Appearance
Free agency
Free agency is where you add unsigned players. It works one way in each phase of the season, and the screen tells you which phase you are in.
How to get here
- Open your league.
- Select Free agency under the League group in the navigation. The item can carry a badge.
What you see
Every state shows two things at the top: a cap room bar for your club, and a "where you're thin" strip of position needs.
Regular season: open market. A tag reads Open market. Offers are answered on the spot, and a player you sign joins your club right away. Nothing is sealed. The list has the columns Name, OVR and Ask, with an Offer button on each row. Some asks show a "% off" mark. A side pane suggests players for your needs. "No free agents match these filters." shows when your filters leave nothing.
Offseason: sealed bids. A How free agency rounds work note explains the rounds. Each round, every club writes one bid per target. All bids open when the round closes, and the highest acceptable one wins. Later rounds lower the player's reserve, so waiting costs less, but another club can sign your target first. A line reads Round and the round number out of the total, and a countdown shows when it closes. The board lists players with Name, OVR, POT, CON and Ask, and a Bid button. A My bids pane lists your bids. When no round is open, the screen reads "No round is open" and says where the league is.
Playoffs: closed. A tag reads Market closed. No club signs a free agent in the playoffs, and rosters are locked. The screen reads "Nothing is on offer" and says sealed bidding opens after the postseason.
What you can do
- Offer (regular season): select it on a row. A dialog shows what the player Wants per year and for how many years. Select Meet demand to match it, or set your own. Sign to minors signs the player to a minor-league deal when camp allows it. Select Sign to finish. If you have the cap room, the player signs at once. The ask rises a little each time you lowball the player.
- Bid (offseason): select a player, then set Your offer and Contract length. Select Place bid. You get one offer per player per round, and nobody sees your figure until all bids open.
- Group this bid with (offseason): group bids so you win at most one of them. The rest are dropped for you.
- No-trade clause and Promise a starting job (offseason): optional terms on a bid, where the player's camp offers them.
- Option year and Guaranteed (offseason): add a club option or a player option, and set the guarantee to 100%, 75% or 50%. Each button shows how the term changes the price. Some league settings hide these controls. See Contract terms.
- Cancel (offseason): removes one of your bids from My bids, while the round is open.
- Search, position filter and sort: narrow the list and sort by the column headings.
- Suggested for your needs: select a suggestion to act on it.