Discussion: trade penalties for cap violations

[Popes]

I'm starting the thread now just get it going. Brian and I are going to talk about some alternatives and I'll have more to post later.

As of right now, here's the rule:

"If a player in question which puts a team over any of the caps, was acquired via trade, the team over the cap should notify the league of the corrective action (release of particular player) during the 24 hour time limit the Rules Committee has to review the trade. If a team is over any of the caps after 24 hours of a trade confirmation, and corrective action has not been posted, the Rules Committee will veto the trade, send the players back to their original teams, AND impose the corresponding salary cap penalties. The players will not be released into free agency, but the offending team(s) salary cap will be punished."

Interestingly, two paragraphs early, the rules seem to directly contradict that:

"Every player traded carries his entire contract with him. This contract will be counted against the contract years and salary caps of the receiving team. Any exchange of players between teams cannot leave either team in violation of the salary or contract years caps. If this happens, the commissioner will void the trade until such time as the affected teams can make room under the contract cap."

Anyway, here's the two times it's happened recently:

Dodgers: http://www.predsff.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11437

Popes: http://www.predsff.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11965

My initial thoughts:

1. It is insane to punish the other team in the trade for the mistakes of the offending team. In Brett's case last year, it should not have been his problem that Brian did not get his roster compliant post-trade. As Brett mentioned, he passed up other trades to make that trade and this really negatively affected his team:

Originally Posted by Valencia

I have worked all week on this trade and tabled other offers because of it. Instead of trading S.Jackson, I had to put him on I/R, which hurts his trade value for the next month. I also am in trouble in contract years, because I had counted on moving some in the trade. This takes away alot of leverage I had for future trades.

2. Since this situation will often happen when a player is waiting on Trade 2 to come through (as Brian was), the door is now currently open for the waiting team to make a tactical decision: if Trade 2 doesn't happen to make me compliant, would I prefer to cut a player or allow the trade to reverse? I know Brian wasn't thinking that last year (he didn't even know it was going to reverse), but that fact is people can and that's bad.

3. Perhaps we need a longer window for compliance in the off-season (I'm thinking Frenzy Bowl through March 31). During the season, there are potentially 4 people checking transactions for compliance: the player, the Comish, the roster spreadsheet person, and the website spreadsheet person. Right now, there's 1: the player (my understanding is that Jim is not checking these late 2007 transactions, since he's working off the 2008 roster - correct me if I'm wrong). It's so much easier for one to slip by now. Maybe a 72 window would be more fair. Especially since it's not like it's urgent, as it is during the season (when there are games every 7 days and UFAs constantly being bid on).

More to come, but there's got to be a better way to do this.

[Popes]

FYI, my initial thought was to change it to the cap-busting player is automatically cut from the new team in order to make room, but now I'm not sure that's best.

[Flaxwless]

Originally Posted by Popes

FYI, my initial thought was to change it to the cap-busting player is automatically cut from the new team in order to make room, but now I'm not sure that's best.

That makes the most sense to me.

The other team gets the player he traded for, since he was in compliance they get no penalties.

The other team had the players they wanted to trade for, but didn't get under the cap so they lose their players.

[Nittany Dodgers]

After thinking about it a little bit, I really think we need to re-incorporate this back into the way trades are made:

"Every player traded carries his entire contract with him. This contract will be counted against the contract years and salary caps of the receiving team. Any exchange of players between teams cannot leave either team in violation of thERSONNAME>e sERSONNAME>alary or contract years caps. If this happens, the commissioner will void the trade until such time as the affected teams can make room under the contract cap."

This hasn't been the way things are done, but I'm thinking this should be more important. We have trades and people post their confirms, and then have a post to the effect of "I will make roster moves within 24 hours to get under the cap." I think those moves need to be simultaneously with the trade. I think any trade made needs to be done within the framework of the cap.

That doesn't mean you can't make a trade that puts you over the cap, but any cuts need to be made at the same time you are over. If you have a secondary trade that will be made to get you under, these would need to be executed simultaeously with the first trade.

So, for instance, how would this have affected my trade with Brett last year? Since my trade with him put me over, and I was waiting for a deal with Matt, my opinion is the trades should be done as a three way trade, posted in the same thread, and not executed until all three parties confirm.

How would it have affected Jason's trade? Both parties would have a vested interest in making sure the trade is in compliance with each others' rosters and would be checking. The timing of this trade is one of those instances where I don't think it is going to be such a regular occurence that we need to adjust an otherwise fair rule to account for it (that does not mean that someone can't disagree the current rule is fair of course).

[Popes]

I'm on board with Brian's idea. It solves many problems in my mind, in addition to my concerns above:

1. More people checking the transaction so we have less violations.

2. No need for a longer "fix-it" timeframe in the off-season.

3. No more March 31 loophole (right now, I could trade for LT on March 31, go $3600 over the cap, and then let everything reset on April - less than 24 hours since my trade; this effectively allows players to take on big dollar RFAs that they don't have room for).