Quote: Originally Posted By tedwmoore on 1/22/2010
I am warming up to like the idea of a $25 million cap on prospect budgets, with teams able to allocate all $25 million on budget distribution day. Keep the 50% penalty for those who mis-budget.

My biggest complaint is that tankers/re-builders can afford to sign a high draft pick and one or two studly IFAs. A $25-million cap would drive prices down and allow teams that spend money at the BL level to still compete in the IFA market. This would make the IFA market much less of a sure thing and it would force tankers/re-builders to make a choice. Someone could still slap down $25 million for one stud and completely ignore the draft, but they wouldn't be able to guarantee themselves both an IFA and also sign their draft picks; competition for IFAs would be more rigorous and, absent totally ignoring the draft, teams would not be able to dominate the IFA market for three or four years running.

I know it won't stop tanking, but it would address one of the more aggravating effects of it.

And I don't think that a cap would benefit the good teams too mcuh because when less competetive teams are unable to pump $40 million from their BL payroll into prospects it increases the odds that they will (a) hold onto expensive players and (b) spend money on free agents. This should make it more difficult for good teams to dominate because they will have less ready access to top free agents. It would help level the playing field by forcing bad teams to compete for the same talent as good teams. Also, having the ability to allocate $25 million doesn't mean that everyone will have the budget room to do so; and in a world where more teams are competing for top IFAs, having a maxed out prospect budget does not guarantee an ability to sign the top IFAs (unlike now when a few teams can dominate the IFA market for years).

Of course some will still run out crappy teams, and instead of using their money on free agents or better scouting/training will just let it sit there because they want to guarantee themselves a high pick (or maybe we will see an increase in people attempting to buy prospects).

I don't know how convinced I am of this, but it doesn't seem wholly without merit. Maybe it is.

Goodness this is long. Sorry.

Quote: Originally Posted By e_mandat on 1/22/2010i respectfully disagree. Ill revisit this after a few seasons of 30 million hardcap and either eat a large amount of crow, or will be looking for a good private world to join, since parity will be down the tube

Quote: Originally posted by csherwood on 1/22/2010I agree with ted.  I think budget transfers should be solely formistakes made on budget day -- Prospect budget should be capped at whatever dollar amount is the max allowed on budget day (20, 25, 30, etc - i dont care which)

Quote: Originally Posted By e_mandat on 1/22/2010i respectfully disagree. Ill revisit this after a few seasons of 30 million hardcap and either eat a large amount of crow, or will be looking for a good private world to join, since parity will be down the tube

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/22/2010Maybe they should just cap the amount you can offer. Tie-breaker goes to the team with the better 3-year record. You can budget all you want but, if you can only offer 10m and you'll lose the tie-breaker because you've been tanking, the incentive to tank is gone

Quote: Originally Posted By tedwmoore on 1/22/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/22/2010
Maybe they should just cap the amount you can offer. Tie-breaker goes to the team with the better 3-year record. You can budget all you want but, if you can only offer 10m and you'll lose the tie-breaker because you've been tanking, the incentive to tank is gone.

But that really does penalize "legitimately" bad teams. Not everyone is a tanker. I took over a team that had lost 307 games during the three seasons before my tenure; if I were locked out of the IFA market because the guy before had run the ship aground, what incentive do I have to take over the re-build project?



Or, I guess I should say, my incentive is diminished.

Quote: Originally Posted By tedwmoore on 1/22/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/22/2010
Maybe they should just cap the amount you can offer. Tie-breaker goes to the team with the better 3-year record. You can budget all you want but, if you can only offer 10m and you'll lose the tie-breaker because you've been tanking, the incentive to tank is gone.

But that really does penalize "legitimately" bad teams. Not everyone is a tanker. I took over a team that had lost 307 games during the three seasons before my tenure; if I were locked out of the IFA market because the guy before had run the ship aground, what incentive do I have to take over the re-build project?