I suggest

[ex-Pittsburgh Pirates]

Jul 25, 2017 22:51:37 GMT -5 [e-mail] said:

Lookie, Detroit.

I come at you with say Dellin Betances and 10 million in next year cash (b/c your trading block states you're all fun n games for 'future cash'). And somehow you like this deal, but you can't make it b/c he is capped. You're ok with this?

The response to this is obviously, "Well, yeah I'm ok with that. That's why we have a cap."

I could argue that we essentially do not have a functional cap right now. There is no player a contender cannot acquire mid-season due to salary because teams freely throw cash around to make the deal happen. That's all well and good, but this was always intended to be a cap league.

If anything is done it has to be simple, unobtrusive, and not limit trades. We have a 90m cap now. Maybe we put a cap on the amount of salary you can go above 90m. 90/110? 90/120?

[Detroit]

Just thinking out loud, but there are 2 different, separate ideas here.

1. Capping the dollar amount you can trade away in a year.
2. Prorating every single draft pick and assigning a "slot value to them.

Personally, #1 is the closest idea anyone has had to limiting the crazy 1 year contracts on the top end players. If this was quantified and capped, Kershaw would only be able to move to the team that could afford him and provide some league balance. Guys would still get 1 year deals, but there wouldn't be as many, and teams certainly wouldn't be trading all these guys to the same team, nor allowed to continuously profit off selling their salary away.

[Detroit]

I also like that idea Pitts, coupled with my #1.

It's not intrusive, just limits the amount of money any team can "gift" in any given season. Just an example, but Brew gave LA 32M in 2 transactions for 2017. This would put both teams over their respective limits and limit LA to how much salary assistance he could get from other teams. Same would go for all the teams "in the hunt"

[[e-mail]]

Can I ask this question: Why is the 90 million cap not a firm cap that you cannot go over? Why are we allowed to go red on that cap?

I think before anything is further done, that cap be made FIRM. That might make guys sweat a little when they bring their budgets close to 5-10 million remaining with a year to manage a team ahead of them.

Couple that with the existing rule you put in place, Pitts.  Let's see what happens then.

Beyond that, the simplest way to control cash transactions assigned to player's salaries is to not allow it altogether.  Allow cash transactions that aren't associated to a player's salary.  Couple that with some Detroit rule of thumb where no money in an entire Cashman year can be traded beyond 15% of 90 million (13.5 million).

I dunno, Im tired and cranky.  But such things would not ruin my experience here.

Brew