My Unhinged Proposals for Spicing Up the Trade Deadline

[Gustav 6,495]

Last season, the VHL decided to wait until I had exhausted my entire memory of everything that has ever happened to me in the VHL across my Gustav 30 in 30 series before asking us to write about "VHL lore," of all things, before theme week. It only stands to reason that this season, the VHL would wait for me to put out a really cool article that is highly specifically about the trade deadline, and then they would decide to make us write about nothing other than the trade deadline for our doubles week. Perhaps I should just shut up and take the compliment that the blues obviously read everything I write, but I will instead choose to believe that they hate me and enjoy watching me suffer over having to come up with two cool ideas in a row on the same topic. It's weird that they would do that--if you want to see me miss TPE, just post Fantasy Zone and wait for me to forget to do it.

 

Luckily for you, and thanks to Mike's Hard Lemonade, I have another cool idea for you. Last week, I tried to make something that was a little more realistic, but since the blue team decided to do something truly unbelievable to me, I have something a bit less realistic for you. I shall not disappoint.

 

One of the major complaints about the trade deadline is just that there isn't enough happening around the trade deadline. In some seasons, trades are very lacking, and some of you like to complain that this means the system is broken because not enough things that are exciting to you personally are going on. Because of this, I'd like to (non-seriously) propose some exciting rule changes that will be sure to spice up the trade deadline and make it the most exciting day of the season.

 

 

Injured Reserve: you heard me right--if you've ever wanted to pull a Tampa Bay or a Vegas, here we are! We don't have injuries in the VHL, but they exist in STHS, and if we were to flip that switch, we'd have a system that you could game hard enough to really get people talking! Of course, we could also make sure that the salary cap is easily gamed as well by things such as these. Imagine being able to place a player on IR to free up a few million in cap space, use that cap space to trade for an 1100-TPA player from a team that's down on its luck near the deadline, and then have your injured player magically recover in time for the playoffs with it not counting against your cap hit! Teams that are loaded up are the cause of lots of deadline inactivity, because they want to compete but don't have the cap to get any stronger. Here, we could have it both ways.

 

Half-Season Contracts and Deadline FA: Want to save money as a GM? Why not sign a player for half a season for half the cap hit? Players will like signing until the deadline because they'll have the choice to go to teams with a chance to win afterward, and teams with a chance to win will like it too because they'll be able to sign people for half off if they've got the space through some system like IR or something. If you're a bubble team, too, you might find that you can have more success in signing players in the offseason--you'll be able to promise people more of a leading role on your team over that first half, where they'll get the numbers they want, and at that point perhaps you'll be good enough to warrant a playoff run and a re-signing. I see nothing wrong with this.

 

A Deadline Rule 5 Draft: In the MLB, teams can draft players directly from the minor league systems of other teams through something called the Rule 5 draft. Each team can protect a certain number of players, and it's inherently limited to serious prospects only because players who are selected need to be kept on the team's big-league roster for the whole year. My idea is to assign Rule 5 picks in the same way that Supplementary Draft picks are assigned in the NFL (you don't get them for free; you need to give up a regular draft pick for a pick there and those picks are assigned in the order they were in the regular draft). Teams opting into the Rule 5 draft in this way could then select from a pool of unprotected VHLM prospects from other teams, which would happen at the deadline because the deadline is boring. These players would then need to be kept on the roster and played in the regular lineup until at least the next season's deadline, thus discouraging teams from picking just anyone, and at this point good picks could enjoy their new home and bad picks could be cut or shipped out. Notice how that could also free up cap space around the deadline and make teams open for trades? I do too.

 

No Changes to Cap For Retiring Players: This is somehow both the least weird and most radical idea on the list. Currently, teams taking on players on deadline day take 50% of the cap hit, still making it so teams who are right up against the cap can't take anyone more expensive. Originally, I didn't have the "for retiring players" in this section, but to keep it more sensible and just talk about those players, why not enable cup-chasing for that one last season? Teams who want to go all-in would still need to pay fair value for it; they just wouldn't need to crunch the numbers. 

 

 

I think that by putting my ideas in motion, the league could have much more exciting trade deadlines. Let me know if you'd like me to take any of my ideas to the Board of Gustav.

[Victor 11,064]

I love this. Throw in promotion and relegation for good measure.