Salary Minimums

[kckolbe]

If you raise the minimums all that will happen is people will sign for the new minimum, and still find ways to game the system by holding TPE etc until they re-sign and blah blah blah. You'll change the amount but the minimum game is going to stay exactly the same, and I think that could be a worse problem.

My concern is that I don't want to be a league where we essentially shut out the non-media, non-graphics casuals because everyone in every TPE tier has to be as close to the minimum as possible or else a team has no chance to compete. And the only players who do have a chance to score a decent contract are one or two big free agents on each team. In order to prevent that there needs to be wiggle room in contracts so that you can have some $1m players (no matter how good) as well as some $5m players and $10m players.

Really I think one of the underlying issues is that money has no scarcity in this league. We have money for twitter, money for fantasy football, money for jobs, money for reddit, you get the point.

I think your argument assumes that minimums would increase but salary caps remain static. Is that accurate?

[speculadora]

Raising minimums imo is problematic because 1) it creates salary inflation which will force us to rework training, equipment, possibly even media/gfx scales, 2) raising it by anything significant necessitates raising the cap and that's a whole thing because if you get the cap wrong you either fuck teams over or everyone has too much money.

To give an example, imagine you raise league minimums by $500k. I believe I was told most teams have about 18 players by someone. 18 * 500k = $9,000,000 extra on everyone's books. That's a huge huge amount. This is just to illustrate that it's not an easy problem to solve. A realistic minimum raise would probably be in the realm of $100k to $250k per tier which really serves no purpose but to make it more difficult for teams to actually pay the guys who want big contracts.

[kckolbe]

Raising minimums imo is problematic because 1) it creates salary inflation which will force us to rework training, equipment, possibly even media/gfx scales, 2) raising it by anything significant necessitates raising the cap and that's a whole thing because if you get the cap wrong you either fuck teams over or everyone has too much money.

To give an example, imagine you raise league minimums by $500k. I believe I was told most teams have about 18 players by someone. 18 * 500k = $9,000,000 extra on everyone's books. That's a huge huge amount. This is just to illustrate that it's not an easy problem to solve. A realistic minimum raise would probably be in the realm of $100k to $250k per tier which really serves no purpose but to make it more difficult for teams to actually pay the guys who want big contracts.

For what it's worth, I came up with a way to handle cap determination with a much more aggressive set of salary tiers in PBE. I agree that it is not a simple task, but it is very achievable.

[Molarpistols]

Changing minimum salaries will fix nothing.

Exhibit A:
There are already a good amount of teams facing salary cap crunches, those that aren't are currently rebuilding. Raising minimums is only going to push those teams already there to drop players.

"But MP! That sounds like a good thing!" On paper, it does sound like a good idea. Parity should increase because teams can't stock up on as much talent. However, the players being dropped by teams aren't going to be franchise players. If I'm tight on cap, you best believe I'm saving that money for my very good players. This means i'll either pay my rookies less, DSFL them longer or let one of my lower TPE IAs go. Is a low TPE IA going to really help parity? It might help Philly for a season keep a valid roster, but it won't suddenly turn them into a playoff contender.

Convincing a good player to take minimum contracts is a mark of a good GM. The player has absolutely no obligation to accept low pay, but can choose to if they want to stay with a team. Why do we want to mess with somebody's ability to play for a team they want to play for?

Exhibit B:
Raising minimums will only cause a necessary rise in salary cap room a few seasons down the line. Suddenly we're right back where we started, but at higher numbers that already have very little meaning due to money not being very scarce.

Exhibit C:
Changing the system entirely is a possibility, but I would caution against it. The current system is simple. A middle-schooler could understand it enough to 'game' it. All teams have the same option to 'game' the system, we have equal opportunity. Equal opportunity doesn't guarantee equal results, but that lies on the GMs for the specific teams. Again, finding players that will play for you for cheap is a mark of a good GM. There are lots of other skills that go into it, but that is one of the more tangible ones.

Changing the system to something more complicated will likely decrease parity in the league. It's easy now, if you're not using the system for an advantage now, it stands to reason you won't with the next system either. Some teams that understand the system now, might not understand the next system and their team could suffer for it.


