(the new) player development budget

[Henry]

In the heat of discussion, we did miss the other things Markus added - which got no press...

New player development screen
...set player development budget
...see the standings of all your minor league teams
...see a list of your prospects
...see a graphical representation of your organizational depth chart

Those last three things are pretty cool additions too especially the organizational depth chart.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Henry

In the heat of discussion, we did miss the other things Markus added - which got no press...

New player development screen
...set player development budget
...see the standings of all your minor league teams
...see a list of your prospects
...see a graphical representation of your organizational depth chart

Those last three things are pretty cool additions too especially the organizational depth chart.

Yes. I am really looking forward to 12.

[SteveV]

Originally Posted by waltwa

First of all if it can be turned off that's great. Anybody can make their own decision on how to play the game.

Now if this is a way to allow teams an option to increase their revenue by running a better minor league system - well i guess that can happen. But if it is a system which means that the more $ you pour into the system the faster and better your prospects develop then it simply does not reflect modern day baseball.

How many studies would there already have been written about how different teams develop talent and how some are much better at developing then others. It would be an absolute kiss of death in any sport if it could be proven statistically that a team has cut corners in developing talent. Players simply would not sign with such a team.

In the world of baseball expenses the amount spent on actually developing talent is pretty small when compared to the salaries of the best ML players. Roving instructors etc just aren't that expensive so no one is going to cut corners.

Hypothetically let's add another option to the game and that is the potential draftee can look at the development expenditure of all the teams and then contact the frugal spenders that there is no point in drafting them because they won't sign with that team.Don't think for 1 second that that would not happen particularly with the top choices.

Some teams, the Orioles for example, have squandered gobs of money over the years to no apparent effect so it isn't necessarily the case that throwing dollars around will automatically produce results, I can see that. Heck, the Red Sox were the only team in the 1930's that had ANY money to spend and they still never contended. But how efficiently you allocate your financial resources must be one of the primary skills for a GM.

We only really see the results at the Major League level so something like Texas mortgaging their future on a ridiculous contract for Alex Rodriguez was duly unrewarded but on the other hand when Loria told Dombrowski to get whoever the Marlins needed to win it all in 1997 he went out and did just that. The next year when Loria didn't like the look of all those big contracts they had a fire sale and finished last in the division - thats results DIRECTLY related to how much money was spent on the team in a nutshell, so for folks who play basically with a MLB universe with real world rosters the financials are an important part of replicating the real world. For online, Historical and Fictional league players its maybe not such a big deal but as has been said, just turn it off if you don't want it.

[Carplos]

97 was still Huizenga.

...see a list of your prospects

Er, don't we already have this in several ways? What's different about the new version? We already have a Top 20, minor league report, etc.

[SteveV]

[QUOTE=Carplos;3137736]97 was still Huizenga.


Sorry, Huizenga not Loria
QUOTE]

[RonCo]

The ultimate driver of this conversation is that the "Development Budget" feature has not been well communicated. It's a confusing feature because there has been no information about what expenses are meant to be included in that element of the budget. It's also a bit sloppy, since it's just one big slider. Rather than make one big slider, the feature should be broken into pieces that normal people can understand. If this budget includes:

Minor League Salaries: then assign minor league players a salary
Minor League Team Admin: then charge parent teams a admin fee (or ballpark fee, or whatever)
Roving Instructors: then allow teams to hire coaches/instructors at whim and assign them to levels or individual players.
To add more variety, allow parent teams to sprout additional minor league affiliations if they have the cash for it.

You get the idea. OOTP already has a player development budget partially implemented--they are called minor league coaches (and possibly scouting, though I think of those as two separate entities). So, how does the "Player Development Budget" interact with minor league coaches?

These questions are the reasons for the wide variety of responses. LGO's points are well made regarding the actual expenses of a major league franchise, but they don't mean anything until Markus says what this budget is supposed to model.

[Pineapple]

I think those that are still skeptical about the player development budget are not against OOTP offering a deeper financial experience. There is skepticism because as Ron said, the feature has yet to be well described.

I'm sure OOTP12 will have many more financial features. But when I think of an "improved financial system", I'm not really thinking about another slider used as a money sink.

When I think about an improved financial system, I'm thinking about improving AI contracts and free agency signings. Fix the fact of how the league's excess cash impact free agency demands (forcing users to implement a cash max as a work around). I'm thinking about player agents. Or improving the way attendance is modeled. I'm thinking of additions to make the finances/economy more robust and realistic.

You can always add a player development sliding bar money sink. You can add in a strength, conditioning and training slider. You can throw in a facilities and amenities slider. Add in a marketing and PR expenditure slider. But eventually, it's all the same. It's just a slider used as a money sink.

We will just have to wait and see on what other features OOTP12 will offer to improve the financial system.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Pineapple

I'm sure OOTP12 will have many more financial features. But when I think of an "improved financial system", I'm not really thinking about another slider used as a money sink.

If realistic revenue figures are to be used, then additional 'money sinks' (a.k.a. expenses) are very much needed. These need not be configurable by the user, but can instead be automatically determined. They nonetheless need to be there otherwise realistic revenue numbers will lead to excessive cash accumulation by OOTP clubs.

Over the 2007-08 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates, major league player compensation accounted for an average of 38.1% of the club's expenses. Scouting and player development combined accounted for 16.6%. All other operating expenses, e.g. team travel, stadium operations, marketing, ticket operations, general & administrative, and so forth, accounted for 45.4% of the club's expenses. Over the 2008-09 seasons, player salaries came to 59.1% of the Anaheim Angels' expenses; scouting and player development, 8.4%; all other expenses, 32.4%.

These real-world figures give a good idea of how much those other mundane yet necessary costs of running a franchise take up as a percentage of expenses. And thus need to be modelled in some fashion, even if in an automatic and abstracted manner.

