Odd financial behavior

[swensobp]

So my team has a starting balance of $105,326,635 dollars. I have $110,719,535 for $ for free agents. However I only have $4,037,060 for extentions. So how that works in the game is my owner is fine with me spending $100,000,000 for a 1 year contract on a free agent but he refuses to let me sign a 2 year deal for 5,000,000. Something doesn't seem correct.

[swensobp]

My owner just let me sign a 1 year deal with a free agent for $100,000,000. But he/she wouldn't let me sign a 2 year deal for $4,500,000.

I don't say this lightly because I'm a programmer but you people do test this stuff before you release it, correct?

And yes it was the same player.

[tysok]

The owner will allow you to spend the cash you have on hand for free agents. If you're stupid enough to sign a guy to 100 million 1 year contract that's your problem. The owner won't step in and say you're an idiot, he expects you to know what you're doing. He won't allow you to spend over your budget for next year though.

Think of it in a more normal world. You have a job as a a network administrator. Your boss has given you a budget, you can spend so much on the upkeep of your department each year.
You've spent all of it for this year, and spent it well. Everything looks fine and you're cruising along on your new Triple-Quad core server. Suddenly one of your other older servers has decided to die, it melted into a gooey pile. You're boss will find the money to replace that server (in OOTP phrases, he allows you to spend your cash in this emergency situation).

On the other hand, he won't let you order 2 of those Triple-Quad core servers to be delivered next year. One of those spends your entire budget... wtf are you doing trying to spend more money than you've been budgeted to get next year?

You can spend your cash to sign free agents for an emergency situation, even if that emergency is just you really want A-Rod to come play in Tampa Bay for one year. But your budget is your budget for next year... don't go trying to spend money you're not scheduled to be given.
It was tested and this is by design. If you were able to spend your cash for extensions as well you could sign that guy, not only for 100 million this year, but to 100 million for the next 10. That's even more ridiculous than a 1 year 100 million contract.

[swensobp]

Tysok:
While I appreciate your attempt to make a logical argument, you’re talking nonsense. I’m guessing you work in the public sector where that type of backwards logic is prevalent due to a lack of a single power source. Modeling finances this way would make sense for some sort of government sim, where partisan politics makes it nearly impossible to modify a budget, or in some enormous company suffering from excess bureaucracy. However in this game you’re a General Manager of a baseball team who has direct access to the owner, IE the guy with the cash. Now you show me a company owner who would be willing to spend $100,000,000 for an asset that will last 1 year versus $8,000,000 for an asset that will last 2 years and I’ll point out to you a guy who isn’t going to have a business much longer.

A better situation would be to handle it like Football Manager. Where contacts are limited based on the projected role of the player. The fact that the owners in the game allow contracts like that is a joke and completely unrealistic.

[mattshwink]

Originally Posted by swensobp

Tysok:
While I appreciate your attempt to make a logical argument, you’re talking nonsense. I’m guessing you work in the public sector where that type of backwards logic is prevalent due to a lack of a single power source. Modeling finances this way would make sense for some sort of government sim, where partisan politics makes it nearly impossible to modify a budget, or in some enormous company suffering from excess bureaucracy. However in this game you’re a General Manager of a baseball team who has direct access to the owner, IE the guy with the cash. Now you show me a company owner who would be willing to spend $100,000,000 for an asset that will last 1 year versus $8,000,000 for an asset that will last 2 years and I’ll point out to you a guy who isn’t going to have a business much longer.

A better situation would be to handle it like Football Manager. Where contacts are limited based on the projected role of the player. The fact that the owners in the game allow contracts like that is a joke and completely unrealistic.

I work in the public sector (though for a private company) and I for one think baseball contracts, are completely ridiculous. A-Rod, $275 million total contract value for 10 years ($27.5 million per year)? With a contract like that (along with Jeter, $18.9 million per year, and Rivera ($15 million,he doesn't even play much!), and Giambi ($21 million DH!!!) and the Yankees probably won't be in business much longer.....(I wish!)

