New to Salary Cap League help (REP Rewards)

[Goldendelicious]

Just joined a cap league where we use actual NHL salaries (not cap hits) and took over for a team that's in not too bad shape but some work to do as always. My question is, would it be accurate to gauge a player's overall fantasy value by accounting for the player's fantasy points/game versus say $100,000 (so value per $100,000)?

I have been getting some offers and on paper they look like no brainers until you get deeper into the stats and financials. Is there a better way to account for how valuable a player is? I feel unlike non-cap leagues, you can't just go off name value.

All help is appreciated

[Pengwin7]

Player production per dollar is everything in salary cap leagues.
The team that gets $141m (say, the highest 'value') out of a $100m cap (say), will win the league.
Just like NHL teams.

While player production per dollar is important, you also have to spend the full cap and understand the overall impact on rostering.

A use a "HIGH-LOW" theory with "GROUPING".

Strategy begins at realizing that the BEST $/value players are young & low paid players.

1. A $1m rookie scoring 40pts gives you 40pts/$1m. That's incredible value, so you know you want a bunch of those players, save some spots for them.
2. Break your roster into "GROUPS" to determine how much per bundle. Say you roster 20 players. I'd break them up into FIVE groups of 4 players = $20m per group.

3. So now what you want to do is to:
i) Get as many VALUE players in a group as possible
ii) Still spend the full amount.

For $20m and 4 players... you can maybe have TWO spots for $1m value youngsters, leaving TWO spots for $9m each for veterans.

$1m rookie giving 40pts
$1m rookie giving 40pts
$9m supervet scoring 80pts
$9m supervet scoring 80pts
TOTAL = $20m giving 240pts

Now the supervets may score less than 10pts/$1m (my fave "benchmark") but they are LOCK scorers.

Some people think they can do better by rostering MIDDLE CAP players that score over 10pts/$1m

But try this:
$5m player scoring 55pts
$5m player scoring 55pts
$5m player scoring 55pts
$5m player scoring 55pts
$20m TOTAL giving 220pts (less than the HIGH-LOW example)


So... this is what it comes down to.
Best value is in the lowest price players... and you create a lot of roster spots for those guys AND guaranteed production by rostering the overpriced ELITE superstars.

My 2 cents on how to build a championship CAP team.

[jason1983]

Nice in-depth response Pengwin. I agree with the general strategy that you've laid out. One other factor that I take into consideration is length of contract and the value that can be found during the course of the contract. For example, Pacioretty is already quite valuable in a salary cap roto-league. However, he still has 4 years left on his contract and assuming that he at least maintains his production, his contract will be even more valuable in 2 years when the cap is likely up 4-6 million. When production is similar between two players (in a general roto-league sense), contract status should always be factored. Generally speaking, I try to avoid players that are upcoming free agents that are likely in for big raises unless you're certain that their production will match their new contract.

[FinnishFlash]

Player production per dollar is everything in salary cap leagues.
The team that gets $141m (say, the highest 'value') out of a $100m cap (say), will win the league.
Just like NHL teams.

While player production per dollar is important, you also have to spend the full cap and understand the overall impact on rostering.

A use a "HIGH-LOW" theory with "GROUPING".

Strategy begins at realizing that the BEST $/value players are young & low paid players.

1. A $1m rookie scoring 40pts gives you 40pts/$1m. That's incredible value, so you know you want a bunch of those players, save some spots for them.
2. Break your roster into "GROUPS" to determine how much per bundle. Say you roster 20 players. I'd break them up into FIVE groups of 4 players = $20m per group.

3. So now what you want to do is to:
i) Get as many VALUE players in a group as possible
ii) Still spend the full amount.

For $20m and 4 players... you can maybe have TWO spots for $1m value youngsters, leaving TWO spots for $9m each for veterans.

$1m rookie giving 40pts
$1m rookie giving 40pts
$9m supervet scoring 80pts
$9m supervet scoring 80pts
TOTAL = $20m giving 240pts

Now the supervets may score less than 10pts/$1m (my fave "benchmark") but they are LOCK scorers.

