Free Agency

In the realm of player contracts, it's important for a GM to understand the concept of free agency. In OOTP, a free agent is any player who has no contract, meaning that he is free to sign a contract with any team. In OOTP, the following players are considered free agents:

1. Any player who has reached the minimum number of major league service years required for free agency in the league, and whose contract has expired.
2. Any player who has been released from his contract by his team.
3. Any players who are not currently under contract, such as players from an amateur draft who were not drafted.

Enabling or Disabling Free Agency

Every league has some free agents, such as those in items 2 and 3 above. However, when people talk about free agency, they are usually referring to item 1 above. In OOTP, you can choose to enable free agency. During the game creation process, this is done on the Rules tab of the Create Game page. If your game has already started, you can change your free agency settings during the offseason in the Game Setup area.

Minor League Free Agency

If you have minor leagues in your game, it is possible to enable rules for minor league free agency as well. Minor league free agency is handled in a similar fashion to major league free agency, with the exception that professional service time and time on secondary roster are used instead of major league service time. See Time as a Professional (Professional Service Time) for more information.

Players who are on a team's secondary roster or who have accepted a minor league contract extension are not eligible for minor league free agency.

Minor League Free Agency can be turned on and off in the financial rules described in the Financial Rules area.

Draft Pick Compensation for Lost Free Agents

As a way of helping weaker financial teams remain competitive, you can also enable compensation for lost free agents. If this option is enabled, teams that lose free agents will receive draft picks in return for free agents who reject the Qualifying Offer. Losing a free agent happens when a team is unable to sign a player to a contract extension and he; the player becomes a free agent and subsequently signs a contract with a different team.

In OOTP, when a player becomes eligible for free agency after accruing 6 years of service time, he may be offered a one-year qualifying offer (QO) one time in his career. The player may either choose to accept the one year offer or reject it. If the player rejects the qualifying offer, he becomes eligible for draft pick compensation for the team that is losing him to free agency. The original team can receive one of two types of supplemental draft picks in the upcoming first-year player draft as compensation for that signed the free agent. If the player signs for a guaranteed contract value of $50 million or more, the original team receives a compensation pick in the supplemental round at the end of the first round. If the player signs for a guaranteed contract less than $50 million, the original team will receive a compensation pick at the end of the 2nd round.

As of OOTP 27, a team that signs a compensation-eligible FA will lose their 3rd-round pick in the upcoming draft regardless of contract value. Each additional compensation-eligible free agent that team signs will result in an additional lost pick in each round after the 3rd.

Note: If you fail to offer salary arbitration to pending free agents, then you will not receive any draft pick compensation, even if you lose free agents to other teams! Draft pick compensation can be turned on and off in the financial rules described in the Financial Rules area. You can see a player's free agent type on his Contract & Status sub-screen.