In a different league I am in, for Basketball, there is an interesting twist to "RFA" players.
For any player with an expiring contract that is deemed an "RFA" there is a separate "RFA Bidding" season, which happens before regular FA season.
For the RFA bidding, any team in the league can bid on the players, it is the exact same as FA. At the end of the bid (48 hours, or whatever the timeframe), the team that owns the RFA has the choice to match the bid or let the winning bidding team have the player.
However, there is draft pick compensation attached to the bid amount.
That is something that would have to be figured out for our league.
Probably something along the lines of the extensions:
Salary - Max Years
$5m+ - 5 years (the overall limit)
$3.5 to $4.9m - 4 years
$2 to $3.4m - 3 years
$0 to $1.9m - 2 years
If the per-year value of the bid is over $5m, then you surrender a 1st Round Pick
If the per-year value is between say, $3.0 and $4.9m, then you surrender a 2nd Round Pick
If the per-year value is under $3.0m, then it's a 3rd round pick
The interesting thing is though, is that this RFA bidding happens
before the rookie draft (in our case it would be the supplemental).
So the team that owns the RFA can choose to take this year's 1st round pick, knowing which position the team is drafting in, or they can take the 2018 1st round pick if they choose.
The only stipulation though is that the bidding team must have the draft picks for compensation RFA bidding
in the next 2 years. As in, 2019 picks wouldn't count for compensation purposes.
Since we
all get our 2019 picks after the season, it means any team would easily be able to bid in RFA. But those 2019 picks are so far away, they aren't really all that valuable - it's so far away.
So if a team doesn't have a 1st rounder in 2017 or 2018, they wouldn't be able to bid on RFA's over the $5m threshold.
I think there is also a rule that if say your bid is in the $3m-$4.9m range and you don't have any 2nd rounders in the next 2 years but have a 1st, then the team can choose to take your 1st.
It's kind the same as the NHL in terms of, if you don't have the correct compensation draft picks available, you can't make an RFA offer sheet to a player.
(Trust me, I've tried numerous times on NHL 17, and 16 and 15 and 14 etc etc... and it doesn't allow you to make RFA bids if you've traded away the corresponding draft picks to the dollar amount of the offer sheet, haha).The only thing for our league is to determine which players are considered RFA's...
I think we already said the players that have P-n/a contracts are exempt from all of this.
It just becomes a matter of if ALL expiring contracts are available for RFA or how that would happen.
Because if ALL expiring contracts are available, then there would almost be no extensions to do. Which might be good, might be bad, who knows.