards to my specific countering of JR’s Diaz pick, I don’t know why I have to again clarify the timing of my counter, but I will. When JR bid on Diaz, I already had active bids with both FC Barcelona and Boca Juniors , that only two teams I could bid on Diaz with, that I had made about 2 hours prior to JR’s bid. So I had to wait for those bids to expire. And those bids, like ANY bids I make, first bids or counters, were on players I wanted to get. So I waited until those bids cleared. Then, being quite high on Fabricio Diaz in general, a player lazily linked with Barcelona in real life but linked all the same, I bid on him in good faith within the rules of this game. Yes it was with only 2 hours of JR’s bid clearing, but it’s really obvious why that was the case as I noted above. My bid was very specific in terms of the amount as I had a very specific bidding strategy there and that bid cleared because JR or no one else countered. Had JR or ANYONE else countered, I’d have been fine with it. I was countered last year on first bids and my own counters, even later on, but I don’t recall anyone publicly or privately comment on me getting countered. In the end I paid almost ten times what JR bid on Diaz to get the player.
–To that point, I don’t understand why counters are remotely an issue when they’re made within the rules of the game. I honestly find it shocking that this is even a discussion. Zizou, you commented on my countering last year during the pre season window. In fact, you insulted me comparing me to Real Madrid (which as I noted at the time was a poor comparison in general but also devoid of context). Then when you did your league prediction on one of my teams you went so far as to essentially say you were surprised I hadn’t made more changes. Yet when I am trying to build my teams within the rules of the game it’s an issue. Again, I’m within the rules and if there’s an issue I would think I would be reprimanded privately, punished to the extent of possibly being kicked out or the rules would be changed. I can think of multiple changes that could be made to the bidding process to eliminate any issues with “late” counters, though I personally wouldn’t make a single change to the system. Anyway, point is that I’m just trying to build my squads to what is actually hopefully going to be a point where I have to bid and counter bid a lot less than I’ve thus far felt the need and I’m doing so within the rules.
–And let me be abundantly clear, I am countering only on players that I am interested in having in my teams. Period. I do make counters based on a number of strategic factors, but I’m only going to counter on players I want.
–I don’t counter on every player I want to own. There are multiple reasons to that, some of them simply financial, but there are reasons. Today alone, I had to wait about a half hour later than many of you because I had to let me bids from yesterday clear. I can’t always be online when I’m working. During that half hour or so window multiple players that I wanted were bid on. They are Chadi Riad, Rodrigo Ribeiro and Santiago Gimenez (who I still have a bid left to get and who I want). Again, those are just players that were bid on today alone any of whom I could have countered on. I’ll go ahead and throw out another example too. Ivan Fresneda. I didn’t expect him to go day one in terms of bids and I’m REALLY short on RBs which if you ask me is arguably the position with the least depth out there. I purposely left a bid free after the opening bell and strongly considered a counter bid. In the end I decided to pass for reasons I won’t state based on strategy but which should be pretty straightforward. In the end I didn’t get him but Zizou did and congrats on landing him as I think he looks quite good. (It should be noted to those of you who might have seen me downplay the player on another forum that I was just trying to lead you off of his scent).
–One of things with counter bids is that you pay for the privilege so to speak. This isn’t just a situation where I have endless resources and I can bid with impunity. Yes, I went into the window with good resources, but I worked hard within the rules to get where I was. In bidding as I did, it ended up costing me approximately 15.5 million this window on one player. Had I made my Robert Renan bid the exact moment the window opened I’m guessing I’d have him for 500k or at the very least much cheaper than I did. Another GM can feel free to counter that, but I suspect I’d have got him much cheaper. Instead, I countered on Nagalo because I didn’t want to spend big countering on the other players I was missing out on, three of whom come to mind from that day alone. In the end I’d rather have got Renan for 500k or at least notably less than get Nagalo cheap and have both players. Also, again, I paid almost ten times what JR bid on Diaz to get the player. So again, you pay for the privilege and that’s one way or the other.
–It’s never personal. It wasn’t personal with JR. If anything I feel bad for ProPain who I’ve countered every single window. It’s not personal, he just picks players that I’m really interested in. Ask him as from time to time I make trade offers. If anything it’s a compliment, but I can understand if he doesn’t see it that way. I actually have a ton of respect for him because of the number of times I’ve had to counter him and the way he’s spent his money acquiring players. I actually regret not countering him on Endrick and Luka Vuskovic. I also regret not countering Evilo on Warren Zaire-Emery. To the point, it’s never personal and I always PM the person right after I make a counter stating such. And it’s definitely not “heated”, at least for me. I’m very competitive, but to a degree. And I’ll just add here two trade scenarios from this window. First, I am interested in a player that one of the GMs here has. I’ve made multiple bids in the last year or so. My last bid, they couldn’t really get back to me because some real life issues were in the way. I literally stopped asking about that player from that point on. Second, I was able to trade for a player this window that included a notable cash sum. The cash involved was initially kind of crazy based on my experience with cash valuations, but in getting a new offer I told the selling GM his price was too low. So I upped the offer by 5 million which was a 33% increase for the player. I also was included players that they requested. Point is the GM was new and I wanted to give them what I felt was fair valuation based on what I’d experienced/seen historically. Since that trade the market somewhat “blew up” if you will, but the point is that I traded in good faith and paid 5 million more than I had to in the end.
–To take that last point a step further, I don’t think I’ve been fairly portrayed here now or at times in the past. I wouldn’t say I’m “ruthless”. If you look this trade/free agency window, I’d say it’s clear I’m not the most “ruthless” person here. Competitive, yes, very much so. However, I have offered to essentially loan peer GMs money on multiple occasions. I’ve offered some pretty sweetheart deals that perhaps in the end weren’t taken up, but perhaps should have been. And I think I’ve always generally made fair valuations in trade negotiations. That’s all subjective of course, but I’ve even had one GM tell me “you’d pay that much” only for him to not take me up on it… Anyway, I’m competitive within the rules, but I don’t think I’m ruthless. I’ve even worked to try and help explain the rules or offer some bid advice to some of the newer folks.
–COUNTER ME! If you want Lovro Zvonarek, counter me. I’ll either defend the bid or move on. Well actually, please NEVER counter me, but if you feel the need don’t shy away. So long as you’re within the rules I don’t care. Any bid is justifiable so long as it’s within the rules. Bids within the rules shouldn’t have to be justified. I’ve only ever taken one counter somewhat personally. Another I questioned as it was stated it was to make me pay more and I felt that GM couldn’t really afford the player, but it didn’t matter in the end and I talk to that GM regularly. Anyway, whilst typing this I’ve received a PM telling to essentially keep countering, so it should be noted that there are some of us who are fine with the rule.
–With regards to “late” counters costing a full round of players, again, there are changes to the current system that can alleviate this. I won’t suggest them as I’m happy with the current system, but clear changes could be made. Also though, clearly in the example provided it really isn’t an issue or shouldn’t be an issue. That’s open for debate until the window closes, but pretty clear it shouldn’t even be an issue here.
So you’ll have to excuse this reply, but I felt the need to speak at this point because for me some of this has been going for a year now. It’s nothing personal to anyone, but I honestly can’t understand the problem with my counter bid of Fabricio Diaz such that I have to be insulted in the process (and I’m not not losing sleep over that, but the point remains) much less called out publicly.
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not out of spite, but you already know I was looking at him too, and to be fair to you you even told me to counter haha!
