General Description - From this page, you may choose to set your budget for the year. This is the first major task of any team owner. Each franchise will begin the world with the same amount to spend (owners keeping a franchise from one season to the next retain their previous season's settings), but is not required to spend all of the available dollars or to allocate funds in any specific manner. The default settings represent averages for each item. For instance, the average player payroll plus expected arbitration and free-agents signing of an entire franchise upon world creation is $105 million. And, spending $10 million on your medical staff will return average performance from your medical staff. Only player, prospect and coach payrolls have minimums for any year. Those are $25 million for players, $6 million for prospects and $6 million for coaches. For these three categories, users will need money to negotiate individual contracts. In respect to scouting, training and medical, users pay for a staff and should be able to gauge expected staff performance immediately by comparing the staff's budget to the average. Making a note of this on this page is highly recommended. For all other categories, the minimum is zero (or very close to that) and the maximum yearly funds available is $20 million. There is also a maximum limit to the change that any category may be increased or decreased from one year to the next. This limit is $4M increase/decrease from season to season for all budgets but player, prospect, and coaching staff payroll. The value of each individual category is listed below. The first value refers to the amount at the start of the season, while the value in parenthesis refers to the amount you changed it to.

Budget Amount - Next to each category there is an open box in which an owner may enter funds allocated to this category. To do so, please click on the arrow next to any category besides player payroll and choose one of your options. You may only do this during the budget allocation time (see ML league schedule in World Office). If you are unable to make budget changes at this time, you will still be able to make notes. You may change as many values as you would like before clicking on 'Save Budget.' The player payroll will always reflect the remainder of funds available after each change you make so that the total allocated box always reads $185 million.

Default Budget Amounts
Player Payroll: $105 Million
Prospect Payroll: $10 Million
Coaches Payroll: $10 Million
Domestic College Scouting: $10 Million
Domestic High School Scouting: $10 Million
International Scouting: $10 Million
Advance Scouting: $10 Million
Training: $10 Million
Medical: $10 Million

Budget Finalization After clicking on 'Save Budget' you may still make changes until the deadline to finalize your budget. Once the budget deadline has been reached, all departments with the exception of player payroll, coach payroll and prospect payroll are locked in until the next season. Player payroll, coach payroll and prospect payroll may be adjusted using the "Transfer Budget" page following arbitration hearings, but each transfer includes a stiff 50% penalty so be sure to set your budgets as carefully as possible.

Notes - Notes are intended to allow users to prepare for future seasons as well as recap decisions made at the beginning of this season. Notes are entirely up to the user and may only be seen by the user of the franchise when logged in. To create a note, please click in the notes box next to the budget category needing a note and begin typing. There is a 255 character limit to notes. You may make notes in all categories. When you are finished writing notes, please click on 'Save Budget Notes.' This will save any changes to budget notes and display notes in the box until further changes are made and saved. Notes may be altered at any time throughout the Hardball Dynasty season.

Player Payroll - This refers to the value allotted to the payroll of the player's across all levels (big leagues, AAA, AA, High A, Low A and Rookie Ball). This also includes the actual contract portions (individual season salaries) of players signed from the amateur draft and international free-agents. Big league teams will average about $80 million in player payroll. At lower levels, most players will be signed for around the minimum yearly salary for their level. Minimum salaries at each level are $327,000 Major, $53,750 AAA, $37,500 AA, $25,250 all A and $7,650 for Rookies. Upon world creation, teams will be given a total player payroll of existing signed players of less than $105 million. Please remember to leave room for off and in-season transactions such as Free Agency, acquiring players via trade and bonuses such as through promotion. Any promotion of a player who is not already making more than the minimum for his new level will result in an increase in his yearly salary. This includes adding a player to the 40-man roster. Player demotions will not result in a savings as players will not take pay decreases over the course of the season.

Prospect Payroll - This refers to the value allotted to the signing bonuses of players drafted during the amateur draft and international prospect signing. The prospect payroll needed by franchises to sign most of their prospects is close to $10 million. However, teams looking to plan for the long-run may want to focus on signing the top players from the draft and abroad (regardless of signability risk) as soon as possible. Please note this does NOT include the individual season salary values -- it's part of the player payroll budget.

Coaches Payroll - This refers to the value allotted to the payroll of a franchise's coaches for all levels. Managing teams is taken care of by users, but player development at all levels relies on the performance and abilities of the coaches. Bench, hitting and pitching coaches will need to be signed at each minor league level as well as bench, hitting, pitching, 3rd base, 1st base, fielding and bullpen coaches for big league teams. Signing all coaches to the minimum at each level will total approximately $6 million. Users must spend at least this much. Coach negotiations and signing begin soon after budgets are set.

Domestic College Scouting Department - This refers to the value allotted to scouting college players from Canada and the United States who are eligible for the upcoming amateur draft. Funds allocated to each scouting department directly relate to the accuracy and scope of the college scouting department. A higher budget will result in more prospect reports and more accurate prospect reports. For instance, if you ignore the college scene and have a low budget, you might not see a future all-star that another franchise sees.

Domestic High School Scouting Department - This works the same way as the college scouting department, but pertains to high-school players eligible in the Amateur Draft.

International Scouting Department - This works the same way as the college scouting department, but pertains to international prospects.

Advance Scouting Department - The advance scouts are responsible for projecting the ratings of all signed players within the franchise and on other franchises. The higher the budget, the more accurate your projected ratings will be for all players who have not yet reached the peak of their career. After a player reaches his peak, projected and current ratings are the same.

Training - This refers to the value allotted to preventing injuries. Training specifically refers to the preparations made by players and staff to keep the team healthy. While some players will always be more injury-prone than others, spending money on training can significantly limit or minimize player injuries. In addition to preventing injuries your previous seasons budget will impact certain ratings during the offseason. The ratings that are impacted include power, stamina, durability, and velocity.

Medical - This refers to the value allotted to be spent on players recovering from injuries. The medical staff works with injured players in attempt to ensure quick, efficient and full recovery. While some players will always be more injury-prone than others, spending money on a medical staff can reduce a player's stint on the disabled list and aid his performance following recovery.

Arbitration Effects - Player arbitration is one of the first events in a HBD season and is one of the few actions where you aren't involved in the final decision. As such, there's a chance you may lose a case and exceed your player payroll budget. If this occurs, your franchise owner will contact you with some budget adjustments. For each million over the player payroll, a million will be removed from the other budgets in the following order: Prospect Payroll, Coach Payroll, International Scouting, College Scouting, High School Scouting, Training Staff, Medical Staff.

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