Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Intro

I've typed this all out a few times, so I figured maybe like my directional hitting guide ( https://forums.operationsports.com/f...ing-guide.html shameless self plug), I should just have one spot that people can reference and I can link to.

Learning contracts and rosters in Baseball is an intimidating task. The goal of this guide is to help you learn the ropes while avoiding any pitfalls in MLB the Show. I will try my best to present these systems for how they work in game, not real life.

Contracts

When signing a player to a contract extension, there are three types of players: Renewable, Arbitration, and Free Agent.

Renewable, Arbitration and Free agency refer to the contract eligibility of your players.

For the first 3 years of a player's service in the majors, their contracts are known as renewable, unless they fall under the super 2 rule, which is a long and complicated rule that states that exceptional players (as judged by certain stats and league averages) are only required to serve 2 renewable contract years. What this means is that during those 3 (or 2) years the team and the player can still agree on a contract the same as any other player (including multi-year contracts), but the player cannot enter free agency and the team has the right to unilaterally renew the contract for as low as 80% of the previous year (this is done in the weeks before spring training and cannot be done at any other time).

Unless the player is an absolute blue chip stud and you want to pay a little bit more now to save some money later, it's best to just sign renewable players to one year contracts until the last year of renewability at least. Players demands will be reasonable because they know you can just unilaterally renew the contract if they are greedy. A team must offer a contract to the renewable player by a certain date in the offseason, but the amount can be anything the team wants (though it's recommended you offer at least 80% of the previous year's contract). As long as the team makes this offer, the two parties have until near the end of the offseason to negotiate a contract. If a contract is not settled on, the team can choose to unilaterally renew the player or allow them to enter free agency. This option will appear in the contract negotiations screen not long after arbitrations are settled.

If no contract is offered, the player will enter free agency after a specific date, which will be one of the stars marked on your calendar. When you click on a date with a star on it, one of the options will be "View significance of date". This applies to all other dates mentioned as well.

After the renewable years are over, a player has to go through arbitration until they have 6 years of service time. Again, you can offer a regular contract during any signing phase (including multi-year contracts) but if no contract is agreed upon before free agency opens up to players not offered arbitration (happens in November I believe) then the team must tender an arbitration offer in the form of a one year contract. The amount can be anything the team wants. The player then counters with what they perceive their value to be in the form of another one year contract. The two parties can continue to negotiate just like any other player on a contract (still including multi-year deals) and the player will not hit free agency. An arbitration date is set for the two parties in the early parts of the next year. If no contract is agreed upon, then the two arbitration values are brought before a third party arbiter, who then selects which of the two values are more appropriate for the player in question.

The team then only has two choices: pay the arbitration value set by the arbiter in the form of a one year contract, or let the player become a free agent. This is true even if the arbiter sides with the team in the arbitration.

Free agents can be tenured during the 5 days of exclusive negotiations before free agency opens up if they spent the entire season on your team (so a trade deadline rental cannot be tenured an offer). Tenured offers are in the form of a 1 year contract and are set by the league and are quite high, so you only want to use this on your superstars. If the players accepts the offer, it's a contract, but if they reject it and sign with another team, you'll get a draft pick in one of the compensation rounds in the next draft.

You can sign any player out of free agency, including ones you let go instead of renewing, didn't offer arbitration, or stars who didn't sign with you before the 5 days were up and rejected your tenured offer.

Contract eligibility is based on service time in the majors alone. Multi-year deals will use up renewable and arbitration years. Time in the minors does not count against service time, even if the player in question had previously served in the majors.

Rosters

There are three levels on the roster. You have your full roster, your 40 man roster, and your 26 man roster.

Your 26 man roster represents the players who you can actually put in the field. Each of MLB, AAA, and AA have a 26 man roster, and players on the MLB 26 man roster will accrue service time, regardless of if they actually play or not. The 10 day disabled list will remove of player from counting towards the 26 man roster, but they will still accrue service time if they were on the MLB roster at the time of the injury.

Your 40 man roster consists of all the players who can potentially play at the MLB level. If you want to call a prospect up to the majors, they must be added to the 40 man roster. When a player gets added to the 40 man roster, a team can then choose to spend up to three options on the player (VERY IMPORTANT: Options have nothing to do with optional waivers, which you will receive messages about them resetting throughout the season. Options do not reset at any point in a season.) Options are exclusive to each player, and the number spent stays with them even if they are traded or released to free agency.

What an option does is allow a team to send down a player to the minors without having to send them through waivers, keeping the player totally protected from other teams. If a player is not sent down all season, no option is spent. Once an option is spent, the player in question can be brought up and sent down for the rest of the season without ever spending another option. To reiterate: 1 option = 1 year of being able to send a player down to the minors without exposure.

