How does trading work in auction/salary cap leagues?

[SandboxPolitics]

I have done some research here and elsewhere and I can't seem to find an answer to my question, so here goes:

We want to try a salary cap league, but I (commish) need help with the logistics.

Our current plan is to allocate a certain amount of money ($200) to each owner for the draft (snake) that owners can spend on players. Each player will have a pre-draft value assigned to them according to a website that we choose (fantasy pros we're thinking). I understand that an auction might be the best choice here, but I don't think it makes a difference for the purposes of this question.

My confusion is shown with this example:
Owner A drafts Odell for 5 dollars and he blows up midway through the season to the point where he is now worth 25 dollars.
Owner B drafts Gronk for 28 dollars and he remains at 28 the whole season long.
If these two owners trade these two players, what are the possible repercussions?

Here are the options that I can think of in this situation, and none of them appear ideal:
---(1) Player value always stays the same. Here, Owner A takes Gronk but Gronk takes up 28 dollars of cap space on Owner A's team (why would he do this if he has a closely valued player taking up less space?). This is bad because it discourages trading. Owner B takes Odell at what value
---(2) Everything is market price. This could allow money-for-player trades. Here, if Owner B wants Odell but he is only willing to pay 13 for him, does B take Odell who now takes up 13 dollars of salary cap space? Do you give credits to Owner A so that he now has extra salary cap space (which would be the 8 dollars of *capital gains* that Odell experienced? Here, I am having a hard time comprehending the consequences of a two or multi-player trade.
---(3) Salary cap only applies for the draft/auction, after which point players are traded freely and FAs are bid on according to whatever leftover cap was available to that owner after the draft. Here, I am unsure what would happen when an owner drops a player. Does he free up that amount of salary cap space again that he can use on FA bidding? If Owner B traded Gronk for Odell and then subsequently dropped Odell for whatever reason, how much salary cap space is he freeing up? 5? 25? 0?

I'm sure there are way more issues here than I am considering, but I'm hoping that there is a quick fix that most leagues use to address some of these issues. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[bonscott]

Well, these really aren't issues, it's how salary cap leagues are run. If you get a guy like Odell cheap, that is part of the game and make him worth even more in a trade should the owner choose to trade him. If I have a player that is overpriced because he isn't worth his salary anymore, so be it, part of the game. If that's the case I'll cut him and take the cap hit to free up space and let him go back to the auction.

In my cap league I went thru "salary cap hell" two years ago as I had too many players I paid too much for and didn't perform. So I did a purge and dumped them all. Took massive cap hits going into that next season but started my rebuild and I had a bunch of rookie picks I had gotten in the purge (I was able to trade some). 2 years later I'm now a playoff favorite with help from low priced guys like LeVeon Bell and Julio and I went all out and overspent on Dez for a one year rental to make a run.

I kinda think you're overthinking things but if these kinds of things bother you then I might suggest that a salary cap league isn't for you. It's a whole different beast then regular leagues.

Also, auction is *THE* only way to draft a salary cap. Makes zero sense to have pre-set salaries for anything other then the yearly rookie draft with slotted salaries per pick.

[bruiser]

Sounds like SandBoxPolitics is not using MFL software. These are questions that an ESPN commish running spreadsheets might ask... and that's ok. If you've yet to pay for the software, let me tell you that it's worth it. I digress...

My salary/contract leagues have an easy workaround for the trading aspect of dyno. Rather than "restructure" bad contracts for trades, we allow the trading of blind-bid dollars to help offset bad contracts or make up the difference in unbalanced deals. If you do not have blind-bid dollars, then simply adding in cash language to the trade comments will instruct the commish to manually adjust for each team. A little labor-intensive, but it accomplishes the goal of creating a climate where cash-strapped teams can still work the trade market.

[SandboxPolitics]

Well, these really aren't issues, it's how salary cap leagues are run. If you get a guy like Odell cheap, that is part of the game and make him worth even more in a trade should the owner choose to trade him.

Ok. My concern was that if Odell only took up a few dollars of my cap space, I couldn't trade him for any player of equal value because it would put me over the cap, and we were trying to encourage trading. But I get it. I think we've decided to do an auction and make the salary cap apply only for the auction itself, after which point players could be traded freely. Thanks.

Sounds like SandBoxPolitics is not using MFL software. These are questions that an ESPN commish running spreadsheets might ask... and that's ok. If you've yet to pay for the software, let me tell you that it's worth it. I digress...

What does MFL offer that the free software doesn't? So players keep their auction/waiver bid value throughout the whole season, and you fix "equal value but unequal price" trades by allowing the trading of waiver blind-bid money? I was considering that myself, if that's what you mean. We've decided to go full auction and we're considering making the salary cap only apply for the auction, but I'm hesitant. So once a player is auctioned off or won via waiver bid, that value sticks with them consistently throughout the season? What happens if a player is dropped and goes through the re-bidding process with FAAB money? Would he still take up as much space as his original winning auction price?

Also, considering a separate keeper cap too. Any thoughts on this? Thanks

[bruiser]

I'm thinking you will find a way to make anything work. MFL software keeps track of team salaries and remaining funds (something that other owners will need to readily see when looking for trade partners). MFL also keeps track of contract years and allows you to one-click reduce all contracts by one year each new season. If your players get raises (maybe 5% each season) then MFL allows you to one-click give raises to all players in the league.

ESPN will provide you an auction league for free, but does none of the extras. I commish an auction re-draft league of 9yrs on ESPN and commish a salary/contract league on MFL. By playing in the various formats as owner, I was able to formulate the most streamlined salary/contract league setup on MFL. So many times these leagues are setup with a labor-intensive job for the commish. Eventually, all of the manual work gets to be too burdensome and the commish gets burned-out. That spells doom for a dynasty league.

