2026-03-30, 09:38 AM - Word count:
So taking a note from @lemonoppy, I'm going to try and get some SSL PT's done every week. It helps with the wallet and I can use it as affiliate PT in the other sim leagues I'm in (PBE, SHL).
I knew I was going to be busy as my first off-season as an Organizational Manager (OM), but knowing something and knowing something are two different things. First thing as an OM was to re-read the rulebook and manager guides (located via a Google doc and some saved Discord threads).
So at the end of a season, what happens? Well, before the last week you'll want to have any active players without a contract for the next season signed up before now. Why?
Well, there's a very narrow window where you are allowed to talk to upcoming free agents who haven't signed a new contract with their current team. This occurs during the one week before the new season officially starts. And to be honest? There aren't many that fit that filter. Most players will have already signed an extension with their team or if their organization knows that they're going to head to free agency, they'll try and trade them before the deadline so the team isn't left with nothing.
What did I learn? To hold my horses.
Like I said, there's a very specific time in order to do this and not following that can accrue some awful consequences for your team.
Next is the theft regression window (I joke). As an OM, it's your job to make sure all players on your team who are on their 8th season and older start regressing their players. This is the sunset years for those players and as an OM you should start putting a plan in place to replace them depending on their level of regression. Also, probably a great time to talk to them to find out what their plans are: Are they going to ride out the regression until they're forced into retirement (under 500TPE or under 600TPE if they're inactive)? Or are they going to go out on a high note and re-create. This also comes with a timing quirk for the league. The season a player retires in is their last season. So if a player retires at the beginning of a season, they get what's called "a corpse season" where their original player is locked away and they can re-create and join the academy up as a new player. The team with the retiring (or corpse) player will have the warm body on their roster for that season. Should the player retire before the next season starts, that luxury isn't afforded to that team and it's akin to losing a player to Free Agency.
During this week is also the "offline prospect draft." Because the draft this year was so shallow, we were able to get it done in just over a day but for deeper drafts it has the potential to last the whole week. This was an experience. Last-minute draft position trades, jockeying for position to either get a player this draft that you're keen on or building up your choices for next year should you choose to trade your picks away. Overall, I think it went pretty quickly. Certain picks took longer than others but no one went over their allotted time. After that, there's sort of a long wait before the live draft and the next season starts.
I'm glad we saw a few new faces in the voice chat for the draft. @Moka26 needs to fix his microphone so we can hear him lol, but it was nice to see the reactions as some shock picks (both early and later in the draft) occurred.
Cue Monday morning.
Any inactive/active players that you didn't resign to an extension disappear from your roster and go to free agency. At this time, bidding on those inactive free agents occurs and signing of active player free agents can happen. What I found out this morning was roster-movement (Minors to Majors or Majors to Minors between the same organization) doesn't occur until after the manager tasks are done (or at least, this is step 1 on the seasonal manager tasks so doesn't have to be filed separately). Next task is to pay your players. Thankfully with the newish spreadsheet, this is done by a simple copy and paste to a notepad and upload on the portal. Lastly, make sure any inactive free agents you signed on have been regressed after joining your team (if applicable) and everyone on your roster is compliant.
My thoughts on the whole experience so far?
It's going to be a gong show for your first season. Rules you've read, you might have misinterpreted. Timelines for certain matters like roster movements isn't really stated anywhere but once you've gone through the process you learn when it should be done. As a first time OM, you don't need to beat yourself up over any mistakes. It sucks, definitely. It might even come with costly consequences, but that's the process of learning. It would be wonderful if everyone could be 100% correct right from the get go, but where in life does that ever happen? You make mistakes, learn, move on. Take it with humility and grace because you're not going to be perfect. Have the rulebook pinned to your tabs. You'll be going back to it very often. It absolutely helps if you have a veteran management team by your side. So I'll take this time to shoutout @Giacomino_raiola and @cake307 for their hard work and support.