Any player on the 40 man who is in the minors is using up an option, with the exception of players added to the 40 man after spring training has started but have yet to be called up to the majors. Only players on the 40 man can go to spring training, qualify to be on the playoff roster, or be called up during September roster expansions.

The 60-day disabled list removes a player from the 40 man roster and does not cost an option, but they will still accrue service time or, if they were in the minors, you already spent the option anyways (unless they were added to the 40 man roster after the beginning of spring training and never were called up).

The overall roster can have a maximum of 90 players. No team can go over this number (not even close to true in real life by the way). Players in the minors not on the 40 man roster do not spend their options, but if they spend enough time in the minors without being added to the 40 man, they become rule 5 eligible. You can check their rule 5 eligibility status on their player card.

Rule 5 is a draft that happens in November. All teams get a chance to draft from other teams rule 5 eligible players. If a team drafts a player, they must keep said player on their MLB roster for a full year. If they try to send the player down to the minors, the MLB team who originally owned the player can take them back into their minor league system. If the MLB team keeps the rule 5 player on their team the whole year, the player becomes a standard 40 man player for the team that drafted them from that point on. Rule 5 players can be traded, but again they must stay in the majors or else they revert back to their original team.

Drafted rule 5 players will be clearly marked in the trade screen so you won't accidentally trade for one without knowing what you're getting.

Players on the 40 man roster cannot be drafted in the rule 5 draft regardless of how many years of minor league service they have.

If a team chooses not to draft a player in a round of the rule 5 draft, they cannot participate in any later rounds of the rule 5 draft that season.

Players removed from the 40 man roster must go through waivers.

Disabled Lists

The name of each disabled list indicates the minimum number of days a player must be on it. There is no maximum number of days. Once the minimum number of days has been served, the player can leave the list at any time or stay on it with all the benefits without having to serve any more minimum amount of days.

For example, a player could need 11 days to recover from their injury. Putting them on the 10 day disabled list means they can be available after those 11 days, and that single day after the minimum time served of the list is met still gets all the benefits (they won't count towards the 26 man roster). Another player could only need 9 days, but if you don't want them to count towards the 26 man roster, they must spend an extra day on the list (and therefor ineligible to play).

A player can be moved from the 10 or 15 day to the 60 day at any time, and any time served already on the 10 or 15 day will count towards the 60 day minimum. There is no reason to use the 60 day disabled list unless you need the spot on the 40 man roster.

Players will be added back onto their respective rosters (26 man and/or 40 man) once they are both healthy and have served their minimum days required. They will be added regardless of whether you want them to or not.

Players on the disabled lists cannot be moved in the rosters or traded.

Position players are allowed to go to the 10 day, while pitchers need to go on the 15 day. There is no difference between the 10 day and the 15 day other than the minimum required days.

Releasing players

Players can be outright released at any time. When a player is outright released, they are removed from the roster and enter waivers. If another team claims them, then they take on the player's contract. If a player is not claimed on waivers, then the team that released them must pay out a minorly reduced amount of the players contract. The player then becomes a free agent, and can be signed by any team, including the one that just released them.

Service Time

Players earn service time for every day they are on the major league roster or major league disabled lists. This includes days when the team has no games or when the player spends time on the bench.

A player's service time is represented by a number followed by a decimal point and then another set of numbers, however these are not decimals. The second set of numbers represents days served towards a full season. A season is considered 172 days, even though there are more days in a season. When a player reaches 172 days in a single season, they do not gain any more service time. It is possible for a player to accrue a full season of service time even if they did not spend the entire season in the majors. Any spare days from an unfulfilled season stay with the player into the next season and all future seasons.

To reiterate: The numbers after the decimal point are not decimals. They are counting up to 171 to represent the progress to the 172 days needed to gain a year of service time. A player can only gain a maximum of 172 days of service time in a single season, regardless of how many days there actually are or any previous season's spare days of service time.

Outro

It's a lot I know, so ask below if you have any questions. Also, let me know if I missed anything or got anything wrong.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

How does your Bank Balance affect this?

I’ve noticed that you can use stubs to increase the balance, and it seems to be used to dictate whether or not you can trade for players. I’ve seen elsewhere though that it resets to $5m each year and people say it doesn’t really do anything.

Also, baseball doesn’t have a salary cap?

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

no cap, but there is a luxury tax aka competitive balance tax

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

To add on to what Caulfield said, the amount of money you have in the offseason is impacted by the amount of money you save up during a season.

