Effect of team's distance from free agent's hometown?

[stevebydac]

I had asked the forum about this a couple of years ago and never got an answer. In the OOTP15 manual ( Out of the Park Baseball Manual ) it states:

Factors Affecting Player Contract Decisions
Money talks, and the configuration of your contract offer has the biggest impact on whether or not a player will accept a contract offer. However, above and beyond the contract terms, players are affected by a number of factors when considering a contract, including:

the distance of the franchise from the player's hometown
the level of the league (good players might not be interested in playing in a low-level league)
your team's reputation
your manager reputation
your team's recent performance
the likelihood of playing time
the player's morale (especially with contract extensions)
the player's personality

The bolded part -- distance from hometown -- is what I'm interested in. What mileage is "close"? What is considered "distant"? Let me give an example:

Free agent Bob Jones was born 20 miles west of Boston. He gets offers from Boston (20 miles), New York (183 miles) and Seattle (2941 miles). Assuming every other factor is equal...

1. How much weight is given to his closeness to Boston? 5% more likely to sign with Boston? 20% more likely?
2. If Boston drops out of the negotiation, is he more likely to go to New York than Seattle (since NY is much closer to his hometown)? Or are both considered "distant" and this is a non-factor?

How does OOTP16 factor this? Is it different than in OOTP15? Thanks.

[Clemente21PIT]

I would love an answer to this as well. Additionally, how much of a discount do teams get when negotiating contracts with long time members of their team?

[darkcloud4579]

i've actually noticed this and wondered about it before, but good to see that i wasn't just imagining that guys were signing with their hometown team.

[megamanmatt]

I can already tell you that you will most likely not get an answer to this. It's deliberately vague. The player isn't supposed to know.

[RchW]

Many (most) players don't live in their hometown anyway. Most established players keep a home or condo in or near ST in FL and/or AZ and will often have to sell it if traded to a team where it isn't conveniently located. I saw an interview with Billy Butler where he said his permanent home was near Phoenix and that the A's facility is much closer than was the Royals facility in Surprise AZ.

I think money (85%), opportunity to play (5%), opportunity to win (5%) and comfort (likability) (2%) with people players and other things on a particular team far outweigh the come home magnet especially if a player no longer lives where he grew up.I'm sure we can find exceptions to this but that's why they are exceptions.

[megamanmatt]

Originally Posted by RchW

Many (most) players don't live in their hometown anyway. Most established players keep a home or condo in or near ST in FL and/or AZ and will often have to sell it if traded to a team where it isn't conveniently located. I saw an interview with Billy Butler where he said his permanent home was near Phoenix and that the A's facility is much closer than was the Royals facility in Surprise AZ.

I think money (85%), opportunity to play (5%), opportunity to win (5%) and comfort (likability) (2%) with people players and other things on a particular team far outweigh the come home magnet especially if a player no longer lives where he grew up.I'm sure we can find exceptions to this but that's why they are exceptions.

Well and signing with their hometown team is no promise you'll get a deal on them anyway. For example Joe Mauer is a Minnesotan. He has always been a Minnesotan. Minnesota didn't get any discount on him. As far as I've noticed the only time teams usually get discounts on local players in the real world is often when that player is in the twilight of his career.

[Hendu Style]

I will say that as the A's I pursued Stephen Strausburg hard in free agency one time and he signed with his hometown San Diego for much less that season. As I recall, I was coming off a World Series and the Padres were mediocre at best.

[Matt Arnold]

It's a factor. Not huge, but it can come in to play.

[GMLoophole]

Originally Posted by RchW

Many (most) players don't live in their hometown anyway. Most established players keep a home or condo in or near ST in FL and/or AZ and will often have to sell it if traded to a team where it isn't conveniently located. I saw an interview with Billy Butler where he said his permanent home was near Phoenix and that the A's facility is much closer than was the Royals facility in Surprise AZ.

Well-said, but more importantly: plenty of people (including me) have absolutely no interest in setting foot in, much less living in or near, their hometown again. I can imagine there are players from tropical countries that don't like heat, and players from the northeast and Canada that like nothing better than living all year in Arizona or Florida.

I think for big free agents the more important concern is the state income tax burden of their team's hometown. There are significant benefits to playing for the Mariners, Rangers/Astros, or Marlins/Rays, and even Diamondbacks. Playing for the Mariners instead of a California team is a 13% pay boost on the salary attributable to home games.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by megamanmatt

I can already tell you that you will most likely not get an answer to this. It's deliberately vague. The player isn't supposed to know.

As it should be. This should not be known to the player.

[stevebydac]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

It's a factor. Not huge, but it can come in to play.

Matt, no offense, but you're basically just repeating what the manual says. You'd make a great White House press secretary.

Per my OP, can you at least hint to what mileage is "close" and what is "distant", or at least give a bit more of an explanation of how this works? I understand you can't tell us ALL the secrets, but feed us a little something. Pretty please. Thanks.

[Rain King]

I would hope that it varies from player-to-player.

[megamanmatt]

Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn

As it should be. This should not be known to the player.

Dang it HP, I was trying to be all vauge and let people come to that conclusion on their own. You take away all my mysteriousness and all you're left with is a guy dressed like a princess and that's weird!

[Honorable_Pawn]

[beorn]

I think some of you are being a bit too literal as hometowns.

Some players have preferences as to where they would prefer to play. The strength of that preference varies from player to player, but it is not uncommon for a guy to have something of a preference.

The game arbitrarily uses hometown as the preference, not because every human being longs for the place they grew up, but because the game needs a preferred location for each player. And, as an added bonus from the coder's perspective, there's a reasonable correlation between highly populous locations (where more players were born) and places that are attractive to more players (NY and LA, for example).

But all that aside, I'm pretty sure you want to spend a lot more time worrying about the quality of your contract offer than about hometown.