Salary Cap?

[The Wizard]

We are running a 12 team keeper league in which each team is able to keep 7 players and 3 minors. I was thinking about implementing a salary cap system, but I\'m not sure how to set it up. If you could inform me on how your leagues salary cap systems work I would greatly appreciate it.

- Do you create your own values for each player?

- Do you base it off their NHL contracts?

Thank you very much!!

[WildHendy]

The Wizard wrote:

We are running a 12 team keeper league in which each team is able to keep 7 players and 3 minors. I was thinking about implementing a salary cap system, but I\'m not sure how to set it up. If you could inform me on how your leagues salary cap systems work I would greatly appreciate it.

- Do you create your own values for each player?

- Do you base it off their NHL contracts?

Thank you very much!!

Salary cap sucks in real and in fantasy hockey.N.H.L. Numbers is a great site if you go with actual salaries.

Post edited by: WildHendy, at: 2007/05/31 09:53

[The Good Sir]

I agree with Wild on this one. No Salary Cap in our league Sire. I dont even care that you have Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury on your team!

[Dobber]

Why\'d you change your name? Is \"Chowdeur\" a play on that Simpsons episode with the French waiter?

[C_Escalade]

If you want to base on salaries go to ..

http://www.nhlpa.com/thePlayers/index.asp

for their salaries and if a player is not on the list .. Put him at like $1.5 million or something like that .

Post edited by: C_Escalade, at: 2007/05/31 16:31

[mr_mich]

You have to consider the effects of adding a salary cap to your league.

[ul]
[li]Realism - The real NHL has a salary cap, so by adding one players have to make the same decisions GM\'s make. Just about everyone likes it (that\'s kind of why we play fantasy hockey) but to different extents; this may be too much for some[/li]
[li]Strategy - There\'s a difference between a player that can build a team that scores 200 goals a season, and one that can do it with cap constraints. This adds another aspect, another thing to think about when building your team. Once again, everyone wants to think about their team, but people all have different thresholds about how much is too much.[/li]
[li]Complication - Whether you\'re calculating your own salaries for players, or just using presets, you can be sure that someone is going to have to do extra calculations. Bear this in mind, a lot of fantasy league ideas sound good until you actually have to add things up every week.[/li]
[/ul]

If you decide you want to go with a salary cap, the two options you presented are good. Real salaries, or salaries you guys generate.

Real Salaries
Pro\'s
[ul]
[li]Accurate - you have to make the same decisions a real GM would in your shoes.[/li]
[li]Easier - Being handed a list of salaries and players requires less work than generating one from the other.[/li]
[/ul]
Con\'s
[ul]
[li]Inflation - Some guys are overpaid in the NHL, and if you have certain trends that apply to the league (i.e. defenseman are in high demand) that don\'t apply to your league, the salary cap loses a lot of it\'s benefits and adds unnecessary constraints[/li]
[li]Discrepancies - Some players flat-out are worth more in fantasy than they are in the NHL, and vice versa. Real salaries account for things that fantasy hockey does not (like the whole area of defensive skill).[/li]
[/ul]

Custom-Generated Salaries
Pro\'s
[ul]
[li]Accurate to your league - Basing salaries off of point production and fantasy-relevant stats makes salaries more accurate in proportion to a player\'s value (production in certain categories, prone to injury, etc.)[/li]
[li]Accurate to value - No hometown discounts, etc. A player worth $5 million will make $5 million, no matter what team he prefers to play with or what players he wants to stick with.[/li]
[/ul]
Con\'s
[ul]
[li]Requires work - You have to come up with a system for salaries, calculate them every year, and make sure people can make a reasonable team within the cap.[/li]
[li]Value can be relative - As with real salaries, there can be great disparity between a player\'s value to one team versus his value to another. This is why players are given offers in real life, a flat rate means it\'s a matter of \"first come, first serve.\"[/li]
[/ul]

Hope that helps!

[The Comish]

The best method for determining a player\'s value to your league is with an auction. That way your league owners get to decide the players salaries instead of those crazy \"real\" NHL GM\'s. I would set an artificial salary cap at an average of $10/player on your roster. If you want 20 players on your roster, then the salary cap is set at $200.

I\'m in a pool where we have a salary cap and use actual NHL player\'s salaries. No one owns Yashin or Khabibulin. At our draft last year, my first round pick was Forsberg, then in the second I took Jovanovski. The problem was I was up against the cap for the rest of the draft. I hate leaving talented players undrafted. Everything was ok though, because before the season started I traded Jovanovski/B.Stuart for Boyle/Schneider to get under the cap!! A little bit of luck never hurt anyone!

[The Good Sir]

Dobber wrote:

Why\'d you change your name? Is \"Chowdeur\" a play on that Simpsons episode with the French waiter?

Ha ha, nice catch Dobbs. Yes I did change my name, mostly because I don\'t want the people from my league to find the site and then read all of my posts about players and who I\'m looking at, etc. My name used to be the same as my league name. I know it sounds paranoid but we have a few guys in the league who seem to go after whoever my friend and I talk about. My name is partly from the Simpsons episode, and also partly from a joke my friend, \"The Wizard\", and I had about Brodeur\'s name in 2003. Anyway, after the draft I will more than likely change it back, because I prefer the former.

[gdon]

The Comish wrote:

The best method for determining a player\'s value to your league is with an auction. That way your league owners get to decide the players salaries instead of those crazy \"real\" NHL GM\'s.

I agree. The problem with using real life salaries is you have no control over your strategy. You keep Chara because he\'s good and then you\'re put up against the cap because some idiot in Boston thinks he should be the highest paid D man. In keeper leagues you are treating it like it\'s your team, but how do you plan for anything if you suddenly have to dump a guy because of an idiot real-life GM?

The auction is the best way to go...then the only idiot GMs are the guys around the table with you.

One of my leagues uses a unique approach. We have a contract cap, not a salary cap. We have 40 years to dole out for your team(max 20 man roster). Instead of dollar amounts you have to sign a player to contract from 1-4 years. Once a contract comes up he goes into a FA draft in September. This probably wouldn\'t work for you because you already have a set amount of players you\'re keeping. In our league one team could have 15 guys coming back, another could only have 6. It all depends on how they manage their contracts.