Capology...

[BlueWhiteBlood]

I'm starting this thread to more or less start a conversation. I'm by no means a whiz when it comes to this subject, but it interests me and I think we have the quality of members here to do this topic some justice.

I look around the league during this crazy time and see all the players that end up getting bought out and it's sparks the same question for me;

At what point do we start asking whether the agents/ players are hosing the teams, or there are just a lot of bad talent evaluations going on, mostly league-wide?

I've held a partial belief that some players motivation goes down after they sign these crazy high dollar deals and multi-year contracts. But is it increasing in frequency, or are we paying too much attention to it as fans?

Buyouts seem like they increase from year to year, (and I'll need help from the stats guys) but the GM's still keep signing over-valued deals to some players. Free agency has a lot to do with that and I'm sure some general managers make some mistakes just because of the pressure of the competition, but it sure seems like the players benefit a whole lot more than do the teams in these situations.

I've always liked the idea of non-guaranteed contracts, but that will most likely never happen. Players right now are getting paid for both future potential and pass performance. The CBA is cut and dry, it's business, but something rubs me the wrong way about the gamble on the potential being unfair to the teams, does it bug anybody else?

I don't know how far I want to go with this topic, I don't have much of a plan, but I think it's a good topic none-the-less to keep a thread on.

Discuss

 

[ZBBM]

My take on this is pretty simple. There is not enough hockey talent in the world to fill out thirty teams so that they play at the level that would justify the contracts they are getting. Because talent evaluation is so imprecise GMs are chasing a too-small pool and end up overpaying.

The NFL has non guaranteed contracts, right?  why not the NHL?

 

[Kin]

So, essentially, GMs make a lot of mistakes so the players should have less ability to negotiate their own deals. 

 

[princedpw]

The CBA is cut and dry, it's business, but something rubs me the wrong way about the gamble on the potential being unfair to the teams, does it bug anybody else?

When it comes to signing players, the teams are competing against one another.  A bad signing by Toronto hurts Toronto and indirectly helps the other teams.  Hence, I don't really think it makes sense to say free agency is "unfair to the teams."  However, by giving teams the opportunity to make choices, the differing levels of skill of the management of such teams should become more apparent, assuming player selection isn't just luck -- for example, the recent suckitude of Toronto's management has been quite apparent.

There are two things going on right now in the NHL's economic system that I don't like though:

1.  The NHL has the tightest cap system of the 4 major sports (actually, of at least 3 - I don't know anything about the NFL). That sucks because the Leafs would appear to require an unfair advantage (eg, the ability to use their wealth productively) in order to win.

2.  There is very little player movement in the NHL, especially at the top end.  Team cores now appear to remain relatively fixed for lengthy periods.  If you are like the Leafs, and have a bad core, it is hard to see any short-term approach to fixing it.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

When it comes to signing players, the teams are competing against one another.  A bad signing by Toronto hurts Toronto and indirectly helps the other teams.  Hence, I don't really think it makes sense to say free agency is "unfair to the teams." 

That comment was more specific to "potential" than free agency, maybe I worded it incorrectly. Free agency is where the GM's make more mistakes and even the last two of our own (GM's) were pretty clear that there is a premium on the players just to get them on the team. This is especially clear for teams that aren't on the same playing field, for a myriad of reasons.

My rub is more with the younger players that sign huge extensions for big dollars, then end up never living up to them and being bought out for financial reasons and talent/ cost-effectiveness. This is more rare with the elite players, but how many of those are there?

I'm glad that a lot of GM's are moving towards the "bridge" deals, that will probably help. I agree with Nik's reference to mistakes by GM's, that's why I mentioned it in the OP, but I really do also think that there is a player motivation/ drop off that happens after the money is guaranteed with some players.

Even personally, I feel that if I had an 8 year contract guaranteed, I'd have less motivation to bring my absolutely best all the time and would worry about stagnation. I like having that carrot in front of me.

 

[Kin]

I agree with Nik's reference to mistakes by GM's, that's why I mentioned it in the OP, but I really do also think that there is a player motivation/ drop off that happens after the money is guaranteed with some players.

For the record that was not me expressing an opinion of my own. That was me trying to wrap my head around what I think is a pretty silly concept. The idea that because GM's make mistakes that, somehow, this should lead to players having less freedom to negotiate their deals strikes me as ridiculous. If a GM makes mistakes, then the answer is to get a GM that makes fewer mistakes.

