Player Contracts and Timing

I was just doing a VERY rough'ed up version of what I thought my salaries/contracts could look like for the next few years and a few things dawned on me.

I believe that once Yahoo opens up and we see PLAYER O RANKS we should then have a much longer period of time (I was thinking a month) to try and massage our teams through FA and Trades BEFORE we need to establish actual contract length. This will allow owner's freedom to trade a high salaried player without the encumbrance of a long/short contract which a trading partner might want/not want. Because we did the draft without knowing what a players salary ACTUALLY WILL BE, I believe that this will be VERY important to almost everyone. Much more important then most will realize right now.

Possibly the best scenario, and this is off the top of my head, have a 1 week period after O Ranks are posted WITHOUT Free Agency but where teams can trade players. Then have a 2 week period of Free Agency and trading. Then have a week where teams can DECLINE any players OTHER THAN those that they signed during the FA process; trading and FA signing can also occur during this week. At the end of the month, and only then all teams will assign contract length and must be under the salary cap.

I can give further nuanced detail as to why a "long grace period" is going to be essential to teams, as long as anyone that they bid on and sign in Free Agency MUST BE kept on their roster after the "grace period" is up or traded.

Glad you are part of the league Cory ... I have no opinion either way but you make some good points. I drafted accordingly avoiding high priced players lol.

Thanks! I appreciate the sentiment.

Yeah, I thought (and still hope) that I was drafting for some real value with players like JVR (my 5th rounder) and Dubinsky, Callahan, Clowe, Okposo... all except for Clowe I probably took at least a round earlier than I thought they may be ranked, but now I'm worried that STOCKS are rising! It'll be interesting to see where players are ranked, I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I like the idea of having a grace period to trade players before contracts are assigned and before FA opens. However, I don't like the idea of having "2 rounds" of FA. I think that once FA opens, every player not signed should be available to all teams. For example, an owner might get into a bidding war and offer a max contract for a particular player that's most attractive in the market only then to find out that in the next round, a much better player is dropped and available.

oh yea... damn... thats right...

um, cory, get to work on a revised idea!

What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I need to think about this. Hmm......

If I understand well that you suggest that there will be auctions for FA, who bid more wins. I dont have good experiences with such a auctions. Last year one salary league was 3times restarted because GMs bid much more they have money left and had big problems with salaries. The result was that the league was halfdead and was really boring to play because most teams lost the interest. I like more general draft with for example 5 (or rather more) rounds but teams have to sign for each round because not everyone needs 5 more players and it is nonsense waiting for such teams.

Ya we get the oranks, then we lock them 48 hours after they are created, and then we all get to find out how much each player is going to cost per year, then we have that free drop period, then FA opens. I agree with Toronto that we can't really have 2 FA periods... If you want a grace period between Oranks and salary locking before FA opens and contracts need to be locked then i am fine with that, we can have 1-2 weeks for guys to figure out what everyone is worth and move them around and or free grace period drop them.

we need the contracts to be locked in before we begin FA bidding because everyone has to stay under cap all 6 years and i would rather just have everyones contracts locked in, so everyone knows how much money they have in FA to bid a proper amount instead of crazily bidding on FA like toronto has mentioned

Makes sense. So maybe just a 10 day period after O Ranks come out, before we assign contracts and before FA starts for us to trade players? How's that sound. Does it make sense?

ya we can have as much grace period as people need before FA opens. How about 10 days like you have said from the time Oranks are frozen. You have 10 days from that point to trade any of your players and at the end of that 10 day period i will need everyone to submit contracts for their players, then we can open FA

Sounds good.

I'm in!