A List of Actively Updating Welfare and Welfare+ Players Above 400 TPE

[Spartan 4,476]

Just now, Frank said:

Just gotta purge the inactive GM's next.

[hedgehog337 3,483]

9 minutes ago, Frank said:

Just gotta purge the inactive GM's next.

 

[Frank 5,225]

Just now, hedgehog337 said:

 

[BOOM 8,789]

34 minutes ago, Spartan said:

We actually purged that half from the BoG a few weeks ago lol, we're getting some new folks in soon 

 

 

I'm still thinking about it.

[Daniel Janser 2,204]

3 hours ago, v.2 said:

Isn’t this what our oh so beloved VHLE is for? Smfh.

No, the VHLE is for players between 200-400 TPE... all of the above players are north of this hard cap. Lemorse brought it up earlier this week that there are loopholes in the rules (in their opinion) that players with more than 400 TPE could technically play in the VHLE, but was told (I believe it was beketov, but don't quote me on that) that this is definitely not the case... Wasn't your take that the VHLE is starving the VHL of players? It appears that after a few seasons after its implementation, more players graduate from the E than the VHL can (or is willing to) cater to.

[JeffD 648]

11 hours ago, Enorama said:

Give me a 500k boost to the backup exemption and I would have Fire Dragon back in a heartbeat. I'm sure that would help for any other goalies on the list.

 

As for the others:

Chicago has $5M in cap space

Helsinki has $13.5M in cap space

Toronto has $5.5M in cap space

 

That's room for all 9 of these players.

We do not have $5 million in cap space, we have $3 million, and it’s already been spoken for.

[Beketov 9,061]

42 minutes ago, JeffD said:

We do not have $5 million in cap space, we have $3 million, and it’s already been spoken for.

Why does the portal list it as $5M then? Who isn’t being accounted for in there?

[Beketov 9,061]

7 hours ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

But seriously, I would genuinely would like someone to explain to me why the cap hasn't been raised with the nine season careers inflating TPE totals. I just can't grasp the logic, unless it was just analysis paralysis that prevented it.

 

Flexibility for GMs is good! Options for players being able to move where they wish is good! A super tight system where literally 80% of the league is right against the cap and it all comes down to who can manipulate STHS the best isn't great! You don't want a completely open system that allows for super teams, but the mix right now seems very far to the other end.

1. As Spartan pointed out we did raise the cap already and helped to mitigate the extra TPE.

 

2. Raising the cap when there are multiple teams who have the space but not the willingness doesn’t fix the problem. All it does is make more room for the teams at the cap and it wouldn’t be an increase large enough for any of them to sign the players anyway because an increase that large would just lead to more problems later.

 

If teams are choosing to have empty cap space they’ll continue making that choice regardless of what we set the cap to.

[JeffD 648]

11 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Why does the portal list it as $5M then? Who isn’t being accounted for in there?

A player I signed in free agency is listed at $1 million and needs to be adjusted and another hasn’t accepted a contract we agreed on yesterday yet.

[Beketov 9,061]

28 minutes ago, JeffD said:

A player I signed in free agency is listed at $1 million and needs to be adjusted and another hasn’t accepted a contract we agreed on yesterday yet.

Gotcha, that makes more sense

[CowboyinAmerica 2,907]

8 hours ago, Spartan said:

But the cap was raised from 40 to 42 million, and we also changed how depreciation works (twice if you factor in the initial addition of depreciation for the 9th season) to prevent player cap hits from excessively inflating, which is also part of the issue. 

 

We have multiple BoG threads, some short-term, some longer-term to address the salary cap, salary brackets, and how contracts work in general. We're absolutely not sitting on our hands, and I'm happy to write a BoG update if the community feels one is necessary. However we can clearly see that there are teams this season with cap space who just have not made an attempt to sign some of these free agents and I'd like to see those teams make some sort of effort first. For future seasons, we'll likely have some fixes that don't include expansion.

 

1 hour ago, Beketov said:

1. As Spartan pointed out we did raise the cap already and helped to mitigate the extra TPE.

 

2. Raising the cap when there are multiple teams who have the space but not the willingness doesn’t fix the problem. All it does is make more room for the teams at the cap and it wouldn’t be an increase large enough for any of them to sign the players anyway because an increase that large would just lead to more problems later.

