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Free Agents
Topic Started: Nov 4 2011, 04:04 PM (202 Views)
LA Kings GM

Hey Everyone,

I've talked to a couple of people about this and they seem to be against this idea, but I want to bring it to the league with my reasoning behind it.

I do not feel as though teams should be able to sign Free Agents after the regular season has started. My reasons for this are many, and my feelings very strong.

The Brief Points:

1) In the NHL(which we are trying to mimic) when players get hurt, teams are forced to promote from within their organization, because there is not simply a pool of available talent to choose from. All other players are under contract to other teams or in other leagues.

2) If a team has an injury and can simply sign a FA from the available pool, this decreases the trades that would naturally otherwise occur to fill gaps on teams.

3) Teams that were able to stay healthy are at a disadvantage during the year when it comes to signing "Breakout" players as they would have to waive someone on their team or cut them and be forced to take a penalty just to be able to bid on a player they might very well lose out on in FA. Then they may also lose their player to a waiver claim and be missing a roster player.

4) "Breakout" players are someone that evey single team overlooked in the draft and FA initially, so much so as to not even offer them a paid minors contract before the season began. To say that only teams with injuries are able to access these players without penalty is not fair to those without injuries.

5) We all have a paid minors, minors, and bench available to us, and during the initial FA period we all should have planned for injuries at each position and taken flier picks on potential break out players. To now reward those teams who have injuries and did not plan appropriately with breakout players, that other teams cannot bid on(without penalty) is not good.

6) To allow teams with injury to be able to pick up players having solid seasons, sign them to potentially sub-market value contracts(because the full league may not have the ability to bid on them it drives the prices down) and then trade those players away when their injured players come back for a greater profit to their team is not fair and a situation that does not exist in the NHL.

My proposal is to have an open FA period, and once that period is closed no further FA's can be signed until the following open period. This ensures teams are promoting from within utilizing their Paid Minors, Minors and Bench. This will also ensure a good FA period every year and that breakout fantasy stars receive proper market value offers in a FA period where everyone has the opportunity to bid on them.

Anyone signed inf FA this year since the beginning of the season, in order to achieve the above, would be awarded to the team that had signed them but only for one season, to again ensure they are afforded the opportunity to a fair market value contract based on their performance for the season and not their performance at the beginning of a season when only 3 teams have money, and roster spots to spare.
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Chicago GM

I think the way things are is fine. All teams do have the ability to bid on any player. If it was that team's perogative to be right up against the cap that they don't have any space to work with, that is there problem. To say only teams with injuries have the ability to bid on these players is not right. All teams have the ability to do so, they just have to decide if buying out a player if worth it or not. If there is a breakout player and a team really wants him, then waiving their worst guy shouldn't be an issue. I am sure every team has someone on their active roster that can easily be dropped without being claimed off waivers.

This is what was the understanding from the start of the league, so proposing all of these changes seems pointless. Maybe it was a teams strategy to wait until the league started to pick up some players, so to now turn around and penalize them by making all of their signings during the year to be one year now doesn't seem to fair for those managers.

Also, if we are going be mimiking the NHL, all players in our paid minors should not count against the cap either. Why stockpile your team with players hitting your cap if you won't need them at all. Hence why some teams might only sign a FA if they have an injury.

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LA Kings GM

What I am talking about is a market for the players, in an open FA period every team has the option to bid on players without penalty, or sacrifice.

Under the current system in order for certain teams, even those with cap room, to bid on players it requires sacrifice and penalty to sign a player where another team does not have those restrictions.

As for the paid minors, I feel like they should count towards the cap, we have a larger cap than that of the NHL and a similar number of players. NHL teams, still have to pay their contracted players to their salaries even if they are not on their NHL roster, so in that case I believe that they should count since it was a managers decision to sign that player to a contract.

Under my proposal no one is penalized for anything, all that happens is they get the players they signed after the season began for a one year deal, and at the end of the year those players go up for FA again; when everyone can bid on those players is fair for everyone involved. And if the deals that people signed their players for really are fair, then they will have no trouble signing them again to similar deals, they may even get them for an extra year.

Bottom Line is sure I am sure everyone can sign a break out star during the year, but not everyone can do so without penalty. This is not a fair process, and since we are talking about changing rules mid-season, I am creating a compromise to the current process and hopefully the future process for the current year.
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