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Have patience. They'll be added. For example Carter Kieboom is in there now. He's a 74 rating with A potential.

I like to see the player progression and how draft picks turn out, so I sim a lot. My goal is to get through each season as quickly as possible to see how players progress.

I do a lot of Player Lock. Those are short games, and it's fun to play and up and coming prospect. I'll often play minor league playoff elimination games. Otherwise, I would consider just playing games against a team you're trailing in the division, or a hated rival.

After you get drafted, you can accept or choose to wait a year. Are you not getting that option? I often decline if it's for a team I don't want to play for.

I think the point is no one can predict who will have a good or bad year. However, in franchise mode, you have a lot of options to affect that. You can promote or demote players if they are not over or under performing at their level. You can set training options to address attributes that are dropping. You can change positions, which can increase or decrease their rating. You can look at morale to see if they are wanting more money or playing time or whatever which will change their rating. Sometimes players just want to be close to home, or have enough players from their country on the team, so a change of scenery can greatly affect their performance.

I get not everyone wants to deal with all that and being able to shut it all off would help some people and not hurt others. But seeing as how there are so many mechanics built around player progression, I can see how they don't want to disable the majority of the mode's mechanics.

I've noticed a lot more fielding errors as well. The physics seems a little different, so I'm attributing it to learning curve for now. But you can also adjust that in sliders if it's really bugging you.

I usually don't play my MLB team at all in Franchise mode. I GM the team and handle all the scouting and transactions and all that and sim all the games. I occasionally play individual prospects with Player Lock on, especially during all star appearances or playoffs. My main franchise is in the year 2055 and is a juggernaut -- almost all A potential players, winning the world series about once every three years just simming.

This year, I am also playing a 2020 franchise in real time in lieu of actual baseball.

Either way, I never compare to real world transactions. The whole fun for me is proving I can GM a team much better than the real world. I'm actually surprised I haven't received any offers from a real MLB team yet.

@SilverBullet3519 said in Franchise Player Contracts:

Does anybody know why most players in Franchise mode are on the last year of their deal? Makes it tough in the offseason trying to sign so many players, and by year two of the Franchise the league already looks so different in terms of who plays for what team.

I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about, but most players on your roster will only have one year deals. I'm not 100% positive of the rules, but basically, until you put someone on the 40-man roster, they are stuck in the minor leagues with only one year deals every year.

I've occasionally challenged plays. It seems to happen about 25% of the time I actually want to challenge. So it's not frequent, even when the manual reply shows the call was clearly wrong. But it does happen. I don't think there's any setting to change the frequency.

I've noticed this for years in franchise mode. I think other users are correct in that those players weren't included in the licensing agreement with the MLBPA. However, I've found that EA Sports usually (sometimes?) creates a similar player with a different name. Over the course of the season you may see those players created after live roster updates. However, that would not add them to your existing franchise. You would have to restart a franchise with the current live roster to get them.

Are you talking the display of the strike zone, or how umps are calling it? You can change the view to make the displayed strike zone different. Try playing around with Pitching View to see different options. If you are talking about bad calls, there is a setting to have individual umps call slightly different strike zones and occasionally make mistakes, or have perfect calls every time. I think you can only set that one time when you start the mode.

But for the record, I pretty much only play Franchise and haven't noticed issues with meatballs not being punished. But I play on Zone hitting with Veteran difficulty.

Are you talking about standings, GM goals, or statistics?

I don't know if this is related, but I'm playing two different franchises. I tried to have different settings in each. But if I set Scouting to manual in one, it sets it to manual in the other as well. Those settings seem to apply to all franchises, which I don't think it did before. I would set everything how you want it, and then go into Data Utility and manually save the franchise. Then exit and reload the franchise to see if the settings were retained. If they are not, or if they are changing after that without you changing the setting in a different saved franchise, then I would think it's a bug.

I think he thought you were a troll because most people have played around even a little have found the options settings. I've only ever bought the basic, cheapest option for the game, so that shouldn't have anything to do with your options.

Go to User Settings > Pitching (use L1/R1 to toggle between batting/pitching/fielding) > Pitching Interface.

Classic = buttons with no windups
Pure Analog = uses both joysticks, with windups
Pulse = don't even bother
Meter = uses the left joystick for location and buttons for release with windups

You can also go to Options Explorer under Mini Modes to play around.

I am getting a warning saying my team is "over their player budget and will not be able to sign any free agents unless they free some player salary."

I am playing with the Nationals, and just finished the 2020 season and am heading into my first offseason. It is currently Nov 03. I have 35 players on the 40-man roster and 77 players total. Under Budget, I have $190M player salary for 2021 against an alleged 2021 threshold of $242M, with a project cash flow of +$327k.

I've played Franchise mode for many years, so I'm well acquainted with most ofhte mechanics. Is there some new rule or screen or option or something I'm missing? I would hope with $50M to spend I would be able to pick up a $70k/1yr player. Is this a bug? Is anyone else having trouble with player salary thresholds?