Trading whilst in the red

[CBL-Commish]

So I really just started this topic so I could use "whilst", but whilst I'm here:

I'm running a team that's in the red, no cash, no money for free agents, very little for extensions. So I go to try and trade, but I'm getting weird results and can't seem to find a trade that's financially acceptable. At least without dumping a ton of salary on my end.

For example, I'll try to trade a guy in my Continental League making $300k for a guy on a minor league deal in the Korean League. It'll tell me "Yukon can't afford the contract of the offered players. Their projected budget room would drop by $1.4M to a total of -$3.4M"

I try to trade one of my minor leaguers for a low-level prospect on a minor league deal to another Continental League team and it says the same thing, and that my budget room would drop by $1.628M.

What am I missing here? How could swapping two minor leaguers on minor league contracts result in an expense to me? Why is it I get a message telling me I can't afford the contracts of the players I'm trading for before I even select a player I'd like to trade for?

[endgame]

Likely, the budgets are looking forward 2-3 years and valuing the players according to their projected salaries during that period. It'd take a lot more dissection than I'm able to give off-the-cuff, but that's the first suspect that comes to mind.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by endgame

Likely, the budgets are looking forward 2-3 years and valuing the players according to their projected salaries during that period. It'd take a lot more dissection than I'm able to give off-the-cuff, but that's the first suspect that comes to mind.

I get the same results if I try to trade two guys who're both in A ball, with 3+ option years left, both one-star players on minor league contracts. There's no (rational) way the game could be projecting their future salaries to be anything significant. But I still get the message that I'm blowing the budget by $1.5M.

What's really strange is that I get the "can't afford the players" message if I put a non-prospect in my offered players box, and nothing in the other team's. It's like my baseline starting position is every trade I'm down $1.5M. I have to give up $1.5M before the AI says I can even start negotiating.

[endgame]

What's league minimum?

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by endgame

What's league minimum?

Salary? $203,521.

[snepp]

I saw this too. When I was in the hole the budget calculations went out of whack.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by snepp

I saw this too. When I was in the hole the budget calculations went out of whack.

Huh, so similar issues? What I can't figure is why the game seems to be starting me out in a hole on every deal.

It's almost like my owner is telling me I have to dump salary - could that be what's happening?

[danielmorgan17]

I am not quite in the red (budget room of about $100,000), but I'm seeing all sorts of weird math when attempting to trade as well. I'll try and pull a trade involving two guys with virtually equal salaries and equal years left in their contracts, and it will tell me it will drop by projected budget by millions of dollars. I can't figure out what's going on. It's frustrating me because I did a fantasy draft on auto draft, and now I'm in a spot where I have to dump some salary, but I can't seem to even get to the point in a trade where we negotiate players because I can't get past the "find a guy to trade that won't mysteriously put you in a huge budget deficit" stage. :-P

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

Originally Posted by danielmorgan17

I'll try and pull a trade involving two guys with virtually equal salaries and equal years left in their contracts, and it will tell me it will drop by projected budget by millions of dollars. I can't figure out what's going on.

It could be a difference in expected arbitration years.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth

It could be a difference in expected arbitration years.

I don't think so. I've had trades where I'm attempting to deal a guy in A ball for another guy in A ball and the AI tells me my budget room is going to drop by $millions. At best those guys wouldn't be arb-eligible for 4-5 years. The game can't be locking down my ability to trade based on marginal differences in arbitration estimates in 2017, can it?

[endgame]

FWIW, the issue has been logged, and I still have it on my agenda to examine prior to Markus' return to determine what factors may be in play. Bad news is twofold: I don't have a clue after looking at this several times already, and usually, even when I do collect a lot of 'maybe this and maybe thats', Markus tosses them quickly aside as not being pertinent and fixes it on his own. Here's hoping it's addressed or explained one way or the other. If I do come upon something, I'll be sure to get back into this thread and ask for your thoughts, and obviously if you determine an influence, post here too, and I'll update the report. Thanks.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by endgame

FWIW, the issue has been logged, and I still have it on my agenda to examine prior to Markus' return to determine what factors may be in play. Bad news is twofold: I don't have a clue after looking at this several times already, and usually, even when I do collect a lot of 'maybe this and maybe thats', Markus tosses them quickly aside as not being pertinent and fixes it on his own. Here's hoping it's addressed or explained one way or the other. If I do come upon something, I'll be sure to get back into this thread and ask for your thoughts, and obviously if you determine an influence, post here too, and I'll update the report. Thanks.

