Franchise Budget Question

[Therebelyell626]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Then you get teams like the A's and Rays signing Harper and that's no good either. They need to get their game correct, but they have disappeared from the boards so they dont have to explain all the screw ups they have this year.

What do you mean? You get those results with budget on anyways lol

[Franchize34]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

I started a franchise with budgets on and had the problems at the end of the season. I didn't offer arbitration, signed some small $ free agents, and should have had 50+M in payroll space but couldn't offer Harper 30M a year. I started one with budgets off and the big guys signed with Cubs and Yankees, so didn't seem to affect it much.

[sink4ever]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Alright, here's my first stab at figuring out the budget stuff for 18. It's been a good 15 years or so since I've dabbled in regression analysis so anyone who is more up on this can feel free to correct me. This exercise is to try and understand what influences a change in budget from year to year.

First things first, how do we figure out the year's total budget? I believe the quickest thing to do is multiply net revenue by 26.6. The regular season for 2018 is roughly 26.6 weeks and as we've all seen, most of the budget numbers in 18 are done on a weekly basis. For our purposes, net revenue is the weekly revenue +/- revenue sharing and comp balance tax as appropriate.

I'm pretty confident this is accurate because I get roughly the same figures when I find the total budget using current player salaries, staff salaries, and available balance based on max offer.

So I simmed a full season and recorded the following for each team:

Beginning of Season 2018
Weekly Revenue
Total Budget

End of Season 2018
Weekly Revenue
Total Budget
Bank Amount
Winning %
Playoff Performance

Off-Season 2018-19
Total Budget

I then attempted to explain the change in budget between the beginning of 2018 and the off-season using the change in weekly revenue between the beginning and end of season, the amount in the bank at the end of the season, the team's winning % for 2018, and how the team did in the playoffs.

I did a dummy variable for the playoffs with the following values:

0 = no playoffs
1 = lost in WC
2 = lost in DS
3 = lost in CS
4 = lost in WS
5 = won WS

Like I said, my regression analysis skills are quite rusty so please chime in if I'm missing anything here.

First, here's the basic data set:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/HxQ4z06"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HxQ4z06.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

I first ran a simple linear regression for each of the four independent variables, below are the R^2 value for each:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/u1YOd3y"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/u1YOd3y.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

It appears that the best predictor of the variance in budget change is the change in revenue during the prior year. Winning % was also somewhat significant. The sample size of playoff teams was relatively small so I'd take that with a grain of salt. I was surprised by the low value for the final bank value, but I suppose it makes sense when you think about it. You can accumulate a fair amount in the bank simply by having a low payroll and being bad.

Then I did a multi-variable linear regression analysis using all four independent variables:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/ZsF4eAt"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ZsF4eAt.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Again, keep copious amounts of salt on hand, but it looks like we're explaining nearly 90% of the variance in budget changes using these variables.

Using this analysis, we come up with the following calculation to predict changes in budget from year to year:

Budget Change = .3539*Final Bank Balance + 13.4899*Winning % + .204*Playoffs + 16.9072*Revenue Change - 3.5212

The simplified explanation is that for every million dollars in the bank at the end of the season, you can expect to see around $350k added to your budget. For every additional additional % added to your winning percentage, you can expect around $135k added to your budget. For a playoff appearance and every subsequent advancement to the next round, you can expect around $200k added to your budget (although I don't have a lot of faith in this measure). And finally, for each $100k increase in weekly revenue, you can expect about $1.69 million added to your budget.

Now, this is all based on one sim so if anyone else would like to do some sims and gather data, we can start putting together a larger database to see if this all holds true.

Next up is an attempt to figure out what dictates the max offer allowed in the off-season based on # players on 90-man roster, # players on 40-man roster, # arb players, estimated arb $, # renewable players, # open coach positions, total $ available in budget, weekly cash flow, and phase of free agency.

[The 69birds]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Budget Change = .3539*Final Bank Balance + 13.4899*Winning % + .204*Playoffs + 16.9072*Revenue Change - 3.5212

Nicely done sink4ever.

What do you make of the "Team Payroll" amount that appears on the main franchise screen, which changes daily?

