"Cannot afford the contracts of the offered players. They would be over budget next year."

torpidbeaver · 09-03-2016, 02:58 AM

I receive this message on the trade screen: "Cannot afford the contracts of the offered players. They would be over budget next year. Their available funds would drop by $2,298 to $746,641."

Playing a fictional league set in 1944.

I'm trying to make a trade work, but it keeps giving me that message when I try different players. I'm trading a minor leaguer, and in this particular case, I'd be receiving a reliever who's making $3k a year. He's an Arbitration-eligible player, but I can't imagine him making more than $8-9k if every single thing breaks his way.

In my Front Office, my projected budget room says I'll be $750k in the Green (which is a fair amount of cash for my league) next year.

I saw in an older thread that the budget takes into account estimated arbitration numbers, but even with that, I'm well, well clear of being unable to afford a $3k player.

What gives? Am I doing something wrong?

injury log · 09-03-2016, 08:10 AM

That message the game is giving you is clearly nonsense, so I think there must be a bug here, that somehow crept into a recent patch. Another forum member reported the same issue, so I don't think you're doing anything wrong. On beta I've pointed dev to these two threads, so hopefully they'll pin this down and fix it in the last patch.

torpidbeaver · 09-03-2016, 02:00 PM

Thanks for your response.

I now can't make any trades whatsoever.

Is this the type of thing that has been fixed in the past, or will I probably be stuck restarting?

EDIT: For what it's worth, this first started after I "Shopped" a player around. I noticed it would allow me to trade for the player the other team originally offered. I tried making that trade, but now I can't make any trade without that message popping up. No idea if that has something to do with it.

NoOne · 09-04-2016, 09:29 PM

I can predict my income for the next year better than the ai. I set my own budgets and projected budgets, nowadays.

Especially if you try to maximize income of ticket sales. you sell the season tickets at a price where you get about 35-40% filled, then adjust ticket prices througout season for a ~near max attendance (likely make more money if less than full, in general). if you do this, the AI cannot predict income well... it looks at that $50 season ticket price and says "wtf?" and throws it's hands up in defeat. you can clear 400M each year with the yankees,... a 14size market should never miss the playoffs in this game, lol.... ever... and win the WS ~ 1/3 to 1/2 the time. But, the AI will shortchange you 50-100M of budget space if you do not set your own budgets, because it's mildly retarded and not the rain man kind of retarded.

i also have it set for entire income to be available to each team, so i'm not getting more, i am just better at predicting income. the goal is to earn at least my max cash (10M) as income each year and spend it only when necessary. i rarely make so little in a year with any decent market size.

Team Home - Team settings

Budget
Pojected Budget (deduct 1-2% if dealing with 100's of millions of $, it will add back in - double check "Accounting" feedback)

you can also see if it's due to dead contracts and such further down this page.

torpidbeaver · 09-05-2016, 04:19 PM

Does the game make you pay out the value of an entire contract in one year?

For instance, if I wanted to give my catcher $50k a year for 6 years (total value: $300,000), the game's accounting doesn't make me pay the entire value the first year they sign the contract, right?

I'm trying to sign my star C to an extension, and all of a sudden I can't afford anyone. I'm wondering if the bug has ruined the entire financial model at this point.

What are "Projected Other Expenses"? I'm seeing this on the Financial Screen, under the box heading "Extension Information." Are those the monies you spend on development & scouting? I don't know why they would be listed under the "Extension Information" box, so I'm not totally sure that that's right. Then, it says my "Projected Budget" is going to be $810k, but my budget THIS year is $1.8 million. Why would it drop $1 million?

Very frustrating. I can't sign any of my guys to extensions, I can't trade for anyone, and I'm sorta crippled going into next year. No idea if this problem is going to carry over.

torpidbeaver · 09-05-2016, 09:04 PM

Here's my financial screen. Not sure if this helps at all.

Bumming me out.

Matt Arnold · 09-05-2016, 09:39 PM

Yeah, other expenses is like scouting and development. They come out of your budget for next year, so have to be accounted for when calculate how much space you have for extensions.

The flaw, as you point out, is your projected budget for next year is basically nothing. I would suggest double checking your league finances to make sure something didn't get accidentally changed (ie. National media revenue set to 5 instead of 500k or something). Otherwise your accounting screen should be able to give you a few more details about why your projected budget may be so low (generally speaking it should be similar to your expected revenues). It should list your future expected media revenue, ticket revenue, etc... and from that, depending on which one is lower than expected might tell you where to go.

Otherwise, you can always play until the finance rollover date, and see what budget your owner actually gives. It may end up higher than the projected one for some reason.

torpidbeaver · 09-06-2016, 02:43 PM

Okay, thanks. So... I'm getting further weirdness.

