Hi everyone! The rules summit is right around the corner and I wanted to present an idea for replacing the current contract minimum system and giving players more freedom in contract negotiations.
I wanted to share this more widely around the league to make sure we get opinions not just from GMs and department heads, but all users, as it's you that will benefit most from this.
Here are some negatives that we currently have to live with due to employing a contract minimum structure:
- 90% of users taking the minimum and having no real choice in how much they would like to be paid (whether more or less)
- Users needing to opt out at the end of every season during regression so that the team can tactically re-sign for the new minimum
- Salary cap probably being more harsh than it needs to, due to the loose relationship between total salary and total team strength
The proposal is to remove contract minimums and allow teams to pay their players how they like. There will still be a maximum total amount a team can pay out to their players, but in order to control super teams forming, there will be a loose TPE cap.
Because there is a much more direct correlation with TPE and team strength than there is between total salary and team strength, we can allow much more freedom to teambuilding than we have done, with a higher relative cap.
An individual player's cap hit would be determined by their applied TPE, taken from the tracker, after the final update of the preceding season with any upcoming regression applied, and be set in stone throughout the whole season. A couple of modifications would also be made. The maximum cap hit for any individual player would be 1,000. I would also suggest that kickers have a maximum cap hit of 600. Sent down players would not count towards this TPE cap in any way.
A team's total cap hit would be calculated any time their roster sees an adjustment, whether that is with a callup, a signing or a departure.
In order to determine what the upcoming season's TPE cap limit will be, we would use last year's rosters. Taking all S29 called up players (including OL bots) and applying regression, the average cap hit is 18,657 TPE, with the largest 3 being NYS (20,790), SAR (20,276) and BER (20,186). I would then suggest we apply a fixed modifier to the average to determine what the upcoming season's cap will be. Applying a 15% modifier to the average would set the S30 cap at 21,456.
As such, no team is really going to have to keep as close an eye on their cap space as they do right now, except perhaps the very top 1/2 teams if they are planning to sign a couple of big name FAs and not release/trade anyone else.
In this way, we can allow complete freedom for individual contracts. No need for minimums, or even minimum lengths.
- GMs want to play for $0?
- Want to pay your max earners a token sum but pay your rookies enough to make sure they can all buy T6?
- Are you a free agent who wants to demand the ISFL's first ever $50M contract?
- Are you a free agent mercenary who wants to break the total salary record by signing with whoever pays them the most each season?
- Do you want to sign a lifetime contract with your new team straight away?
The main three reasons I think this would be a good thing for the league:
1) Make contracts more fun and flexible, with no minimum salaries and no maximum lengths
2) Make it easier to prevent imbalanced teams forming
3) Remove the need to opt out of contracts just to re-sign for a lower amount
Some concerns about this idea I've seen brought up:
What's to stop teams telling players to permanently stop earning at X TPE in order to help the team?
- Nothing, but asking a player to play at a lower TPE and get worse stats is a tougher sell than asking to play at their full potential for a lower salary. With a max cap hit of 1,000 and a generous TPE cap, it's also probably not a good play for the team.
If a team is out of contention, what's to stop a player not claiming their TPE towards the end of the season so that it doesn't count towards next season's cap hit?
- Nothing, but with the cap being so high, saving 20-50 or so TPE is probably not going to make much of a difference. Their TPE cap hit will still be way more indicative of how good a player they are than their current minimum salary tier. They'd also be sacrificing the chance at personal stats by doing this which is a tough ask. However, if a team wants to do this for all their players in order to save like 500 TPE against next years cap, that's up to them. It's still going to be much more accurate than the salary cap.
What would be the penalty for going over the TPE cap?
- Because the team's total cap (not the players' cap hit) would be recalculated any time a change to the roster is made, that change will just be prevented from happening if it would take them over the cap. In the unlikely scenario that next year's cap is determined and a team is already over the cap, even after regression / retirements, options could be reducing their TPE cap for the following season, making GM players ineligible until they are under or reducing their total salary pot for the upcoming season.
What would the salary cap be?
- We would keep the total amount of money that can be spent on salaries the same. These would still be tracked by the budget team to make sure that no one spends over the total. Rules around staying under the salary cap would still apply, but perhaps we could allow salaries to be renegotiated if both the player and GM agree to make it easier to manage.
How do OL bots fit into this?
- OL bot rules would all stay the same. They'd count towards the TPE cap as well as taking up salary that could be paid to someone else.