[Therebelyell626]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

I also noticed something weird last night. I was running a phillies franchise and wanted to sign Bryce Harper but didn't have enough money. Let's face it, the phillies are a major market team and won't have a payroll under 100 million forever. Did the purchase franchise budget option and purchased 44 million in additional budget which was enough to sign Bryce Harper and then some. Once I purchased the additional funds the 44 million was put into my bank but not my weekly cash flow, which was the same 2.32 a week as it was before the additional funds. So the money gets out into my bank but does not effect my cash flow? So essentially I can pay to add funds to my franchise but can't use that money for anything useful you know like signing players. Well hey, at least now I can stare at my robust bank account. Nice job SDS lol

[sink4ever]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Nicely done sink4ever.

What do you make of the "Team Payroll" amount that appears on the main franchise screen, which changes daily?

That's a good question. Unfortunately I have stuff going on like every night this week, but I'll try to take a look at that when I start simming again.

I also noticed something weird last night. I was running a phillies franchise and wanted to sign Bryce Harper but didn't have enough money. Let's face it, the phillies are a major market team and won't have a payroll under 100 million forever. Did the purchase franchise budget option and purchased 44 million in additional budget which was enough to sign Bryce Harper and then some. Once I purchased the additional funds the 44 million was put into my bank but not my weekly cash flow, which was the same 2.32 a week as it was before the additional funds. So the money gets out into my bank but does not effect my cash flow? So essentially I can pay to add funds to my franchise but can't use that money for anything useful you know like signing players. Well hey, at least now I can stare at my robust bank account. Nice job SDS lol

I think it's correct that adding funds doesn't affect your cash flow. Your cash flow is revenue (anticipated I think) from the normal sources - tickets, merch, etc. Adding funds to the bank won't increase cash flow, but it should increase the max offer amount and therefore impact your ability to sign free agents.

[The 69birds]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

I also noticed something weird last night. I was running a phillies franchise and wanted to sign Bryce Harper but didn't have enough money. Let's face it, the phillies are a major market team and won't have a payroll under 100 million forever. Did the purchase franchise budget option and purchased 44 million in additional budget which was enough to sign Bryce Harper and then some. Once I purchased the additional funds the 44 million was put into my bank but not my weekly cash flow, which was the same 2.32 a week as it was before the additional funds. So the money gets out into my bank but does not effect my cash flow? So essentially I can pay to add funds to my franchise but can't use that money for anything useful you know like signing players. Well hey, at least now I can stare at my robust bank account. Nice job SDS lol

You can use the money in your bank to sign free agents. As money is moved into your bank you should notice you MAX OFFER increase. You can sign players up to your MAX OFFER amount.

[UTAllTheWay]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Spoiler

Alright, here's my first stab at figuring out the budget stuff for 18. It's been a good 15 years or so since I've dabbled in regression analysis so anyone who is more up on this can feel free to correct me. This exercise is to try and understand what influences a change in budget from year to year.

First things first, how do we figure out the year's total budget? I believe the quickest thing to do is multiply net revenue by 26.6. The regular season for 2018 is roughly 26.6 weeks and as we've all seen, most of the budget numbers in 18 are done on a weekly basis. For our purposes, net revenue is the weekly revenue +/- revenue sharing and comp balance tax as appropriate.

I'm pretty confident this is accurate because I get roughly the same figures when I find the total budget using current player salaries, staff salaries, and available balance based on max offer.

So I simmed a full season and recorded the following for each team:

Beginning of Season 2018
Weekly Revenue
Total Budget

End of Season 2018
Weekly Revenue
Total Budget
Bank Amount
Winning %
Playoff Performance

Off-Season 2018-19
Total Budget

I then attempted to explain the change in budget between the beginning of 2018 and the off-season using the change in weekly revenue between the beginning and end of season, the amount in the bank at the end of the season, the team's winning % for 2018, and how the team did in the playoffs.

I did a dummy variable for the playoffs with the following values:

0 = no playoffs
1 = lost in WC
2 = lost in DS
3 = lost in CS
4 = lost in WS
5 = won WS

Like I said, my regression analysis skills are quite rusty so please chime in if I'm missing anything here.

