Budgeting
 

OK, I really don't understand how budgeting works with the difference between money available for extensions vs. free agents.

I had a budget of $55,000,000. My Player Payroll was $45,243,069. My $ for Extensions was $-3,928,807 while my $ for Free Agents was $7,604,624.

I had a player who was in the last year of their contract (at $440,000) who I could not negotiate with because of my budget for Extensions. Since I wasn't going to be able to free up over $4 million in payroll (especially to sign a utility player), I decided to take a chance to release him and try to re-sign him as a free agent (hoping for a loophole). However, when I did, it still didn't let me try to re-sign him, even though he presumably would be under the $ for Free Agents budget and he did give a dollar figure for signing ($600,000). To add insult to injury, the next day, he was signed by my #1 rival at half the salary that I was paying him!

So, I would like to know:
1) What's the rationale behind a difference of over $10 million between a free agent budget and an extensions budget? For that matter, why can I add a free agent at $7 million when I can't extend my $440,000 player by one year?
2) If my Player Payroll is over $9 million below my total Budget, why can't I sign a player to an extension that would add only a fraction of that difference (over future years, even)?
3) How are these numbers calculated, anyway?
4) Why couldn't I sign my former player as a free agent?

And just about a game-month later, that -3+ million changed to -7+ million, with my only activity being shuttling a few players (less than 6) between the majors and minors.

I just don't get it.

Could be some players got enough MLB experience to create an arbitration number next year.

Interesting idea. I have one player who was already in arbitration and had a contract of $2.9M and who now has an arbitration estimate of $6.5M. So, it is possible, if arbitration estimates can change by that much during the season.

But I still don't get why the game will let me sign a free agent at a salary of $7 million but won't let me extend a $400,000 player by one year.

I would assume he's having a good year and playing regularly.

Yes, he is. So that explains the jump in the negative value for the extensions. The main remaining mystery is why I can sign free agents, then.

Are you over budget now?

No:
Budget: $55M
Player Payroll: $45M
$ for Extensions: -$8M
$ for Free Agents: $7M

And, just to make sure, I just went into the Offer Contract screen for a free agent (Omar Vizquel For The Win!) and it allowed me to submit an offer of $211,418, with "$7,456,768 left for player contracts."

Can you screenshot your players salaries and years including minor leaguers? I'll see if I notice anything. I'll say this mine always seems accurate.

It's because free agent money figure only looks at this year's budget while extensions look at next year's. You'll see the opposite happen when someone in their fifth year goes from 5 years 170 days to 6 years. Suddenly you'll get more money available for extensions, because that player is no longer taking up money on next year's budget.