Claimed: Let's talk contracts

[Quik 4,113]

Let's talk contracts and how to entice players to use FA

(Wall of text incoming, prize for those of you who make it to the end)

 

So, I saw Anderson's pinned thread about VHL Parity, and it got me thinking. I was going to post a reply in there about an idea that might help, but it got to over 200 words before I did any kind of looking into things, so I figured I'd just piggy-back off of it to work as my MS for the week. If you haven't seen it, he essentially talks about it being hard to retain draftees when most players aren't very good during their ELCs, so it's hard for rebuilding clubs to break the cycle without key FAs or trades. The problem there being that, just like young players leaving a team, no FA is going to want to join a rebuilding team if they have no support for them. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation which is compounded by contract limitations, and the lack of incentive to even go after big money.

 

Right now, all teams are limited by the same standards, $20M Cap Floor, $32M Cap Ceiling, and at its most, a $7M Player Cap. There is no real money, so teams have no incentive not to use all $32M of their available cap. Anderson proposed adding incentives in the Player Store, which would mean chasing the $7M max would be more valuable for players entering their prim. Personally, I don't think that's enough. Even if you offer 25 TPE for $10M (as he suggested), that wouldn't be enough to entice a player to sign on a lesser team, at least in my opinion, as they'd still need to use most of two seasons' salary to pay for it. It's definitely a start, but adding things to the Player Store to entice movement has been done before, to little avail. Most players in the VHL care mostly about winning, and that means they will still take lesser contracts to go to a powerhouse vs. taking more and adding 25TPE to their player if it results in a 8-64 season.

 

My solution is a two-pronged take on giving rebuilding teams some power. It has nothing to do with standings, or draft picks, and could be used by contenders as well, depending on how they structure their cap. I think Anderson had a good start, like I said, adding incentive to actually spend money is never a bad thing. Right now, I think the most incentive is to hoard as much of your earnings until the twilight of your career, to spend on the career extenders, rather than the ticky tacky things like 2 TPE earlier on. However, I would also propose that a rule be added to the contract structures that is somewhat similar to the exceptional player status of the MLS. Obviously, you can't just allow teams to offer any imaginary contract to players, or you'll have teams offering $100M for one season to get a player to sign. No, it would basically be a single player status, where you can sign one player to a contract above and beyond the $7M cap.

 

This exceptional status player contract would still count against the team's cap, which means you won't have teams offering anything outrageous like $20Mx5, but you could definitely have teams offering players over $10M. Not only would this allow rebuilding teams to target, and gain an increased chance at signing higher end FAs, it would also increase the need to keep your cap in order. Contending teams could also utilize the exceptional contract, but they would likely need to move out players in order to do so, which means even if the big FAs go to contenders, rebuilding teams would likely still benefit by receiving mid-tier players through trade.

 

For example, Cologne currently has 2 players combining for under 215 TPE making the league max $7M each. If, instead of signing these crappy inactives, they had $17M in cap space, it's very possible that a pending FA might have made it to FA knowing there's teams with the space to hand out giant contracts, and maybe they would have signed a contract paying them $15M per season, and probably for 2-3 seasons. To make $30M for 2 seasons would be very difficult to turn down, considering it's more than what players can currently make in 4. For Cologne, it wouldn't make them a contender, but having a star player eating that cap space vs. 2 inactives might add a few more wins to their team, and might make them a desirable place for another star player to sign a $7M contract next off-season, which would in-turn lead to draftees sticking around after their ELCs expire.

 

Obviously, you'll never be able to stop players from taking discounts to contend, it'll happen no matter what. But if you can add more ways to entice players to sign big deals, whether they are with contenders or rebuilders, it would mean more talent being spread around, and place a bigger emphasis on managing your cap correctly in order to compete with exceptional player offers. Either way, rebuilding teams would win by either adding stars, or receiving mid-tier players (whose contracts would be more manageable on the cap anyway) from contenders trying to make a big push for a FA.

