Early on in my playing days, I did not have to deal with a salary cap. I routinely recall years where the winning teams carried salaries of $420, $430, even $450. No more, however; in an attempt to increase parity (read mediocrity) and to prevent significant dumping unfairness, our AL instituted a $375 soft cap (meaning that players on reserve/disabled list do not count toward the active $375 cap). With the institution of the salary cap came the inevitable task of how the contenders would manage the cap at the trade deadline, while still adding players of value for the stretch run.
There are a few important things to consider when you are evaluating your management of the salary cap. First, keep in mind that you have a FAAB budget and there may come a point in time when you want to, or worse yet need to, bid on a player. While this should not be an overriding concern (particularly if you can reserve an injured player), it is something to keep in mind. A good example is a current problem I have: Sammy Sosa at $6 is now a part-time player. My perfect world scenario would be to have replaced him with Salti or Betemit, but since I am right at the cap, I can only bid a maximum of $6. Betemit went for $9, Salti for $17.
Second, do not forget contiguous trades if your league has them available. In my AL, we are able to trade with the team directly above and directly below me in the standings at the beginning of the stats week. If, for example, you have a player coming back from injury and no where to put him, remember to evaluate the contiguous teams' rosters for the opportunity to move the reserved player for a player or a pick, or move someone on your active roster to clear cap space to activate the reserved player.
Third, never be afraid to trade for injured players. I moved Miguel Tejada and Michael Cuddyer (at $35 and $21 respectively) off of my reserve list with two other players in order to get Eric Bedard at $9 and Jered Weaver at $10. I knew that I would never clear enough cap space to activate these two players, and I knew that I would be helping the first and third place teams if I tried to move them after the trading deadline. So I chanced a deal where these players, when activated, would help the 4th place team in its run to catch and/or keep ahead of the 1st place team in the power and average categories. The upside for the team that took the risk was that he about guaranteed himself 4th place (though he forgot to activate them this week).
Salary cap management has also had some significant impact on dumping, which I will talk about in some later posts as Mike and I work our way through deadline trades and roster management issues. One significant impact for me is that I now like to dump, and be dumped to, earlier in the season. This gives your roster time to shake out, allows for injuries and permits sufficient time to make trades to free up salary as the deadline approaches. Moving 2 minor leaguers and 2 picks for an injured Joey Gathright, Mark Ellis at $8 and Shannon Stewart at $4 likely wouldn't have happened if I saved all my deals for the last minute.
Next time, I'll take a closer look at my dump deals this year with some discussion and rationale in the context of contending and the salary cap.
No comments:
Post a Comment