The new rule

[Admin]

i never like to change the rules in the middle of the season but we now have a situation i was hoping to avoid.
my apologize to all(especially Minn) for not announcing this quicker as we now have a situation with the santana release.
santana was traded by philly along with 13MIL+ in salary. didnt "COST" minn anything. by our rules minn is responsible for 50% of current salary or 6,612,500. he "GAINS" the same amount because philly paid him to take santana, to be used to bid on other free agents. its in another part of the spreadsheet.
at least to me this is not fair. a team pays all of the salary and then when the acquiring team dumps the player he still has 50% of the salary to play with.
so the new rule is...and starts with the santana cut is...
any player with 1 yr remaining on his contract, [EDIT:and is being paid at least 10MIL,] whose salary is completely paid for by the trading team, if he is released before the season ends, the salary remaining will be evenly distributed between original team trading him and the team that cut him. in this example 6.6MIL is divided 50-50 between minn and phil. that means 3,306,125 goes to phil and minn keeps same amount.
another example only is bost trading reynolds and 18mil to pitts. if pitt drops him he still "gets" 9MIL to play with to even re-sign him for cheap. that 9mil would be split 4.5mil to bost and pitt.
any questions just ask here or pm.

[Minnesota Twins]

I have no problems with this. I didn't cut him for salary reasons, but I see how it could potentially be used for that reason. I still want to cut Santana and call up Niese.

[ex-Pittsburgh Pirates]

who is going to change the spreadsheet to account for this rule change?

[Admin]

Why, you, of course.
JK
I'll do it manually. Already accounted for the Santana release.

[ex-Pittsburgh Pirates]

After thinking about this new rule, I have a slight issue with it.

How do we differentiate "paying a player's salary" vs "straight cash" given in a deal?

Let's say I trade Martin Prado to Chicago for all of his #1 draft picks until 2020 and I agree to pay Prado's salary. (theoretical...we'll talk about this later ) That's pretty straight forward and the new rule works fine.

BUT!!!!

Let's say I trade Prado and $2 mill in cash in 2010 for the picks. Prado's salary is only 400k. Ok...maybe that still works if you assume that I am paying Prado's salary plus kicking in $1.6 mill.

BUT BUT BUT!!!!!!
Let's say the deal is Prado + Chris Davis + $2 mill for the picks. Now we have an argument. Davis is not in the last year of his contract. Am I still paying Prado's salary for this year? I would argue that I am not paying anyone's salary that it is merely cash kicked into the deal to even it up. Or I could argue I am paying Davis but not Prado. Who is to say?

MORE BUTS!!!!
Let's I trade Mark Reynolds and $17.9 mill. Reynolds salary is $18 million. So I have just skirted the rule because the rule says it applies only when paying the whole salary.

EVEN MORE BUTS!!!!!!
Let's say I trade Mark Reynolds and $18 million for the picks. So the new rule applies. Then Chicago trades (could be months later!) Reynolds to another owner for picks. That owner then cuts Reynolds. Who gets the cap savings?
What if Chicago had traded Reynolds and $18 million to the 3rd owner? Does that change the answer?

OK....LET'S WRAP THIS UP
I guess what I am trying to say is that if you want to make a rule to stop people from getting cap savings based on guys in the last year of their contract...then I don't know if this rule is the way to do it. I never had a problem with the practice because I always saw the cash coming in the deal as completely separate from the player. It's just semantics as to whether you are 'paying his salary' or kicking in cash to sweeten the deal. If you do have a problem with it, I think there are other ways to go about it. For example....if you acquire a player in the last year of his contract via a trade, you do not get a cap savings (or we reduce the cap savings by 50% or something) if you eventually cut him (whether you got cash in the deal or not.)

What does everyone think?

[Deleted]

Well, I know this is not the full answer but what if when you drop a player and want to re-sign him, you have to re-sign him to the original contract unless he passes through waivers?

That would at least eliminate getting the same player at a cheaper price.

