Negative cash from owner

stealofhome · 05-13-2014, 11:03 PM

I created a fictional league where the owner does not control the budget. Throughout the year, I was able to add $67,000,000 in trades. The next year, my preceding year balance was 73 million, but then I got negative 63 million in cash from the owner, meaning my starting balance was only 10 million. How does that work?

Cinnamon J. Scudworth · 05-13-2014, 11:14 PM

At the end of the year, your owner can take cash away as profit. That's the "negative cash" entry. Alternatively, he can also add cash. How much he takes away and/or how much he gives depends in part on his personality traits.

It also sounds like your cash maximum setting is at the default $10 million. If so, the game will not let you carry forward more than $10 million in cash. Your owner will automatically take the rest as profit. The purpose of the cash max setting is to help the AI and keep league finances in check by preventing teams from either stockpiling cash or getting too deep into debt.

stealofhome · 05-14-2014, 12:45 AM

Yep, my max cash was at 10 million, thanks. Next question (I have had a lot of issues with no central place to find help except asking here): when attempting a trade, I get an error that I can't afford the contracts. But I have plenty of money everywhere and the contracts in question only add up to 1 million. I seem to have this same problem every offseason but I don't know what's causing it.

Fyrestorm3 · 05-14-2014, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stealofhome

Yep, my max cash was at 10 million, thanks. Next question (I have had a lot of issues with no central place to find help except asking here): when attempting a trade, I get an error that I can't afford the contracts. But I have plenty of money everywhere and the contracts in question only add up to 1 million. I seem to have this same problem every offseason but I don't know what's causing it.

What's your budget room? If it's in the red, the game won't let you take on any more salaries. Doesn't matter how much cash you have on hand; that's only good for signing FAs. Your budget room will show up in the trade screen.

stealofhome · 05-14-2014, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

What's your budget room? If it's in the red, the game won't let you take on any more salaries. Doesn't matter how much cash you have on hand; that's only good for signing FAs. Your budget room will show up in the trade screen.

My projected budget room is +23 million, while my current balance is +128 million - both from the front office screen. However, the trade screen says my budget room is -5.8 million. I have no idea where that's coming from. For the trade in question, I was trying to trade away a player with a 20 million dollar contract for two players with 500k contracts. It doesn't make sense anywhere for me to not be able to afford the contracts.

Fyrestorm3 · 05-15-2014, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stealofhome

My projected budget room is +23 million, while my current balance is +128 million - both from the front office screen. However, the trade screen says my budget room is -5.8 million. I have no idea where that's coming from. For the trade in question, I was trying to trade away a player with a 20 million dollar contract for two players with 500k contracts. It doesn't make sense anywhere for me to not be able to afford the contracts.

Okay, that's odd. If you're clearing salary, you're supposed to always be able to make the trade, regardless of budget room. I got nothing on this one, hopefully someone else can help.

EDIT: Btw, always listen to the trade screen's budget room. I brought that one up myself last year: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...dget-room.html

stealofhome · 05-15-2014, 10:27 AM

Thanks, that link helped me understand a little. I am still in november, so that might be part of the problem. I still don't understand went I can't clear the salary though, unless there's a timing issue with the salary not coming off the books until the next year.

stealofhome · 05-15-2014, 11:11 PM

Any other ideas? Many of the teams in the league have a negative projected budget room so no trades can be completed.

stealofhome · 05-16-2014, 10:54 PM

Here is a picture of my financials screen for the team in question. I edited that huge cash from owner which is how the starting balance in cash is positive despite the large withdrawal. Other than that, I'm not sure why the game is telling me I have a negative budget on the trade screen.

beorn · 05-17-2014, 09:45 AM

Just in case, check the salary obligations page. Is your projected salary load much higher in the second season than next season -- so that it is the second season you don't have the necessary money for?

(From what you describe, this would require a very unlikely combination of facts -- but in general, a lot of "not enough money to trade" issues have to do with the second season down the road.)

stealofhome · 05-17-2014, 09:49 PM

It seems like all of the overall team budgets dropped from last year by about 15-20 million. Any reason that could be happening league-wide (though not to every team)?

ezpkns34 · 05-21-2014, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stealofhome

It seems like all of the overall team budgets dropped from last year by about 15-20 million. Any reason that could be happening league-wide (though not to every team)?

Yeh, just finished a first season with a MLB quickstart league & over half the teams are now like negative $15-20M (a few are even worse) & every team had its budget drop (some by $30+M)

I didn't play much at all last season (and only like once with modern day rosters) so dunno if it was like that in OOTP14 or if it's an issue with the quickstart settings in terms of finances/owner spendings/market sizes/whatever

Luckily I had backed up my save before advancing past WS game 7, so reloaded it to try to tweak the owner spending & other settings to see if it helps but if I don't do something (even if it's simply manually editing the budgets & cash back) then only a small handful of teams will even be able to bid on FAs. Will also be upping max cash by a decent amount to hopefully insure against this a bit in future seasons as well since that $10M cash max can seemingly turn into -$15M in no time

Edit
Reloaded, upped cash max to $20M & upped a lot of the owner spending ratings - lowest was 6 (MIA, TB & a few other small market teams that had owners with a 1-5 spending rating) and highest were 10 (LAA, LAD & NYY). Didn't lower any owner's willingness to spend rating. And yes, I had it set from the start of the league for the entire revenue to be available, not just letting the owners set the budget room available. Some of the extreme drops in cash I still got were:
- ATL going from $2.5M to -$44.3M
- CHW from $2.7M to -$23.5M
- DET from $2M to -31.9M*
- HOU from $1M to $20M
- LAA from $682K to -$39.5M
- LAD from $2.5M to -$35.6M*
- NYY from $3.4M to -$36.1M*
- PHI from $1.3M to -$47.1M
- SFG from $6,1M to -$22.9M*
- STL from $3.3M to -$21M*
- WSH from $756K to -$22.8M*

