Budgets in franchise

[D13]

There are a couple of threads on this from previous games but since then the franchise mode has taken an overhaul since the PS3 days and I haven't seen a thread on this.

What are the pros and cons of playing with the budget BOTH on and off?

How do you guys handle contracts in the offseason?

Which has been most successful for you in THIS years game? On or off?

EMBRACE DEBATE!

[jb12780]

I haven't played with them off before, but I heard there can be contract issues on the offseason.
I'll find out soon enough.

For next year I would like to see them implement luxury tax in to the game, so it would make things interesting. Sure you could buy a very good team, but you would end up paying for it.


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[redsox4evur]

It ultimately depends on the contracts you are using. If you are using SCEA's contracts budgets on shouldn't be an issue. But if you are using as close to real world contracts then you NEED budgets off because of the way contracts are handled according to the coding in the game. Also don't listen to others about how it's not fair to use no budgets. That's horse****...to put it bruntly you can sign whatever players you want, but that doesn't mean you have to go and sign the top 5 players in FA. YOU have to put constraints on yourself that's all. Do something like if you make the playoffs and lose in the WC game you can only sign 1 FA rated between 80 and 85. But if you win the WS you can sign 2 FA's between 90-99.

[Jr.]

I have budgets off, but I control Free Agency for all teams in the league because they do really stupid things on their own. So I go through and check out roster needs, then put up bids on players that fit the teams. I give the same $ bid if there are multiple players on each team and see who the player takes. Having the budgets off makes it so much easier as I don't have to worry about teams having enough money to fill the 40 man roster and adding guys on there to open up the budget.

I love that they made it so the team with the interest bar highest doesn't always get the player. Adds a lot of drama to seeing where the player decides to go.

[D13]

Another question, where do you guys base your accurate salaries off of? Do you base it off of what other teams are offering in game? Or do you guys have a website that projects what a player will get offered?


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[redsox4evur]

Quote: Originally Posted by D13

Another question, where do you guys base your accurate salaries off of? Do you base it off of what other teams are offering in game? Or do you guys have a website that projects what a player will get offered? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would honestly look at what guys have gotten on the market previously and compare the stats of the guy going to FA and the stats of the guy that got paid in FA. It would be very easy to do if we had more advanced stats such as WAR. Because staticians have found out what each 1 WAR is worth. Right now it is like 6 or 7 million.

[Dynasty Legend 99]

Quote: Originally Posted by redsox4evur

It ultimately depends on the contracts you are using. If you are using SCEA's contracts budgets on shouldn't be an issue. But if you are using as close to real world contracts then you NEED budgets off because of the way contracts are handled according to the coding in the game. Also don't listen to others about how it's not fair to use no budgets. That's horse****...to put it bruntly you can sign whatever players you want, but that doesn't mean you have to go and sign the top 5 players in FA. YOU have to put constraints on yourself that's all. Do something like if you make the playoffs and lose in the WC game you can only sign 1 FA rated between 80 and 85. But if you win the WS you can sign 2 FA's between 90-99.

Why exactly do you NEED Budgets Off if your doing IRL Contracts? Is there a certain element that is thrown off more than others, because in my experience with it.. The CPU-CPU Trading is much better with IRL Contracts due completely to Budgets. The only thing i do notice is that there are several teams that will go down in Budget the next year (Im currently in June of 2015).

[bigd51]

Quote: Originally Posted by redsox4evur

It ultimately depends on the contracts you are using. If you are using SCEA's contracts budgets on shouldn't be an issue. But if you are using as close to real world contracts then you NEED budgets off because of the way contracts are handled according to the coding in the game. Also don't listen to others about how it's not fair to use no budgets. That's horse****...to put it bruntly you can sign whatever players you want, but that doesn't mean you have to go and sign the top 5 players in FA. YOU have to put constraints on yourself that's all. Do something like if you make the playoffs and lose in the WC game you can only sign 1 FA rated between 80 and 85. But if you win the WS you can sign 2 FA's between 90-99.

I turned budgets off for one of my Franchise and still found myself making transactions as if the budgets were still on.