The problem with the NHL's salary cap is that, in the CBA negotiations, the league seemed single-mindedly focused on making the GM job as idiot-proof as possible. The problem with making something idiot proof is that it becomes harder to weed out the idiots. Compare this to baseball, where GM's are given tons of freedom and room for creativity, and you see smart solutions to problems that don't require collective bargaining to sort through.

 

[Kin]

1.  The NHL has the tightest cap system of the 4 major sports (actually, of at least 3 - I don't know anything about the NFL). That sucks because the Leafs would appear to require an unfair advantage (eg, the ability to use their wealth productively) in order to win.

Without wanting to go into why that is an "unfair" advantage I think the real problem with the CBA as it's constructed is that, as you say, the League has the most restrictive cap in sports and, at the same time, giving their teams virtually no mechanisms to effectively navigate the cap.

The idea, for instance, that the league can't have incentive based deals or option years or partially guaranteed deals is ridiculous. It's something the NHL wanted that's only punitive to teams and all on the altar of the concept of "cost certainty" at the expense of correctly running these teams.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

For the record that was not me expressing an opinion of my own. That was me trying to wrap my head around what I think is a pretty silly concept. The idea that because GM's make mistakes that, somehow, this should lead to players having less freedom to negotiate their deals strikes me as ridiculous. If a GM makes mistakes, then the answer is to get a GM that makes fewer mistakes.

I don't think it's all just idiot GM's though. Why don't the players playing badly after they sign their deals carry any weight at all? I don't see the players having any economic risk at all after they sign these contracts, regardless of how they play.

Anyway, I'm sorry to bring up silly concepts, I thought I was clear that I wanted to provoke conversation and understand this a bit better.

 

[Kin]

I don't think it's all just idiot GM's though. Why don't the players playing badly after they sign their deals carry any weight at all? I don't see the players having any economic risk at all after they sign these contracts, regardless of how they play.

But that's what I mean about it being the NHL's choice to limit the creativity that GM's have in making deals. There's no good reason to not let teams be free to choose to offer incentive based deals. That was the league's choice though. There's no reason to not allow for partially guaranteed deals. Again, the league's choice.

There's a trade-off with what you're talking about. Players don't have "economic risk" if their play dips but they also don't have the opportunity to renegotiate if their play improves. Jonathan Toews was making 6.3 million dollars as one of the best players in hockey the last few years. Is that fair? Sidney Crosby got 3.7 million when he won his first MVP. Should he have gotten a 6 million dollar performance bonus so that his salary reflected his contributions?

That's the balance in the concept of free agency. Some players play for less than they would get on an open market but by restricting the market, the players who get to the free market get their salaries inflated because of the reduced supply. Saying that it's "not fair" that GM's have to overpay for some players is like someone who takes all the meat off a chicken complaining that they don't also get the bones to make soup.

Anyway, I'm sorry to bring up silly concepts, I thought I was clear that I wanted to provoke conversation and understand this a bit better.

My issue isn't with the general idea that bad contracts are being signed. I agree that they are. My problem is with the perception that everything that works to a player's benefit should be redressed via the collective bargaining process wherein the players get progressively less and less.

I think an examination of why bad contracts are signed is a legitimate avenue for discussion but I think there are better avenues to pursue. Just as a for instance, and this has been written about in other sports, the way contracts are negotiated seem to favour the players just because of who is doing the negotiating. The players hire, as their representatives, elite lawyers whose sole job is to maximize their clients earning potential. Then the owners hire, as their representatives, guys who primarily have hockey backgrounds.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

All good points. I may have missed a lot of these debates that may have already happened when people were talking about the CBA during it's negotiation.

Your points on the trade-off are duly noted, maybe what we're seeing highlights what could have made the CBA better, if they were to negotiate more performance bonus structured deals. I actually like that idea, I have no problem paying for the success that the players actually have, because my overall point was based around the potential and unrealized potential.

I think an examination of why bad contracts are signed is a legitimate avenue for discussion but I think there are better avenues to pursue. Just as a for instance, and this has been written about in other sports, the way contracts are negotiated seem to favour the players just because of who is doing the negotiating. The players hire, as their representatives, elite lawyers whose sole job is to maximize their clients earning potential. Then the owners hire, as their representatives, guys who primarily have hockey backgrounds.

I think this is also a good point. Note that I want fairness across the board as opposed to this favouring the players or the owners/ Managers disproportionately.

 

[Kin]

I think this is also a good point. Note that I want fairness across the board as opposed to this favouring the players or the owners/ Managers disproportionately.

Sure, but I'm not really sure I get your concept of fairness. The fairness of the system is that nobody is forced to do what they don't want to do, not that everything works out all the time for everyone.