Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration

[papps]

Hello RC.  Jon had brought up an idea to me of getting rid of arbitration and just using flat salary for years 1-6.  Instead of going to a vote I wanted to have an open discussion with the rules committe to get your thoughts on the changes.  We were considering of maybe 400k, 500k, or 600k a year for players during years 1-6.  Please share your thoughts on this topic for a possible rule change.  Thanks!

[Jon]

obviously this is something I personally want to do.   As a commissioner it takes me about 15 hours to go through rosters and figure arbitration and service years.    That is a little silly to me.    I would like to make all players one through six a standard fee.    I naturally thought of .600 because that seemed like a good number.   Now these players naturaly would have contract years but you would know in advance instead of waiting year to year to see what you have to spend and what players cost.   

but .4, .5, or .6 are good numbers.   If 51 percent of the league agrees with the notion of the doing away with arbitration we can put the salary for those players up to a vote.   

Thanks in advance

[Sportsnut]

Agree that it's silly to have to put so much work into arbitration figures.  I'm good with a flat salary structure for years 1-6.

[Jon]

i put up a poll on the salary.   for those that don't know how I work this can make some people really mad at me.   but if I get x amount of votes to pt 3 and x amount of votes to .4 then I round all the votes to the highest number.   I make every vote count so to speak.   If the balance of the league wanted a higher salary then I try to weigh it all.   Thanks

Jon

[bap9]

I am ok with a flat rate

[chrisetc21]

I really don't think you all have thought through the consequences of this change.

[Jon]

I really don't think you all have thought through the consequences of this change.

since your like one of 4 members of the rules committee please describe what you feel are the " consequences " of this proposal.   This is pretty standard in all contract leagues.    Thank you in advance

[wvwolfeyes]

I agree with having a flat rate as well.

[Jwalk100]

K.I.S.S.

Keep it simple stupid! LOL

Flat rate is good for me.

[chrisetc21]

I don't have a cool acronym but sometimes simple is stupid. 

Personally, this will set my team up well because I have a ton of players in arbitration.  For the league it's going to be a bad thing though.  Here's why.  First, there'll be no such thing as a difficult decision in tendering a contract.  Those 5th and 6th year players that you don't want to pay millions to now won't get cut.  So this limits the free agent pool.  Second, extensions are based on the 6th year contract so now extensions will be incredibly cheap which limits the free agent pool.  Third, you're going to pump even more money into free agency because people will have it to spend since they're going to be saving it in arbitration.  So few free agents, more money to spend, and that's not hard to see where that goes. 

In addition, there's a reason why leagues have rules set date.  It's so people can plan a strategy for their teams with confidence in the rules being stable.  Right now there are teams that should be over the cap that have been allowed to continue bidding on free agents and acquiring players by restructuring contracts.  Part of what makes this game fun is dealing with the cap constraints.  The cap is meaningless if there are no consequences for going over.  By changing the rules in midstream you're dramatically affecting results in here and you're dramatically changing the values of players.  There's a ton of confusion in this league about the rules.