Yesterday, I randomly had an important reliever put on waivers, and got two emails saying that my offers to free agents (to whom I never offered contracts) had been rejected. Confirmed that my Manager Settings didn't change.

I force quit, reloaded, and all looked to be okay.

Then this morning (after the auto-update), I immediately went to my financial screen to investigate why my budget went to hell, and first thing I notice is that my ticket prices have been bumped up 430%.

Going to go see if anything else has changed. Very strange!

EDIT: It looks like my Local Media and Merchandizing revenue streams have been cut by 99%. $310,000 to $380 and $180,000 to $189, respectively.

Then I pulled up the League Info > Financial Report and it looks like some of the teams have media contracts in the hundreds of thousands, while others have them in the hundreds.

I'm not sure what to do here.

endgame · 09-06-2016, 03:49 PM

I can't offer an explanation, only my last resort when I run into the unusual: go to the League Menu and look for the function to Adjust Team Finances. It whirls and swirls and changes a lot of things, but it balances it all out and rights itself. I've done it a few times where I hardly noticed the change, except that all of a sudden I had a bit more money to work with.

You can backup, try it, see what it looks like, and restore if it went too far or wrong for you.

torpidbeaver · 09-06-2016, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by endgame

I can't offer an explanation, only my last resort when I run into the unusual: go to the League Menu and look for the function to Adjust Team Finances. It whirls and swirls and changes a lot of things, but it balances it all out and rights itself. I've done it a few times where I hardly noticed the change, except that all of a sudden I had a bit more money to work with.

You can backup, try it, see what it looks like, and restore if it went too far or wrong for you.

You know, I tried that in the previous year when something like 26 out of 30 teams were running a deficit and no one could make any free agent moves or trades. It worked great!

But then, I'm wondering if it's because I'm doing a "Historical" fictional franchise that the numbers are going so wonky. Like, I think I have it set to auto-adjust finances & league statistics to the current year. Is that maybe why I went from getting hundreds of thousands in media/merch to the low hundreds?

Matt Arnold · 09-06-2016, 05:11 PM

The historical financials for media should be in the hundreds. However, what sometimes happens is that media contracts get multi-year deals, so what might have happened is you set the media numbers to the hundreds of thousands, applied the finances, and teams got multi-year deals at those values. But then when the new league historical financials get applied, those deals "renew" at much much lower values.

if you're going to play with historical financials, you're basically going to have to make sure all the numbers are the historical value, otherwise you might end up with cases like this where some values are modified and some aren't. Otherwise, you can edit the financials.txt file to create your own finances if you want to play with old-time salaries, but higher scouting/dev budgets and higher media revenue, for example.

09-03-2016, 02:58 AM	#1
torpidbeaver Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 385 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	"Cannot afford the contracts of the offered players. They would be over budget next year." I receive this message on the trade screen: "Cannot afford the contracts of the offered players. They would be over budget next year. Their available funds would drop by $2,298 to $746,641." Playing a fictional league set in 1944. I'm trying to make a trade work, but it keeps giving me that message when I try different players. I'm trading a minor leaguer, and in this particular case, I'd be receiving a reliever who's making $3k a year. He's an Arbitration-eligible player, but I can't imagine him making more than $8-9k if every single thing breaks his way. In my Front Office, my projected budget room says I'll be $750k in the Green (which is a fair amount of cash for my league) next year. I saw in an older thread that the budget takes into account estimated arbitration numbers, but even with that, I'm well, well clear of being unable to afford a $3k player. What gives? Am I doing something wrong? Last edited by torpidbeaver; 09-03-2016 at 03:00 AM.

09-03-2016, 02:00 PM	#3
torpidbeaver Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 385 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Thanks for your response. I now can't make any trades whatsoever. Is this the type of thing that has been fixed in the past, or will I probably be stuck restarting? EDIT: For what it's worth, this first started after I "Shopped" a player around. I noticed it would allow me to trade for the player the other team originally offered. I tried making that trade, but now I can't make any trade without that message popping up. No idea if that has something to do with it. Last edited by torpidbeaver; 09-03-2016 at 02:02 PM.

09-04-2016, 09:29 PM	#4
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,167	I can predict my income for the next year better than the ai. I set my own budgets and projected budgets, nowadays. Especially if you try to maximize income of ticket sales. you sell the season tickets at a price where you get about 35-40% filled, then adjust ticket prices througout season for a ~near max attendance (likely make more money if less than full, in general). if you do this, the AI cannot predict income well... it looks at that $50 season ticket price and says "wtf?" and throws it's hands up in defeat. you can clear 400M each year with the yankees,... a 14size market should never miss the playoffs in this game, lol.... ever... and win the WS ~ 1/3 to 1/2 the time. But, the AI will shortchange you 50-100M of budget space if you do not set your own budgets, because it's mildly retarded and not the rain man kind of retarded. i also have it set for entire income to be available to each team, so i'm not getting more, i am just better at predicting income. the goal is to earn at least my max cash (10M) as income each year and spend it only when necessary. i rarely make so little in a year with any decent market size. Team Home - Team settings Budget Pojected Budget (deduct 1-2% if dealing with 100's of millions of $, it will add back in - double check "Accounting" feedback) you can also see if it's due to dead contracts and such further down this page. Last edited by NoOne; 09-04-2016 at 09:38 PM.

