Rules discussion - Arbitration Years & Salaries

[Scott (Boston Padres)]

Guys,
Please see Taylor’s (Braves) comments below. They are similar to what Andrew (Cards) and I have been discussing. I’m trying to nail down how we deal with those players under an MLB team’s control but not yet on a full MLB contract (certain # of years for certain $$). Let me know what you think about his two options. I do like the idea of phasing out Arbitration over the next couple years and just sticking with some form of Prospect Player (PP) 4 year deal at the league minimums. FAs after that.

Taylor says:The arbitration thing definitely throws a kink in it. The thing i find cool about this league is that your team selections and players contracts play a pretty big part in what team you decide to choose and im guessing by the way you set the league up...that's what you wanted to do as well. Your idea for having a 4 year window for prospects was a fantastic idea because it kind of puts your own arbitration rules in...just without locking players down with a long term deal. So I guess the question is how we deal with guys already in that 4 year window. The Cot's website has payroll obligations for all teams in a spreadsheet from 2012-2018, so it should be pretty easy to keep up with once the initial decision is made. Couple of ideas i thought about:

1. We could do exactly like you said and just like older guys go ahead and include their arbitration years just like normal contract years and just designate a set salary for each year. At the end of that contract, they could get a franchise tag, restricted tag or just become a regular FA.

For example:

Jason Heyward 3 years/$6M (2013-15) 13:$1M, 14:$2M, 15:$3M

Craig Kimbrel (who is our new (only) celebrity diner at our restaurant) 4 years/$6.48M (2013-2016) 13: $480k, 14:$1M, 15:$2M 16:$3M


If Heyward did sign a long term deal in between, the league would not recognize it. He would just become a FA in 2016. This way would be fairly realistic. The only issue I see there is that under the current rules the 4 year prospect rule (which acts as arbitration years) has the contracts set at league minimum for 4 years after they reach the threshold.

2. We could use the Arbitration years just like above but the salaries would be set using real life salaries once they announce those before each season and if a team did sign a player in that window to a long term deal....that contract would then take the place of the Arbitration one.

For example, using the projected salaries on Trade Rumors:

Jason Heyward 3 years/$3.5M + (2013-15) 13:$3.5M, 14:$ Arb, 15:$Arb

Craig Kimbrel 4 years/$480K + (2013-2016) 13: $480k, 14:$Arb, 15:$Arb 16:$ARb

Heyward signs a long term deal after the season...

Jason Heyward 6 years/$36M + (2014-20) 14:$6M, 15:$6M , 16:$6M etc....

As the league goes forward, the new prospects could just assume the salaries and arbitration years of their current clubs OR we could phase out this arbitration system in favor of your 4 year Prospect window you outline in the constitution making it very easy to keep up with.

Free Agent resigns with same team (from original Franchise selection):
I’m also I thinking that a team owner should get the priority to resign a player ONLY IF that player resigns with the same MLB team. Would only apply to those players from our initial rosters going into Year 1.
New owner Adam (hopefully he’s joining us on ProBoards tonight) sent me this:
Maybe instead of letting the team's owner just automatically resign him we could do an offer sheet type of deal. The original team still gets to sign him for his real-life contract but then it's put up to a blind bid with the exception that the team that owns Ortiz would still get to match any offer (sort of like the NBA). So example played out: Ortiz finishes the season and the Sox offer him a 1 year 12 million dollar contract. You get him at 12 million but I either want him for 13.8 or want make you try to buy him for a higher amount by matching to keep him on your team. Just a suggestion.
Thoughts on that as opposed to letting the owner just automatically get him if he wants him?


Salary Cap number:I’m leaning towards $170 million for Salary Cap. Any problems with that let me know. It’s not too low and I know it’s not too high. Ben and I have already tried crunching some numbers and with this $170M, it’ll still be challenging. We can always adjust for 2014 and beyond. Rules state that each team will get another $5M add to cap each year. I’d say that’s just for a year or two and then it’s frozen. Can’t keep going up. May even be a time when it has to drop.

Thanks. Seems like we have a great group of guys here ready to have some fun. Remember, LeagueSafe site is set up. $20 plus $1 to cover fees.
Scott

[Deleted]

I would definitely urge the league's contracts to become independent of what happens in real life in the future.

I like the idea of reverting to 4 year prospect contracts after the initial contract set up.

For the set up, I like the idea of giving pre-arbitration 2 or 3 years at the minimum and then 3 years of arbitration. Arbitration could either be a set value each year like $2 million, or it could escalate from 1 to 2 to 3 million in the 3 years.

I like the idea of a team matching a free agent offer on one of its players. Just throwing another idea out there for this, what if the team gets a 10% discount (or some percentage).

[bxm701]

Think I'm missing the boat on this discussion to be honest but I'll just throw out a couple principles (rather than specifics) that I would like our system to adhere to:

- I like the idea of real life contracts but understand it can make things difficult having real life and "fake" contracts at once.
- We selected our franchises for a reason. I think it's imperative that whatever system we do allows for owners to have a good shot at keeping their core - and not just by using a 1 year franchising. This is especially true given that some people have likely selected franchises with key players that might be only on one year contracts (but are expected to resign next year). That's where the idea of real life resigns following the fantasy team when it comes to "core" or originally kept players. All that to say, however it works I think it's important to be able to protect everyone in your original 30 to a certain extent.

[jsally430]

I'm just throwing out a suggestion to kind of solve Ben's thoughts. We are all going to lose players to free agency. But if we were able to have one slot to keep that player on your team but put a rule you can protect this player for 2-3 years but have a minimum salary of 8-9 million or more or less. But, you can only use it on that player for the duration of the minimum or maximum amount of years. for example jay bruce's contract expired and it doesn't look to be resigning with the reds he's in the prime of his career I don't want to lose him just for an example: I'm going to use dynasty player. I have to sign him for a 3 year 27 million dollar contract. Also if those three years are up and i decide I don't want to redo the deal I cannot restrict him or just franchise him he has to be released into the free agent pool. But I can also resign him to the deal but the minimum amount of money goes to a 15 million a year with a minimum of a 3 year contract.

Like i said this is just an idea that I am throwing out there.

[Scott (Boston Padres)]

All good ideas. I'm digesting. Keep em' coming and we'll figure out the most efficient and best way for our league to handle these salaries, arbitrations, free agent end of contract options. Good thing is we really don't have to worry about or use/apply what we decide on going into Year 1.

[Deleted]

I agree with Andrew about staying away from the contracts in our league to be independent from real life as we go along. That does away with a player signing a long term deal during his protected arbitration years...but I think that is probably wise. That is what we have RFA and Franchise Tags for.

To address a few posts about keeping our core team...Totally agree and I think its important that we come up with a good, fair system that keeps the young players on a team protected throughout their Arbitration period. It also needs to be relatively simple so it doesn't complicate Scott's life. After that, if we phase out the arbitration in favor of the prospect player salary schedule it would be very simple...and I think 4 year period is a pretty fair way to keep that core group around at a very low cost.

After the arbitration period, maybe we could add a few more RFA tags to protect their core? Full Disclosure...the team I picked has a ton of guys in that arbitration period and only one or two guys on long term deals. So I've been looking more at that rather than protecting guys with 1-2 years left on a long term deal. Would more RFAs or a discount that was suggested solve that problem?