First, here's the basic data set:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/HxQ4z06"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HxQ4z06.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

I first ran a simple linear regression for each of the four independent variables, below are the R^2 value for each:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/u1YOd3y"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/u1YOd3y.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

It appears that the best predictor of the variance in budget change is the change in revenue during the prior year. Winning % was also somewhat significant. The sample size of playoff teams was relatively small so I'd take that with a grain of salt. I was surprised by the low value for the final bank value, but I suppose it makes sense when you think about it. You can accumulate a fair amount in the bank simply by having a low payroll and being bad.

Then I did a multi-variable linear regression analysis using all four independent variables:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/ZsF4eAt"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ZsF4eAt.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Again, keep copious amounts of salt on hand, but it looks like we're explaining nearly 90% of the variance in budget changes using these variables.

Using this analysis, we come up with the following calculation to predict changes in budget from year to year:

Budget Change = .3539*Final Bank Balance + 13.4899*Winning % + .204*Playoffs + 16.9072*Revenue Change - 3.5212

The simplified explanation is that for every million dollars in the bank at the end of the season, you can expect to see around $350k added to your budget. For every additional additional % added to your winning percentage, you can expect around $135k added to your budget. For a playoff appearance and every subsequent advancement to the next round, you can expect around $200k added to your budget (although I don't have a lot of faith in this measure). And finally, for each $100k increase in weekly revenue, you can expect about $1.69 million added to your budget.

Now, this is all based on one sim so if anyone else would like to do some sims and gather data, we can start putting together a larger database to see if this all holds true.

Next up is an attempt to figure out what dictates the max offer allowed in the off-season based on # players on 90-man roster, # players on 40-man roster, # arb players, estimated arb $, # renewable players, # open coach positions, total $ available in budget, weekly cash flow, and phase of free agency.

This is outstanding work! Big time props to you my man.

[coach422001]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

You can use the money in your bank to sign free agents. As money is moved into your bank you should notice you MAX OFFER increase. You can sign players up to your MAX OFFER amount.

And based on the equation that was shown (nice effort by the way!) a portion of that bank then goes into the next year's available funds, no? So if 35% of the bank balance is part of the equation for budget change the more final bank balance (be it swept in from gate receipts weekly or through purchase) the bigger the change to the top line for next year I would assume. Key thing to remember is after the season it resets to 5 million but if that portion of a high bank balance at the end is included in the new budget it should allow for additional signings.

[Therebelyell626]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

You can use the money in your bank to sign free agents. As money is moved into your bank you should notice you MAX OFFER increase. You can sign players up to your MAX OFFER amount.

Oh okay. Thanks for dropping that knowledge.

[tessl]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Alright, here's my first stab at figuring out the budget stuff for 18. It's been a good 15 years or so since I've dabbled in regression analysis so anyone who is more up on this can feel free to correct me. This exercise is to try and understand what influences a change in budget from year to year.

First things first, how do we figure out the year's total budget? I believe the quickest thing to do is multiply net revenue by 26.6. The regular season for 2018 is roughly 26.6 weeks and as we've all seen, most of the budget numbers in 18 are done on a weekly basis. For our purposes, net revenue is the weekly revenue +/- revenue sharing and comp balance tax as appropriate.

I'm pretty confident this is accurate because I get roughly the same figures when I find the total budget using current player salaries, staff salaries, and available balance based on max offer.

So I simmed a full season and recorded the following for each team:

Beginning of Season 2018
Weekly Revenue
Total Budget

End of Season 2018
Weekly Revenue
Total Budget
Bank Amount
Winning %
Playoff Performance

Off-Season 2018-19
Total Budget

I then attempted to explain the change in budget between the beginning of 2018 and the off-season using the change in weekly revenue between the beginning and end of season, the amount in the bank at the end of the season, the team's winning % for 2018, and how the team did in the playoffs.

I did a dummy variable for the playoffs with the following values:

0 = no playoffs
1 = lost in WC
2 = lost in DS
3 = lost in CS
4 = lost in WS
5 = won WS

Like I said, my regression analysis skills are quite rusty so please chime in if I'm missing anything here.

