AI Financials/Fictional League: Your Experiences

[Lordofbrewtown]

Hi, Looking for some thoughts/what others have run into with using Financials in their fictional league.

My Concern/Issue: The AI GM's seem to 'splurge' overpay a couple of players, and always run out of money/budget, being forced to fill the active roster with below average players and leave a good portion of the reserve roster empty (or try to sign players to minor league contracts). The end result is an average of 1 batter and 1 pitcher per team with an overall rating >= 50 as unsigned free agents - which seems like a ridiculous amount of unsigned talent.

Is that normal? What have you found in your fictional leagues?
My setup/Issues that might be affecting this: 72 Team league with a 22 man active roster and 18 man reserve roster (4 round amateur draft generating players for 5 rounds). So, through 3 years, averaging 72 unsigned hitters and 72 unsigned pitchers with overall rating >=50. Financials are set at no cap, revenue share at 50% of everything (gate, etc). No arbitration, free agency after 5 years service. Injuries set to almost never (as is GM trading).

I'm wondering if the large number of teams in the league is throwing off the AI somehow, or it's normal in leagues with reserve rosters to have that many quality free agents. Also find it odd that almost all of the AI GM's are doing this (unless rebuilding): in the off-season they can have players out of contract/be down to like 12 active players and 4-8 young reserves not ready for prime time, and will blow almost their entire budget on 1-3 players, and be forced to fill 5-9 active slots with scrubs.

[Lordofbrewtown]

I'm guessing I probably need to change the typical salaries for average, star players etc. They seem high: Typical avg quality starter $1,540,000; Typical Super Star $4,920,000 as examples with typical team revenues in the $21-$31M range seems out of balance.

Do people typically go with the defaults here, or play with these settings? I'm noticing the superstar players are being signed for more than that typical amount (up to $6M/year). Feels like I need to reduce the typical salaries by 20% each

[Rain King]

How did you get to those defaults for your financials? Are you playing fictional but in a historical year?

If you are doing something like that I would recommend setting the finances to the modern defaults and then scaling them down from there. Unless you are emulating a historical MLB season you probably don't want to use historical financials.

[Lordofbrewtown]

Originally Posted by Rain King

How did you get to those defaults for your financials? Are you playing fictional but in a historical year?

If you are doing something like that I would recommend setting the finances to the modern defaults and then scaling them down from there. Unless you are emulating a historical MLB season you probably don't want to use historical financials.

Honestly I can't remember. My starting year was 2001, but I think I chose a default year to get to a round number I liked.

Thanks for tip. I take if from your answer thet there should not be that many good unsigned players generally?

[Rain King]

Originally Posted by Lordofbrewtown

Honestly I can't remember. My starting year was 2001, but I think I chose a default year to get to a round number I liked.

Thanks for tip. I take if from your answer thet there should not be that many good unsigned players generally?

Correct. There should not be, but I also do not know whether the game handles leagues of your size well either.

If the teams are out of money, though, I think that is likely a problem as you have guessed with your typical salary settings. The settings you have do not sound typical at least not compared to the fictional financial defaults.

[Lordofbrewtown]

Originally Posted by Rain King

Correct. There should not be, but I also do not know whether the game handles leagues of your size well either.

If the teams are out of money, though, I think that is likely a problem as you have guessed with your typical salary settings. The settings you have do not sound typical at least not compared to the fictional financial defaults.

I am fairly certain that I kept the settings proportional to the default, or whatever year was chosen. I did notice that if I change them (move them down) it changes the projected profitability, which makes me think it's not really going to change the signings all that much.

When you sugestd changing the defaults, I just want to confirm you meant the typical salaries (and/or revenues): for me, the revenue sharing aspect is a must (not sure if that would affect things).