 

If teams are choosing to have empty cap space they’ll continue making that choice regardless of what we set the cap to.

 

What problems does it create? Seriously, if everybody's getting signed and members are engaged, personal opinion is that I don't see teams not signing free agents as a bad thing. I default to the rule of fun here: The ability for GMs to build as they please and cycle between rebuilding/contending, players to have more flexibility to move where they want, and actual contenders and pretenders in a given season is more fun for me. And generally members have more fun if they have a chance to win versus being mandated seventh-season cap casualties. At the very least I prefer it to uber-parity, where teams are forced to sign cast-off players who don't want to be there, playoffs are a crapshoot between ~12 teams all squeezed against the cap, and everybody is looking to optimize build construction and there isn't much freedom left for players to do as they please (see: Vinny Detroit trying to have a fun build and being bounced around the league for doing so).

 

A lot of this cap crunch was predictable from way back, which I know you know. But it seems like a bit of a band aid over a wound. $2M over the life of the 9-season career shift is essentially four $500k salary bracket bumps - when an extra season of earning gives people 100-150 more APE for the back half of their career, meaning 1-2 bracket bumps per individual on a team of 11. (Depreciation changes mitigate that slightly, but not totally.) Plus with players spending their first season or two post-draft in the VHLE, there are fewer rookie scale contracts in the VHL as well, making that cap even tighter. It's also going to get even worse next offseason when S80 players don't retire.

 

It's never going to be perfect, and I appreciate the work you've put in to try and get this crazy system up and running. But I almost wish you'd be doing less - it seems a bit like y'all are letting perfect be the enemy of good here. That's the point I was making about analysis paralysis - you can do all the testing in the world, but at some point you've gotta make a change if things aren't working. And perhaps our opinions differ here, but I don't think the tight cap is working.

[Nykonax 1,564]

33 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

 

 

What problems does it create? Seriously, if everybody's getting signed and members are engaged, personal opinion is that I don't see teams not signing free agents as a bad thing. I default to the rule of fun here: The ability for GMs to build as they please and cycle between rebuilding/contending, players to have more flexibility to move where they want, and actual contenders and pretenders in a given season is more fun for me. And generally members have more fun if they have a chance to win versus being mandated seventh-season cap casualties. At the very least I prefer it to uber-parity, where teams are forced to sign cast-off players who don't want to be there, playoffs are a crapshoot between ~12 teams all squeezed against the cap, and everybody is looking to optimize build construction and there isn't much freedom left for players to do as they please (see: Vinny Detroit trying to have a fun build and being bounced around the league for doing so).

 

A lot of this cap crunch was predictable from way back, which I know you know. But it seems like a bit of a band aid over a wound. $2M over the life of the 9-season career shift is essentially four $500k salary bracket bumps - when an extra season of earning gives people 100-150 more APE for the back half of their career, meaning 1-2 bracket bumps per individual on a team of 11. (Depreciation changes mitigate that slightly, but not totally.) Plus with players spending their first season or two post-draft in the VHLE, there are fewer rookie scale contracts in the VHL as well, making that cap even tighter. It's also going to get even worse next offseason when S80 players don't retire.

 

It's never going to be perfect, and I appreciate the work you've put in to try and get this crazy system up and running. But I almost wish you'd be doing less - it seems a bit like y'all are letting perfect be the enemy of good here. That's the point I was making about analysis paralysis - you can do all the testing in the world, but at some point you've gotta make a change if things aren't working. And perhaps our opinions differ here, but I don't think the tight cap is working.

The problem with increasing cap by too much in my opinion is that teams aren't going to use that space to sign the low 400 tpe players out of the goodness of their heart, they are going to use that space to just sign more high TPE players or give their players more bonuses. Especially under a system where TPE matters way more, giving teams the option to sign more high TPE players and form super teams just decreases parity while not really helping the low TPE people without teams. Sure, they'll eventually end up on a bottom feeder team that has no good players because the good players left to teams that have new cap space for them. But that's not really fun or a change we would want. I think some teams would even just refuse to sign these players given the extra cap because it literally just makes your team worse. If you have a 6-4-1 of good players and like 3 mil extra cap space, you aren't signing a 400 TPE 7th forward or 5th Dman if you are trying to win. It just ruins your lines and the player isn't good enough to make up for it. It makes way more sense to use that cap space on bonuses to help your players fight regression or buy more TPE.

