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I just ran a test after the patch (4) yesterday. I ran the same test with the Mariners and then did a two year sim with the A's just to see a small market team as well.

Mariners:

Overall budget starts at $217MM in '26 before it spiked drastically to $299MM to start the '27 season. I simmed to start the '28 season and payroll was at $318MM. Mariners are not jumping payroll 50% year over year.

Bryan Woo wants $13.4MM in his first year of Arb then $20.2MM in year 2 ($16.8MM avg) and $26.7MM ($20.1MM avg) for his final year. This is a step in the right direction but he will not jump from $780k (plus the incentives he has earned from rev share) to $13.4MM next year. He then wants $33.5MM on any FA years after that so a 6 year $160MM deal is what it would take. This is well beyond both of the Phillies recent extensions for Sanchez and Jesus Lazardo's new deal and those were FA years, not someone with three years of arb left. Woo will be $7-8MM range next year, not $13.4M. The $13.4MM is probably his second arb year before ending at $20MM range so the game is inflating his arb status by roughly $25MM.

Logan Gilbert wants $27MM for his last arb yesterday despite only a touch under $11MM this year so he wants 150% year over year. He maintained that range and wanted $29MM for any FA years I tried to add. The FA years seem right but the arb year still is massively over inflated. He will be $17-18MM range with the game over inflating by about $8MM.

George Kirby wants a $20.1MM arb for '27 and he just signed for $6.55MM which was a $2.25MM range. They are now projecting him to go up roughly 200% when Kirby will be right around Gilbert at $11-12MM range from this year. He has basically copied Gilbert for two years now with super two arb 1, normal arb 1 so not sure why I'd expect his to more than double Gilbert's increase. The game is over inflating by about $8-9MM.

Gabe Spier signed for $2.125MM this year in his second year of arb (5th year of service time) and would probably be in the $5MM range next year for his final arbitration. The game has him wanted $8MM over a 300% year over year improvement. The game is over inflating him by $3MM range.

That is roughly $25MM that the game is over inflating for next years Mariners arbitration cases alone.

All players wanted roughly the same numbers in spring, trade deadline, and in the offseason/arb window

The A's:

Overall budget starts at $150MM for '26 before spiking to $210MM in '27 and then $224MM in '28. I doubt the A's, who are spending far more than they ever have currently, will be increasing their payroll another 50% year of year.

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New CBA - Yes, the new CBA could bring in more money for teams but currently TV deals rolling into MLB have suggested they are losing revenue on TV deals vs their past networks. They could also have a salary cap or salary floor. They could also change from 6 years of controlled service time to 5. But none of this is known or set so I'm not willing to give MLBTS the benefit of the doubt that they are just trying to factor in a future CBA. They do not know any details on where that'll land so why would they just randomly project massive increase for the '27 year? That would just be them making stuff up. Common sense would be to maintain a normal budget with traditional increases until they actually learn the change(s).

This is just a broken system, not them trying to be forward thinkers.

The other thing to consider is the other teams record. Were the guardians in playoff contention still when the Kwan offer happened? If they are out of the playoffs then teams become sellers and look or multiple prospects to help the rebuild. Same thing with Rutschman but they also have a catcher signed long-term so the system probably thinks that is an extra asset they can move

Closers have long been terribly easy to trade for in MLBTS so not surprised by the Walker deals. You used to be able to get Mason Miller for 2-3 bad C potential prospects but in real life, he went for multiple top prospects including the number 3-5 prospect in the game pending which service you're looking at (De Fries is the SS prospect)

What's his potential set at? I'm assuming 99 but if his potential was a 94 then you would see a regression down towards the 94 either way unless he randomly received the potential increase.

@R3dPhoenix1977_XBL Who are the players for each team? What's the 62s potential grade? What's the record for yours and the other teams?

The team and their standing (projected playoff team vs losing 100 games, etc) have a lot to do with it. You might have a 91 rating who will be entering free agency so that team would trade them off for three 62 types to help from losing them for nothing/draft pick. The potential on the 62s will be important as well. If they are an A or B and then team with the 91 is not good then they could be playing for the future.

I say that all while also saying the logic has been improved for this year but is far from perfect.

I agree - I miss this feature that was removed. The game is fair too along to not have such a simple feature that has been in games for years and years. I know they removed it with the new FA system and that was "fine" for year one, but to not add it back in this year is just sad.

Here's an idea but if having it in the new FA system was the problem then remove it for FA contracts but add it in for extensions. Yes, teams will back/frontload FA contracts but they 100% do it for extensions (thinking pre-FA eligible extensions mostly here so sub 6 years of service time)

Well they play 162 in MLB but the games doesn't allow for you to edit the total number of games. However, it does have a setting that lets you tweak how many games the system would SIM vs pop up a moment to play.

Go to the schedule push start, you'll see a window pop up allowing you to use a few sliders to adjust how often you want the game to SIM vs play the moments and what inning you want moments to start, etc.

I started a new franchise to test budgets and I used the Mariners again per usual. The budget started at 217M in year one ('26), we made the playoffs on SIM but lost in the divisional round, budget increased for '27 to $244MM. I continued the sim through the '27 season, making the playoffs and going to in the divisional round again, then my budget starting year three was $300MM.... THREE HUNDRED MILLION for the Mariners to start year three.

In real life, the Mariners are running with a player payroll of roughly $165-175MM for 2026. The Mariners increased payroll like $5-10MM after they tore down the roster after the 2018 season including even taking a step back $5-10M for the '22 season, the year after they made the playoffs for the first time in 20 years. To say that the Mariners would increase payroll YoY that much or even to $300MM COMPLETELY ruins any freaking immersion possible.

