ExiledInIllinois Posted January 30, 2009 Report Posted January 30, 2009 I despise baseball because there is no cap. There will almost never be a small market WS winner. The league as a whole would do much better if any team realistically had a shot at the championship. There isn't a market force within the league. The league competes against other leagues (i.e., NHL vs MBA), as well as other sources of entertainment for market share. What gets me is how come the PITT Pirates whine and cry and the Steelers were equally as good (as today) when there was no cap. They say the Pirates are a small market team... But the Steelers not that small... How can that be? IMO, the Pirates just don't want to spend the money. I think there should be a market force within the leagues... If BFLO or some other team can't cut it they go defunct... Even if it means going back to say 6 teams in the NHL. The leagues will never truly die out. We are watching the end of sports as we know it with al lthis cap crap, IMO.
Bmwolf21 Posted January 30, 2009 Report Posted January 30, 2009 What gets me is how come the PITT Pirates whine and cry and the Steelers were equally as good (as today) when there was no cap. They say the Pirates are a small market team... But the Steelers not that small... How can that be? IMO, the Pirates just don't want to spend the money. I think there should be a market force within the leagues... If BFLO or some other team can't cut it they go defunct... Even if it means going back to say 6 teams in the NHL. The leagues will never truly die out. We are watching the end of sports as we know it with al lthis cap crap, IMO. There are market forces within the leagues, in terms of competition for individual players. But without a cap the field is tilted towards the big-market clubs, and the little guys (yes, Pittsburgh is a smaller-market team) have little chance at acquiring and/or keeping top-end talent. That's what a cap is supposed to help with - leveling the field in terms of being able to afford players and not be automatically priced out when a player hits free agency. Sports teams have to work together to maintain the health and profitability of the league. Is the NHL going to bring in $2.2 billion a year with six teams? No way, not even close - even if the league consists solely of big markets like NY, LA, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Boston and Detroit. As for Pittsburgh - the Pirates owners are not as well off as the Yanks or BoSox. They also don't get the benefit of nearly $100M a year in TV contract money like the Steelers get from the NFL. Another big problem in MLB is the league doesn't require the teams to put revenue sharing $$ back into the player payroll, so some teams pocket the money.
cilevel Posted January 30, 2009 Report Posted January 30, 2009 Teams with more money to spend are ALWAYS going to have an advantage over teams without the money to spend...that is just the way it is...whether its manifested by hiring more scouts, better coaches, better facilities, better players, cap manipulation, etc....in the end it really doesn't matter, and it just becomes an exercise in how much the field is tilted towards those teams.... Exactly.
ExiledInIllinois Posted January 30, 2009 Report Posted January 30, 2009 Exactly. I also concur with matter's post. My point is to keep it as simple as possible and let the big teams shoot themselves in the foot by offering huge contracts and NOT win a championship when they have zero chemistry as a team. I just think that all this cap crap actually helps the bigger teams more... They laugh all the way to the bank because they have more room to manuver... Where the smaller teams stick to the pre-set budget which is usually well below the cap. To me, it is all the same in the end... Except the big market teams now can easily bury their greedy mistakes. There are times when small market teams will spend a lot without a cap (ala Ralph Wilson in the late 1980's and early 1990's). With no cap, there may be times in a franchises history that they will spend on par (if not more) than the big boys... IE: when team chemistry and success on the field dictate. IMO, the cap is a caste system. The small market teams will always be duped into being the big elephant still chained to the same little leash like when they were too small to break free. I know people will not agree... I am fine with that. God I hope ARZ wins the SuperBowl and more small teams win to prove me wrong. I am not holding my breath.
BetweenThePipes00 Posted January 31, 2009 Report Posted January 31, 2009 Ok apparently I was missing something when it comes to the rules of buying guys out and the resulting cap hit ... check out this story by Dan Tolensky ... http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Daniel-Tole...iendly/51/19136 ... yes, it is on HockeyBuzz, but it is not Ecklund, this guy knows his stuff ... he says more to come Saturday, but his interpretation of the cap hit is that it is based on the cap savings, not the buyout amount. For instance, Zetterberg's cap hit every year is $6.083 million ... the last two years of his deal are $1 million each and could be bought out for $1.33 million, or $666,667 per year. The cap hit is indeed spread over 4 years, but not equally ... the first two years, the cap hit is the same as it always was less the $666,667 ... or in this case, more than $5.4 million. The next two years it is just $0.3 million. All that is a long way of saying that the idea of making the cap hit of a buyout more painful by not allowing such low salaries at the end is unnecessary because the cap hit is not based on the salaries at all ... the safeguard is already in place, the cap hit is based on whatever the cap hit was all along. Not saying it is a perfect system or there are no loopholes, but it is more of a risk and more painful for these teams if the guy is still playing than I thought. They are still paying out 99% of the cash to the player (see charts on that link) and they really don't get much cap relief from a buyout.
carpandean Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Posted January 31, 2009 Ok apparently I was missing something when it comes to the rules of buying guys out and the resulting cap hit ... Interesting. In reading the CBA section, it does appear that he is correct. I had looked at it before but only for the purposes of salary, not cap. I made an assumption and we all know where that gets us ... I also can't remember where the "1/2" figure I used came from. Maybe for players under 26, since players over 26 are entitled to 2/3. Anyway, having played with the cap numbers of various year buyouts, it does appear that the front-loaded contract is, indeed, not buyout friendly, cap-wise.
