2014 RULES: Free Agency Changes

[sportznut]

The last minute thing is a decent idea, but don't forget, one of your league members lives in China. My last minute bids happen because I JUST WOKE UP. FA is killer for me as it is, especially the draft, but rules shouldnt be in place to penalize timing.

And I live in Africa so I'm the last person on the globe to bid since we start in the east coast.

I'm also in favor of implementing the new bid system the commish came up with and improving it as we go. Or developing it over the next year for implementation next off season.

You guys are living the charmed life.

[sportznut]

Why not make it to where the 2nd bid can't decrease the total value of the contract, but can reduce salary & add to SB?
ie -
Bid 1 - $10M / year salary - $0 SB over 5 years
Bid 2 - $5.5 M / year salary - $25M SB over 5 years (5.5 instead of 5 so the yearly total still increases)
Bid 3 - $3.7 M / year salary - $35M SB over 5 years

As long as the overall money doesn't decrease, and the guaranteed amount doesn't decrease, I don't see a problem with this setup.
That seems simple enough to me. Or is simplicity something we are trying to avoid?

I'm all for it. I've never liked the way the salaries, or counters were set up. This would resolve that issue.

[Goodell]

Why not make it to where the 2nd bid can't decrease the total value of the contract, but can reduce salary & add to SB?

One of the problems I would see in free agency would be teams putting in a HIGHER bid that actually is a lot LESS cost to them against the cap/year.

That was something I was thinking about when thinking on a ratings method. For the most part, reducing your cap hit per year shouldn't be an increased bid raise. When teams are trying as hard as they can competitively to fit as much players into a cap year as they can, putting in a bid that's less against the cap than the current high bid arguably shouldn't be a valid counter most of the time. I think there is a threshold where an entirely differently structured deal might be slightly less cap hit per year but still be deemed a better bid, like in my previous examples, but it was definitely something I wanted to fix in cases where teams would "raise" a bid by just increasing the amount of years and bonus slightly to where it was actually costing them less per year but still a valid counter. That's just a similar type bid with cost spread out more and shouldn't really be considered enough of a raise to me. It's something I've been wanting to address in these adjustments this off-season.

Have to look at that more, not sure if it's the situation I thought needed to be fixed in your proposal, but wouldn't just want lots of counter bids that looked like someone jacking up the years and signing bonus slightly to where most of our winning counter bids were mostly reductions in cap value per year.

[charlie813brown]

Why not make it to where the 2nd bid can't decrease the total value of the contract, but can reduce salary & add to SB?

One of the problems I would see in free agency would be teams putting in a HIGHER bid that actually is a lot LESS cost to them against the cap/year.

That was something I was thinking about when thinking on a ratings method. For the most part, reducing your cap hit per year shouldn't be an increased bid raise. When teams are trying as hard as they can competitively to fit as much players into a cap year as they can, putting in a bid that's less against the cap than the current high bid arguably shouldn't be a valid counter most of the time. I think there is a threshold where an entirely differently structured deal might be slightly less cap hit per year but still be deemed a better bid, like in my previous examples, but it was definitely something I wanted to fix in cases where teams would "raise" a bid by just increasing the amount of years and bonus slightly to where it was actually costing them less per year but still a valid counter. That's just a similar type bid with cost spread out more and shouldn't really be considered enough of a raise to me. It's something I've been wanting to address in these adjustments this off-season.

Have to look at that more, not sure if it's the situation I thought needed to be fixed in your proposal, but wouldn't just want lots of counter bids that looked like someone jacking up the years and signing bonus slightly to where most of our winning counter bids were mostly reductions in cap value per year.

What about a simple code that if you want to bid to change the base to lower it won't allow you to change the number of years from the previous bid?

[lucky7jc]

Just set a standard raise requirement but based on financial row. If it's a salary bump then set it to be say a minimum bump by (e.g. 15-25%) and if it's on the signing bonus a different bump (e.g. 10-20% and roster bonus (10-20%). This would allow you to set the valuation more accurately for given player. I love the idea of the different rankings Troy is talking about, but what if you get an equal value with two different bids? I say you can solve this by setting a guaranteed pay % based on number of years signed (e.g 1yr - 100%, 2yr - 90%, 3yr 80%, 4 yr - 70%, 5 yr 60% or whatever we want here.)

