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Fantasy Leagues => Armchair Fantasy Baseball => MLB Leagues => Armchair Fantasy Baseball: Archives => Topic started by: papps on January 07, 2014, 10:16:26 AM

Title: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: papps on January 07, 2014, 10:16:26 AM
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!
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Jon on January 07, 2014, 10:54:13 AM
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
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Sportsnut on January 07, 2014, 11:00:55 AM
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.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Jon on January 07, 2014, 11:04:30 AM
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
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: bap9 on January 07, 2014, 11:23:50 AM
I am ok with a flat rate
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: chrisetc21 on January 07, 2014, 11:26:47 AM
I really don't think you all have thought through the consequences of this change.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Jon on January 07, 2014, 11:45:16 AM
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
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: wvwolfeyes on January 07, 2014, 01:21:31 PM
I agree with having a flat rate as well.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Jwalk100 on January 07, 2014, 02:11:21 PM
K.I.S.S.

Keep it simple stupid! LOL

Flat rate is good for me.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: chrisetc21 on January 07, 2014, 05:10:23 PM
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. 
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: papps on January 07, 2014, 05:26:25 PM
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.

Lots of valid points here.  I think the biggest issue I see is that we don't use a ranking system for contract extension values.  We use a percentage of where a current contract is.  If we used a ranking system then when a player is out of his arbitration years then a decision must be made to sign him to an extension or not.  Very valid argument by chrisetc21.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: chrisetc21 on January 07, 2014, 05:33:08 PM
Also, can we get a confirmation on the restructuring rules?  I'd like to frontload contracts and pay money up front for some of my players.  I think if we're allowed to backload contracts to defer money to we should be allowed to frontload deals and pay up front in the form of a one time bonus. 
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: _JL6 on January 07, 2014, 05:51:04 PM
We should use a ranking system for extensions.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Jimbo3280 on January 07, 2014, 11:08:41 PM
im good with a flat rate even though im not in the rule committee but it will be less work an stress to figure out all the salaries
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Tarheels55 on January 08, 2014, 02:05:26 PM
I agree to points made by Jon about wanting to keep things simple and to cut out some of the work. The extra work that needs done is, I am sure, very tedious and time consuming.

I also agree with Chris on a lot of his points. I agree that changing things after the fact is usually not a good thing, but I don't see this as a deal breaker by any means as long as it makes the league better for ALL.

The cheap talent for so long though is problematic in my opinion. I think that if you want to go with a flat salary during arb years then you need to at least split it to go with years 1-3 and years 4-6 and average out the salaries that are in place now for those years. So years 1-3 would be worth 500K and years 4-6 would be worth 2.5M.

I think too that by stripping out the arb years salaries, as they stand, you take away some of the strategy to the league. I think that some owners who are better at prospects will have an advantage over those that are not as strong in that area. They will be able to run out a cheap competitive team for years and years while others spend in FA like there is no cap and get stuck with players that they can't move because of the high salary.

So again...understanding the issues, I say leave it as it is or split it up to two salary groups within the 6 year arb years.

Valid point here.

I like the 1-3 at .500 and 4-6 at 2.5m,but with that comes changing things.I'm fine with whatever comes about.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: frankbullsfan on January 08, 2014, 08:36:24 PM
I am fine with a flat rate as well one problem like some has said is that some will try to load up on prospects that are cheaper talent for longer that will produce but am not sure you could really build a whole winning team this way I think it would be more trying to mix some of the more expensive contracts with the prospects and will make it interesting to see how teams might try to build them.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: gazw on January 09, 2014, 09:27:56 AM
I see the benefit of going to flat rate but it's a difficult thing to suddenly have to decide when the rules have been set for months. People will have been working on their team in a specific way. This happened with some of the previous rule changes and it will have changed the way people put together their rosters.

If it were to be done there would need to be a scale. Years 1-3 at the lower rate say $0.5M with an increase over the next 3 years. For example;

Year 1 $0.5m
Year 2 $0.5m
Year 3 $0.5m
Year 4 $2.0m
Year 5 $3.5m
Year 6 $5.0m

We need to have a date for when some of these rules have to be set for the season as well. Maybe let the league know that everything will be done by an arbitrary date (maybe 1st Feb) and then stick to it. It needs to be a settled league otherwise the turnover in GM's will begin to take hold as people wont know what is happening.
Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: papps on January 09, 2014, 10:17:21 AM
I know that in MLB the arbitration is 6 years.  I just wanted to throw this out there.  What if we shortened prospect contracts to only 3 years?  Service time can easily be tracked.  Maybe we do a spec tier system like starting at 500k and increasing by 500k each year.  After the initial three years they can be signed to a prospect extension for another three years but with a percentage increase based on performance.  Of course things can be tweaked to have it make sense.  What do you guys think?

Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: gazw on January 09, 2014, 11:53:39 AM
If you are doing a tiered system based on performance then it may as well not change from what is there now. Still lots of work for John.

If you have a tiered system,where you can decline the arbitration at years 4,5 & 6, which is locked in at a set rate then it works in 2 ways;
1) If they are a very good player then you get the benefit of having taken a chance on them as a prospect and getting them at a reasonable salary.
2) The free agent pool will get re-stocked as teams will not want to pay over the odds on prospects/players that are not worth the increase.



Title: Re: Rules Committee Discussion - Arbitration
Post by: Mike on January 09, 2014, 08:32:12 PM
I'm for whatever is fair, and easier for Jon to manage :koolaid: