Budget Idea.

[Bobfather]

What would happen if I changed every team's budget to $1 billion, no revenue sharing? All owners have the same ratings. And a $1,000,000,001 cap. What would happen, do you think?

[snepp]

I think they would all go broke when they only make a couple hundred million.

[Sweed]

I think contract demands and salaries would explode with all of that money laying around.

[Pelican]

Depends on how the budget would work. It's easy enough to allow for a billion in spending, but where does the revenue come from? Tough choices here. You could simply give each team a pot of several hundred million in cash to spend, and hope they can balance the budget with income. Without that "gift", ticket prices would have to double or triple, with no assurance that attendance would remain stable (hint: It wouldn't). The game (properly, IMHO) does not provide any easy ways to acquire a windfall (other than simply adding to the cash on hand, source unknown).

If you managed to balance the budgets, the effect of the huge budget increase would be a mad race to sign free agents and extend salaries. For me, a nightmare scenario.

Why not assign each team (in a contemporary sim) a budget of $250,000,000, or whatever the median is now? The Dodgers, the Yanks, the Mutts, the Braves and a few others couldn't pay all their salaries. After that was somehow sorted, you would have parity and lots of unhappy players.

[Bluenoser]

1. Do you have your league set to Yes, Owner decides over budget or No, entire revenue available?

2. After season 1 Owners would adjust the budgets back down to what they could afford, ie: they would do what they do now, base budget on revenue.

So in order to do this you would have to increase revenue by massive amounts. Merchandise, Media and Ticket prices being to three main sources would have to be quite high.

[Bobfather]

I should have explained my goals better. I want to accomplish 2 opposing things. 1. I want finances not to matter, and 2, keep free agency. I was trying to make budgets so extremely high that it would, in some sense, accomplish both.
I think I have more fun making trades and signing free agents, and then playing out the games to see how I did.

[Pelican]

Two thoughts, depending on your starting point.

If you are starting a new sim from scratch, not inheriting any existing financial structure, you could give each team the same budget numbers, same cash on hand, same revenue stream. Finances would still "matter" in that teams could not spend beyond their means, but teams would be in parity as to resources. No team would start with an advantage. I have not done this, but it should work.

If, on the other hand, you are starting with an existing financial structure, including huge disparities in revenue and budget size and payroll (could be today, but also true throughout baseball history), it's a challenge. A hard salary cap would certainly make finances "matter", but in a way that was the same for all teams (but a catastrophe for the wealthy teams with giant payroll obligations). Or, you could manually adjust all budgets to the same number for revenue, expenses, payroll. That would make finances matter less, as each team would have the same resources to spend on free agents and contract extensions. To make those budgets balance, you would have to give the "poor" teams more cash on hand.

I have done a variation on the latter, under the general theory that "a rising tide floats all boats". As IRL, it isn't that simple and has unintended consequences. The newly-rich teams don't always spend the money wisely, or at all. If the budget number is a substantial reduction for some "wealthy" teams, the AI struggles to unload players with extended contracts the team can no longer afford. I have had to act as GM for teams like the Pirates and the Rockies and the Royals, to sign free agents, extend quality players on the roster, maybe invest in scouting and better minor league coaches. It does promote parity and less reliance on money to win, but it takes time to evolve from the current system.

Sorry for the length of this, but you've hit on something I have struggled to change within the constraints of the game. [No complaint on those constraints, which after all reflect the reality of MLB during any given season. Fortunately OOTP allows for massive changes in the financial system.] Two ideas for coming at this in a different way.

First, pre-1947, you could dissolve the color bar, and make sure all MLB teams have cash to sign Negro League players (typically a modest fee paid to their Negro League team, and then a free agent deal), who will now show up as free agents. You could even set up a draft, to make sure the worst teams get the first picks. You'll find that, in any era, there are plenty of high-quality players who could change the fortunes of teams willing to spend. Actually, because MLB teams were so slow to integrate, you could use the same strategy until about 1952, signing talented black players who were ignored by MLB.

Another way to come at finances and achieve parity is expansion, with a couple of twists. First, you give the expansion teams as much money as the established teams, and allow them to draft amateurs first. Second, you limit the established teams to no more than twelve protected players (players with less than three years MLB service are exempt from the draft by default). This increases the size and quality of the expansion draft pool. It will create free agents, as teams shed veterans in favor of young (protected) players. It hurts the good teams and helps the bad teams, including the expansion teams. Money matters less, because the expansion draft acts as a kind of "cap" on talent for any one team.

[Bobfather]

Originally Posted by Pelican

Two thoughts, depending on your starting point.

If you are starting a new sim from scratch, not inheriting any existing financial structure, you could give each team the same budget numbers, same cash on hand, same revenue stream. Finances would still "matter" in that teams could not spend beyond their means, but teams would be in parity as to resources. No team would start with an advantage. I have not done this, but it should work.

If, on the other hand, you are starting with an existing financial structure, including huge disparities in revenue and budget size and payroll (could be today, but also true throughout baseball history), it's a challenge. A hard salary cap would certainly make finances "matter", but in a way that was the same for all teams (but a catastrophe for the wealthy teams with giant payroll obligations). Or, you could manually adjust all budgets to the same number for revenue, expenses, payroll. That would make finances matter less, as each team would have the same resources to spend on free agents and contract extensions. To make those budgets balance, you would have to give the "poor" teams more cash on hand.

I have done a variation on the latter, under the general theory that "a rising tide floats all boats". As IRL, it isn't that simple and has unintended consequences. The newly-rich teams don't always spend the money wisely, or at all. If the budget number is a substantial reduction for some "wealthy" teams, the AI struggles to unload players with extended contracts the team can no longer afford. I have had to act as GM for teams like the Pirates and the Rockies and the Royals, to sign free agents, extend quality players on the roster, maybe invest in scouting and better minor league coaches. It does promote parity and less reliance on money to win, but it takes time to evolve from the current system.

Sorry for the length of this, but you've hit on something I have struggled to change within the constraints of the game. [No complaint on those constraints, which after all reflect the reality of MLB during any given season. Fortunately OOTP allows for massive changes in the financial system.] Two ideas for coming at this in a different way.

First, pre-1947, you could dissolve the color bar, and make sure all MLB teams have cash to sign Negro League players (typically a modest fee paid to their Negro League team, and then a free agent deal), who will now show up as free agents. You could even set up a draft, to make sure the worst teams get the first picks. You'll find that, in any era, there are plenty of high-quality players who could change the fortunes of teams willing to spend. Actually, because MLB teams were so slow to integrate, you could use the same strategy until about 1952, signing talented black players who were ignored by MLB.

Another way to come at finances and achieve parity is expansion, with a couple of twists. First, you give the expansion teams as much money as the established teams, and allow them to draft amateurs first. Second, you limit the established teams to no more than twelve protected players (players with less than three years MLB service are exempt from the draft by default). This increases the size and quality of the expansion draft pool. It will create free agents, as teams shed veterans in favor of young (protected) players. It hurts the good teams and helps the bad teams, including the expansion teams. Money matters less, because the expansion draft acts as a kind of "cap" on talent for any one team.

Agreed, you just put it better than I did (point 2). I was also thinking of editing the owners to make them all the same. On a related tangent. When making a trade, where a team can not afford the players involved, you should get a warning, but be able to negotiate the trade. Why waste time making finances work if you don't know if the other team is interested in your offer?

[Bobfather]

Or replace free agency with a draft. Draft order based on reverse standings.
It would be similar to an NBA or NFL draft. I would need more research to see how contracts would work.