BOG Update - November 23 to 29

[Advantage 2,891]

BOG UPDATE - NOVEMBER 23 to 29

 

Hello everyone, this is Advantage here to bring you another bi-weekly update on the behind the scenes in the Board of Governors. Two weeks ago, the discussion centered mainly around WJC/WC Ideas and Changes and also PBP Presentations, which has been an ongoing discussion for quite some time.  This week however, there is one major topic that I will touch on.  Last week I previewed a discussion that was currently ongoing and now I can reveal that it was about the First Round Auto-Pick Situation for GM’s.  That will be the main discussion point this week as it has been a pretty major one to look at for quite some time.

 

Now as someone who has been in this league for quite some time and was a General Manager for over twenty seasons, I had admittedly been rather curious to see which way this discussion would go.  For a while now, we have thought about dismantling the entire idea of GM’s players being tied to their individual teams.  Back in the day, if I retired my player as a GM my new player would become a part of the franchise without any sacrifice of assets (as they would not enter the draft).  However, eventually we started slowly making that change with the Player Two Model where one of the players was not tied to the team and eventually had made changes to make it so the team could sacrifice a first round pick of their choice.  The problem, as recently seen with Malmo and Frostbeard, is that team’s can just acquire the last pick in the first round to use for their player (who often is an upper echelon talent or in MJF’s case, arguably the best player in the draft).  Therefore, for some time now we have been discussing how best to handle this.  Some felt it was more fair to go back to the old model as it simply allowed for an easy transition and every team would ultimately be treated the same. Others felt that it was best to dismantle the whole thing and if you want to get your player then you better get a pick that will be able to acquire him or her.  For me, the one that seemed to gain the most traction was to utilize the highest pick to draft your own player, but to be fair, some General Managers would probably get screwed by that as some don’t earn TPE like Frostbeard or some of the other elite earners.

 

In addition to discussing how best to explore the draft problem with these players, some also felt maybe it was time to allow GM’s to sign their own players in Free Agency.  To give a personal perspective, I didn’t really support this as you basically don’t eliminate the issue at all then as no other team will draft your player if they think you’ll just leave at the end of your contract.  Loyalty is a big thing for General Managers when drafting someone, and I just can’t see that actually eliminating any issues that we currently have.  However, not everyone saw it that way and some felt it may be better to utilize that option on a case-by-case basis that would allow the Administrators and Board of Governors to give the okay on an emergency basis.

 

Ultimately, a decision did come down recently on both the draft and free agency.  As seen HERE the auto-pick rule has been abolished and now you will have to draft that player just like anyone else.  In addition to that, the league did go forward with the case-by-case basis when it comes to allowing General Managers to sign their own player in Free Agency.  My understanding of the discussion is that this will be mainly if there really is no other option (and may honestly be more useful for GM’s who have goalies as their individual players).  

 

This is a pretty monumental decision for the league and while it is not a perfect solution, I do think it eliminates a lot of the problems we had before.  That being said, will team’s still not want to draft those GM players? It’s definitely possible.  Putting myself in the GM shoes, I could see a bit of reluctance if I felt the GM may put more effort into his team than his player.  However, I do feel this is probably the only decision to make after a back-and-forth discussion in the BOG (seriously, I don’t think everyone agreed on anything).  This is a great step forward for trying to repair a draft process that just saw four General Managers select their own players in the first round (many being selected later than they should be based on TPE alone).  So what do you guys think? By all means let me know, and in two week’s time we will return to our usual format that will look at multiple topics being discussed behind the scenes.
 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Advantage

[bigAL 2,176]

Great stuff as always. You're the perfect one to explain this change with your deep historical perspective. I think it's a good thing - GMs are never going to *not* earn. "Putting their own team ahead of their own player" I don't think is a great argument because it's not a zero-sum problem. Managing a team gives you pay which directly goes into your player, and the two are closely linked. I think everyone wants to be the best in everything they do - and maybe torpedoing your player or having outrageous salary demands so a divisional rival doesn't do well is the new form of tampering.

[Jubis 1,348]

GM player rule change = I really don't like it  . This was literally the direction I was praying the BOG didn't go with this rule. The old rule had so many flaws and needed to be changed, I agree.  Going from one extreme to another tho will create new issues.  I would have liked to see some way where we can claim our player before the draft and use our teams native pick. Whatever that pick that may be.  GMs still get their players if they want.  It eliminates all the ridiculous trade downs from the old rule and everyone's happy.  You don't want to draft your GM player then dont claim him before the draft. This would be a everyone wins option. The amount of hoops a GM will now have to jump through to draft his/her own player now will be crazy.  Sticky situations will arise.  This is just my opinion. 

but there is no way to make everyone happy and I will make do with the change.  Maybe in the future my opinion on the matter will change. 

 

Cheers   

Edited November 30, 2020 by Jubis

[fromtheinside 1,290]

Great recap of the change! This is a very polarizing issue for the league but here's how I see it... like you mentioned, we have seen a trend in player GMs going towards the bottom of the first round because of exploitation (though at the time perfectly within the rules). I don't like when you go back and look at a draft class you see Taro Tsujimoto in the bottom half of the first round when he arguably should have went 1st overall. This is a simulation hockey league and I like keeping things as close to real life hockey when possible. Additionally, there are 16 teams in the VHL. So that means 16 users in the league have been privileged enough to be able to control their destiny on where their player ends up. Granted these 16 people have worked hard to get where they are in the league, but nobody else gets to decide where they are drafted so them losing that right doesn't seem like a huge factor to me. Also, just a personal preference, but I think it is way more fun to go through the draft process naturally, get drafted by a team that covets you and try to build something with that team. And to those who say "well with this change and me not being able to draft my own player, I'm losing a player I know I can rely on".... okay sure but you now also have the opportunity to draft 15 other reliable player GMs when they become draft eligible so I don't buy that. If you are a VHL GM in this league, I would think that would got there off of working hard and putting in work, so there's no reason to think those guys wouldn't put effort into their new players as well. Just my 2 cents.