 

Something for everyone

Edited August 29, 2017 by Quik

[Corco 1,164]

Even though this article isn't about the Express only, I'm not even sure an unlimited amount of $$$ would entice members to join Cologne right now; I think it's more based on external factors, such as players on the team, combined with management and franchise history, the latter of which is something you can't really do anything about sadly. IMO there are a lot more players who would rather go to a contending team and be 'one of the guys' rather than "the guy" on a rebuilding team.

[Quik 4,113]

2 hours ago, Corco said:

Even though this article isn't about the Express only, I'm not even sure an unlimited amount of $$$ would entice members to join Cologne right now; I think it's more based on external factors, such as players on the team, combined with management and franchise history, the latter of which is something you can't really do anything about sadly. IMO there are a lot more players who would rather go to a contending team and be 'one of the guys' rather than "the guy" on a rebuilding team.

Meh, I fully understand why people don't want to go to Cologne. Hell, I could have used the Americans as my example, considering they have over $10M in cap space while paying Balders and Kachur $7M each, plus Styles $4M. That's nearly $29M they could have spend on FAs, and they could have given someone $20M to play one season on their team. Even if the rebuilding teams don't use the exceptional status, contending teams could, which would create the trickle down effect I talked about, where they could trade players to the New Yorks/Colognes of the league.

 

With Cologne, re-branding would probably help. Idk how many people would flat out not play for the team if drafted by them, but if they can improve their drafting and then sign an FA or 2, it might go a long way in improving their image.

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

Shit 20M per season? Peace out Helsinki @Higgins haha

[Gudnason 607]

Excuse me for replying before reading it all, but in the first paragraph you mention key FAs and trades... hard to make a trade when you don't have much valuable assets.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

The issue with the cap is that it's always in flux as to whether it's too high/low. Back about 10 seasons ago good players were getting squeezed off teams because there were so many 750+ TPE players. Now, especially with Player 2s in the fold, there seems to be a lot more of that mid tier, which means more active players can squeeze on teams like Helsinki and Quebec. And add an Exceptional Player status on top of that, and I personally think the problem of parity gets even worse.

 

Something I've been giving thought to recently that could be a change - why the $4M maximum for players in the first three years? For teams that are rebuilding like a Cologne, could spend that money on their actual future rather than random free agents (of which there are never many on the market anyway).

[Gudnason 607]

35 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

The issue with the cap is that it's always in flux as to whether it's too high/low. Back about 10 seasons ago good players were getting squeezed off teams because there were so many 750+ TPE players. Now, especially with Player 2s in the fold, there seems to be a lot more of that mid tier, which means more active players can squeeze on teams like Helsinki and Quebec. And add an Exceptional Player status on top of that, and I personally think the problem of parity gets even worse.

 

Something I've been giving thought to recently that could be a change - why the $4M maximum for players in the first three years? For teams that are rebuilding like a Cologne, could spend that money on their actual future rather than random free agents (of which there are never many on the market anyway).

 

Here's your $6M per retroactively. @BobertZ

 

I'll chuck in a few bags of cocaine as interest for late payment.

Edited August 29, 2017 by punkhippie

[Kendrick 4,741]

3 hours ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

The issue with the cap is that it's always in flux as to whether it's too high/low. Back about 10 seasons ago good players were getting squeezed off teams because there were so many 750+ TPE players. Now, especially with Player 2s in the fold, there seems to be a lot more of that mid tier, which means more active players can squeeze on teams like Helsinki and Quebec. And add an Exceptional Player status on top of that, and I personally think the problem of parity gets even worse.

 

Something I've been giving thought to recently that could be a change - why the $4M maximum for players in the first three years? For teams that are rebuilding like a Cologne, could spend that money on their actual future rather than random free agents (of which there are never many on the market anyway).

That max was in the rulebook because in the NHL you don't get over a certain amount on a rookie contract. It's to avoid teams (who know they are rebuilding) going and loading up one players bank account just because they can. 

 

As an example if Cologne was able to give V2A $10 Million per season for his entire career (because I'm assuming given their management that they will be in a rebuild for 8-9 years) then its just one player getting loaded. Why reward a rebuilding team when we don't really want to encourage tanking. If they tank, they can afford to give out those $10 Million and taking is sort of a no-no here.