I always play with the budgets on, but I've seen some issues when it comes to CPU controlled teams. I see a lot of them operating deep in the red each season while still being able to sign players and such. It makes it almost impossible to trade with any of them because the contracts have to match (or if the player received has a cheaper contract than the player given) for the trade to even be possible.

The way I handle the offseason goes like this:

1. Very first day off the offseason, I offer contracts to any coaching spots I need to fill. I pick 2 or 3 guys I like and offer them contracts for the same spot, that way if one takes another job, 2 more will still be options. After offering coach contracts, I make offers to any Qualified FA's I have. I wait until the last day to tender a Qualifying offer to any players I need to.

2. Once the qualified period is over, I go ahead and set up my 40-man first, then I tender contracts only towards arbitration-ready players. For 40-man selection, I only choose A and B potential players to be added. Any player rated C or lower potential, I leave them off to maintain room for younger stars if need be. I also don't overstack one position with 40-man players. If I end up with a position stacked, I'll either take some off my 40-man or move them to a different, less crowded position. As another rule, my age limit for 40-man is 25. If a player is eligible for the Rule 5 draft and is still in the farm system by the time he's 25 and isn't already on the 40-man, I leave them off. (Fyi, I never sign any high profile FA's and rarely sign any one at all, outside of unsigned rookies and others signed to fill my Farm system needs.) Then, I wait until the deadline to offer arbitration. If I don't feel like a player is worth the arbitration money, I let them walk.

3. After the arbitration deadline, I now focus on the rest of my unsigned players (contract renewable players and non-40 man players) by offering all of them contracts. For contract renewable players who are eligible to receive multi-year deals, I go ahead and sign them for the remainder of their renewable years before they're arbitration ready. Pro-tip in case you haven't figured it out; most players for renewal will ask anywhere from 1-2 mil a year starting out, but since their contracts can be renewed anyway for way cheaper, you can actually lock these guys up for the remainder of their renewable years at around 200k/year for 2 or 3 years.
I hardly ever offer these players more than that, unless they have just one renewable year left and I want to lock them up for years ahead before they reach arbitration status. Any other time, I keep the players at cheap contracts until they reach arbitration. Then, if I like the player, I try to sign him for as long into his Free Agency years as I can. If you haven't noticed, it's a lot cheaper to lock a player up long term during arbitration instead of waiting until he's a Qualified FA before offering a big contract.

4. After I have tendered a contract to all the players I want to keep on my roster, I sim to the Rule 5 (which I also hardly EVER have to use) where I enter the draft manually, but choose to skip selection instead of straight simming, out of fear the CPU will pick a player for me that I didn't want. (Pro-tip: if you check the player cards of the players already drafted by the other teams, you will see them in their previous team uni's. This could help you to keep up with who got drafted from your team so you'll know exactly who you lost.) Seeing as each player you pick must stay on your main roster for the whole season, I found it's not really worth choosing anyone at all considering the players are usually in their late 20's with low ratings and bad potentials. I can get better players through trades after Spring Training.

5. After the Rule 5, I check out my roster management to see how many players I have at each position and sign however many FA's I need to at positions without much depth. Usually, like stated above, these are really young players. I don't sign any FA's over 27 unless I absolutely don't have a choice. Most of them just aren't worth the money unless you can sign them to a minor league contract for depth. Once I've signed all the FA's I need to sign to fill my 90-man, I quick sim to the deadline for renewing player contracts, renew all the ones who are left that haven't signed and viola. Another successful offseason in the books.

If you get the hang of how the offseason works, it'll become second nature to the point you won't even have to refer to the handbook anymore. And as always, if anyone's worried about making mistakes, just do as started doing and SAVE your Franchise before and after each period of the offseason. That way, if you accidentally forget to offer arbitration to someone and they reach FA, you can just boot the save back up. Just turn off auto-save first though, to be even safer.

Seriously, though, if anyone can give me tips on how NOT to be as successful in Franchise, that would be great. I'm a Braves guy, and every time I start a new Braves 'chise, I'm always winning the Series by year 3. I'm not saying the offseason is absolutely too easy... just saying that it's gotten too easy for me personally.