[bruiser]

http://football20.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... 00&DAYS=30

Here is a link to the trades that have recently processed in the DLA. Notice the inclusion of cap space/funding in the trade comments.

[junk_monkey]

OK. My concern was that if Odell only took up a few dollars of my cap space, I couldn't trade him for any player of equal value because it would put me over the cap, and we were trying to encourage trading. But I get it. I think we've decided to do an auction and make the salary cap apply only for the auction itself, after which point players could be traded freely. Thanks.

Part of the beauty of salary cap leagues is the ability to get some players at bargain prices - it's a nice way to show how savvy you are too. And it does add a wrinkle to trading. You may often find that SC leagues will have a bit less trading than other dynasty leagues because there is the salary issue to get around too. In the example you give of OBJ at $5 for Gronk at $28, if both teams were hard up against the cap so there was no room for Team A to absorb the extra hit of Gronk either the trade wouldn't go ahead or Team A might add in an underperforming over-priced player to clear space with, perhaps a $1 guy going back to make it a 2 for 2 deal (if roster limits were also an issue).

What you normally have in SC leagues is contract lengths too, so OBJ being at $5 wouldn't last. He might have a 3 or 4 year deal but after that goes back to the open market for everyone to bid on and his price will climb, so Team A only has that bargain price for a set time.

One final note - making your cap only count for the auction means that you're not running a salary cap league, you're just doing a start-up auction instead of a start-up draft. Auctions will always have a set cap on what people can spend. What makes it a salary cap league is applying that to your team going forward and having to stick within that limit. nothing wrong with just having a start-up auction (it's better than a draft in my opinion), but to avoid confusion don't call it a salary cap league.

You'll also need to consider how teams pick up free agents during the season and in future off-seasons, and how you're dealing with rookies in future years too. If you want to go the salary cap route then your options are different to if you're just a regular league.

[bonscott]

Good points junk_monkey.

To the OP....yes, if I have Odell at a cheap 5 bucks and I'm up against the cap then yea, I can't trade and get Gronk unless I either trade enough players with salary or drop enough to make room. I don't see how this is a problem or unfair, I have Odell super cheap after all, that's almost "unfair" as it is. LOL And this *is* how salary cap leagues work.

I'll dig up a couple trades from my past to give you examples of how some of this works.

The year....2013. The deep dark past.
I'm trying to rebuild and shed some bad contracts. I have Jimmy Graham dirt cheap as I drafted him at minimum salary his rookie year, however only has 1 more year left on his contract (so 2014 he's good but he's back to the auction draft in 2015....this year unless he tags him for another year, which he did, but that's another story). The guy that wants him bad has Julio at a reasonable contract with 2 years left. My goal in my rebuild is to make a run in 2015. So we have the basis for a trade here. I also have Jordy on a really expensive contract that I want to get out from under and Julio is the replacement with a much more reasonable contract. The other guy doesn't have the cap space to do this BUT he has Ingram on a really horrible contract long term. To make this trade go I need to eat that contract.

So the trade goes like this: I send him Jody (HUGE contract) and Graham (dirt cheap) and a 3rd rounder and he sends me Ingram (horrible contract but only half the cost that Jordy was) and Julio (great contract) and a 1st rounder. The other team also needed to drop a couple scrub prospects to make room.

So I got out from under a huge contract, and I immediately dropped Ingram to free up cap space so that I could do another trade with someone and actually have some moola to participate in weekly blind bidding. Ingram went in the blind bidding the next week at a more reasonable salary, but he was ultimately dropped end of the season anyway since 2013 was a bad year for him and things looked bleak for his future.

So all in all this whole trade was to get me out from under some big long term contracts to do a rebuild and I got a 1st rounder (which turned into Davante Adams). The net result of all this is that I was able to bid on some better contract last year and actually made the playoffs a year early, only one game from the championship game and now this year I had so much money free that I was able to "go big" on bidding up Dez in our franchise tagging period so now I'm the odds on favorite for the championship this year. BUT next year I'll be rebuilding again as I am up against the cap, I don't even have enough cap space to sign more then one free agent minimum salary this year, and most of my high priced guys contracts are up. I'll probably tag Julio and he'll be my only high priced guy and I'll have a ton of salary cap for next year's vet auction with which to jump start my rebuild. Took me two years of trading and salary cap hell to get there, but I'm in a much better position for it.

There are many trades in a salary cap league that would be calling for the pitchforks in a regular dynasty because things on the surface if you just look at the players involved, it looks bad. But when you dig into the details of salary number, cap hits, contract length, etc. it's all another day at the office in a salary cap league. Heck, seen trades where I might give *you* a pick just to take my really bad contract off my hands. Say I had Ingram with the really bad contract, I trade him and my 2nd to you for your 3rd just to get out from under the contract. A perfectly fine trade in a salary cap league. Would never fly in a "regular" league.

So if these things are not what you are looking for then a salary cap league probably isn't for you.

[meineymoe]

Coming from another angle - have a soft-cap. In other words, teams can go over the salary cap. However, you have to have repercussions.

This is easy to do in a money league. If team A ends up over the salary cap at the end of the season, then he is assessed a fine that goes into the prize package for the following season.

Also, this allows teams to go over the limit during the season, and as long as they get back below the cap, through trades, then they are okay.

-oo-

[bonscott]

My main contract league has a hard cap all year round.

My local auction league has a cap only for the auction of $100. After the auction there is no cap in season. We can keep up to 12 but you again have only $100 for the auction so if I keep $60 worth of players then I only have $40 for the auction to fill out the rest of my roster. So in a way it's a soft cap in-season but hard cap for the auction.

Both ways are fun, but vastly different types of leagues.