Suggestions on Salary Cap implementation?

[Troyte83]

Im commish of a 25 man startup dynasty league on flea flicker and am implementing league Salary cap. My thought is to keep a pretty basic cap structure because the site is not supported for a cap. I'll take auction values from a seperate site and add up teams rosters and come up with a cap number teams need to stay under. I would enforce cap twice a year, once when keepers are designated and other time a week before regular season. Its not a perfect system but since i have no site support it will have to do for now.

Team Positions are: 1/QB, 2/RB, 3/WR, 1/TE, 2RB/WR/TE, 1/PK, 1 D/ST 11/starters, 14/bench

We just finished drafting and added up teams salaries, avg team salary is $267. My question is what would be a good number to set as cap going into next season? For the most part teams salaries are pretty close with the exception on 1 team being at $350 and another on the low end at $219. My idea was to go around $320-$340 for a cap. Any suggestions would be appreciated

[OhCruelestRanter]

So, this is rough news to hear, but you definitely would have been better off setting the cap before the auction. As it stands, I think you have to make the cap at the very least $350.

[junk_monkey]

Yeah, I agree - you really needed this in place before you set everything in motion, but that doesn't really help you.

Before I offer any other advice, I've got some questions - you say that you're taking auction values from another site, does that mean you didn't set rosters using a startup auction? I have to assume so. How are you thinking of determining player values in the future? Using the same method? If so, I don't see how you can really make this work long term. GMs will be signing players without knowing what the cap hit will be going forward so they can't adequately prepare and manage their caps, which takes away the point of managing a team in a salary cap league.

Can you further explain exactly how you intend the whole system to work?

[Troyte83]

Yeah, I agree - you really needed this in place before you set everything in motion, but that doesn't really help you.

Before I offer any other advice, I've got some questions - you say that you're taking auction values from another site, does that mean you didn't set rosters using a startup auction? I have to assume so. How are you thinking of determining player values in the future? Using the same method? If so, I don't see how you can really make this work long term. GMs will be signing players without knowing what the cap hit will be going forward so they can't adequately prepare and manage their caps, which takes away the point of managing a team in a salary cap league.

Can you further explain exactly how you intend the whole system to work?

Ok first off, this was a standard snake draft start up. since their is no site support for a cap system i am trying to implement something that would keep teams from loading up on players without having to make any tough roster decisions year to year. So what i came up with was a from an independent site take player values and add rosters up. figure out the avg salary for 12 teams and come up with a cap number going into next off season that will be enforced. When teams are setting their keepers next off season i will update rosters and salaries and team will have to make decisions about who to keep or not to stay under a cap. It's not a true cap system in the sense that people are used to but it would essentially force teams into possibly making tough decisions about who they can keep as opposed to just keeping players year to year with out any real consequences.

[junk_monkey]

OK - I can see what you're trying to do. I think a far easier system to implement would be a contract year cap. If you're not familiar I'll give a brief precis of how it works:

Each owner has a total number of contract years to give out and work under - typically this will be between 2.5 and 3 times the roster size (a 25 man roster might have a cap of 75 years for example). Owners can give a maximum contract of 5 years and minimum of 1. At all times they must remain at or under the cap, so if they drop a player on a 2 year contract they can only give the replacement a 2 year contract. When players reach the end of the contract (barring some exceptions I'll detail in a moment) the players are released and become available for the league. You then have either a combined rookie and FA draft where all uncontracted players are available or you have two separate off season drafts, one for the veteran FAs and one for the rookies. You can have the same order for both drafts or come up with rules for the draft order in each (for example, you might like to give earlier or bonus picks to teams releasing the most players at the end of their contracts, or the highest scoring players).

The exceptions you can have are the ability to franchise tag 1 or 2 players, so GMs can extend a deal by one or two years before they are released back into the main FA pool. Up to you how you might want to run this.

I don't personally play in any contract year cap leagues but plenty of people here do and would be able to give you more specific guidelines.

That seems like a more natural fit for the limitations of the site you're using and to meet the aims you're trying to hit. It's easier to keep track of, doesn't start from the unbalanced situation you currently have and also fits in with numerous other leagues on here so will make asking for advice much easier.

[Troyte83]

OK - I can see what you're trying to do. I think a far easier system to implement would be a contract year cap. If you're not familiar I'll give a brief precis of how it works:

Each owner has a total number of contract years to give out and work under - typically this will be between 2.5 and 3 times the roster size (a 25 man roster might have a cap of 75 years for example). Owners can give a maximum contract of 5 years and minimum of 1. At all times they must remain at or under the cap, so if they drop a player on a 2 year contract they can only give the replacement a 2 year contract. When players reach the end of the contract (barring some exceptions I'll detail in a moment) the players are released and become available for the league. You then have either a combined rookie and FA draft where all uncontracted players are available or you have two separate off season drafts, one for the veteran FAs and one for the rookies. You can have the same order for both drafts or come up with rules for the draft order in each (for example, you might like to give earlier or bonus picks to teams releasing the most players at the end of their contracts, or the highest scoring players).

The exceptions you can have are the ability to franchise tag 1 or 2 players, so GMs can extend a deal by one or two years before they are released back into the main FA pool. Up to you how you might want to run this.

I don't personally play in any contract year cap leagues but plenty of people here do and would be able to give you more specific guidelines.

That seems like a more natural fit for the limitations of the site you're using and to meet the aims you're trying to hit. It's easier to keep track of, doesn't start from the unbalanced situation you currently have and also fits in with numerous other leagues on here so will make asking for advice much easier.

Ok yea i think I understand what you are saying, I play in an RSO league so I have some familiarity with contract leagues, but obviously that site supports it so with the league I commish in it could be a little more tricky. So instead of a $ value for players you put a contract on players for X amount of years and when they are through with their contracts they are released into the FA/rookie draft. This makes a lot of sense instead of having to rely on a fluctuating $ value players will have from year to year. And will give teams a chance to get players they want when their contract runs up. Thanks for the advice, i am going to see how I could make this work!