The NeverEnding Season

Good Morning,
As discussed in chat a couple weeks ago I would like to formally put some suggestions into place and hopefully lead to a potential solution or league vote. As we know, every year there are always a few stars who get injured or their owners fall out of contention and buy those guys out. Now it makes sense for these teams to buy these players out, however I believe there is a competitive balance issue for what ensues after. These stars are free agents and eligible to get a long-term contract for cheaper than usual. I personally think there are multiple issues with this. These owners are able to get star players for a lot cheaper than they normally are valued at, now we all find value in free agency, however I think this negatively impacts competitive balance. A lesser reason, albeit I think a reason that should be considered, is these deals usually happen after Week 17ish in our season when a lot of teams are out of contention and probably not checking the league daily. And another reason, although maybe the most controversial, is that teams have allocated most of their cap to off-season free agency, rightfully so. Now obviously it is a strategy to keep cap available in case situations like this arise but I think it is a fair point. For future reference, their are 2 instances of this happening this year. Jack Flaherty was bought out last week and signed for 750K 4 years. Now it's not Jack Flaherty of old, but if he entered open FA this upcoming offseason I think there's no question he's getting at least 5-7M if not more with open bidding. I think the effect of this is two fold, if he was able to be upcoming FA this offseason it can spread the wealth more throughout the league and it adds another SP option, I think maximizing the amount of players that can be in offseason FA only helps league help. The other example is Will Smith(Dodgers Catcher)...who got about a 6M per year deal after his buyout. If Will Smith was able to hit offseason FA I don't think there's any question his bidding would reach close to highest paying Catcher in the league. I personally think it's a shame he is not able to hit the "open market". I had him for his 6 years of control plus his extension year(bought out during his EXT year) so the whole league was never truly able to bid for him during his entire career.

Now what are the solutions? The favorite one that I believe could be the most successful and fair is to limit In-Season Major League FAs to 1 year deals. Now I think this could work because it still lets people bid for stars like Will Smith who get dropped mid season and if he was healthy could help contribute in season. I think even doing something like restricting it to 1 year deals after the all-star break might be ideal since it still enables people to sign breakout players in April to multi year deals and usually these buyouts don't happen until late summer anyways.

I don't blame the people that buy the players out now nor the teams that sign these players midseason, but NES has always been about keeping things fair and balancing the league and I think the current state of this situation does not accomplish those goals

I agree that there is some disparity with In-Season FA signings .. It appears to me that there is a lack of activity amongst owners during the season. The reasons may differ for each owner: cap, roster sizes, life, or simply tanking. The ultimate goal should focus how do we have owners more active throughout the season... which i don't' think can be accomplished as a whole. Outside of restricting FA to specific days of the week, or having someone announce FA through chats or alerts.. i don't think we are going to have all owners aligned on a solution.

It comes down to each owner not only having awareness of the FA market, but also managing their payroll. In these examples above, my roster was locked cap wise a couple of weeks ago, I had to free up cap and also improve my roster through trades and FA. Difficult decisions were made.. decisions some owners would not necessarily agree with.. I used this additional cap space to increase my depth from the mid 20's to 35 players currently. I just don't want to restrict active owners who are moving payroll and contracts for now and the future assets. Don't penalize or restrict their capabilities for simply understanding the FA market and capitalize on being an active owner.