Right now, in budgeting for high school, college, and international prospects, we can only go +/- 4 million. I would like to see that discontinued and either make no limit OR increase that limit to AT LEAST +/- 8 mil. If you start a rebuild, it takes at least 3 seasons to get a budget to where you may want it for the draft. I’ve got 2 leagues that I’ve joined, one on a league swap; I would stay BUT it’s going to take me probably 4 seasons to get the budget where I want it and I’m not going to do that. The other team is also going to take at least 4 seasons to get the budget where I want it, but this is a league where I stepped in and I made a commitment so I will renew for that team. I enjoy this game, but it’s too expensive to go through at least 4 seasons to get your budget where you may want it...........either lift the restrictions completely or raise the increments to at the very least, 8 million.

1. If I do a league swap, I’m mainly doing it to help get my league started. I’m not looking for the perfect team EVER! In fact, I generally want the team that needs a rebuild! I do enjoy trying to bring a team back to being more competitive.
2. I’m retired and when I purchase new teams, I generally get the $200 package (which makes that even less expensive per team), but again, I’m retired. So hell yeah, it is expensive to me. Even with the credits! And you can probably see by my record, I usually get minimum credits.

I'll add a bit of color below.

For veteran owners, i hope they are savvy enough to evaluate the franchise as a whole before they decide to take it over (I.e. what have they been drafting the last few seasons, what's in the farm, what's at the mlb level, where is the World from a scouting perspective, etc.). If the veteran owner has a set way he runs a franchise and doesn't deviate from that, the above items need to be reviewed before a decision is made. Also, most veteran owners run a 20mm training budget and in order to get a 20mm training budget in year1, you need a previous owner that was running at least $16mm in training the previous season. When you pair this with an organization that is drafting college guys the last few seasons whereas the the new owner likes high school guys, you're right -- it can take quite a while to get the teams budget where you want it. A veteran owner should know all of this and really take it all I to consideration before committing to run the franchise.

For owners that are new to hbd, they have so much to learn that giving them that much wiggle room could result in disaster. After reading the players guide for the very first time, I would bet that advanced scouting would sound intriguing to some new owners so instead of putting $14mm in the first season, they put $18Mm in it. Then $20mm the next season, by the time they realize it's worthless, they have wasted $38Mm and now they need to wind out of it.

For all intents and purposes, I agree that the limits can be a struggle the first few seasons, but a veteran owner knows what hes getting into and a newer owner needs to have some limits. I could imagine being more open to lessening the limits on the downside because you can clean house by cuttingin real life, scouting staff/personally in real life so I would be more open to lowering limits on the downside.

Withn that being said, I like the current system the way it is, if it is changed, imagine the downstream effcts -- veteran owners staking out Worlds that have low average scouting in a certain area and immediately jumping in and taking full avantage of the inefficiency in the World. New owners coming in and making mistakes that are simply compounding the terrible position that the franchise is in.

Also, as discussed in the other board posts, it's slow and incremental for a reason. iYou can't just take over, clean house and have the best scouts in the game in your first season. It takes a bit to get setup with a scouting staff/personell.

The only reason to have this limit is so the veteran savvy owners can so screw the new owners. Every franchise is all major sports can change their budget to whatever they choose. So this game IS NOT REALISTIC. Having the ability to change your budget to whatever you want can help prevent super teams. Super teams can happen because new people join league and can't even draft the best player even if you have the number one pick. The tanker sits there drafting these top picks every year because they have no competition to see the best players. Then they have the lowest payrolls because they sell off or let go of all the talent and finish in last few spots each year. Changing your budget gives everyone who has a high pick the ability to draft the best player and therefore limit the tankers ability to get all the top talent for several seasons in a row.

It just isn't realistic to be able to move from 20 million in HS and 0 in college scouting to 20 million in college scouting and zero in high school in one season. Usually scouting in real life has to do with the talent and eye of the scout, the $ that the Organization is willing to spend for that scout to travel and the relationships that the scout has. In real life it isn't just one scout that does all high scouting or all college scouting, it is a team of scouts and each have a rapport with people across the nation. In order to try to implement that into the game, they separate the scouting departments between college, HS and International.

I suppose you can argue that in one season, you can cut your scouting budget a lot more than $4 million. Heck, in real life, if you are a GM that just doesn't like college guys, you can just fire or layoff every college scout in your organization. However, on the way up, it is much more difficult. in order to find the talented scouts that have a top notch eye for talent, a willingness to travel and a rapport with many folks across the nation, you need to pay him and that guy isn't always available so if that big dog scout isn't available, you might have to use a Staff of scouts that, even in the aggregate, don't match up to that big dog scout. This scouting team that is built in the aggregate isn't something that can be put together overnight.

I am not a fan of taking over new teams because it can take a long time to get them to my ideal budget, but if I could do it immediately, wouldn't it give me an advantage because I know what's what?