Money for Extensions
 

Why is the money teams have for extensions so litter compared to the money teams have to sign free agents? It's the middle of the season and I won't to extend a lot of my players but there are gonna be guys I can't sign. Meanwhile I have all this money for free agents and there are no free agents out there that I could spend all that money on anyway midway through the season. Is the low extension money to promote players going to free agency? Also Is there a reason why they the money for free agents and extensions is separated? This are probably noob questions but i just started playing ootp and I honestly don't follow baseball super closely.

Let's assume your league is in November 2017.

1) Players you have under contract now for next year are not free agents. They have a salary for 2018 already. Extension money refers to 2019 since you can't "extend" a person in 2018 who is already under contract for 2018. You can only extend a person for a year you do not have them already under contract. So whenever that is which will not be the same for all the players.

2) Free agents are players you don't have under contract now. Your first payroll for a free agent will be 2018. Free agent money therefore refers to 2018.

Completely different pools of money because they are completely different people in completely different years. My team actually has twice as much money for extensions as it does for free agents. And since budgets often change, a 2018 budget will not have the same amount as a 2019 budget, so the money "left over" for extensions and free agents will be different. even if everything else stays the same.