[RonCo]

I think you're reacting to the term "money sink" when it's better to react to the term "slider." A sliding bar that just says "spend money for no obvious value" is not going to be well understood. Give OOTP players the opportunity whether to pay minor leaguers a salary or not, and many will go there (because it makes sense to do this...and in fact paying bonus money to picks is already in the game). Give them the opportunity to choose how many roving instructors they have, and many will go there (because the value/purpose is obvious, and the basis of existing staff's is already in the game). But a Big ol' slider that says "Chuck $8.7M into the Player Development Ocean" is bound to be viewed with some skepticism because no one can say exactly what they're getting for it.

[Henry]

I'm only guessing here but I think we're looking at the "slider" from only one side - "I got an extra 8 million so I dump it into player development".


What if the true decision you are faced with is "I've got 8 ,mill left, do I sign the 3rd string catcher for 5 mill and put 3 more toward PD, or do I pass on the guy and put 8 million more in" ... this is how I'm thinking this is going to work - not just a sinkhole.

[waltwa]

In modern baseball most of the costs of running a franchise are somewhat fixed except for the amount of $ spent on player contracts.

If you take the NYY they may spend 76% of their $ on ML player contracts but the amount of $ they spend on player development while it may only be 5% of their total costs it could very well be as much or more than the 25% spent by say the Royals.

I still maintain that ML teams might decide to spend far less than another team may spend on FA's but no team will cut any meaningful corner on developing players. If u are not going to spend on FA's and then cut corners on player development why would u want to even have a franchise and who would support it.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by RonCo

I think you're reacting to the term "money sink" when it's better to react to the term "slider."

It's more of a case to point out that if a player development expense in and of itself is not nearly enough to soak up realistic revenue amounts.

Originally Posted by RonCo

Give them the opportunity to choose how many roving instructors they have, and many will go there (because the value/purpose is obvious, and the basis of existing staff's is already in the game). But a Big ol' slider that says "Chuck $8.7M into the Player Development Ocean" is bound to be viewed with some skepticism because no one can say exactly what they're getting for it.

I agree. Any expense that the user has direct control over ought to have some game play value and effect. Which is why most of the time I abstract out club expenses to a simple expense line on the financial statement because there would be no game play benefit to making them configurable.

If it were up to me, the player development expense would have a fixed base amount, representing the cost of operating the minor league affiliates and a basic set of (abstracted) roving instructors. The user could then set a higher amount of player development spending, which represents additional spending being put into more and better instructors and facilities, with a resulting (small) boost in the development of players.

But I'd be fine if player development was changed to simply represent the cost of operating the minors, with the amount calculated by OOTP based on the number of affiliates the parent team has at each classification level. The user wouldn't directly set the expense level, but could effectively raise or lower it by either adding affiliates or dropping them, as financial circumstances dictate. (One does see this sort of thing in real life, when a major league club decides to drop or add an affiliate in the Arizona or Gulf Coast League, or in the offshore Dominican Summer and Venezuelan Summer League.)

But that would require other changes to how minor league clubs interact with major league clubs, which are almost certainly beyond the scope of changes being implemented for OOTP 12.

[Donevyn]

I sure hope I can turn this off

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Donevyn

I sure hope I can turn this off

Markus already said you could.

[Pineapple]

Originally Posted by Henry

What if the true decision you are faced with is "I've got 8 ,mill left, do I sign the 3rd string catcher for 5 mill and put 3 more toward PD, or do I pass on the guy and put 8 million more in" ... this is how I'm thinking this is going to work - not just a sinkhole.

In a way, we already do this in the existing iteration. For those that play with scouting and coaches on, we are already faced with this decision.

"I've got $8 million left - do I sign the 3rd string catcher for $5 million and put $3 million in scouting or do I pass on the guy and put $8 million in scouting."

The same can be said about spending money on high profile coaches or hiring cheaper coaches to put the money elsewhere. Do I spend my extra cash on free agency or internal expenses (coaching, scouting, signing bonuses, etc.)?

So, you can add in a player developmental slider or a facilities expenditure slider. At the end of the day, I'm still faced with the same decision that I have already been making in OOTP11 - do I spend my excess money in "X" or "Y"? Instead of making this decision in OOTP11, I'm making the same decision in OOTP12 but just adding another extra layer.

I guess that's why I feel indifferent about the feature. I need to know more about the feature to really make a judgement. I am curious to see how this player developmental feature will interact with coaches. What is better... legendary coaches with the league average player developmental budget or average coaches with a high investment in player development.

I don't mind money sinks. For a robust economy to work, you need both money sinks and sources. They (sinks and sources) should relatively stablize one another. One of the biggest arbitrary and customizable money sink we have right now is the cash max setting. If OOTP12 can offer money sinks that emulate the real world and therefore essentially replace the cash max money sink, I'll be happy.

[tejdog1]

This is, IF IF IF the draft is fixed, IE, players actually fall due to signability, not because they're 25 potentials who want 3 mil, but because they're 75 potentials who have a VERY STRONG verbal commit to Tulane or something, and it would take a good deal of change to buy them out of that commit... then this makes a ton of sense.

Then it becomes, do I use that spare $8m above what I've already earmarked for the draft... or do I use it to upgrade my AA facility, and hire 2 roving instructors for my two rookie league teams?

[Toado]

I'm really excited about this new feature. I feel like it will allow me to finally disable coaches at the minor league level and still give me a somewhat hands-on opportunity to invest in my minor league system. For me, signing minor league coaches was always the most tedious part of the game and always a constant fingers-crossed situation hoping I could get some of my awesome Major League / AAA coaches to take a demotion so I could sign new legendary coaches who weren't interested in lower level jobs.

Thanks for adding this feature!