Cap Discussion

[atlantagm]

Hey all. The UFA discussion made me dig a bit on the numbers and my initial thought was that teams were too close to the cap or something, and that's why people were losing players. This, however, is not the case. In fact, the only team not cap compliant today is Chicago, but that could change very easily by sending down some players and releasing a couple of farmhands.

My point to bringing this up is if you are in a cap league, than a majority of teams should be feeling the pressure of said cap on a relatively consistent basis. Look at the NHL and tell me teams like Philly, NYR, Montreal, etc wouldn't love even a few more million of cap space. I know the Flyers would have loved to offer a max deal to Stamkos, for instance, and would have but they do not have the cap room.

Back to GHL -- besides Chicago, not one team is feeling even remotely close to our 70 million cap. It might be too late for this season, but the economics of this file and the cap simply aren't aligned. We have a couple of teams in the high 20s/low 30s (Atlanta included) which is ludicrous for a 70 million cap league. I'm not sure what we can do about it now, but teams should certainly be feeling some pressure to either meet a floor, deal with a ceiling, and have players they can no longer afford to pay and need to make decisions on. It's far too easy to release players with no consequence other than fake dollars and every team in the green, anyway.

The benefits of a lower cap and/or a floor are that teams can't hoard players, more players go to FA, and perhaps more trades occur because teams need good players and teams close to the cap have to get creative to be cap compliant. Any thoughts?

[Deleted]

I believe a floor is needed to keep the league competitive

[dallasgm]

So sick of people wanting to change everything just leave the cap where it is..

[Deleted]

I'd agree with a cap floor.

[Deleted]

I have sent in instructions to send some players down, for the opening sim and will adjust me roster to get under the cap ASAP.
I was aware that I was over

[atlantagm]

Sometimes with a cap floor you get people who give bad contracts to players who don't need them; it doesn't really address the problem of being able to field a competitive team within some type of financial constraint.

[Deleted]

Yeah,  We do have a lot of teams with really low salaries, and a floor does make sense.

[SensGM]

I am against a salary cap floor because all that does is ensure that bad contracts are given out to players which will in turn inflate the money that the stars want and put teams in cap hell.

Give the league a few seasons and salaries will be back to their normal levels. People forget or do not realize that the salary roll back tool was used a few times on this roster set before we restarted the league. Otherwise most teams would be over the cap. The cap was set in place with long term in the thinking and believe me salaries will be back up before folks realize it.

[Deleted]

The only reason it is like this is because of the roll back. In the previous incaranation of this league we had the same cap number and teams were struggling by the end to be compliant and there were many, many useful UFAs just sitting there because nobody had room to sign them. EHM increases salary demands as it goes. Couple more seasons and this problem goes away.

[dallasgm]

This guy trys to get rules changed in every league.. Give it a few seasons before making any changes see how things work out at least.

[atlantagm]

I let the first one go. But since you've made another asinine point, I'm going to address it. I have no idea who you are, or what you're talking about, but this league has been around for a few seasons. I provided factual data that shows only one team is even close to the cap. The idea of a cap is is to provide parity to all teams, ostensibly so bad teams can potentially be active in FA and also have more opportunities to trade with teams that have talent when you don't have many chips to negotiate with. Ostensibly, again, Dallas would fall into this category.

You have yet to provide any points of contention on the idea, other than "so sick of people wanting to change everything" and "this guy trys [sic] to get rules changed in every league" which again, isn't a factual point because I am in GHL only and has no basis in argument.

Net-net...if you don't like it, feel free to join the adults in conversation any time you want to provide a dissenting opinion. The point of the discussion, again, is to have the cap mean something and help out garbage teams in case their garbage GMs decide to leave one day and leave a team in ruins.

Changing rules is not doing it to be annoying, its to calibrate to the actual environment of the league and make sure we're not leaving teams in the dust. I don't know about you, but 10 years ago when I was indeed in multiple leagues, the number one cause of leagues folding were GMs who couldn't field any decent enough teams, which were completely stripped of any competitiveness. I enjoy GHL and hope that by at least having a discussion, with you know, facts and such...might help us to A) be more active and in-tune with where the league is and B) avoid a similar fate on a game that doesn't have many people interested in it left.

So do me and everyone a favor; join the discussion like an adult (because heck, I think we all are adults if we're using EHM) and tell us why we shouldn't go for a cap change or cap floor. Think you can manage that?

[leafsgm]

The only reason a team should come near cap trouble is if they sign UFA stupidly. In EHM, I have not seen a good crop of UFA's in any league, for a number of years (in real life), probably a decade or more. When people get stupid with UFA money, then they get near the cap. If you are good fiscally, and can sign players on your own squad to longer term deals, for less money, with good bonuses, you are great, you will never have cap trouble. Another way to have teams struggle financially is to watch the profit level. If a team goes into the red, they shouldnt be able to offer any contracts to anyone. Why would a team be able to spend money that they dont have? If they cant spend money, they cant offer contracts. If you limit how much they can spend by saying that they cant go in the red, then they cant offer big bonuses to keep their contracts down.

As for the cap floor, in my opinion it is totally worthless. I got rid of it in INHL, guys who were under would sign someone for a 1 year contract at $9,000,000 which is league max. Unless your point of the cap floor is to make teams spend their money.... it really makes no sense.

I am thinking that maybe in INHL i am going to have teams not allowed to sign players if they dont have the funds, more that I think about it, the more sense it makes!

[leafsgm]

As well, without discussion, how can we possibly make our leagues stronger and more challenging? EHM is way to easy to play at times, making it more difficult to manage your squad is what we should all want. That can only happen through discussion.

[lebas]

The cap started too high for the quality of the file, but those who are actually paying attention will eventually have cap crunching teams. I also agree with Martin that a cap floor is stupid even in the NHL teams take on players who count towards cap and don't play. I think activity needs to pick up before we consider doing anything or we will soon have a 5 gm league.

[atlantagm]

I recall one league I was in that made all players 33 and up (I think) go UFA. You weren't allowed to resign them during the year and they all tested; with some weight being given to the original team when inputting salaries. Can't recall if it was an issue or not, but I think its something interesting to consider and definitely pads the UFA crop every year.