Free Agency is always a fun time because we all get a chance to add players we believe will help our team be more competitive. Whether we are tweaking a roster, going all out to win, or rebuilding for the future, we all place our bids with our particular goals in mind.
During the CI bidding period, we came dangerously close to having to having a GM overbid himself into a salary cap crisis with a multitude of high bids. The situation was avoided when another GM swooped in and placed a "winning bid" on a high priced player.
However, these things don't just happen with high priced free agents, there are times when GMs can place a series of smaller bids on multiple players and overspend their available cap. This sort of "reckless" bidding is bad for the league because it has a rippling effect. One, it needlessly inflates the amount of a given free agent's contracts. With limited free agents available each year, GMs are forced to bid higher than necessary for a player the other GM is in no position to actually win. Two, excessive bidding of this nature drives up the extension values for the other 28 GMs that are not even involved in the bidding. With our Extension Values scheduled to be updated yearly, based on the contracts in our league, needlessly driving up contract amounts is bad business for us all.
It was brought to my attention that there is currently a team with bids on the board beyond their available cap--and that prompted this word of caution.
The issue at hand is pretty simple: Don't bid beyond your means. In the absence of a steadfast rule governing what I would characterize as "irresponsible bidding", I am going to discuss the matter with my Co-Commissioner and quite possibly invoke some Executive Discretion in the name of common sense.
None of us want to be in a league paralyzed by rules, but we also know that in order for us to succeed as a league, we have to aware of how our actions affect the other 29 GMs in this league.
Please feel free to express your views.
