Negative cash

Orcin · 09-20-2016, 11:03 AM

In previous versions of the game, the owner would contribute cash to cover annual operating deficits. This no longer happens, at least in historical leagues. Instead, the team is saddled with negative cash that reduces the next year's budget space available.

I don't understand the concept of negative cash. Is it intended to represent debt? Or is it a bug? Either way, it should not happen. The effect on a team's ability to compete is devastating.

NoOne · 09-20-2016, 05:43 PM

they shouldn't have overspent, if human.... the AI has an excuse.

i do kinda agree in some senses:
if they take it away, then they shouldn't leave it either (profit or loss). the ones that have a true beef are the teams that have run a profit consistently and get screwed for one bad financial year.

but, leaving all that profit year-to-year causes some pretty hefty inflation of player salaries.

2 possible suggestions, i like the 2nd one:

1)
try bumping max cash on-hand to the largest yearly loss your league has seen so far.... if they've been successful in recent years, they can absorb that bad year... and budget accordingly (read:more conservatively) the next year.

once again, the ai is still screwed if you implement this idea when compared to a human, lol.

2) allow players to set their own budgets.... if they choose to do so. i know better than the game when it under or over estimates my likely income for the year... and if i make a mistake i can err to one side and it's never as large of a discrepancy compared to the AI's forecast.

if they give themselves too much money, their organization will be screwed for as long as they have those heavy contracts... it's in their best interest to try to be as accurate as possible when forecasting a budget.

Matt Arnold · 09-20-2016, 08:13 PM

The owners will (should be?) contribute cash, however they won't always reset to zero. It should be according to their greed, essentially. So if they're a penny-pincher, they're not going to contribute too much, but if they're generous, I would expect that they should top things back up to almost zero.

Orcin · 09-20-2016, 08:56 PM

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:

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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.

Matt Arnold · 09-20-2016, 10:58 PM

It looks like we were not having the owner chip in cash, or capping the negative cash, if the budget was based on revenue, which I'm not sure is a bug or an oversight, but can likely be a fix that gets squeezed in

But otherwise, for one, the team is only 1.3M in the hole - they're at 2.5m in the hole because they're trying to run a 2m payroll with only 1.2M in revenue. They really do need to find a way to cut payroll there, although yeah if your starting balance is less than the cash projected for the year, that would be a very tough task.

09-20-2016, 11:03 AM	#1
Orcin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 9,884	Negative cash In previous versions of the game, the owner would contribute cash to cover annual operating deficits. This no longer happens, at least in historical leagues. Instead, the team is saddled with negative cash that reduces the next year's budget space available. I don't understand the concept of negative cash. Is it intended to represent debt? Or is it a bug? Either way, it should not happen. The effect on a team's ability to compete is devastating.

09-20-2016, 08:56 PM	#4
Orcin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Indiana Posts: 9,884	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.

09-20-2016, 05:43 PM	#2
NoOne Banned Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,273 Infractions: 0/1 (3)	they shouldn't have overspent, if human.... the AI has an excuse. i do kinda agree in some senses: if they take it away, then they shouldn't leave it either (profit or loss). the ones that have a true beef are the teams that have run a profit consistently and get screwed for one bad financial year. but, leaving all that profit year-to-year causes some pretty hefty inflation of player salaries. 2 possible suggestions, i like the 2nd one: 1) try bumping max cash on-hand to the largest yearly loss your league has seen so far.... if they've been successful in recent years, they can absorb that bad year... and budget accordingly (read:more conservatively) the next year. once again, the ai is still screwed if you implement this idea when compared to a human, lol. 2) allow players to set their own budgets.... if they choose to do so. i know better than the game when it under or over estimates my likely income for the year... and if i make a mistake i can err to one side and it's never as large of a discrepancy compared to the AI's forecast. if they give themselves too much money, their organization will be screwed for as long as they have those heavy contracts... it's in their best interest to try to be as accurate as possible when forecasting a budget.

09-20-2016, 08:13 PM	#3
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 16,243	The owners will (should be?) contribute cash, however they won't always reset to zero. It should be according to their greed, essentially. So if they're a penny-pincher, they're not going to contribute too much, but if they're generous, I would expect that they should top things back up to almost zero.

09-20-2016, 10:58 PM	#5
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 16,243	It looks like we were not having the owner chip in cash, or capping the negative cash, if the budget was based on revenue, which I'm not sure is a bug or an oversight, but can likely be a fix that gets squeezed in But otherwise, for one, the team is only 1.3M in the hole - they're at 2.5m in the hole because they're trying to run a 2m payroll with only 1.2M in revenue. They really do need to find a way to cut payroll there, although yeah if your starting balance is less than the cash projected for the year, that would be a very tough task.