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"Phil this is what you wrote in your post back on page 4 regarding players with 3-4 years of service. Are you now saying this was an error and the part about "or at their current SOM salary, whichever is higher" only applies to 5th year players? Need to know for sure before making my next pick.
Yes, this is what I am saying. The reason I included this rule for 5th year players is because I didn't want an owner to be able to extend a player for the rest of their career at a price that was lower than the price of their last card. For example, imagine that Bregman was in his fifth year rather than his fourth. His card price is $10.93 mil, but the average salary of the top 25% (I used the top 7) is $8.7 mil. He should not be signed for less than his current price if his carded price is higher than the avg of the top 25%. This rule causes owners to think about the choice of extending a 3-4 year player versus waiting for year 5. It may be cheaper to extend a player for four years at the cost of losing him to free agency than it is to wait a year and offer a year 5 extension.
Take Bregman again as an example. Let's imagine that we started the league last year a you drafted Bregman with 4 years of service time (I know he really would have had only 3 years) at a salary of $9.86 million. Let's assume that the average salary for the top 50% of 3rd basemen that year was $7mil. You could sign him to a 4 year extension at $7 mil a year, but at the end of the contract he would become a free agent. Let's say you decided to go to arbitration instead, knowing that he had a great 2019 season. You think his price will be close to the 2018 salary but want to keep the door open to a possible 5th year extension in the hopes of locking him up for more years. It turns out his arb price for 2019 is $10.93 mil! Ooops, you lose. Now you have to offer him a 5+ year contract at $10.93 mil if you want to keep him, or he will become a free agent at the end of the 2019 season.
I can see the merit in moving the decision date ahead, but I'm not sure how we could do that before the first season is played. We would essentially be asking owners to make two decisions: do you want to extend your eligible player this year? If no, do you want to extend that eligible player next year? I think it is possible to do it, but let's get through the draft and then have a discussion.
Last edited by sociophil on Fri Mar 13, 2020 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.