Cash Considerations

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

Hello all!

Just throwing out an idea here. In other fantasy formats, in-season salary caps are often raised post-auction/draft/whatever process. We also favor rules in this league that best simulate real life MLB business practices.

My suggestion: We allow trading of surplus cap space. We can start a cash consideration thread and we only allow such maneuvering for the current season. Personally, I think this is a simple idea that can add to flexibility required to make in-season moves. Example: I have $5M in current cap space and the desire to trade away a contract or two. If we are allowed to include that $5M, increased activity is likely. I also feel this would help counteract the negative effects of salary cap hits, increasing the parity of teams that may have made a mistake or five in the past.

Thoughts?

[Guardians GM (Matt)]

It is worth a look in the offseason. That money would have to be tied to a contract (much like a traded franchise/restricted tag) and probably only cover one year so that no teams are future hamstring by a previous owner paying away all of their money. It would give an advantage to rebuilding teams looking to move contracts.

[Pirates GM (Hollar)]

This proposal seems like it would increase the value of players signed to big money contracts. A large part of the risk of signing a player to an expensive contract in this league is that if his performance goes south, you are stuck paying the price. By being able to pay a portion of it to help move the contract, the risk is reduced. Beyond benefiting teams with a number of these deals, it could also increase bidding on players in the future (As the assumed risk of a winning bid is lessened), further driving down the effective cost of the current contracts. It might open up the trade market a bit, but if we're looking to remedy that aspect of things, I don't think this is the way to do it.

[Guardians GM (Matt)]

It makes them easier to move but there has to be a party willing to take on that salary which mitigates their value on the open market. Someone has to pay for the deal, also this is why you limit it to only paying for the current season.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

I brought up something like this in the past.

In real-life, teams often will pay a portion of a large contract when trading those players. This option gives teams two viable solutions to trading large-contracted players: 1) trade the full salary, clearing up money but taking a much smaller return OR 2) pay a portion of the salary, and get a larger return on the value traded.

I would propose that instead of being treated like trading salary cap, it is treated like reducing the salary at a penalty to the original team (much like the penalty for releases).

For example:

I had Todd Helton a few years ago on contract for 2 years, something like $10M the first year and $15M the last year. if i had traded him and agreed to pay half the salary, the new owner would have Helton at a salary of $5M and $7.5M whereas I took on a $5M and $7.5M penalty.

Mike, I understand your concerns about inflation, but I don't think that'll happen, as the full salary still gets paid. On a $20M contract that's being traded, a penalty of $10M or $15M is still a harsh penalty for making a mistake on a bad contract. Even $5M is a lot to pay for someone not on your roster. All in all, the amount of money being paid in this league would remain the same, so I would wager that there will be no inflation.

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

Awesome Photoshop Dan!

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

Thanks, Beau! I've always wanted to do one for this league, but had nothing in the majors to build a cool sig around until this year.