Quote:
Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn
The budgets are not supposed to be consistent with MLB budgets, because nobody knows what the true MLB budgets are. The financial system in OOTP and MLBM are simplified versions if the real thing, the #1 priority is balance. The game calculates the initial budgets and market size based on current payroll, and it is working as intended.
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While I get that, it makes the game really unrealistic. For example, take the Reds and Johnny Cueto. He's going to be demanding a contract of 200M+ this winter, likely around 20M per year, and he'll get it. However, it won't be from the Reds, because we've got no money. However, in the game, we have 33M to work with for extensions, meaning we could give him an extension and still have enough left over for another big extension or a decent free agent signing. This seems extremely unrealistic simply because it won't happen. We're maxed out in terms of how much we can spend, highlighted by the offloading of Mat Latos and Alfredo Simon, and the extensions granted to Frazier and Mesoraco in order to cement the amount of guaranteed money that is in the club. The Reds certainly don't have 33M to grant in contract extensions, or else they would have resigned Cueto and Leake and would have been more active this offseason in pursuing free agents.
Also, the Reds certainly don't have a 146M payroll. As I said, last season they set an all-time franchise record with a payroll of 115M. This season, as far as we know, it's less with the offloading of Latos and co. I personally would call a budget of 120M fair, if even generous.
I think a main contributer to why this is such a big issue is that the budgets weren't like this last season. They were similar, but I don't think they were as generous. For example, last season the Astros and Marlins had budgets of 60M, the lowest in the game. This season, not a single team has a budget under 100M. I find it shocking that the Marlins somehow found 70M somewhere to increase their budget to 130M, an increase of more than double. Their budget should definitely be much higher than it was last season, but not that much. It just seems like you were much stricter in the last version, which made the game more challenging and, for me, fun.
Nobody knows the true MLB budgets, but it wouldn't be hard to guestimate them. At the very least, it would be great if, like player ratings, we had the ability of adjusting the budgets in-game.