Thanks. I'll continue to try to figure out what's going on, too.

[CBL-Commish]

So this issue is still going on, I figured I'd play around some more to try to flesh out some details of what's going on. I think this has to be a coding/math error:



I edited my finances so that I have plenty of cash on hand, and a fairly substantial positive budget. I still get this weird message that the trade will lower BOTH teams' projected budget room. In the trade above Atkins is on the last two years of a deal that'll pay him about $1.85M/year. Fei is on a minor league deal.

So Yukon dumps a guy making a total of $3.7M for a minor leaguer and their budget room goes down by $1.4M, while the Giants see their budget go down by over $4M.

Continental League minimum salary is $203,521. MLB minimum is $400k.

[CBL-Commish]

I switched from my problematic Continental League to a standard-issue MLB 2012 league. I'm halfway through the season, and I try to trade Nick Markakis ($12M in 2012, escalating after that for 4 years) for Juan Uribe ($8M in 2012, $7M in 2013).

The trade screen indicates that the Orioles' budget room would improve by $1.9M, and the Dodgers' would go down by $1.8M. That does seem to make sense. That indicates pro-rated '12 salaries based on number of games each team has played in 2012. The Dodgers have $2M to spend, the O's are $5M in the hole.

So... I guess my problem is specific to my league/universe?

[vallanck]

I am having the same problem. My team is not in the red, but I have something like only $58K left in my projected budget.

I'm in the offseason and ended up signing Dan Haren for almost everything I had left, and now want to trade away one of my starting pitchers who has a salary of around $3 million. I've tried to trade him away to several teams for different prospects (all of whom have minor league contracts) but it keeps telling me I can't afford the trade, and that my budget would go down to something like negative $2.7 million.

It's like instead of taking that $3 million salary off my books when I trade the player, it's actually adding it to my books. This is very annoying. Any idea if/how to fix this? Any chance this will be fixed in an update? As for now I'm kind of stuck. I need to get my roster in order before going into the season, but I'm unable to make any trades which is really handcuffing me and making it impossible to move forward.

[awick]

I've had this problem too, in multiple universes. But it isn't consistent -- sometimes it seems to go away for awhile. I think it is definitely an error in the computations used to weigh the proposed trade, but sometimes it occurs and other times it does not. That sounds problematic to find and fix as a programming error.

[awick]

I forgot to say whilst typing my earlier response that I logged a trouble ticket on this back on 2 May. It is ticket number CXZ-331441.

[vallanck]

Here's how I ended up getting around this. (Sorry I don't have the exact numbers, but I'm too lazy to look them up.)

I attempted to trade my SP with a $3 million salary to the Rangers for a prospect in their AA organization who has a minor league contract. It listed my projected budget as $56k and that of the Rangers of about $10 million, but when I put the players into the trade window it said my budget would fall by $2.5 million down to negative $2.1 million, and that because of this the trade could not be completed. I then added $2.2 million dollars into the trade equation, with that money going from the Rangers to my team, and their GM accepted the deal - and now my projected budget is listed as $4.5 million.

For anybody having the same problem I was having, give this a try. Just make sure you are trading with a team that has a budget large enough to cover the cash that is needed to bring you back up into the green.

[eternal]

Has anyone experienced this problem during the season, or does it only occur in the offseason?

I've seen this, but only in the offseason (noticing it during spring training right now) and my current theory is the projected salaries shown in the trade screen are not including the league minimum contracts given to players currently on the 40-man roster but who have minor league contracts -- but when you attempt to make a trade, it's including them, thereby causing both teams' budget room to drop. The math adds up on my end but I'm only testing it in one isolated case.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by vallanck

Here's how I ended up getting around this. (Sorry I don't have the exact numbers, but I'm too lazy to look them up.)

I attempted to trade my SP with a $3 million salary to the Rangers for a prospect in their AA organization who has a minor league contract. It listed my projected budget as $56k and that of the Rangers of about $10 million, but when I put the players into the trade window it said my budget would fall by $2.5 million down to negative $2.1 million, and that because of this the trade could not be completed. I then added $2.2 million dollars into the trade equation, with that money going from the Rangers to my team, and their GM accepted the deal - and now my projected budget is listed as $4.5 million.

For anybody having the same problem I was having, give this a try. Just make sure you are trading with a team that has a budget large enough to cover the cash that is needed to bring you back up into the green.

Well, that's just crazy. Thanks for providing the info. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'd logged this in the official bug report queue, but after this, I moved it up in line, as I see it still has no response and would certainly hope we have one before the patch on Friday.