Player contracts horribly inaccurate, making Shop a Player unreasonable

[orbops]

I started playing the 2014 season, and wanted to try shopping a player Paul Maholm - Dodgers current salary $2.25M (rated 1.5 stars overall & potential). When the 'Shop a Player' possible trades came up, they were all just salary dumps from other teams.

What is so frustrating is that since the salaries in OOTP 19 are not matching real life salaries, it makes the 'Shop a Player' feature completely unrealistic. Here are some of the players that were offered in a 1 to 1 trade of Paul Maholm for another player - I listed their OOTP 19 2014 contract terms and their actual contracts in 2014:
Paul Maholm OOTP $2.25M for 1 yr; actual $1.5M for 1 yr;
Robinson Cano 4 stars OOTP $355M for 6yrs; actual $96M for 4 years
Fernando Rodney 3.5 stars OOTP $42M for 2 yrs; actual $14M for 2 yrs
Adam Wainwright 4 stars OOTP $275M for 5 yrs; actual 97.5M for 5 yrs

and here are a few more salaries that I grabbed from the Mariners & Cards:
Felix Hernandez 4.5 stars OOTP $432.5M for 7 yrs; actual $175M for 7 yrs
Yadier Molina 4 stars OOTP $47M for 1 yr; actual 75M for 5 yrs

Since I'm playing as the Dodgers, I can make these crazy one-sided trades, but it just feels like I'm gaming the system if I do that. What do others think about actually accepting these made-up salaries???


I know that I can manually update the salaries, but updating all MLB teams would take me literally all season just to do that.

[Findest2001]

Unfortunately when I encounter this I do my best to adjust the salaries manually. If it's within a reasonable percentage (maybe 15%) of the actual contract I just do the deal. But when they're that off I make the adjustments. You do also tend to find guys on the lower end (i.e. everyday players and utilitymen) who have contracts that are much better than the real-life counterparts.


Also, change your team needs. I tend to find when I have team needs listed, they tend to offer closer to what you need. That way you can set a range of salaries you prefer, and it fits the offers of the SHOP A PLAYER option to those salary floors and ceilings you set. Then no more dealing with ridiculous contracts.


I hope this helps a bit, but I don't know all of your league settings, obviously.

[Matt Arnold]

What settings are you using to create the game to have salaries like that?

[orbops]

I am simply playing a historical season for 2014. I did not change the 'Global Financial Coefficient', so it is set to 1.000. I also did not change any financial settings, just left them as their defaults.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by orbops

Robinson Cano 4 stars OOTP $355M for 6yrs; actual $96M for 4 years

Actually, actual would be 10 years, $240M for that one since he had just signed that deal with the Mariners. Also, the Hernandez and Molina contracts started prior to 2014, so your numbers are not 100% either.

Some of the OOTP numbers seem to be off by (roughly) 50% here...

[orbops]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Actually, actual would be 10 years, $240M for that one since he had just signed that deal with the Mariners. Also, the Hernandez and Molina contracts started prior to 2014, so your numbers are not 100% either.

Some of the OOTP numbers seem to be off by (roughly) 50% here...

You're right about the Cano one. For Hernandez and Molina, I just used the starting year of their contract that was in place in 2014.
Robinson Cano $355M for 6yrs; actual $240M for 10 years
Felix Hernandez $432.5M for 7 yrs; actual $175M for 7 yrs
Fernando Rodney $42M for 2 yrs; actual $14M for 2 yrs
Adam Wainwright $275M for 5 yrs; actual 97.5M for 5 yrs
Yadier Molina actual $47M for 1 yr; 75M for 5 yrs

The main point is that the OOTP contract numbers are way off compared to their actual contract, which makes 'Shop a Player' an ineffectual way to game the system. I could make trades and create a superteam with those inflated OOTP contracts in which AI teams are trying to dump salary. I think if it were the performance stats that were inflated 2x-3x, many people would complain about the realism of replaying a historical season.

[Markus Heinsohn]

OOTP does not import historical contracts. The contracts in historical games are simply automatically game generated contracts.

[orbops]

Marcus, out of curiosity, why auto generate salaries while player ratings are using the ZIPS player projection system? Wouldn't the game's GM function work better if real salaries were used?

[Ty Cobb]

Job creation, baby. Also...how are we going to deal with the truly obscure salary demands...like orange jello or mustache wax?