Team Financials

[looneyluden]

Hi,

I created a fictional baseball league with 18 teams. But instead of using city names, I wanted to use state names. So for example my team names look something like this... Arizona Sahuaros, Oklahoma Gunfighters, Florida Threshers.

Now here is the problem I ran into concerning financials with this type of set-up. I was hoping to have my larger population states have the largest market, budget, payroll, etc...while the lesser populated states would be the "small market" teams.

The game never seemed to give me an option when creating the league, how to assign which teams would be large market, and which would be small market teams. So I assumed it would recognize the states names and would assign financials appropriately. Unfortunately it did not. After the initial draft, I have teams like California with small smarket, media revenue, attendance, and budgets around 30 mil, while teams like Montana have 80 mil budgets, and high attendance factors.

Can anyone tell me what I could have done to prevent this? Or if it can be fixed?

Also, what if I had just gone with standard city names instead of typing in the names of states. Would it have recognized Los Angeles as being large market, and Tucson as being smaller market?

Thank you in advance for any help!

[AD31]

Are you in commsih mode? I believe if you are this is customizable under the team options tab of the team home page. I think, not sure though.

[looneyluden]

Originally Posted by AD31

Are you in commsih mode? I believe if you are this is customizable under the team options tab of the team home page. I think, not sure though.

Yeah, I went into commisioner mode. I was able to get into each individual team financial page. But now that the players are drafted, I fear editing team financials will throw my teams budget way out of wack.

What I'm fiddling with now is trying to re-create the league. I really want to have my teams named by states, not cities. But I can't figure out a way to have correct financials for each state initially created.

It looks like I will have to make up a budget number for each team myself and type that in. I was hoping to let the game decide those things, becuase I will most likely skew financials way off with the more input from me.

Thanks for the reply.

[looneyluden]

Ok, now I am even more confused with the way individual team financials are selected.

I decided to create a small test league, and use actual cities for the teams this time. I even let the computer pick the city and team names. for instance, Philadelphia was one city, Dallas was another, and Raleigh was another.

Prior to the draft, I then went and edited each cities "Market Size", the one where you pick from 1-20. For Dallas and Philly, I put 20. For Raleigh and other "real life" small markets, I entered 5.

Then I proceded to the draft. After the draft, I went and looked at team financials. The computer erased what I had entered as market size, and created its own. Raleigh now has a larger market size than Philly and Dallas.

What can I be doing wrong here? I would like to have fictional ballplayers in real life markets. So in other words, I want the New York's and California's of the world to have more spending money and natural advantage than the Raleighs and Flagstaff's of the world. But with fictional players.

[Mikekem]

I believe that after the draft, the game resets the cities to market sizes that can hold the payroll that was drafted.

Here is an idea, after the draft go in and set all of the market sizes the way that you want them. Then I think there is a button in the league setup screen that will allow you to reassign contract values according to market size. Now, you might end up with some superstars making below value contracts for the first couple of years or so but it should work itself out.

[looneyluden]

Originally Posted by Mikekem

I believe that after the draft, the game resets the cities to market sizes that can hold the payroll that was drafted.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the game to draft based on market size?

I will try your suggestion. Thanks.

[AD31]

Originally Posted by looneyluden

But wouldn't it make more sense for the game to draft based on market size?

I will try your suggestion. Thanks.

I think the problem is that on the initial draft, the players are free agents so they do not have any contracts. They are then assigned contracts based on what your setting are (i.e. superstar,regular, scrub).

So I do not think they could look at contract and factor in their market size.

[looneyluden]

Originally Posted by AD31

I think the problem is that on the initial draft, the players are free agents so they do not have any contracts. They are then assigned contracts based on what your setting are (i.e. superstar,regular, scrub).

So I do not think they could look at contract and factor in their market size.

Ahh, I see. That sounds correct.

My problem still remains. I would like to have my larger market teams be able to have better overall teams coming out of the initial draft. I will try another test league and assign budgets myself to each team before the draft.

I remember in Puresim Baseball that when you created a new fictional league, it asks you what size of market for each team, before the draft. This made the teams draft for a payroll within the limits of that market. But the main difference there was that each free agent in the initial draft had salary demands with actual numbers attatched. So you would draft Player A for X amount of dollars, and then decide how many years your initial contract with him would be.

[fhomess]

OOTP assigns market sizes after the initial draft in order to make sure that teams are able to afford the teams they drafted. The teams do not draft according to their initial finances. I know that it's been proposed to Markus to allow this, but it's not there and won't be there until 2009 at the earliest.

That said, I think there may be another way to get what you want, although I haven't tried it myself. You don't have to start with an initial draft. Instead, you can start with a free agent period in which teams are able to sign players through the normal FA process. Once you've started your league, set up each team's finances the way you want it (California - large market, Minnesota - small market, or whatever). If you're not sure about all the numbers, set the market size as you want and then go to league setup to have the game adjust finances for teams. Then sim through the FA process. I think it'll sign FA's based on the market size you've given.