There are people who have studied the system far more than me, but this is my understanding of it.

A team's spending budget during the offseason is based on a combination of performance, market, money saved from the current season, and money saved from past seasons. When the offseason ends and spring training begins, an in season budget is set based on current salary commitments, market and predicted profits (which I assume are related to last year's performance). All of the excess money is skimmed for future offseasons and "profit" (meaning it disappears) except for a 5 million grace which is put in the bank. Money will be added or taken away from the bank based on how well you stay on budget.

The simplest way to put it is: If you want a lot of cash to spend in the offseasons, save as much money in the bank as possible while also winning games.

To clarify the luxury tax: It's a soft cap, meaning that every dollar you spend over the soft cap will cost you two dollars.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

OP updated with error corrections. Corrections are written and highlighted below.

Any player on the 40 man who is in the minors is using up an option, with the exception of players added to the 40 man after spring training has started but have yet to be called up to the majors.

The 60-day disabled list removes a player from the 40 man roster and does not cost an option, but they will still accrue service time or, if they were in the minors, you already spent the option anyways (unless they were added to the 40 man roster after the beginning of spring training and never were called up).

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Thanks for this. Really appreciate you doing this.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

My pleasure. I really appreciate the support :D.

Can't say it was entirely selfless though. Just seemed easier than typing it all out multiple times.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Makes sense, thanks a lot! Your replies have been incredibly useful during my first few days with The Show.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

To TheWarmWind:

Thank you for putting this together for all of us here at OS. This is another reason I love this site and this MLB The Show community, helping each other out to make the game more enjoyable!

Well done my friend!

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Important edit:

Incorrect information was changed regarding renewable players.

Original line:

Only after a team chooses not to renew a player can they be on that year's free agency list.

Changed to:

A team must offer a contract to the renewable player by a certain date in the offseason, but the amount can be anything the team wants. As long as the team makes this offer, the two parties have until near the end of the offseason to negotiate a contract. If a contract is not settled on, the team can choose to unilaterally renew the player or allow them to enter free agency. This option will appear in the contract negotiations screen not long after arbitrations are settled.

If no contract is offered, the player will enter free agency after a specific date, which will be one of the stars marked on your calendar. When you click on a date with a star on it, one of the options will be "View significance of date". This applies to all other dates mentioned as well.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

One little addition to this as well.

Clubs cannot reduce players' salaries by more than 20 percent of what they earned in the previous MLB season -- including a player's base salary and additional payments such as performance bonuses, signing bonuses and deferred compensation -- or 30 percent of what they earned two seasons prior, per the Maximum Salary Reduction clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The BOLDED only applies to The Show I believe, I just took the whole paragraph from the CBA. The rest is obviously not in the game as there are no bonuses or deferred compensation.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

I think it's 25% in game, but I do mention this in the guide already. I'll check the percentage.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Sorry I missed it. Was not trying to step on your toes. Just saw this last post and wanted to be helpful.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

I assume this only applies to teams renewing players and that teams can offer contracts of any value to players who hit free agency?

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

No worries, and thanks for helping out! Really do appreciate it. I'd rather get this stuff right than protect my ego.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Some more additions and edits, mainly dealing with service time.

The game is kind of vague about this. Just assume it's true that you need to offer at least 80% for safety's sake.

@Bullit you were right it's %80, not %75. Corrected.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

I don't know for surebut I always assumed it was guys who still had some of their 6 (or 7) years under team control left before free agency and it was letting you know you can't reduce their contract by more than 20%, even if you tried. dunno, not positive, never tried, just took it for it's word at face value :shrug:

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

To maximize resources available, you've also got to be smart about when to offer contracts to current roster players. I recall a thread or vid a few years back, but i don't remember who authored it. In any case, i jotted down the key points and its done me well.

Exclusive negotiation/Qualifying offers: be smart with QO's. If you're looking for comp picks, the player better be top 10-ish, or it might be better to offer a normal contract if you're content to keep the player, but unsure about tying up 20 mil in 1 player.

When EN is over, I'll typically cut any prospect I don't want to re-sign. Typically these are players that I replaced through the draft. I'll start re-upping my A/B potentials here as well. I'll flesh out 40 man as much as I can within the 1st week. We know that the more players currently on the 40, the more $ you can offer. If needed I put lower OVR/older players on that I don't mind sacrificing, if i need to DFA someone

Wait til Arb deadline to offer Arb. Again, it's keeping $ free as long as possible.

If you've cut unwanted players early, like mentioned above, you can quickly resign the rest of your guys come Dec. 2nd without re-upping someone you didn't want to keep. i recommend offering these players lowest possible offer, so they're not lost to FA. Most of these players are on renewables anyway.

