Toddle -- just like you ended up with too many high dollar pitchers, there will be others who end up with too many catchers or infielders, or $ 50 outfielders.

I think there will be plenty of opportunity for you to trade a Darvish for two or three guys, hitters, prospects, after the draft.

My fear is that once the season starts, one team falls to 4-17. There's good reason for him to then trade his 150 player for a 2 pitcher who may or may not win a spot in the Mets rotation in spring training.  We could end up with all the league talent on 8 teams by the end of the year.

That's why I think it's necessary to have some bottom line like even mid season your salaries cannot top 1300.

Making it 1,000 will make trading during the season very difficult though as you have to matchup contracts for each deal.

I want opinions though, so tell me where you see the problems arising.

This all may end up with a vote once we have a consensus of what we should vote on.

Reading through Lou's post above makes e feel better about having a 1,000 cap on your team at all times.

The Cabrera scenario I don't think is realistic though as few teams will go into the auction close to the 1,000 cap. Most teams will choose not to resign many players freeing up lots of caproom. In fact Ox has sitemailed me a very thought out scenario where he argues that there will be very few long term contracts at all, and therefore most teams will go into each auction with very much money.

I'm going to spend today thinking through the hard 1,000 cap Lou talks of.  The idea would be that if you want to trade for  a star player during the season, you should not spend your full 1,000 in the auction, or you could always cut a player to make the trade work, though you couldn't do that mid-season as far as I know how anyway.

You could always cut non-rostered players in season since we'll only have 34 rostered max out of our 40 man rosters.

I always thought we would have to be at $1000 or less. Makes it interesting that way. IMHO

I'd say a team could expand to $1300 or some other reasonable $$$ amount, but would have to get to $1000 or less by next season.

Puts some strategy into it. Do I trade for a guy who could put me over the top for the current season, but will cause the owner to make trades or not sign players to get back under the hard cap.

I think there's a few separate issues that need to be discussed.  As Beernoser said, I think the biggest issue in the league is needing to make long-term deals make more sense in this league.  I think there isn't enough of a penalty to just wait until the season is over and sign one-year deals based on players' stats that year.  Let's say I extend Alex Avila, Pedro Alvarez, and Billy Butler to three-year deals before the season.  Avila costs 49, Alvarez costs 29, and Butler costs 55.  Avila and Alvarez end up playing to their contract or exceeding expectations, so I save $30 from what I would have spent for them had I extended them after the season.  But, Butler gets hurt and has a crappy year, so I have to sign a new comparable first baseman for $55.  I end up losing $25 even though I gambled on 3 contracts and succeeded in two of them.  I proposed a restricted free agency system if you don't sign a player before the season in February.

Also, even if we can't go over the cap, which I agree with, Todd is suggesting "eating" part of Darvish's contract.  If we allow eating contracts, then we are essentially allowing teams to go over cap.  If I were uncompetitive, I would assuredly trade Bartolo Colon ($62) and eat $61 of his contract for a $1 player I thought has a chance of being worth $16 the following season.  My team's budget for the season would effectively go down by $61, but it wouldn't matter to me because I'm not adding contracts in the season I'm uncompetitive.

I don't have a problem with allowing eating contracts, but I think if there are too many one-year deals you will see way too much trading.  I think to solve this issue, we find a way to have it make more sense to sign long-term deals.  A team would not want to trade for Chad Billingsly ($56) if he is signed for two more years, though right now with him having arm surgery I will assuredly move him if my team is not in contention.

To be clear there is no question that the 1,000 limit will be firm at three points of the year.

1. You must end the draft at 1,000 or less.

2. You must end your contract time in February at 1,000 or less.

3. You must end your contract/ release time before the auction in October at 1,000 or less.

The only question is the period from the end of the auction through our season in December - January.  If a team wants to make an in-season trade should they have to balance contracts so both teams stay within the 1,000 or can they go over 1,000 just until the season ends and contract time comes up in February.

That's the only part that's in contention.

I say you let a team to go over during the season. Teams trade for quality players all the time to make a run.

That's where I came down too DD. My concern was there should be some limit to stop teams from loading up until it's not the same team anymore.  My suggestion was 1,300 - enough room to deal, but not enough to pack a whole different team.

but 300 extra in season "Dollars" equates to  5 - $60 players or 3 $100 players without giving anything up.  right now, the $100 players are "stars". what team can add 3 stars during a season?

i dont like going over 1000, but i can adapt if that is what the majority wants.  but i would like to see a lower cap than 1300.  maybe 1150?  thats one superstar player, or a couple of decent starting type players.

as for making it more enticing to sign a player to multi year deals... maybe we do away with the tiers of extension.  when you win a player at auction, that is his salary and you get to decide how many years he signs for and that is his salary for his term with the team.  salaries/contracts are still final and will be on the books for their entirety even if a player doesnt play.  then when the contract is up, you can either let him go back to the auction or resign him per the tiered raises that beer outlined initially.

If you resign him for one year you must give him a $ 15 raise.
Two years for two $ 12 raises.
Three years for three $ 10 raises
Five years for five $ 8 raises.

example - sign cabrera for 250.  you can decide his contract years up to 5, say 1 for this example
if he somehow outplays that contract, you can resign him for
1 year @ 265
2 @ 262 each
3@ 260 each
5@ 258 each

you would get a discount for longer term deals, but assume more risk that a player will not play or be productive over that period of time.

i dunno, but i definitely see why there is a major deterant to signing long term deals as it is right now.

