Mutual Options, Arbitration and other ?'s

[umd]

Couple of $ questions, since "going for it" means I'm sort of bleeding budget money and I face the prospect of trying to keep competing with big money Maine, Pitt and Pawtucket...

1. If I'm out of budget money for extensions, what happens to all my arbitration eligible players? Can I still offer them all arbitration? Or do I have to pick and choose bewteen the arbitration eligible players and then lose the others?

2. How does declining mutual (and also team) options work? I don't see a button to accept or decline them anywhere.

3. Do new budget numbers come out before FA/extensions? What makes my owner's budget go up and down? Basically, I'm trying to map out what I'm going to do and an estimated budget number would be a big help since I seem to have to pinch every f***ing penny.

Answers would be greatly appreciated. I acquired a lot of these players hoping I'd be able to keep them since the pieces I got for my picks and prospects were still in their prime (well, except for Knight/Valencia) or playing at a high level in a need position (Knight/CF).

[liquidcrash]

1. The arbitration numbers aren't included in the money for extensions so you can bring them back regardless of budget situation. If you go over the salary cap, you'll have to deal with that afterwards.

2. Options are handled after the playoffs, so you'll get that option then. Or, you can post in the commish to-do thread to have Clay decline team/mutual options now.

3. I think the new budgets are figured after the playoffs as well, sometime before FA. But I could be wrong about that.

We've argued what makes up the budget numbers, but I think it mainly goes by the previous season's revenue.

[Clay]

Addition to LC's answer for #2...

You can only decline mutual or team options the season before they are due (in this case 96).

[funclown]

Adding to LC's answer #3- The new budget is determined right when the offseason begins well before free agency. You usually get a sim (maybe 2) to try to resign one of your players if the budget allows for it. How the budget is determined is usually previous years revenue, but this also depends on the owner.

Hartford's will probably go up next season a pretty decent amount.