Posted by _jwillis on 2/20/2024 9:23:00 AM (view original):
Posted by Jtpsops on 2/20/2024 9:02:00 AM (view original):
I will certainly clarify any ambiguity around this case in any future versions of this league, but given that this is the first running of this league, I will simply ask that owners please respect the salary cap and not abuse the “over the cap” mechanism for a strategic edge. This is not its intended purpose.
Perhaps you could institute a cap penalty in the future. For example, if you go over, you lose $2M in cap space. So instead of just getting back below $100M, you have to get your team below $98M. Then there's actually a cost to going over that could hinder your team. That will eliminate the possibility of anyone going over intentionally, just to get a "freebie" $200K player.
I understand it's possible to get into a bind, but unless people are careless or not paying attention during the draft, it shouldn't be hard to stay under. I had like $5M left for my final 8 slots, so I had to go with scrubs first to make sure I didn't get screwed at the end. Sometimes you have to make those sacrifices to stay on track.
I think something along these lines makes sense. Ultimately I think we want something that isnt overly punitive so we dont crush an owner in a bind while still being forceful enough to make it unwise to strategically overshoot the cap.
Another idea I had--albeit one that would add a little extra commissioner burden--is to keep track of a team's cumulative salary in the spreadsheet as each round passes.
This would help us flag owners who might have lost track of the salary cap before its too late, but also, it would help us know exactly which round an owner goes over the cap. That could be useful because I think the ideal solution in this scenario is that if you go over the cap, you simply forfeit the pick that pushes you over the cap, as well as any subsequent picks. These all just become $200K players. And if that still isn't enough to get you under the cap, then we work our way backwards, replacing one pick at a time with $200K in reverse chronological order.
This approach is pretty punitive, but I think we are keeping track of every team's cumulative salary along the way, it will be relatively easy to ensure that nobody accidentally goes over the cap.