Let me know your thoughts!
I wanted to share this more widely around the league to make sure we get opinions not just from GMs and department heads, but all users, as it's you that will benefit most from this.
Here are some negatives that we currently have to live with due to employing a contract minimum structure:
- 90% of users taking the minimum and having no real choice in how much they would like to be paid (whether more or less)
- Users needing to opt out at the end of every season during regression so that the team can tactically re-sign for the new minimum
- Salary cap probably being more harsh than it needs to, due to the loose relationship between total salary and total team strength
The proposal is to remove contract minimums and allow teams to pay their players how they like. There will still be a maximum total amount a team can pay out to their players, but in order to control super teams forming, there will be a loose TPE cap.
Because there is a much more direct correlation with TPE and team strength than there is between total salary and team strength, we can allow much more freedom to teambuilding than we have done, with a higher relative cap.
An individual player's cap hit would be determined by their applied TPE, taken from the tracker, after the final update of the preceding season with any upcoming regression applied, and be set in stone throughout the whole season. A couple of modifications would also be made. The maximum cap hit for any individual player would be 1,000. I would also suggest that kickers have a maximum cap hit of 600. Sent down players would not count towards this TPE cap in any way.
A team's total cap hit would be calculated any time their roster sees an adjustment, whether that is with a callup, a signing or a departure.
In order to determine what the upcoming season's TPE cap limit will be, we would use last year's rosters. Taking all S29 called up players (including OL bots) and applying regression, the average cap hit is 18,657 TPE, with the largest 3 being NYS (20,790), SAR (20,276) and BER (20,186). I would then suggest we apply a fixed modifier to the average to determine what the upcoming season's cap will be. Applying a 15% modifier to the average would set the S30 cap at 21,456.
As such, no team is really going to have to keep as close an eye on their cap space as they do right now, except perhaps the very top 1/2 teams if they are planning to sign a couple of big name FAs and not release/trade anyone else.
In this way, we can allow complete freedom for individual contracts. No need for minimums, or even minimum lengths.
- GMs want to play for $0?
- Want to pay your max earners a token sum but pay your rookies enough to make sure they can all buy T6?
- Are you a free agent who wants to demand the ISFL's first ever $50M contract?
- Are you a free agent mercenary who wants to break the total salary record by signing with whoever pays them the most each season?
- Do you want to sign a lifetime contract with your new team straight away?
The main three reasons I think this would be a good thing for the league:
1) Make contracts more fun and flexible, with no minimum salaries and no maximum lengths
2) Make it easier to prevent imbalanced teams forming
3) Remove the need to opt out of contracts just to re-sign for a lower amount
Some concerns about this idea I've seen brought up:
What's to stop teams telling players to permanently stop earning at X TPE in order to help the team?
- Nothing, but asking a player to play at a lower TPE and get worse stats is a tougher sell than asking to play at their full potential for a lower salary. With a max cap hit of 1,000 and a generous TPE cap, it's also probably not a good play for the team.
If a team is out of contention, what's to stop a player not claiming their TPE towards the end of the season so that it doesn't count towards next season's cap hit?
- Nothing, but with the cap being so high, saving 20-50 or so TPE is probably not going to make much of a difference. Their TPE cap hit will still be way more indicative of how good a player they are than their current minimum salary tier. They'd also be sacrificing the chance at personal stats by doing this which is a tough ask. However, if a team wants to do this for all their players in order to save like 500 TPE against next years cap, that's up to them. It's still going to be much more accurate than the salary cap.
What would be the penalty for going over the TPE cap?
- Because the team's total cap (not the players' cap hit) would be recalculated any time a change to the roster is made, that change will just be prevented from happening if it would take them over the cap. In the unlikely scenario that next year's cap is determined and a team is already over the cap, even after regression / retirements, options could be reducing their TPE cap for the following season, making GM players ineligible until they are under or reducing their total salary pot for the upcoming season.
What would the salary cap be?
- We would keep the total amount of money that can be spent on salaries the same. These would still be tracked by the budget team to make sure that no one spends over the total. Rules around staying under the salary cap would still apply, but perhaps we could allow salaries to be renegotiated if both the player and GM agree to make it easier to manage.
How do OL bots fit into this?
- OL bot rules would all stay the same. They'd count towards the TPE cap as well as taking up salary that could be paid to someone else.
Let me know your thoughts!