Some people think they can do better by rostering MIDDLE CAP players that score over 10pts/$1m

But try this:
$5m player scoring 55pts
$5m player scoring 55pts
$5m player scoring 55pts
$5m player scoring 55pts
$20m TOTAL giving 220pts (less than the HIGH-LOW example)


So... this is what it comes down to.
Best value is in the lowest price players... and you create a lot of roster spots for those guys AND guaranteed production by rostering the overpriced ELITE superstars.

My 2 cents on how to build a championship CAP team.

This is pretty spot on, couldn't of said it better. I've always preferred the High-Low strategy.

[tobias]

Pengwin7 is spot on. I'll point you towards FantasyHockeyGeek (http://www.fantasyhockeygeek.com/) to do all of the work for you. You can sign up for a free 24 hour trial (but if you like it and use it, support the guys and pay the $10 for the year!), set up your league with scoring categories, check off to factor in actual salary, and then have it create spreadsheets based on the stats from last year, the year before, etc. Once you have your spreadsheet, which will come organized by total fantasy points, relative to your league settings, you can sort it by the last column (if I recall correctly), which gives you the value based on their salary.

Boom! No guess work needed. In my AAV dynasty league where I needed to get under the cap, this report made it very easy for me to drop a name guy like Logan Couture (young, on a good AAV contract, etc.) because I was able to realize that his value for our league settings was not very good. I'll let my main rival deal with his lack of production next year

[northernnuck]

Pengwin! 5 beers into a BJ ball game and that made me dizzy trying to read the facts of life!

I might be in the pipeline business and I might have a bias, but spending money on a good risk is better than chatting about life with donuts while hanging with the boys.

Play the game. Spend money to win. You have 4 tiers/lines to manage. Came second because the Sedins choked. Dumped them for a bag of pucks, and bought into Kuz, Plek, Jvr and some Brass, and took out the legs from underneath the team that beat me. Had $6M to spend.

Welcome to Cap Leagues. Many ways to skin a cat.

"cheers"

- - - Updated - - -

Pengwin! 5 beers into a BJ ball game and that made me dizzy trying to read the facts of life!

I might be in the pipeline business and I might have a bias, but spending money on a good risk is better than chatting about life with donuts while hanging with the boys.

Play the game. Spend money to win. You have 4 tiers/lines to manage. Came second because the Sedins choked. Dumped them for a bag of pucks, and bought into Kuz, Plek, Jvr and some Brass, and took out the legs from underneath the team that beat me. Had $6M to spend.

Welcome to Cap Leagues. Many ways to skin a cat.

"cheers"

[Luffy D Monkey]

Hey man, I wouldnt use a points/salary ratio system to evaluate if I were you. It will just take some time to get used to building a salary cap team.

You'll find that you have to spread the money out shrewdly to make a championship team; usually its impossible.

Winning teams will have at least 4-5 grossly underpaid players, i.e. high scoring rookies ala Forsberg last year, or guys on budget contracts (Goalies are especially useful here, somebody like Holtby last year was amazing in salary).

You have to spread the big money between a few superstar forwards, at least one high scoring D man (scoring defensemen are typically super expensive, youll start to notice) and your goaltending.

Its tough, but a fun challenge. Enjoy

[Vancityguy]

Contract's are one of the biggest factor's when building a champion cap team, this is what pushes a guy like Tavares through the roof in value for cap leagues. I use http://www.spotrac.com/nhl now that capgeek is not around. FHC is great as well. I do like the High/Low strat however finding longterm value in contracts is more critical to me and should be the first thing you look at when evaluating any move, how is this guy going to effect my team in the years to come or even as a trade asset.

Over time you will just know who's valuable and who isn't, until then I would use the tools above to measure out value.

[GoNucks]

Dont be overworried about salaries....unless you have a very low cap it wont likely matter much. But you do need to find some very solid producing cheap players in order to really cash in and gain equity within the league.