When signing players i want on my 40 man, I'll generally give them 500k minimum. If he's under 25, i may drop that to 100k - 250k just to ease my budget a bit. My theory is if you might be in the bigs, i'm going to pay you like it. When re-signing prospects, I try not to keep anyone who wants 6 figures unless I drafted said player. Typically those players are older and taking away playing time from younger kids anyway.

After the rule 5 draft, fully flesh out your 40 man. When thats done, look through the FA's. Sign kids that look decent, hopefully with good potential to flesh out your minors rosters. If you don't have 40 on your 40 man, any new signing will get put on the 40 automatically.

Remember to renew after Arb hearings.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

How do real contracts work in this game?

Players have their real contracts (ex. Manny Machado- $30M per year) However, when star players enter Free Agency they ask for a considerable amount less (superstar players in the $10-$15M range)

How does the game account for this huge disparity between their real contracts, and the free agency signings in future years?

Thanks!

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

w/o a crystal ball we don't know if there is a discrepancy. if Baltimore's Chris Davis were a free agent 2-3 years ago, would he he still ask for the moon? or would he rather just accept a piece of the pie?

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

This post has gone some to answering my question but I’m still after some additional advice/clarification.

What’s the most cost-effective way to extend players?

I understand a little more about arbitration now. Should I pretty much always be waiting and offering arbitration if guys still have years left? Or are there drawbacks to arbitration? For example, in basketball, players can be offered a qualifying offer which is generally very low. This is extremely cost effective, but the player becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the following season, so it’s a terrible option if you want to keep the player long term. Is there anything like this with arbitration?

I have Luis Castillo as one of my starting pitchers but he’s not under contract next season. His salary is about $600,000 and he has three years of arbitration beginning next year. How should I go about retaining him? Should I just offer him a multi-year deal straight up? Should I go to arbitration? Can I go to arbitration again the following year?

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

You'll be able to see on their player card how many years of arbitration they have left (assuming they stay at the MLB level).

Only renewable years can be reduced. Arbitration stays the same no matter what.

What makes the most financial sense depends on a few factors.

1. Are they a blue chip stud and do you want them to be a career player on your team? If yes, then it might make sense to lock them up long term. Sure you'll pay more now, but you might save some valuable budget space during the time when the player would qualify for free agency. This choice comes with a lot of risk.

2. If you're unsure about a player's future, take the low risk path and don't sign past their last year of arbitration. This allows you one last look at them before they hit free agency, where they will likely command more money. This technique is all about reducing the risk to your organization. It's possible you could eventually lose out on great player, but that risk is mitigated a lot by the years of team control. In essence: use every advantage you have while you have it.

3. You need to ask yourself when is going to be a big spending year, and when you need to tighten the belt. Having an intimate knowledge of your current contracts is a big part of that. Sometimes you have no choice but to let good players go because your current commitments are too much. Milking every single year of team control and then making a tenured offer on their free agency year may seem like losing, but you did get something for it. On the other hand knowing your commitments are up and your budget has tons of room means you can splash a little more money on arbitration players to lock them for as long as you think they'll be contributors on your team.

Generally I advise the cautious approach. Smaller, short contracts (even just one years) can save you money now that will be much needed when your players do hit free agency. Only on the last year of arbitration should you consider making a big splash. That prevents the player from considering free agency and it comes at practically no risk to you.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Operation Sports mobile app

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Awesome, thanks a lot as always!

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Something else to keep in mind as well, even if you do only sign a player to a 1 year contract for their last year of arbitration, you still have the entire spring training, a period of time after the all star game and the 5 days of exclusive negotiation after the World Series to sign them to a contract extension and avoid them hitting free agency.

This is also true even if the last year of a multi-year contract falls on the last year of arbitration, or in fact any free agent eligible player. You can even use these signing periods to get an idea of how much the player may want (and the years they want). This can help you decide if you want to keep them or if you want to let them go (or trade them while you can still guarantee you can get value).

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

Small edit, fixed an error. I had incorrectly called rule 5 rule 6 (I could have sworn it was rule 6 but oh well).

The guide now correctly states rule 5.

Re: Contract and Roster Management Guide
 

I really didn't know what to do with this nugget I found yesterday and I also didn't want to create a thread for it so I figure this thread's as good as any?
anyways, I was able to get a players contract down to $18,000 where as before the minimum was $30,000 as far as I know. I also got it down to blank $ (-) and down to $0 also as well too, which aren't entirely the same either as far as I know

I just found it mildly interesting and wanted to share. that's all I have for now