The budgets in my league are based on revenue, not set by the owner. There is no draft; rookies are assigned to historical teams. The reserve clause is in effect, so no free agency and contracts are assigned by the AI.
The 1968 Oakland Athletics would qualify as having a penny-pincher owner (Charles O. Finley). My game has a similar fictional owner (fiscal personality = controlling). When the team moved to Oakland, the game assigned the Oakland market as tiny. I guess that makes some sense because the team has won nothing yet and the Giants own the market at this point. The Giants also just won the 1967 WS in my league.
Here are the financials for Oakland on the first day of the 1967-68 offseason:
Matt, if I understand your post, you are saying this is working as intended. This isn't the only team with negative cash (6 of 19 AI teams, my team is positive) but it is the worst example. I don't see how the Athletics recover from this $2.5 million hole in a league where the average annual
revenue is 3.2 million, but maybe it is possible eventually.
Thanks for offering some reassurance that my league has not gone wonky and is really functioning according to plan.