*denotes playoff teams

Similarly, the budgets dropped significantly as well. I remember seeing LAA & CHW having negative budget room during the season by like $1M or so, but they made trades by the deadline to get back to positive budget room & all teams seemed to have finished in the green budget-wise

Will reload again & try to alter market sizes to see if that will have an effect, but looking like either the quickstart finance settings need to be looked at or I'll just have to manually reset budgets & cash amounts at the start of each offseason b/c those are some extreme drops to the point of making it pretty much unplayable for me. DET & PHI owners were set to have a 9 willingness to spend, DET made the ALCS, WSH won the WS

ezpkns34 · 05-21-2014, 05:18 PM

Gonna double post, didn't want to edit a post for a 2nd time

Edited in the budget jumps/drops manually via the projected budget box in the team finance screen for all the teams. That solved the large budget drops, but the dramatic cash drops happened anyway. If someone wants to look around to find out how/why they happen then more power to you, but as far as I can tell it's seemingly unavoidable, at least when using the MLB quickstart, and I'll just plan on editing the team cash amounts manually on day 1 of the offseason each year

Edit
Nevermind on the cash issue, obviously overlooked the luxury tax. Dunno why I overlooked this obvious cause, but it seems like it's having too much of an impact on the team finances. Should the team revenues be upped to offest this issue or is OOTP's financial model simply unable to handle a luxury tax in a league with such income discrepancy as MLB?

05-13-2014, 11:03 PM	#1
stealofhome Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,282	Negative cash from owner I created a fictional league where the owner does not control the budget. Throughout the year, I was able to add $67,000,000 in trades. The next year, my preceding year balance was 73 million, but then I got negative 63 million in cash from the owner, meaning my starting balance was only 10 million. How does that work?

05-13-2014, 11:14 PM	#2
Cinnamon J. Scudworth All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 1,119	At the end of the year, your owner can take cash away as profit. That's the "negative cash" entry. Alternatively, he can also add cash. How much he takes away and/or how much he gives depends in part on his personality traits. It also sounds like your cash maximum setting is at the default $10 million. If so, the game will not let you carry forward more than $10 million in cash. Your owner will automatically take the rest as profit. The purpose of the cash max setting is to help the AI and keep league finances in check by preventing teams from either stockpiling cash or getting too deep into debt. __________________ "Sometimes, this is like going to a grocery store. You’ve got a list until you get to the check-out stand. And then you start reading People magazine, and all this other [stuff] ends up in the basket." -Sandy Alderson on the MLB offseason Last edited by Cinnamon J. Scudworth; 05-13-2014 at 11:37 PM.

05-16-2014, 10:54 PM	#9
stealofhome Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,282	Here is a picture of my financials screen for the team in question. I edited that huge cash from owner which is how the starting balance in cash is positive despite the large withdrawal. Other than that, I'm not sure why the game is telling me I have a negative budget on the trade screen. Attached Images

05-17-2014, 09:45 AM	#10
beorn All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: near Rochester, NY Posts: 1,269	Just in case, check the salary obligations page. Is your projected salary load much higher in the second season than next season -- so that it is the second season you don't have the necessary money for? (From what you describe, this would require a very unlikely combination of facts -- but in general, a lot of "not enough money to trade" issues have to do with the second season down the road.) __________________ Commish of Dog Days Baseball Commish Pennant Chase Baseball League (PCBL) Commish and Blue Jays GM Extra Innings Baseball

05-21-2014, 05:18 PM	#13
ezpkns34 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 721	Gonna double post, didn't want to edit a post for a 2nd time Edited in the budget jumps/drops manually via the projected budget box in the team finance screen for all the teams. That solved the large budget drops, but the dramatic cash drops happened anyway. If someone wants to look around to find out how/why they happen then more power to you, but as far as I can tell it's seemingly unavoidable, at least when using the MLB quickstart, and I'll just plan on editing the team cash amounts manually on day 1 of the offseason each year Edit Nevermind on the cash issue, obviously overlooked the luxury tax. Dunno why I overlooked this obvious cause, but it seems like it's having too much of an impact on the team finances. Should the team revenues be upped to offest this issue or is OOTP's financial model simply unable to handle a luxury tax in a league with such income discrepancy as MLB? Last edited by ezpkns34; 05-21-2014 at 06:27 PM.

05-14-2014, 12:45 AM	#3
stealofhome Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,282	Yep, my max cash was at 10 million, thanks. Next question (I have had a lot of issues with no central place to find help except asking here): when attempting a trade, I get an error that I can't afford the contracts. But I have plenty of money everywhere and the contracts in question only add up to 1 million. I seem to have this same problem every offseason but I don't know what's causing it.

05-15-2014, 10:27 AM	#7
stealofhome Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,282	Thanks, that link helped me understand a little. I am still in november, so that might be part of the problem. I still don't understand went I can't clear the salary though, unless there's a timing issue with the salary not coming off the books until the next year.

05-15-2014, 11:11 PM	#8
stealofhome Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,282	Any other ideas? Many of the teams in the league have a negative projected budget room so no trades can be completed.

05-17-2014, 09:49 PM	#11
stealofhome Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,282	It seems like all of the overall team budgets dropped from last year by about 15-20 million. Any reason that could be happening league-wide (though not to every team)?