First, here's the basic data set:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/HxQ4z06"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HxQ4z06.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

I first ran a simple linear regression for each of the four independent variables, below are the R^2 value for each:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/u1YOd3y"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/u1YOd3y.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

It appears that the best predictor of the variance in budget change is the change in revenue during the prior year. Winning % was also somewhat significant. The sample size of playoff teams was relatively small so I'd take that with a grain of salt. I was surprised by the low value for the final bank value, but I suppose it makes sense when you think about it. You can accumulate a fair amount in the bank simply by having a low payroll and being bad.

Then I did a multi-variable linear regression analysis using all four independent variables:

Spoiler

<a href="https://imgur.com/ZsF4eAt"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ZsF4eAt.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Again, keep copious amounts of salt on hand, but it looks like we're explaining nearly 90% of the variance in budget changes using these variables.

Using this analysis, we come up with the following calculation to predict changes in budget from year to year:

Budget Change = .3539*Final Bank Balance + 13.4899*Winning % + .204*Playoffs + 16.9072*Revenue Change - 3.5212

The simplified explanation is that for every million dollars in the bank at the end of the season, you can expect to see around $350k added to your budget. For every additional additional % added to your winning percentage, you can expect around $135k added to your budget. For a playoff appearance and every subsequent advancement to the next round, you can expect around $200k added to your budget (although I don't have a lot of faith in this measure). And finally, for each $100k increase in weekly revenue, you can expect about $1.69 million added to your budget.

Now, this is all based on one sim so if anyone else would like to do some sims and gather data, we can start putting together a larger database to see if this all holds true.

Next up is an attempt to figure out what dictates the max offer allowed in the off-season based on # players on 90-man roster, # players on 40-man roster, # arb players, estimated arb $, # renewable players, # open coach positions, total $ available in budget, weekly cash flow, and phase of free agency.

What factors impact weekly revenue?

[sink4ever]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

What factors impact weekly revenue?

I believe it changes based on team success. More specifically (and this is just a hunch), I think it's team success versus expected (or prior) success. For instance, the Giants have one of the largest revenue increases during the year despite being a .500 team. However, they're coming off a horrible 2017 so even .500 is probably a step in the right direction.

It would be interesting to track it over several years.

[Kalkano]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

You know, I really thought this was the sort of thing they were trying to clear up with "Phases", but it doesn't seem any better than previous years. I think I may just throw in the towel, and turn off budgets. Sure, it won't be realistic, and may be too easy, but maybe I can just restrict myself with my own rules.

At least then, and most importantly, I may be able to have some fun with it.

[Unlucky 13]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Thanks for the hard work guys. I have not yet played or simmed a whole season in 2018, so I'm eager to eventually see it for myself.

Over the years, the amount added to the budget at the end of the season has seemed to have gotten smaller and smaller. A few years ago, a good season would often net an increase of 5-7% many years. In 2016, even winning the WS would only lead to an increase of 1-2%.

[sink4ever]

Re: Franchise Budget Question

Alright, I hesitate to put this up because I haven't gathered much data yet, but hopefully it will at least give us a start. I've tried tracking the amount of money the game forces you to keep in reserve based on a number of factors. The variables that seem to matter right now are: Open 90-man spots, Open 40-man spots, # players arb eligible, # players renewable, and weekly cash flow.

The following analysis is based off only 11 data points so small sample and all that.

Spoiler

Some questionable p-values but we're looking at ~$1m for each open 90-man spot, ~$2m for each renewable player, ~$3.5m for each open 40-man spot, and ~$3m for each arb eligible player. Each additional $1m in weekly cash flow opens up about $16m to be spent on free agents.

I do believe the phase also matters. The analysis seems much more accurate when I restrict it to only Phase 2. In Phase 1 (exclusive FA), you can pretty much blow your whole budget. Again, though, not enough data yet to say definitively.

If anyone else is going through the off-season at all, please feel free to chime in with your numbers and I'll add them to the data set. I'll do some more simming of my own, hopefully this week.