Overview Of OOTP Player Contracts
Getting into the nitty gritty
Overview Of OOTP Player Contracts
We touched on staff contracts in OOTP last time. Now let’s take a look at player contracts.
Player contracts are actually a very complex issue. You can tell that it’s not easy just by looking at all the options available to you in the settings:
We’ll give each of those details its own separate post. For now, let’s just look at the more general structure of OOTP contracts.
The most basic aspect of contracts in OOTP is the type of contracts that exist. There are only two types of contracts in OOTP:
Major League Contracts
Minor League Contracts
This is already significantly different in real life. There’s no such thing as a “split contract,” for example, and there are no concerns about “guaranteed contracts.”
Additionally, Minor League Contracts in OOTP cost you nothing.
Players with Minor League Contracts will remain under your control and on those contracts in the farm system until one of the following things happen:
The player attains minor league free agency.
The player is added to the team’s secondary roster (or the 40 man roster).
The player is traded, retires, or is given a major league contract extension.
Minor league players attain free agency based on the minimum service requirement listed in your settings; see the screenshot above.
If you add a minor league player to your secondary roster, that player’s contract will automatically change to a one year Major League Contract for the league minimum salary.
Major League Contacts are similar. The player remains under your control until one of the following things happens:
The contract expires
The player is traded or retires
If the contract expires, one of three possible things will occur:
The player becomes a free agent.
The player undergoes salary arbitration
If the player has less than 3 years of major league service time, he will automatically be signed to a contract for the league minimum salary.
I believe the “3 year” total in that final point can be changed depending on the number of years it takes to reach arbitration.
Note as well that player contracts expire on the day after the last day of the playoffs. In other words, you’ll want to make sure you renew your contracts and come up with a plan before that day.