How do you come up with a plan in cap leagues?

[Samfolds]

Hi guys,

General question : How do you figure out your course of action year after year? I'm trying to figure out what to do and if I need some quinquennial plan or what not to continue thriving in the league.

Some background in my particular case :
The league I'm in started a few years ago and at the time my plan was simple : Build the best team to win it now. I think I've managed to do so (not sure if helpful, but humble brag : 3 times in a row defending champ ). I'm now at a point where salaries of my top core players far outweigh their production. I'm wondering if a rebuild is necessary or if I should fight it off and risk finishing middle of the pack.

• Currently sitting at 50M (!!!!!) over our cap
• A certain team in the league has gone all-in in the offseason and is projected well above everyone else in points when using Dobber projections.
  
  At the moment, I would rank similar to this team for total points, but I need to shed 50M cap, which will reduce production significantly.
  I believe I should be in the top 7 after the purge, with a shot at fourth position at best if my strategy is to make most points this year
• Notable big contracts that seem to outweight production(we use SALARIES, not AAV):
  
  Auston Matthews (15.9M), Brayden Point ?? (~10M, TBD), Mark Stone (12M), Sergei Bobrovsky (11.5M), Max Pacioretty (10.5M), Evgeni Malkin (9.5M), Anders Lee (9M), Esa Lindell (7M)

What would you do in my situation? Complete rebuild? Try again this year with moves/trades to improve my cap situation? Something else?

Thanks!

Samfolds

[stevegamer]

Bonus points for using quinquennial, which is either a good idea (plan for 5 years) or what got you in trouble in the first place (plan once every 5 years), depending how you were using it. CapFriendly is a huge help with planning.

If you are doing well, you should never need to rebuild, just re-tool. You need to have a plan to have a fairly steady stream of ELC players, bridge deals, etc. Point was great last year for you; this year, not so much.
You can also use cheap backup goalies if you can get your hands on them. Nilsson was a big help for me last year, McElhinney after I dealt for him, maybe a similar old guy with a backup gig is sitting there for you. He won't be great, but he will save cash for you, and give you some insurance.

You can mostly fix this cap situation. Dumping $50M seem daunting, but the first $15M is easy:

1. Cut Lindell. By that I mean don't even waste time shopping him - as in after you read this post, go cut him. This is points only, he's brutally bad for your format from now until further notice, even if the 2 best PP D on Dallas get hurt for the season, he's not worth that. I dealt him in a multi-cat league after he signed this deal, luckily managed to move him and another player for a forward who makes about the same to a team desperate for D.

2. Be prepared to simply cut Pacioretty. You can try shopping him, by putting him in your big list. Anyone who is paying attention won't go for him, but if you get any kind of pick or cheap longshot player, that gives you another option. These two guys are about a third of what you need to cut, and you won't really miss them. Picks, fringe guys on cheap deals, whatever you can get is an improvement.

Then you need to make a big list of solid name guys available: Matthews, Fleury, Bobrovsky, Stone, Lee, maybe Letang. Offer them to the league, see who bites. Don't worry about cutting all $50M at once, if nobody bites on Pacioretty, cut him, and then you go from $50M to ~$35M and it looks less dire.

Note the absence of Point & Malkin - those guys can make the salaries worth it, more or less.

4. Try and find some guys with salaries under $3M who can get you 40 or so points that are out there (on the wire or in draft, ideally) and get them. Then look at all your fringe guys, and see who isn't worth it.

Good luck.

[Samfolds]

Thank you for taking the time to answer in such a detailed fashion, I really appreciate it .

One thing I did not mention is that there is no waiver wire in this league, so the only way to acquire players is to draft or trade. We can only add one veteran in the offseason via what we call a "UFA draft", which has already taken place.

I'll try to draft rookies that can put up some points this year and go on the hunt for bargain guys at 3M from other teams.

Thanks again!

[Pengwin7]

My tip in cap leagues is to understand player "value" by dividing your roster up into groupings of 3 or 4 or 5 players... and allocate their share of your cap to them.

For simplicity, let's take a $100m cap with 25 roster spots.
$4m/player (this is one of my actual leagues: WHL).

Well, we know that some players are upwards around $12m now, so we choose a split north of that.
$100m can be divided by 5 into $20m.
25 players can be divided by 5 into 5 players.

So... you make "groupings" of 5 players for $20m.
You know that you have to offset a high-end salary with some ELC players.

Group 1 ($20m): Might Look Like This
$12m BobbySuperstar
$5m JohnnyBridge
$1m TimmyELC
$1m TommyELC
$1m TammyELC

Most teams know that their top end guys getting PAID already are worth keeping: McDavid, Ovechkin, Crosby, etc.
Those guys are well over their $4m... so you pair them up with your best "value" ELCs
^The point of the exercise above, though... is that you NEED to have certain low-$$$ players JUST so you can keep those key high-end guys.
Balance.

Make that Group #1, your key players that likely you won't move.
Then make a group #2.
Then a group #3.

Your final group should be players you really consider flexing out...
OR... players you may need to purely drop.


But start there:
A) What's Your Cap
B) What's Your # Rostered Playeres
A/B = C (Average Salary Per Player)

Then make your size of group so that you can fit your highest paid player in... with a few other players (3, 4 or 5: I'd recommend) to make the "group".

