[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Player salaries follow their own logic, and the game handles that by tying salary offers to the amount of cash available. Rich teams will offer more, and that sets the market price for players, regardless of inflation.

In real life, in free agency, salaries follow revenue. More money available equals higher salaries. The connection between the two is clear.

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

Furthermore, salaries aren't the only things that inflation will affect. There's also ticket prices, media deals, and merchandising.

A.k.a. revenue, which has risen since the mid-1970s at a rate far in excess of the consumer price index.

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

And while those ancillary aspects of baseball have also risen dramatically in the free-agent era, I don't think they've risen quite so much as player salaries have.

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

The inflation feature, as I see it, is primarily useful for the gamer who, for whatever reason, doesn't want to use the historical factors in the game, perhaps because the game has progressed past the current season or the gamer wants to play in a fictional universe or the gamer just doesn't like OOTP's financial numbers.

As I see it, ideally, the user ought to have two basic options for the finances in their universe: (1) steady state; and (2) inflationary.

#1 means that, for the history of the league, total league revenue stays flat. And since salaries follow revenue, that means total payrolls stay flat. That gives those who want to play within a specific financial era can have that era for the life of their league. Like the 1950s level of salaries? You can have that permanently. Prefer the 1980s salary regime? Then go with that. And each season will show consistent financial results at the league level. (Individual clubs will naturally vary.)

#2 means that the universe would use the inflationary curve exhibited by real-life baseball. In practice, this means a very long period of slow growth until eventually it begins to show accelerating growth. The user could choose any point along that curve to start their league. Start with 1901, and you get about 70 or so seasons of slow growth, with growth rapidly picking up after that. Or you could start with 1876, and have a century of slow growth. Or start with 1970, and you have salaries and revenue just beginning a period of rapid increase.

Note that the amount of the salaries and revenue is not directly connected to the inflationary curve. You could, for example, start the league in 1920 using 1980s-level revenue and salaries with the inflation curve start set to 1965. Under such a system the user could select whatever start year they want, with the starting salary and revenue environment they find most comfortable, and the longer-term rate of growth set to whatever degree of expansion they'd like to try out.

Of course, OOTP's current financial model is nowhere near capable of customization like this. But I think it is possible, and would offer plenty of options for users.