(Yes, the Mariners were as big of a joke as the MLBTS'26 budget system during some of those 20 years!)

Two problems do not make a right here and I don't give a #$@$ that budgets are massively increasing. Budgets and arbitration are a freaking joke and so completely unbelievable. I'm not sure how someone could legit say they did testing/QA and everything looks good.

I did as well. Glad others have too! Franchise isn't off to a hot start in '26 with this and the save issues...

Dang, the patch doesn't seem to have helped. Still seeing insane arb numbers and thus insane contract extension prices (non free agent contract offers).

I wish they'd just do a deal with spotrac or mlbtraderumors and have them create a model. Their models aren't perfect but they are far, far better. If I ran business ops for SDS, I'd be on the phone with spotrac or mlbtr and offer to have the arb tile card be sponsored/powered by __. Let them own it, they are better, and you both cross promote the change so free marketing as well. Win/win for them and win for us with a more realistic contract process.

Budget increasing or not doesn't change the fact that arbitration numbers are astronomically too high. Logan Gilbert is not coming remotely close to $31-33MM next year. He won't even touch $20M next year in his final arb year.

Budget increasing or not would just be bandaid, it's still an extremely poor arbitration process and that throws off extensions as well. Bryan Woo, who will be arb eligible for the first of three times entering next year, will likely make $6M in '27, $12M in '28 and $18-20M in '29 before being a free agent. (I used Gilbert and George Kirby's arb numbers for the range he'd get)

That is a total of $36-38MM in those three years but the game wants $27MM on average for those three years or just over $81MM.

Arb process is completely broken.

Am I the only one noticing massive increases to arbitration? For example, Logan Gilbert is supposedly going from $10M to $31M in his last year before FA. In reality, he’s likely going to ~$17M, not $31M.

The game is really suggesting he deserves to match Skubal from last year? Love the M’s but come on. Saw this issue across many many arbitration outcomes.

This is a question to the SDS team. With the game being coded for auto-regression at 10 years of service times regardless of age, how will that handle an 18 year old prospect that is MLB ready.

The new generational prospects is a great addition to the game, however, how can a player be generational if they start to regress at 28 years old? Even if you delay their MLB debut to 20 y/o then they'll regress at 30 years old. Seems like a flaw to the regression logic?

SDS - any plans to fix this for the '23 game?

@Lumberjack84864_XBL said in Over/Under Number of New Features for '23 Franchise:

@OneFountain8464_XBL said in Over/Under Number of New Features for '23 Franchise:

Thought I'd get a temperature check to see what people think the over/under is on the number of new features in '23 for Franchise. In 2021, SDS did a ton of work to bring us... Player Metric 1.0 and the epic depth returned from previous years. After doing too much in '21, the team needed to narrow the amount of Franchise improvements because player metric 1.0 was just too much for one year so they brought us... yes, you guessed it correct. They added Player Metric 2.0 in '22. I'm going to set the over/under at 1.5 features being added. I'm going under but will happily be wrong, but come on, it's been like 5 or 6 years since the mode saw any noticeable improvements.

Does PLAYER METRIC 3.0 Count? lol
Updating MLB rules and then using them as bullet points for franchise mode upgrades doesn't count either.
I have a feeling that the only feature they consider an "UPGRADE" will be what they mentioned with the draft. Which really? The MLB draft has to be the most uneventful pro sports draft there is so the fact that it's the only feature they mention is confirmation that the rest of the mode received nothing.
New features- 0
Refreshing an already existing mode is not new.

I'd give them one feature if the draft is a noticeable change. If it's just a small tweak then I'd have a hard time giving them that. And no, no shot I'd say it's a franchise feature for making the rule changes either. I'm holding out hope that the Draft was the big one but that they'll add more. Not that I'm expecting it either given SDS's history.

It'd be really, really sad if all they did in the last three years was player metric 1.0, player metric 2.0, dust off an old depth change that has no functionality, and revised the draft. At least add in a bunch of small fixes, there are endless small opportunities to improve franchise mode as well.

Hey Jjbryd02 - yes, I read that a few times as well about their code set. I'd be fine skipping a cycle if it meant that MTO became a full franchise mode. However, we have skipped three cycles and haven't had any updates. There were no updates in 20, player metric 1.0 and depth charts (return from prior mode) in '21, and player metric 2.0 in '22. Heck, they didn't even correct the many, many players ages in the game for years and even had fake players.

I'll 100% agree that EA is a train wreck but they are at least trying to improve their franchise mode. They forked it up nicely this year, really bad, but at least they tried something. The Show/SDS hasn't done really anything in 5+ years.

@MLB the show - if you see this, DO NOT put in fake MTO video highlights into your franchise segment again. We both know you've done that to try to make it appear like the mode received any attention, that was VERY clear you in that in '21. Look at the premier video and tell me otherwise!

I'm still 100% sticking with my under pick on the 1.5 features being added. Again, I'd be very happy to be wrong here and will post asap that I'm wrong if I am. Please make me be wrong here, SDS!

Thought I'd get a temperature check to see what people think the over/under is on the number of new features in '23 for Franchise. In 2021, SDS did a ton of work to bring us... Player Metric 1.0 and the epic depth returned from previous years. After doing too much in '21, the team needed to narrow the amount of Franchise improvements because player metric 1.0 was just too much for one year so they brought us... yes, you guessed it correct. They added Player Metric 2.0 in '22. I'm going to set the over/under at 1.5 features being added. I'm going under but will happily be wrong, but come on, it's been like 5 or 6 years since the mode saw any noticeable improvements.