Or how about paying almost $52 million just to have the exclusive negotiating rights with someone for 30 days (and then signing them to a 6 year $52 million contract?). And if you could not come to an agreement.....no, sorry, you can't have your $52 million back.

I understand your point. The problem is that not everything can be modeled with complete accuracy. Some design decisions have to be made. This is, after all, a baseball sim, not financial modeling software.

This is also not Football (Soccer). If contracts were limited by the role of the player, then OOTP most likely wouldn't model things like A-Rod's contract, or Giambi's contract. So to keep contracts somewhat realistic in the realm of baseball this probably would not work, as most OOTPers would be upset that the financial model did not reflect the real world. Now a $100 million 1 year deal doesn't either, but that's an unanticipated (as in, why would you sign someone for more then they are asking for) consequence of the design decision. I think player's already look at the current market and themselves and make relatively reasonable demands.

The problem you have isn't with the players, its with the Owners (and GM's). After all, what player wouldn't sign that deal (it is in their favor). OOTP gives you money for extensions and money for free agents, based on some budget calculations. These aren't that complex. Real baseball finances are extremely complex. The problem you have is that the owner allows you to do something that clearly is a bad idea (but hey, so is A-Rods contract, IMHO). So maybe an option to allow owner to void contract negotiations if they feel you are paying a certain amount over market (10%, 20%)? But what is market? Does this model real baseball? Those are more difficult answers.

That being said, I don't think anyone in their right mind would sign someone to a $100 million 1 year deal (at least until A-Rods next contract negotiation). But the team probably never anticipated a user trying to do something like that (I doubt the AI would ever try it).

So post in the tech support forum. See if you can get it logged as a bug. Markus and the OOTP team have been extremely willing to fix things in the past. But if it was a concious design decision to make the financial modeling simpler, they may not see it your way.

[tysok]

Originally Posted by swensobp

Tysok:
While I appreciate your attempt to make a logical argument, you’re talking nonsense. I’m guessing you work in the public sector where that type of backwards logic is prevalent due to a lack of a single power source. Modeling finances this way would make sense for some sort of government sim, where partisan politics makes it nearly impossible to modify a budget, or in some enormous company suffering from excess bureaucracy. However in this game you’re a General Manager of a baseball team who has direct access to the owner, IE the guy with the cash. Now you show me a company owner who would be willing to spend $100,000,000 for an asset that will last 1 year versus $8,000,000 for an asset that will last 2 years and I’ll point out to you a guy who isn’t going to have a business much longer.

A better situation would be to handle it like Football Manager. Where contacts are limited based on the projected role of the player. The fact that the owners in the game allow contracts like that is a joke and completely unrealistic.

Now you're talking about something else. Why is an owner allowing you to sign such a ridiculously stupid contract? Perhaps it should limit you there as the next poster said, he'll step in and slap you down if you get stupid. Maybe that's something for next version, or maybe Markus might even put it in for a patch (call it the slap code).

Beyond that, even you admit it's a ridiculous contract... so would you offer it? You're the GM, the financial stability of the team is somewhat important to you as well. The owner has faith in your abilities and gives you the checkbook. If you're stupid enough to offer and sign a 100 million 1 year deal and blow all your cash the owner wouldn't be happy... but he's not standing there looking over your shoulder in OOTP right now.

What my post was about is the difference in $ for free agents and $ for cash. If I could have I'd make the cash be unavailable except in certain circumstances, your star player goes down with a long injury and you need an influx to get this trade done or sign this free agent. Maybe some others... not for just signing any Tom, Dick or Harry you felt like getting in this year... but that was too detailed and was apparently decided against.
The post had nothing to do with the stupid contract. It's this way to mirror an ability to go out and sign an emergency player (or maybe sign that one player you think will put you over the top this year).

So yeah, it's kind of silly that you can offer someone a 100 million 1 year contract... it is however one of those things that we would expect you to be somewhat more intelligent than to do so.
It gets rather complicated to make sure you don't spend your cash many times over... which I was easily able to do in beta testing. The argument went out that you could spend it many times over, and this ended up as the solution.