is $ ever an issue

[waltwa]

i have not played the game that much. i wonder tho does $ ever become an issue. it seems that at least for 2 seasons $ does not seem to come up as an issue. it seems that you can sign or resign just about anybody.

[rpommier]

I asked the same question when I first purchased the game. After a couple of seasons money will definitely become a concern You will notice salaries of even mediocre pitchers rising, as they do in real life. I believe my league is accurate.

[Amaroq]

The first five seasons seem to be very 'low' in terms of the salaries paid.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth seasons are a much better gauge of what finances will be in the long-term.

Shaun, perhaps this is something we should address?

Maybe players taken in the first 5-10 rounds of the initial draft should get a large boost to their salary demands, with the sharp taper-off not occurring until after the 25th slot is filled?

Also, maybe players' salary demands for the initial draft should rise dramatically for longer-term contracts: e.g., let it be 'cheap' to sign a guy for one or two years, but make it very expensive to sign a guy for five years.

Its certainly one of the 'human player stockpiling talent' tricks to sign 40 young players to long-term, five-year contracts, and laugh at the the AI signing aging veterans to one and two-year contracts. This would tend to provide a disincentive for that - at very least, I might have to sign all my young players to three- or four- year contracts instead, picking and choosing who to nab for five years right off the bat.

[Woodruff]

I think you have to take into account a player's age before stating that longer-term contracts should be higher.

For a young player and a middling-age player, who would be more likely to want a shorter contract so he can "cash in" when he makes it big, I agree with you...longer contract should be significantly higher.

But for an older player, he would WANT a longer contract because he knows he's on the back end of his career, so it should be significantly lower for him.

If that makes sense.

[Amaroq]

Woodruff - I think we're talking across each other?

That code is in there, and behaves exactly as you describe: young players offer a 'discount' for short contracts so that he can 'cash in'; older players offer a 'discount' for long-term contracts. It works quite well in normal contract negotatiations after the world is started.

I'm not saying to take that out .. and I'm not talking about normal contract negotations.

What I'm talking about is the initial draft contracts, and I think that they are artificially lowered. There are two reasons for this:

1. There's a factor "Years of experience", which pumps things up - players with years of big-league experience command a higher salary than players without. At the start, most players (even those with a high 'age') have a low 'experience', and therefore lower salary demands than the same player would have after 20 years of a 'real' career.

2. There's a steep "discount" drop-off for players taken in later rounds - and no corresponding "price hike" for players taken in the first rounds.

As a human player, I tend to initial-draft young players (20-28) and I sign each and every one of them to five-year contracts.

The AI initial-drafts players all over the map (23-36) and signs them to contracts from one to five years.

Becauase of the combination of discounts - the 'initial draft' discount and the 'lack of experience' which effectively acts as a discount - EVERY team in every association I start comes out well below their 'budget'. My team is always the lowest-budget team of all, so - answering the initial poster's question - $$ doesn't come into play in my first three seasons or so. It starts coming into play when I have to renew my kids, who now have an 'experience' factor, and are not subject to the initial-draft discount.

I think that upgrading that logic so that
a.) The AI always signs players < 27 to 5-year contracts, and
b.) All players demand more in the initial draft, and
c.) Top-ten picks demand an extra premium, and
d.) All players demand more for long-term contracts in the initial draft, and
e.) AI teams are unlikely to sign old (>33?) players to 4- or 5- year contracts

Would provide a much more 'realistic' feeling to the initial draft, boosting the competitiveness of the AI teams, and bringing the $$ cap into play by the first off-season.

[Cantankerous]

Well, I don't know if others have experienced the same thing I have in my fictional league, but rarely have budget restraints been much of a factor at all.&nbsp; The salary caps played a minor role after season 3 or 4 (when the first significant&nbsp;batch of free agents started becoming available), but it seems that the yearly inflation increase in a team's budget is a&nbsp;much more significant increase (percentage-wise) than the increases in player salary demands.
&nbsp;
For example, I am playing in a 30-team association (2 leagues) currently in my 25th Season.
&nbsp;
20 Teams have budget surpluses of $90 million or more, and only 2 teams have a surplus of less of $10 million.&nbsp; So needless to say, when it comes to signing free agents, there's not really much decision at all&nbsp;to be made regarding affordability.&nbsp; If you need the player then it's just a means of out-bidding the other teams.&nbsp; The actual amount of the salary (at least so far) has really been quite irrelevant.
&nbsp;
I would like to see a salary structure like some others have suggested where there is a salary scale for the major league&nbsp;players and a separate scale for&nbsp;minor leaguers.&nbsp; There should also be a minimum major league salary,&nbsp;so&nbsp;when you promote a player from the minors his salary will&nbsp;automatically increase (pro-rated) to at least the minimum.
&nbsp;
And like Amaroq suggested, first-round picks (especially the&nbsp;first 10 or so picks)&nbsp;should demand large&nbsp;signing bonuses that will have to&nbsp;fit under a team's salary&nbsp;cap.&nbsp; The best of the lot might&nbsp;also require major league salaries (particularly if the player is, say,&nbsp;22-years-old or more when drafted)&nbsp;even while playing in the minors.
&nbsp;
And as others have suggested, if a player has been in the minors 6 seasons, he should be able to demand free agency.&nbsp; I could see this as keeping human players from over-stocking their minors with a plethora of good talent and it would also probably have an effect of driving salaries up more.
&nbsp;
Just my two cents.

[waltwa]

i think this is an area that really has to be addressed by shaun. $ should be an issue immediately in the game and the salary structure of the players should be as close to the majors (and minors) as possible. this is an extremely important area of a management sim and it really has to be addressed. i think it would be wise to take a look at ootp6.5 and see how the salary structure is set up. it really is good and would be a good starting point for puresim.

$ is the main factor in deciding how to build a team and if it doesn't become an issue then you rarely have to make difficult decisions and that takes away from the fun and realism of the game. i play in ootp online leagues and leagues that are set up with too much $ on hand are never as much fun because the owners never have to let anyone worthwhile go to free agency which means there is no one to sign and also since most owners are somewhat satisfied trading is also at a minimum in leagues with too much cash on hand.

i should also point out that money is an immediate issue in BM as well and really affects personnel decisions right off the bat. puresim has much work to do in this area .

[Amaroq]

For people posting - like Cantankerous did - with specific configurations that are experiencing really off financial data, can you post more information? Specifically, what I'd like to hear are

- # of players on the roster
- original salary "modifier" (0.01 -> 1.0) when the association was created
- number of seasons since initial creation
- maximum and minimum team budgets in addition to the budget surplus.
- as C posted, association size (total number of teams), biggest surplus, and least surplus

In fact, if we could get a dozen or two dozen people to post those numbers from their current association, it would really help paint the picture.

I suspect that the code is allocating $$ as "C * N", where C is some constant, and N is the number of players per team - which results in reasonable salary constraints on a 35-man roster, but allocates 'space' for 70 major-league salaries on a 70-man roster. When I play a 'big roster' association, I always hand-trim the budgets down significantly prior to the first season.

Its possible the problem lies elsewhere - if inflation raises budgets faster than salary demands, for example, that would make the problem get worse and worse the further it goes.