[Steve Kuffrey]

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER
The dog days of summer leading into the first days of fall. In September two important things occur. Rosters expand to 40, and the AI finishes up it's contract extensions. We can now look at the Possible Free Agents screen (found in the News Section) and see exactly what talent will be available in next year's free agent market. This will help us make our final decisions on who we want to keep and who we want to cut loose.

Also, keep in mind that any players called up from the minors during the roster expansion of September will automatically use up their 1st 300k year. Generally, I'll only call up major league veterans who are currently in the minors, so as not to waste a valuable "cheap year" on one month's worth of performance. Of course I've also had instances where I lost a key player to injury in the last month of the season, and called up a top rookie to fill in because I was in the running for a championship, and didn't want a substandard reserve starting every day. Although it cost me a "cheap year" the rookie batted .417 and helped me get to the playoffs, so it may have been worth it.




END OF SEASON
Once the season ends, we have our last chance to sign our players to extensions. Also, any players eligible for arbitration who we don't want to keep, now is the time to release them. Also, review your finances, see if your revenues were ahead or short of your projections and adjust your budget accordingly.

Revenue - 71,000,000 Payroll - 72,000,000 Net - negative$1,000,000, Total Cash - $6,000,000

We sign Crane to an extension worth $15,200,000 for 5 years. We decide that since our best prospect is an outfielder and should be ready next season, we don't resign Rodriguez (which hurts, since we fell just short of the playoffs anyways, and could've gotten a ton of value in return for a superstar like Rodriguez on the trade market). We also are letting Kosecki and Lopez walk. We're going to let Murphy, Agua, and Lewis go to arbitration, and we release Mills so that he won't go to arbitration.

Now it's time to hit THE BUTTON.

'Proceed To Next Season'

Free agents are processed, amaterus are generated, and it's time for another season. Taking a look at 'League News' we can quickly see what all of our players eligible for arbitration were awarded. MR Murphy got 1,050,000. 1B Agua got 5,300,000. OF Lewis got $1,900,000. This puts our current team payroll at 65.9 million. In order to stay profitable we shouldn't spend any more than 4-5 million in free agency, although the game will tell us that we have 11.1 available to spend. If there's a huge name free agent that we really want, we'll have to trade salary to make the money available. Otherwise we need to figure out a way to turn that 5 million into a SP, a MIF, and 2 OF's. We have 2 young outfielders and a young infielder in the minors that will be adequate replacements. They will cost us 300k each this season, so that puts us at 66.8M. We now take the rest of the money we want to spend and get the best possible SP available in free agency, and with what we've got to spend, we should be able to get an upgrade over Kosecki, the player we let go last season. If we think one great pitcher is all we're lacking to have a championship club, then it may be worth the risk to go ahead and spend all of our available money (last year's revenue - current payroll + cash) on that one marquee arm.

One new feature in OOTP5 is the ability to offer players Minor League Contracts during the 30 day free agent period. This is extremely beneficial if you need a backup catcher or a fifth outfielder and have no extra money in the budget to get them. Look for for players with ratings in the 3's and 4's and fair to average talents, and these are the kind of players that will consider signing minor league contracts before the 30 day free agent period ends.

Finish free agency, get your 25 man roster together, run spring training, set your rotations, lineups and depth charts set, and, guess what, it's April again. Go back to the top of the article and repeat as necessary.