[looneyluden]

I revised my search criteria in the forums and found a thread or two mirroring this one.

A fellow poster wrote in concusion of his thread:

<b>I am going to create a fictional league with actual US Cities, and I would like team budgets to be somewhat representative of the area they hail from. So the steps would be:

1) Set Up League
2) Hold Draft
3) Assign Fictional Contracts to all Players
4) Go into Commish mode and raise/lower budgets as I see fit</b>

Sounds like that would work, but there is no way I can go through and manually adjust that many contracts.

I tried a few other things I could think of. I tried creating a league, and becoming commisisioner. I then edited the Front Office strategy. For California / New York type teams, I selected "Win now", and for Tucson type teams I selected "Rebuild". I also selected favor Veteran, or favor prospects through the strategy tab for each screen. Then I proceeded to the draft. Even these steps did not seem to affect how each team drafted their players. For instance rebuilding teams could be found at the very top of the payroll scale, while "win now" teams could be found at the very bottom. It didn't even lean one way to favor the strategies input before the draft.

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[looneyluden]

Originally Posted by fhomess

OOTP assigns market sizes after the initial draft in order to make sure that teams are able to afford the teams they drafted. The teams do not draft according to their initial finances. I know that it's been proposed to Markus to allow this, but it's not there and won't be there until 2009 at the earliest.

That said, I think there may be another way to get what you want, although I haven't tried it myself. You don't have to start with an initial draft. Instead, you can start with a free agent period in which teams are able to sign players through the normal FA process. Once you've started your league, set up each team's finances the way you want it (California - large market, Minnesota - small market, or whatever). If you're not sure about all the numbers, set the market size as you want and then go to league setup to have the game adjust finances for teams. Then sim through the FA process. I think it'll sign FA's based on the market size you've given.

Thanks, that sounds like a possible solution. My drafts take me a few hours, but I can't imagine how long it would take me to sign an entire team though free agency.

Thanks for everyone's help and input into this thread!

[looneyluden]

Originally Posted by Mikekem

Here is an idea, after the draft go in and set all of the market sizes the way that you want them. Then I think there is a button in the league setup screen that will allow you to reassign contract values according to market size.

I looked for that button, but cannot find it. You may be thinking of the button that allows you to reset each teams financials all at once. However, it resets budgets, etc. based on that teams existing payroll. Unfortunately that button would not help.

[looneyluden]

I just thought of another possible way to at least steer the game towards correct payrolls per market size after the initial draft.(forgive all these posts, but I just bought the game recently, and I have the day off today! So I really wanted to get into it.)

Ok, what if the human player made the first pick for every team for the first 3-4 rounds of drafting. He could draft superstars for his projected large market teams. All the while he could pick possible FUTURE stars in the first few rounds for his small market clubs.

After the first 4 rounds or so, he could go back to just drafting for his own team, because most of the highest paid superstars would most likely be taken by then. Hopefully the remaining rounds would not effect payrolls as much.

Any opinions on whether this might work? I might go try.

[Mikekem]

Originally Posted by looneyluden

I looked for that button, but cannot find it. You may be thinking of the button that allows you to reset each teams financials all at once. However, it resets budgets, etc. based on that teams existing payroll. Unfortunately that button would not help.

Darn, so I had it backwards. Sorry about that.

[AD31]

Originally Posted by looneyluden

I just thought of another possible way to at least steer the game towards correct payrolls per market size after the initial draft.(forgive all these posts, but I just bought the game recently, and I have the day off today! So I really wanted to get into it.)

Ok, what if the human player made the first pick for every team for the first 3-4 rounds of drafting. He could draft superstars for his projected large market teams. All the while he could pick possible FUTURE stars in the first few rounds for his small market clubs.

After the first 4 rounds or so, he could go back to just drafting for his own team, because most of the highest paid superstars would most likely be taken by then. Hopefully the remaining rounds would not effect payrolls as much.

Any opinions on whether this might work? I might go try.

Sounds like a good workaround. I would suggest you save your game as a template or quickstart (if you have not already) before going forward. You do not want to have to go back and re do everything if you make a mistake.

[Curtis]

[QUOTE=looneyluden;2177471I would like to have my larger market teams be able to have better overall teams coming out of the initial draft.

I remember in Puresim Baseball that when you created a new fictional league, it asks you what size of market for each team, before the draft. This made the teams draft for a payroll within the limits of that market. But the main difference there was that each free agent in the initial draft had salary demands with actual numbers attatched. So you would draft Player A for X amount of dollars, and then decide how many years your initial contract with him would be.[/QUOTE]

That PureSim system sounds far superior to what we have in OOTPB today. The financial system in this game is majorly messed up, and if fhomess is right that it'll be 2009 before this stuff gets addressed… gah!

Your workaround may be your best bet for getting what you want. I also assign my own financials to teams, but do it after the draft. That does allow small market clubs to start with outsized payrolls, but over time it works itself out. If you sim to establish league history (I don't), long before you stop the sim to take over a team the big market clubs will have established dominance in the free agent market.