Player Contracts and Salaries
 

I'm confused how player contracts work. I've been playing this game on and off for a while, and mostly just this one historical league I set up starting in 1871. My problem is that the players in my system seem to get automatically re-signed for another year for a salary that the game seems to predetermine. For example say one of my players has a contract set to expire in 1880, when that season ends I would expect them to be a free agent if I don't re-sign them but when I check their page they will have a one year contract with my team now set to expire in 1881 for a dollar amount that I never had any say in. My team has a lot of dead weight that I would like to go to free agency but I don't necessarily want to take the 15% hit from releasing them. My front office staff will negotiate contracts with me and if I don't want to extend them they will no longer be on my payroll when their contract is up. I would expect this to be the same of my players, but it's not. I've looked around in all the settings but can't find a way to change this. Or maybe I have a fundamental misunderstanding of how baseball contracts work and this is how it's supposed to be, I don't know. I would appreciate some help.

You have Reverse Clause on. I forgot how the game determines what they will make each year. You can set to only guarantee top players so you can release dead weight.i don;t have an active pre 1900 leagues that uses reserve clause to show ya what i mean.

Okay thanks. I didn't know that rule existed, I guess I did misunderstand how contracts work. The AI is overpaying some of the players that I don't even want on my roster but I suspect I could use the negotiate extension page towards the end of the season and low ball their contracts to make them mad and want to leave the organization instead of releasing them and taking the 15 percent hint. Not sure if it works that way but will probably try unless told otherwise. Thanks again.