Quote:Weekly PT Prompt #228:
How do you spend your time in the off-season? For Managers it busy full of paperwork, juggling rosters, drafting, budgets.
For those not doing all that, what do you do? Focus more on other sim leagues, take a breather, invest more time in the discord channels?
I knew I was going to be busy as my first off-season as an Organizational Manager (OM), but knowing something and knowing something are two different things. First thing as an OM was to re-read the rulebook and manager guides (located via a Google doc and some saved Discord threads).
So at the end of a season, what happens? Well, before the last week you'll want to have any active players without a contract for the next season signed up before now. Why?
Well, there's a very narrow window where you are allowed to talk to upcoming free agents who haven't signed a new contract with their current team. This occurs during the one week before the new season officially starts. And to be honest? There aren't many that fit that filter. Most players will have already signed an extension with their team or if their organization knows that they're going to head to free agency, they'll try and trade them before the deadline so the team isn't left with nothing.
What did I learn? To hold my horses.
Like I said, there's a very specific time in order to do this and not following that can accrue some awful consequences for your team.
Next is the theft regression window (I joke). As an OM, it's your job to make sure all players on your team who are on their 8th season and older start regressing their players. This is the sunset years for those players and as an OM you should start putting a plan in place to replace them depending on their level of regression. Also, probably a great time to talk to them to find out what their plans are: Are they going to ride out the regression until they're forced into retirement (under 500TPE or under 600TPE if they're inactive)? Or are they going to go out on a high note and re-create. This also comes with a timing quirk for the league. The season a player retires in is their last season. So if a player retires at the beginning of a season, they get what's called "a corpse season" where their original player is locked away and they can re-create and join the academy up as a new player. The team with the retiring (or corpse) player will have the warm body on their roster for that season. Should the player retire before the next season starts, that luxury isn't afforded to that team and it's akin to losing a player to Free Agency.
During this week is also the "offline prospect draft." Because the draft this year was so shallow, we were able to get it done in just over a day but for deeper drafts it has the potential to last the whole week. This was an experience. Last-minute draft position trades, jockeying for position to either get a player this draft that you're keen on or building up your choices for next year should you choose to trade your picks away. Overall, I think it went pretty quickly. Certain picks took longer than others but no one went over their allotted time. After that, there's sort of a long wait before the live draft and the next season starts.
I'm glad we saw a few new faces in the voice chat for the draft. @Moka26 needs to fix his microphone so we can hear him lol, but it was nice to see the reactions as some shock picks (both early and later in the draft) occurred.
Cue Monday morning.
Any inactive/active players that you didn't resign to an extension disappear from your roster and go to free agency. At this time, bidding on those inactive free agents occurs and signing of active player free agents can happen. What I found out this morning was roster-movement (Minors to Majors or Majors to Minors between the same organization) doesn't occur until after the manager tasks are done (or at least, this is step 1 on the seasonal manager tasks so doesn't have to be filed separately). Next task is to pay your players. Thankfully with the newish spreadsheet, this is done by a simple copy and paste to a notepad and upload on the portal. Lastly, make sure any inactive free agents you signed on have been regressed after joining your team (if applicable) and everyone on your roster is compliant.
My thoughts on the whole experience so far?
It's going to be a gong show for your first season. Rules you've read, you might have misinterpreted. Timelines for certain matters like roster movements isn't really stated anywhere but once you've gone through the process you learn when it should be done. As a first time OM, you don't need to beat yourself up over any mistakes. It sucks, definitely. It might even come with costly consequences, but that's the process of learning. It would be wonderful if everyone could be 100% correct right from the get go, but where in life does that ever happen? You make mistakes, learn, move on. Take it with humility and grace because you're not going to be perfect. Have the rulebook pinned to your tabs. You'll be going back to it very often. It absolutely helps if you have a veteran management team by your side. So I'll take this time to shoutout @Giacomino_raiola and @cake307 for their hard work and support.
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938 words![[Image: 69dSUfP.png]](https://imgur.com/69dSUfP.png)