Play with that concept.
It works for some people to help strategize their TierI players - which quickly identify as HIGH-PAID players and LOW-PAID (high value) players.
Work down from there.

[Eskimo Brother]

I have a couple questions first...
If you don't have a FA pile, and you were to drop Lindell, do you just have an empty roster spot?
How do the benches work with the above.
What does the rest of your roster look like?
How close to the cap is the rest of the league?

[Samfolds]

Great questions, here are the answers :

If you don't have a FA pile, and you were to drop Lindell, do you just have an empty roster spot?
How do the benches work with the above.

We have unlimited bench space, provided that 1) we comply with the salary cap and 2) we comply with the minimum roster (12F, 6D, 2G). So when dropping Lindell, I simply lose him. He goes through a waiver process among other league members (they have 48 hours to claim him; if no one does, he goes to the "UFA pool"). As mentioned, each team gets one "UFA pick" each year, so he could theoretically be drafted next year.

What does the rest of your roster look like?

See my signature. If you need more details (i.e. salary for each player, points projected, etc.), I'll be happy to provide them.

How close to the cap is the rest of the league?

Here is summary of cap situation as well as projected outcome as of today with Dobber point projections (best 12F, 6D, 2G). I'm STL :

POS	TEAM	POINTS	CAP SPACE
1	CBJ	1284	-0.9M
2	STL	1284	50.4M
3	MTL	1276	5.3M
4	ANA	1188	13.4M
5	CGY	1117	-6.1M
6	DAL	1101	20.5M
7	PIT	1093	-16.9M
8	WSH	1075	7.5M
9	SJS	1071	9.2M
10	OTT	1053	19.2M
11	NYI	1012	-7.4M
12	TBL	1011	-4.5M
13	COL	981	1.4M
14	MIN	956	8.7M
15	HFD	937	-4.6M
16	LAK	933	3.1M

[Eskimo Brother]

So bottom line looks like you have to drop Lindell, Patches, and possibly Lee too. (26.5)
Then, quickly shop Stone/Matthews/Point etc to PIT and NYI for something close to equivalent value, while saving 8M by moving out one player. (26.5+8=34.5)
I would then try moving Fleury, as I think his value is goin to decline fast. Moving a goalie in a league like this should allow you to get back someone like Mrazek in a best case scenario, or Hutton in a worst. (34.5+ ~4M = 38.5M)
Next trade or cut some depth - Toffoli, Manson (9M + 38.5M = 47.5M)

This gets you manageably close to the cap, but short one D, where you can swing a deal along the lines of Malkin for Letang, OEL, etc and fill the hole while shedding a little more.

Is the 50M assuming Point signs for 10M, or is his not even factored in yet?

[Samfolds]

Thanks Eskimo, this seems to make sense.

Is the 50M assuming Point signs for 10M, or is his not even factored in yet?

Damn that's a good point. This was with his old contract. Looks more like 60M now . More challenges, yay!

[ericdaoust]

So bottom line looks like you have to drop Lindell, Patches, and possibly Lee too. (26.5)
Then, quickly shop Stone/Matthews/Point etc to PIT and NYI for something close to equivalent value, while saving 8M by moving out one player. (26.5+8=34.5)
I would then try moving Fleury, as I think his value is goin to decline fast. Moving a goalie in a league like this should allow you to get back someone like Mrazek in a best case scenario, or Hutton in a worst. (34.5+ ~4M = 38.5M)
Next trade or cut some depth - Toffoli, Manson (9M + 38.5M = 47.5M)

This gets you manageably close to the cap, but short one D, where you can swing a deal along the lines of Malkin for Letang, OEL, etc and fill the hole while shedding a little more.

Is the 50M assuming Point signs for 10M, or is his not even factored in yet?

Actually, I like this approach. You're going to have to make some sacrifices and some of your deals won't look great on paper even though it's best for your cap league team. Be careful not to get too hung up on getting perfect value in every deal because that's how deals can fall through. You (literally) can't afford to let deals fall through ATM.

[Eskimo Brother]

Thanks Eskimo, this seems to make sense.


Damn that's a good point. This was with his old contract. Looks more like 60M now . More challenges, yay!

At this point it looks like you're moving at least two of Stone/Matthews/Point, and in an ideal world, you can get someone back like a Kakko, Thomas, Kyrou, etc.

[stevegamer]

Thanks for the further details. I have a couple followup questions.

1. How many rounds is your entry draft?

2. Can you trade for picks? Not just entry draft picks but also UFA draft picks.

[Samfolds]

Thanks for inquiring!

1. How many rounds is your entry draft?

5 round for entry draft (players with less than 40 games played are eligible) + 1 round for UFA (players with 40+ games played only)

2. Can you trade for picks? Not just entry draft picks but also UFA draft picks.

Yes we can trade all picks (prospect or UFA).

Does that change anything to what you mentioned in your earlier post?

[stevegamer]

Thanks for inquiring!

5 round for entry draft (players with less than 40 games played are eligible) + 1 round for UFA (players with 40+ games played only)


Yes we can trade all picks (prospect or UFA).

Does that change anything to what you mentioned in your earlier post?

Not really, but the fact that you don't have a wire but do have a UFA draft means that you can at least try and add picks there via trade. I suspect you may end up being able to make a deal like Matthews for a lesser guy who is also overpaid, a decent value guy, and some picks. You may then need to cut the overpaid guy you get, but it's another thought I had.