Exhibit D/Summary:
Minimum salary leads to salary cap inflation. If the salary cap does not raise (either through a rise from the 75,000,000 per team or by adding teams), minimum salary will lead to unemployment instead. As a league, we cannot afford to have players stuck in limbo because nobody can afford them.

Conclusion:
All of that was hopefully coherent and not too rambling. Just repeat the opening sentence:

Changing minimum salaries will fix nothing.
Changing minimum salaries will fix nothing.
Changing minimum salaries will fix nothing.

[kckolbe]

Here is a breakdown of the PBE Salary Cap method. Naturally, PBE is a different animal in multiple ways, but hopefully this will reassure anyone worried that re-doing the cap isn't something that can be done responsibly.

Hey folks, we've had our first update of the regular season, so it is time to calculate next year's cap! Last year, this process took a while, and by the time it was formally announced, all the GMs knew what it was because it had been just sitting in a thread abandoned due to lack of interest, receiving neither votes for nor against. However, now that the method for determining the cap has been approved, I will share it with you in a tediously long announcement.

To keep things simple, and account for the large number of players playing out of position, I divided players into groups of catcher, infield, outfield, and pitcher. I used the TPE indicated in rosters AFTER the first season update.

For all veterans, I used minimum salary times 1.5 to determine their value. For all players on rookie contracts (those drafted S3 or S4), I used a flat 3.5 million. Both amounts vary heavily player to player and likely season to season, but seemed reasonable amounts.

For Catcher, each team needs 2, a main and a backup. So, I took the top 12 (leaving very little behind), from Toshihiro Ishikawa to Mike Paolino. Their required salaries for veterans was 26.625 million, plus 10.5 million for rookie contracts.

Next, I looked at the rest of the infield. There are 4 IF positions and 6 teams, so I took the top 24, from Julian O'Sullivan to Dongus Dio (fun fact, those were the #1 and #24 last year as well). There is a LOT of talent there, with required salaries of 151.5 million for vets, and 3.5 million for rookies (Dio being the only player on a rookie contract in the top 24).

Then I looked at outfield. 3 positions, 6 teams, the top 18 from Kevin Biggio to Hawk Russell require 88.5 million for vets and 14 million for rookies.

That only left Designated Hitter. I took all the players not already counted above and took the top 6, from Ty Justice to Dirty Dongs. Naturally, they were less expensive, and only required 10.5 million for vets and 3.5 million for rookies (the same amount as last season).

Lastly, and most significantly, pitchers. Since so many SPs are in an RP role, I combined pitchers into one group and took the top 54 (4 SP and 5 RP per team). The top 54, ranging from Victoria Secret to Brandon Adams, required 172.125 million for vets and 49 million for rookies.

I also allowed for each team to have 2 spots for developing talent and/or platoon hitters. I took all players not currently on the list and selected the top 12, from Willie Mayes Hays to Ollie Daniels. This required 6.75 million for vets and 10.5 million for rookies. This was the only category to actually become cheaper this season, with many in this category having been on rookie contracts last season.

C: 26.5/10.5
IF: 151.5/3.5
OF: 88.5/14
DH: 10.5/3.5
P: 172.125/49
Dev: 6.75/10.5

That totals 546.875 million. Finally, dividing that by the number of teams and rounding down to the nearest tenth of a million...

91.1 million!

[Toasty]

I put for this rule that was voted against:

#4. TPE is based on the most recent update prior to signing. In addition, for every year a player is signed beyond the first, said player must be paid as though 100 TPE higher in each successive year. Example: a 200 TPE player signs a 3 year minimum contract. The contract would cost 4 million over those three years (200 TPE first year, 300 the second, 400 the third). There would be no restrictions regarding structuring.

This would be our best solution

[bovovovo]

I put for this rule that was voted against:


This would be our best solution

I actually personally liked the proposal that limited contract length to two years. Doesn’t change minimums or introduce scaling but makes career salary growth more “organic”

[ErMurazor]

Thanks a lot @White Cornerback

[White Cornerback]

Thanks a lot @White Cornerback

oi p sure I voted for most rules

[Beaver]

1 INT franchise corner lmao