Bid 1: 25 Million for 5 years with 5 Million signing bonus and 1 Million roster bonus
Given value is 7 million per year, but 35 million total with 60% guarantee = 21 Million

Bid 2: 21 Million for 3 years with 3 million signing bonus and 2.3 million roster bonus
Given value is 8 million per year, but 26.3 million total @ 80% guarantee = 21 Million

What then chooses which deal to take? I'm not saying this is 100% realistic, but there will be that guy that will up one number just enough to get a better valuation. But I 100% think this would work.

[tkienast]

Just set a standard raise requirement but based on financial row. If it's a salary bump then set it to be say a minimum bump by (e.g. 15-25%) and if it's on the signing bonus a different bump (e.g. 10-20% and roster bonus (10-20%). This would allow you to set the valuation more accurately for given player. I love the idea of the different rankings Troy is talking about, but what if you get an equal value with two different bids? I say you can solve this by setting a guaranteed pay % based on number of years signed (e.g 1yr - 100%, 2yr - 90%, 3yr 80%, 4 yr - 70%, 5 yr 60% or whatever we want here.)

Bid 1: 25 Million for 5 years with 5 Million signing bonus and 1 Million roster bonus
Given value is 7 million per year, but 35 million total with 60% guarantee = 21 Million

Bid 2: 21 Million for 3 years with 3 million signing bonus and 2.3 million roster bonus
Given value is 8 million per year, but 26.3 million total @ 80% guarantee = 21 Million

What then chooses which deal to take? I'm not saying this is 100% realistic, but there will be that guy that will up one number just enough to get a better valuation. But I 100% think this would work.

If it is an equal value than whoever places the bid first gets it. The second person would have to increase their bid again.

[lucky7jc]

Just set a standard raise requirement but based on financial row. If it's a salary bump then set it to be say a minimum bump by (e.g. 15-25%) and if it's on the signing bonus a different bump (e.g. 10-20% and roster bonus (10-20%). This would allow you to set the valuation more accurately for given player. I love the idea of the different rankings Troy is talking about, but what if you get an equal value with two different bids? I say you can solve this by setting a guaranteed pay % based on number of years signed (e.g 1yr - 100%, 2yr - 90%, 3yr 80%, 4 yr - 70%, 5 yr 60% or whatever we want here.)

Bid 1: 25 Million for 5 years with 5 Million signing bonus and 1 Million roster bonus
Given value is 7 million per year, but 35 million total with 60% guarantee = 21 Million

Bid 2: 21 Million for 3 years with 3 million signing bonus and 2.3 million roster bonus
Given value is 8 million per year, but 26.3 million total @ 80% guarantee = 21 Million

What then chooses which deal to take? I'm not saying this is 100% realistic, but there will be that guy that will up one number just enough to get a better valuation. But I 100% think this would work.

If it is an equal value than whoever places the bid first gets it. The second person would have to increase their bid again.

Yes, all concurring bids that followed would need to be risen based on the percent that we set per standard raise. I think it would promote a more balanced system for all GMs and would rid some of the 'phantom/troublesome' bids that some don't like. It also promotes better salary cap management requirements for each GM. Might be hard to instantly offer another 10% for a player you were just kind of interested in. It could also play a different card for some GMs if they are willing to bump up the amounts that causes their competition to spend more of their cap space, leaving less for other players. Very, very sneaky sir; may I touch your feet?

[Goodell]

Moving to a bid score calculation will be a pretty big change to free agency bids. We'll monitor that and look at improvements next year.

[lucky7jc]

Is there any way we can put a calculation tool that allows to see what a bid would do to our total budget as we place bids in FA? It's a bit of a challenge to keep up with multiple bids/counters and knowing where that bid amount would leave me if winning bid is placed. Just a simple risk/reward/budget tool.

[JonC]

Is there any way we can put a calculation tool that allows to see what a bid would do to our total budget as we place bids in FA? It's a bit of a challenge to keep up with multiple bids/counters and knowing where that bid amount would leave me if winning bid is placed. Just a simple risk/reward/budget tool.

No clue if this is possible on the site, but I just use an excel spreadsheet. It's pretty quick and painless and does the math for me.