 

Obviously it's not good that GM's would do this over signing active members, and we could mandate teams with cap space to sign these players, but then that just ruins the point of team-building flexibility that a higher cap brings.

 

33 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

there are fewer rookie scale contracts in the VHL as well, making that cap even tighter.

This is being worked on.

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Nykonax

[Alex 3,225]

One thing that is incredibly important to note, in Season 83 prior to the salary cap increase the average cap hit of every team was  $33,218,000 or $6,782,000 below the salary cap. Assuming every ACTIVE player that is currently a FA gets signed the league average cap hit would be $40,922,000 or $1, 088,000 below the salary cap (the back-up goalie cap exemption has been taken into account). This is the result of a variety of factors such as, regression being minimal (fixed), the VHLE making it so that players are no longer on their ELC when they make it to the VHL (there is a current BOG thread about this), and the massive and high earning draft classes from S82-S84 which was the reason that the VHLE expanded to 8 teams to accommodate the influx.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Alex

[MubbleFubbles 1,292]

This wouldn't solve everything, but while we legit have active players unable to find teams in FA, the ability to offer inactive re-signings needs to be removed. I see at least one situation where a player of similar quality to these FA's was kept on via inactive re-signing (Not saying the GM is at fault for this btw since they likely didn't foresee this particular situation, but it's all the more reason for the rule to be binned so teams can't preemptively re-sign inactives before an FA that has actives takes place).

[jacobcarson877 2,547]

3 minutes ago, MubbleFubbles said:

This wouldn't solve everything, but while we legit have active players unable to find teams in FA, the ability to offer inactive re-signings needs to be removed. I see at least one situation where a player of similar quality to these FA's was kept on via inactive re-signing (Not saying the GM is at fault for this btw since they likely didn't foresee this particular situation, but it's all the more reason for the rule to be binned so teams can't preemptively re-sign inactives before an FA that has actives takes place).

This ^

I feel like the offseason should go:

FA Opens

TPE Cutoff

Depreceation

Draft

Active Check (if there are actives left in the position you need they must be signed first, assuming cap space works of course)

Callup Period (specifically for the 300-399s, of course 400+ should have been called up after the TPE deadline)

Inactive FA

Index

This might be unpopular but:

Active VHLers > Callups > Inactives

 

The schedule should reflect that.
 

[Spartan 4,476]

11 minutes ago, jacobcarson877 said:

This ^

I feel like the offseason should go:

FA Opens

TPE Cutoff

Depreceation

Draft

Active Check (if there are actives left in the position you need they must be signed first, assuming cap space works of course)

Callup Period (specifically for the 300-399s, of course 400+ should have been called up after the TPE deadline)

Inactive FA

Index

This might be unpopular but:

Active VHLers > Callups > Inactives

 

The schedule should reflect that.
 

I don't get why FA would open before the cutoff and depreciation. Wouldn't you want everyone's cap hits and brackets set before signing more contracts?

 

Also while the IA FA component obviously isn't great this season, as @MubbleFubbles said, it's tough to blame the GMs for that. Most GM's prefer to have their rosters set before FA, that's often why FA classes fizzle out by the discussion period since teams are either trading for rights and signing players, or just re-signing those they have a guaranteed chance to keep for the next season. If we removed the ability to re-sign IA's, what happens when there aren't as many actives in FA and the team has a low waiver priority due to high placement the prior season. They're just forced to have to pay another team for a player they could have just re-signed or an equivalent player?

Edited January 18, 2023 by Spartan

[MubbleFubbles 1,292]

38 minutes ago, Spartan said:

If we removed the ability to re-sign IA's, what happens when there aren't as many actives in FA and the team has a low waiver priority due to high placement the prior season. They're just forced to have to pay another team for a player they could have just re-signed or an equivalent player?

I mean at that point, the discussion would be "Is there a compelling enough reason for why a team should be able to keep players that go inactive?". One of the jobs of a GM is to help keep players active, so why should a GM be able to hold potentially infinite player rights to a player who decides to leave the league? Doesn't that potentially benefit the GM significantly more than drafting an active who leaves in FA after 3 seasons?