Ox's proposal to encourage long term contracts is an interesting one too, but I'd like to table that discussion for a while until we get through the draft and maybe the first contract period to see if we have a problem, or if there are a lot of contracts signed.  Maybe it won't even be a problem. 

The 1,150 idea might be a good compromise on the in season salary cap. That would let you add a key player even if you started at the cap. It wouldn't let you add three star players though.

That's kind of what I'm looking for. I don't want to discourage in-season trading, but at the same time, I don't want teams to completely change themselves over during a season either.

Posted by Beernoser on 10/29/2012 4:08:00 PM (view original):
Ox's proposal to encourage long term contracts is an interesting one too, but I'd like to table that discussion for a while until we get through the draft and maybe the first contract period to see if we have a problem, or if there are a lot of contracts signed.  Maybe it won't even be a problem. 

The 1,150 idea might be a good compromise on the in season salary cap. That would let you add a key player even if you started at the cap. It wouldn't let you add three star players though.

That's kind of what I'm looking for. I don't want to discourage in-season trading, but at the same time, I don't want teams to completely change themselves over during a season either.

That's realistic.

Posted by loudawg10 on 10/29/2012 3:31:00 PM (view original):
but 300 extra in season "Dollars" equates to  5 - $60 players or 3 $100 players without giving anything up.  right now, the $100 players are "stars". what team can add 3 stars during a season?

i dont like going over 1000, but i can adapt if that is what the majority wants.  but i would like to see a lower cap than 1300.  maybe 1150?  thats one superstar player, or a couple of decent starting type players.

as for making it more enticing to sign a player to multi year deals... maybe we do away with the tiers of extension.  when you win a player at auction, that is his salary and you get to decide how many years he signs for and that is his salary for his term with the team.  salaries/contracts are still final and will be on the books for their entirety even if a player doesnt play.  then when the contract is up, you can either let him go back to the auction or resign him per the tiered raises that beer outlined initially.

If you resign him for one year you must give him a $ 15 raise.
Two years for two $ 12 raises.
Three years for three $ 10 raises
Five years for five $ 8 raises.

example - sign cabrera for 250.  you can decide his contract years up to 5, say 1 for this example
if he somehow outplays that contract, you can resign him for
1 year @ 265
2 @ 262 each
3@ 260 each
5@ 258 each

you would get a discount for longer term deals, but assume more risk that a player will not play or be productive over that period of time.

i dunno, but i definitely see why there is a major deterant to signing long term deals as it is right now.

I would prefer your extension system for veterans.  Actually, I think it would work out okay for younger players too.  It would just drive up the bidding for them a little bit.  You wouldn't see many promising players signed for 1-4 credits.  I definitely think this would be an improvement, in addition to my restricted free agency proposal I sent to Beernoser.  We could talk about that one later, but I think this one should be talked about now because it changes bidding.

If you don't see how there is value in signing guys to long term contracts, maybe you are bidding too high on them.  There are still a few people who have very few players because (I assume) they are trying to get that "extension" value.  Prices are going to drop, and there will be people who start to get deals that do make sense for extensions.

When I came home from work tonight I looked at e-mails and I was surprised to see the earliest one I got was at about 11 am this morning. Usually I have 1-2 from 1-3 am. If you sent yours in those wee hours, please resend it to me. I am still having e-mail hacking problems.

Posted by jonas1102 on 10/29/2012 5:34:00 PM (view original):
If you don't see how there is value in signing guys to long term contracts, maybe you are bidding too high on them.  There are still a few people who have very few players because (I assume) they are trying to get that "extension" value.  Prices are going to drop, and there will be people who start to get deals that do make sense for extensions.

I agree.

I strongly disagree with changing contracts around at this point in the draft. I have already fielded about half my team with the idea of these contract provisions. To change things around because of others mistakes is not fair. Even making todays bids is hard with things up in the air because the changes being discussed will alter my bidding strategy. The most fair thing to do is keep things the way it is. I think owners should have had the foresight to see that bids were inflated and there was know way bids could remain this high throughout the draft. Most of us did. For the guys that didn't, thats tough luck but you knew rules heading in. The good thing about this league is you will have a chance to have tons of flexibility after the first year. 

I would be willing to compromise with the $1,150 cap in the season but I dont see a huge need for it. There doesn't need to be countless trades IMO and a few trades still can get done. The NBA is able to match contracts and it makes trading fun. Changing the cap could allow for more loopholes and confusion. 

Ox brings up a good point about longterm contracts and Id like to hear his RFA idea. I really dont want anything to change in the spirit of fairness, but the longterm contracts definitely could work more in favor to the owners willing to sign them.

The trade talk is all very interesting but it pails in comparision to the biggest issue this league as well as most leagues face and that's noncommitted owners.

There are going to be some horrible teams with some very bad contracts that will eventually need owners. Finding owners for all those teams will be extremely hard to find. This is my biggest worry.

 I really hope every one of the 24 owners in this league is VERY serious about committing to this league or contracting is going to be the only way this league survives. Beernoser deserves good owners for his hard work.

I know I'll be here, even if I'm 20-142 which could happen the way my team looks so far.