09-05-2016, 04:19 PM	#5
torpidbeaver Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 385 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Does the game make you pay out the value of an entire contract in one year? For instance, if I wanted to give my catcher $50k a year for 6 years (total value: $300,000), the game's accounting doesn't make me pay the entire value the first year they sign the contract, right? I'm trying to sign my star C to an extension, and all of a sudden I can't afford anyone. I'm wondering if the bug has ruined the entire financial model at this point. What are "Projected Other Expenses"? I'm seeing this on the Financial Screen, under the box heading "Extension Information." Are those the monies you spend on development & scouting? I don't know why they would be listed under the "Extension Information" box, so I'm not totally sure that that's right. Then, it says my "Projected Budget" is going to be $810k, but my budget THIS year is $1.8 million. Why would it drop $1 million? Very frustrating. I can't sign any of my guys to extensions, I can't trade for anyone, and I'm sorta crippled going into next year. No idea if this problem is going to carry over. Last edited by torpidbeaver; 09-05-2016 at 09:01 PM.

09-05-2016, 09:04 PM	#6
torpidbeaver Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 385 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Here's my financial screen. Not sure if this helps at all. Bumming me out. Attached Images

09-03-2016, 08:10 AM	#2
injury log Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Toronto Posts: 9,162	That message the game is giving you is clearly nonsense, so I think there must be a bug here, that somehow crept into a recent patch. Another forum member reported the same issue, so I don't think you're doing anything wrong. On beta I've pointed dev to these two threads, so hopefully they'll pin this down and fix it in the last patch.

09-05-2016, 09:39 PM	#7
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 14,145	Yeah, other expenses is like scouting and development. They come out of your budget for next year, so have to be accounted for when calculate how much space you have for extensions. The flaw, as you point out, is your projected budget for next year is basically nothing. I would suggest double checking your league finances to make sure something didn't get accidentally changed (ie. National media revenue set to 5 instead of 500k or something). Otherwise your accounting screen should be able to give you a few more details about why your projected budget may be so low (generally speaking it should be similar to your expected revenues). It should list your future expected media revenue, ticket revenue, etc... and from that, depending on which one is lower than expected might tell you where to go. Otherwise, you can always play until the finance rollover date, and see what budget your owner actually gives. It may end up higher than the projected one for some reason.

09-06-2016, 02:43 PM	#8
torpidbeaver Major Leagues Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 385 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Okay, thanks. So... I'm getting further weirdness. Yesterday, I randomly had an important reliever put on waivers, and got two emails saying that my offers to free agents (to whom I never offered contracts) had been rejected. Confirmed that my Manager Settings didn't change. I force quit, reloaded, and all looked to be okay. Then this morning (after the auto-update), I immediately went to my financial screen to investigate why my budget went to hell, and first thing I notice is that my ticket prices have been bumped up 430%. Going to go see if anything else has changed. Very strange! EDIT: It looks like my Local Media and Merchandizing revenue streams have been cut by 99%. $310,000 to $380 and $180,000 to $189, respectively. Then I pulled up the League Info > Financial Report and it looks like some of the teams have media contracts in the hundreds of thousands, while others have them in the hundreds. I'm not sure what to do here. Attached Images Last edited by torpidbeaver; 09-06-2016 at 02:48 PM.

09-06-2016, 03:49 PM	#9
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,843	I can't offer an explanation, only my last resort when I run into the unusual: go to the League Menu and look for the function to Adjust Team Finances. It whirls and swirls and changes a lot of things, but it balances it all out and rights itself. I've done it a few times where I hardly noticed the change, except that all of a sudden I had a bit more money to work with. You can backup, try it, see what it looks like, and restore if it went too far or wrong for you. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

09-06-2016, 05:11 PM	#11
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 14,145	The historical financials for media should be in the hundreds. However, what sometimes happens is that media contracts get multi-year deals, so what might have happened is you set the media numbers to the hundreds of thousands, applied the finances, and teams got multi-year deals at those values. But then when the new league historical financials get applied, those deals "renew" at much much lower values. if you're going to play with historical financials, you're basically going to have to make sure all the numbers are the historical value, otherwise you might end up with cases like this where some values are modified and some aren't. Otherwise, you can edit the financials.txt file to create your own finances if you want to play with old-time salaries, but higher scouting/dev budgets and higher media revenue, for example.