 

Back in the day, it made more sense to allow it because salaries were done on TPE rather than TPA and depreciation was more significant, so while an inactive player might only have 400-500 TPA through depreciation they weren't around to battle, they'd potentially cost the same as a 700-800 TPE player who hadn't depreciated, so there was oftentimes a greater financial cost to keeping an inactive around. But now there are no such sacrifices, it is just that you pay the player the same as the rest of the players at their level and potentially stay at their level of player for longer than before based on the rule change to when depreciation starts. 

Edited January 18, 2023 by MubbleFubbles

[jacobcarson877 2,547]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

I don't get why FA would open before the cutoff and depreciation. Wouldn't you want everyone's cap hits and brackets set before signing more contracts?

because I'm goofy and silly (my brain thought it correctly but my hands did it wrong)

[frescoelmo 1,282]

16 hours ago, Spartan said:

We actually purged that half from the BoG a few weeks ago lol, we're getting some new folks in soon 

[JCarson 734]

I think this is a a very interesting discussion and one that most people are contributing to find a solution.  I however am going to state the obvious as it seams we have 2 differing viewpoints on what the VHL should provide.

 

1) The author of this article initially definitely falls into the viewpoint that all active player (active being defined as adding at least 1 TPE each week) deserve the right to be on a team and be allowed to play.  The rules we have thus should be altered to reflect this.

 

2) The second group are of the stance that each teams GM should have the right to manage their team as they see fit, as long as they are within the guidelines established and should not be forced to sign players, especially if it would make the team worse overall.  If that means that lower earning players do not have a spot, that is acceptable.

 

This is not a rule question but a question on what are the VHL's values regarding how it treats players.  

 

I don't know if either viewpoint is better:

Option 1 promotes inclusion, supports recruitment of all levels of players.

Option 2 promotes competition, encourages freedom of choice and creates a level of value to winning a championship

 

Not sure the BOG have an easy decision.

 

  

[nurx 914]

2 minutes ago, JCarson said:

I think this is a a very interesting discussion and one that most people are contributing to find a solution.  I however am going to state the obvious as it seams we have 2 differing viewpoints on what the VHL should provide.

 

1) The author of this article initially definitely falls into the viewpoint that all active player (active being defined as adding at least 1 TPE each week) deserve the right to be on a team and be allowed to play.  The rules we have thus should be altered to reflect this.

 

2) The second group are of the stance that each teams GM should have the right to manage their team as they see fit, as long as they are within the guidelines established and should not be forced to sign players, especially if it would make the team worse overall.  If that means that lower earning players do not have a spot, that is acceptable.

 

This is not a rule question but a question on what are the VHL's values regarding how it treats players.  

 

I don't know if either viewpoint is better:

Option 1 promotes inclusion, supports recruitment of all levels of players.

Option 2 promotes competition, encourages freedom of choice and creates a level of value to winning a championship

 

Not sure the BOG have an easy decision.

 

  

this might be the more interesting take. I don't think you have to choose between the two, and that a place exists in the middle somewhere that players will always be able to play if they are active, but teams still have the ability to do what they want with their team. For example, the solution hedge said about removing the penalty for releasing inactives would help, but I believe that would cause problems because I believe teams that draft poorly should be punished by their poor draft. Maybe a reduced penalty for buying out the contract or even a penalty to draft position.

[JCarson 734]

I guess I was working on the assumption that all the intelligent individuals  that responded above have been working towards the combined option and have not produced a satisfactory answer.  To me it came down to the fact we need to understand what our philosophical stance is before we can answer the question of which way do we move from our current position.

[Budnik 10]

Should I just retire my player and forget the time I've put in to this?  Pretty pathetic if that's my only option......

[hedgehog337 3,483]

5 hours ago, Budnik said:

Should I just retire my player and forget the time I've put in to this?  Pretty pathetic if that's my only option......

 

Most of teams with no cap space and those who have (prolly 2 teams left) may likely not give you lots of playing time. 

 

also shame on yall on not allowing us cutting inactives without cap pen. 

[nurx 914]

11 hours ago, Budnik said:

Should I just retire my player and forget the time I've put in to this?  Pretty pathetic if that's my only option......

officially 2nd player I have heard say this. What is happening in the league where this is an option for players????