[Minnesota Twins]

Some good questions raised. Maybe the thing to do is if you cut someone in the last year of their contract you only get .5 of the salary relief (.25 of the year's salary). If you traded a guy with cash I don't think we owe you any cap relief anyway. What do ppl think?

[Deleted]

I like Minn's idea but maybe take it a step forward. How about if a player is in the last year of contract then the team that drops him assumes 90% of the salary for the rest of the season. This way he cannot take advantage of everyone else's salary situation (as most salary is tied up in mid season) and sign the player cheap. One, it would make roster management that more challenging and two it would prevent managers from dropping high salaried players to make cap room to sign other, cheaper players. The only exception is if you drop a player before next year's rosters are due.

Also the team that traded away a player should not be penalized. All trades should be final and if a player is traded away for cap relief, the team getting the relief should not be penalized. That's my 2 cents.

The only exceptions should be if you drop the player at end of season or the player is out for the year. Then the 50% should still be in play.

[Minnesota Twins]

If I am in the heat of a pennant race and my ace gets injured I should be able to cut him and have enough to replace him though...

[ex-Pittsburgh Pirates]

No discussion for a few days. Does this mean nobody thinks we have any issues with the new rule? Do we want to tweak it?

If people just want this thread to die, I'm fine with that.

[Deleted]

I don't think the new rule will work without changes based on Pitt's earlier post. If the biggest concern is someone dropping a player to get him for cheaper since they will have the most available salary, then I think the easiest rule change is that they can only re-sign that player to the original contract unless they pass through Waivers once.

If there is an overall general concern about cutting players to sign other players, then I think that is a bigger, more difficult issue to try to figure out.

[Admin]

Try to simplify it. What if the rule states only for players making over 10MIL in final year of contract. Here's the list of current players(orig contract 5MIL+) who will be in final year of contract after NEXT SEASON.
Those under 10MIL and those over 10MIL.

D.Jeter 5.4 - 2
J.Beckett 9.5 - 2 $10,925,000
A.Soriano 9.5 - 2 $10,925,000
D.Aardsma 5.7 - 2
R.Oswalt 6.5 - 2
J.Bay 5.5 - 2
M.Cabrera 9.6 - 2 $11,040,000
B.McCann 5.25 - 2
A.Pujols 13.0 - 2 $14,950,000
Car.Lee 7.75 - 2
J.Lackey 6.75 - 2
B.Fuentes 6.0 - 2
L.Berkman 7.8 - 2
Han.Ramirez 17 - 2 $19,550,000
C.Pena 5.5 - 2
R.Halladay 7.7 - 2
Clf.Lee 14.25 - 2 $15,675,000

It would affect only 6 players! 6 current players. Now that changes with free agency looming and the outrageous salaries that will be paid.-out..but it is only a handfull of players.

Pitt says...
MORE BUTS!!!!
Let's I trade Mark Reynolds and $17.9 mill. Reynolds salary is $18 million. So I have just skirted the rule because the rule says it applies only when paying the whole salary.
Admin says... why in the world would the team trading the player accept this knowing he'd be out some $$$, according to the rules, if the team eventually cuts him.
Simon says...stick your finger in your nose.

C'mon, be honest, how many of you did it?

I appreciate all the comments, good for the league.

[Deleted]

How about this? You drop a guy with 1 year on his contract you eat 100% of his contract (unless player is out for season), 2 years 80% each year, 3 years 60%, 4 years 40% and 5 years plus 20% each year. This may prevent people from dropping players to resign them cheap. Only exception are players out for year or those making less than $5m per year, the rule then should be 50% so they can pick up a replacement.

How about some feedback on plan A or B?


KC

[Deleted]

I like the rule the admin had (the 10mm and up rule).

[ex-Pittsburgh Pirates]

re: trading Mark Reynolds and 17.9 mill you said..."Why in the world would the team trading the player do this?"

You made the rule because you are afraid of teams doing this!!!!

Teams would do this because they are out of the running in the current year and are way under the cap. If money doesn't matter to you, then of course you'll trade 1 year guys + money for prospects. Or at least, you SHOULD.