elcrusho Posted February 1, 2009 Report Posted February 1, 2009 How is it manipulating when the player agrees to the terms... He knows how long the contract is and how much it's for... IMO I think the NHL should set a limit on how long you can sign a player for, like 7 years, just an example... Detroit should be happy they signed him to a long term deal, Darcy & co. should be taking notes, seriously
carpandean Posted February 1, 2009 Author Report Posted February 1, 2009 How is it manipulating when the player agrees to the terms...He knows how long the contract is and how much it's for... It has nothing to do with the player being manipulated. The argument is that it is manipulating the cap so that a big market team can get a top-level player for a reduced cap hit. In other words, it is versus the other teams, not the player. The argument isn't as strong as first believed now that we realized how buyouts are handled in terms of cap, but it is still something that only big market teams can really afford to do since the salary will be much higher than the cap toward the beginning of the contract.
Taro T Posted February 2, 2009 Report Posted February 2, 2009 Ok apparently I was missing something when it comes to the rules of buying guys out and the resulting cap hit ... check out this story by Dan Tolensky ... http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Daniel-Tole...iendly/51/19136 ... yes, it is on HockeyBuzz, but it is not Ecklund, this guy knows his stuff ... he says more to come Saturday, but his interpretation of the cap hit is that it is based on the cap savings, not the buyout amount. For instance, Zetterberg's cap hit every year is $6.083 million ... the last two years of his deal are $1 million each and could be bought out for $1.33 million, or $666,667 per year. The cap hit is indeed spread over 4 years, but not equally ... the first two years, the cap hit is the same as it always was less the $666,667 ... or in this case, more than $5.4 million. The next two years it is just $0.3 million. All that is a long way of saying that the idea of making the cap hit of a buyout more painful by not allowing such low salaries at the end is unnecessary because the cap hit is not based on the salaries at all ... the safeguard is already in place, the cap hit is based on whatever the cap hit was all along. Not saying it is a perfect system or there are no loopholes, but it is more of a risk and more painful for these teams if the guy is still playing than I thought. They are still paying out 99% of the cash to the player (see charts on that link) and they really don't get much cap relief from a buyout. The team buying the player out is spelled out in the CBA as this guy states. The scenario which isn't specifically addressed in the CBA is the case where a player voluntarily retires (w/ no pay obviously, as he isn't honoring the last year(s) of his contract). The team wouldn't be "buying him out" in that case. Assuming there was no collusion between the player and team, I'd expect that the matter would be accounted for similarly to the Radulov situation. (I haven't followed that one closely and don't know how the league addressed it.) Technically, a voluntary retirement would be an adjustment to the length of the contract, which is not allowed; but I can't see any of the parties involved forcing a player to play when he doesn't want to. It'd be interesting to know how the league plans on handling this twist (and how they handled Radulov). As mentioned earlier, I'd expect the league to formally address retirements before LT contracts are fulfilled in the next CBA. It has nothing to do with the player being manipulated. The argument is that it is manipulating the cap so that a big market team can get a top-level player for a reduced cap hit. In other words, it is versus the other teams, not the player. The argument isn't as strong as first believed now that we realized how buyouts are handled in terms of cap, but it is still something that only big market teams can really afford to do since the salary will be much higher than the cap toward the beginning of the contract. But there are several ways in which these deals can be used to effectively circumvent the rules and give the big boys a much higher cap than they should get. 1st off, simply from an inflationary standpoint, the cap will typically go up in any particular year. There quite likely will be a correction for the recession we are currently in (probably in '10-'11), but typically the cap will be higher tomorrow than it is today. So a few extra million of "dead" cap space in the future isn't as big a deal when the cap is larger. Getting $5MM in relief in a $50MM cap is worth more than a $5Mm hit to a $60MM cap. Another way this could be used to circumvent the cap is, the big money team could trade the player away when he gets into the last couple of years of that decreasing contract. The team taking the player assumes his average salary as a cap hit, and also assumes his actual salary. So a team that is having a hard time reaching the salary floor, could trade for a Briere and only owe him a pittance, but have it look towards the cap like they are still paying him $6-7MM. The big bucks team could also send the player down to the minors toward the end of the contract and owe him the low end $'s but have the player off the books as far as the cap is concerned. The big bucks teams also have more resources available to them for front office, coaching, scouting, conditioning facilities, etc than the smaller guys have available. That all stated, the current system is still a significant improvement over what was in place before the lockout.
carpandean Posted February 2, 2009 Author Report Posted February 2, 2009 But there are several ways in which these deals can be used to effectively circumvent the rules and give the big boys a much higher cap than they should get. That's why I said "the argument is as strong as first believed." There are still lots of very good reasons for giving such contracts that primarily benefit big market teams, but buying out to reduce the cap at the end is not one of them.
shrader Posted February 3, 2009 Report Posted February 3, 2009 Another way this could be used to circumvent the cap is, the big money team could trade the player away when he gets into the last couple of years of that decreasing contract. The team taking the player assumes his average salary as a cap hit, and also assumes his actual salary. So a team that is having a hard time reaching the salary floor, could trade for a Briere and only owe him a pittance, but have it look towards the cap like they are still paying him $6-7MM. That's an interesting one. It never crossed my mind before. Those low budget teams might also be able to sell a few extra tickets as they're bringing in a big name guy, even if he's well past his prime. It will be interesting to see if things like that end up happening in 4-5 years.
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