Salary League Strategies

[Chewbert]

Only a few years into the salary cap league game and love these forums so figured I would throw out a few questions to see others opinions as I feel there are a lot of different ways to play this style of league.

1. When entering a draft what kind of players do you look for first: ELC's/rookies, inexpensive vets, the good value producers, or the expensive 100 point potential players? I know it depends on league setup but I feel the strategies would work for any just perhaps changes who the studs/value players are.

2. When selecting keepers do you have a set cap you want to keep open for your draft, keep the best players possible, or try to keep value contracts? My league the guy who won in 2019-20 and 2020-21 kept all his big guys and went into the draft with minimal room compared to most teams. I also have friends that do the opposite and like lots of room in order to snap expensive guys not kept as well as focusing more on depth.

3. With the contracts on the rise those value contracts are becoming harder and harder to find. Wondering who here tries to build the majority of their roster with value/depth and who tends to go the way of expensive players offset with the inexpensive players?

Just some random questions that have came to mind and figured I'd start a thread about ideas/strategies and why people like them! I'm assuming most would answer with because they've won that way lol.

Will REP when and where possible!

[stevegamer]

I'll be glad to try and help, but my only cap league is dynasty, and has a couple weird rules. The cap is only for active roster, and players can be sent to the minors at will. If they are at least somewhat expensive, they go on waivers, and if they are claimed, they then have to go on your active roster. So lots of more expensive guys get shuttled up & down and clear waivers. My strategy there is to have the vast majority of my minors be under the threshold; I do have couple guys I'm willing to lose if it comes to that, but they end up getting cut because they aren't good enough: Hornqvist, Beauvillier, etc.

As far as drafting initially, I'd want value producers, but you do want a couple expensive studs as well. Points only makes it easier, as getting handle on the dollar value of a skater stat set is straightforward.

For keepers, it's all about value. Do you want to keep a McDavid? Sure. But you also really want a JT Miller, and of course young players on ELCs that produce are very helpful.

In my league, I have some expensive players, but most of my squad is guys who are not crazy expensive. It's multi-cat, so finding cheap grit isn't so hard, but each team rosters 75 in total. The draft is all rookies, so free agency is a way to snag useful players, but you want to be ahead of the curve on identification.

[Chewbert]

I'll be glad to try and help, but my only cap league is dynasty, and has a couple weird rules. The cap is only for active roster, and players can be sent to the minors at will. If they are at least somewhat expensive, they go on waivers, and if they are claimed, they then have to go on your active roster. So lots of more expensive guys get shuttled up & down and clear waivers. My strategy there is to have the vast majority of my minors be under the threshold; I do have couple guys I'm willing to lose if it comes to that, but they end up getting cut because they aren't good enough: Hornqvist, Beauvillier, etc.

As far as drafting initially, I'd want value producers, but you do want a couple expensive studs as well. Points only makes it easier, as getting handle on the dollar value of a skater stat set is straightforward.

For keepers, it's all about value. Do you want to keep a McDavid? Sure. But you also really want a JT Miller, and of course young players on ELCs that produce are very helpful.

In my league, I have some expensive players, but most of my squad is guys who are not crazy expensive. It's multi-cat, so finding cheap grit isn't so hard, but each team rosters 75 in total. The draft is all rookies, so free agency is a way to snag useful players, but you want to be ahead of the curve on identification.

Far different league and settings but cool to hear about these different leagues. Dynasty sounds like a whole different animal! As always Steve appreciate the input and like how active you are on here!

[ericdaoust]

Combine stars with various cap bargains. Just be aware that your cap bargains will eventually get paid and you might have to move on and find another player.

[Axeman33]

I dont worry about cap early on. Get the best players available when you can. Once the mid rounds start, start focusing on good players on good contracts. There's nothing worse than leaving money on the table at the end of a draft because you were too conservative and passed on quality players because they appeared to be too expensive at the time. There will always be cheap contracts at the end. The Seattle Kraken are a good example of a poor draft.

[Eskimo Brother]

It's all about the bargains after round one or two in the draft because by that point the guy you're looking at has someone equivalent who is also still available and making half as much. That's where you make up the ground in the draft.

For keepers, there's hardly any of the better value contracts that get let go, so I don't mind keeping a heavier cap team through that process.

Building can depend on what's available to you, but the better the guys are on ELCs and league minors contracts that you can get, then the more flexibility you have with acquiring top end talent. Then, the more top end talent you can acquire in the $6M range vs in the $9M range gives you a few extra players in that range across the entirety of the roster.

[Luffy D Monkey]

1. there are bargains at every salary level so I look at the underpriced guys first. This year it was people like Anthony DeAngelo, JT Miller, guys on the last year of entry contracts like Fox, Jason Robertson etc. Depends on your league metagame but there are certain areas that are easier than others, for instance value D-men are basically impossible to find, whereas there are tons of forwards in the 5-6 million range that are decent. So its smart to target guys like that last. Like an Ehlers didn't even have much value in our draft.

2. If its a keeper or limited keeper, keep the best players, like the really impact players. I kept Makar at 9 million or whatever and I'm overjoyed to own him. You can save money elsewhere. The last two years in my pool the winners kept almost all really good ELC guys, and then they could spend whatever they wanted on the random expensive players that got dropped like Dougie Hamilton or whatever. That doesn't sound brilliant, but it has worked very well for them.

[Invictus]

I mostly only play one year leagues so that makes things simple as far as applying my strategy.

I take my projections with salary caps and run an optimize analyses to determine which sets of players will give me the greatest point output while staying under the cap constraint. Those are who I target. When one gets picked I rerun (if draft type is more of a slow draft).

The most important thing really is nailing your projections.