Salary Cap: All Star Fan Voting: Rival's salary cap hell

[LetEmPlay]

As you all know, in recent years sports wide, all star game fan voting has become a bit of a joke. Home teams routinely stuff the ballot box for their players, irrespective of merit.

What if, instead of voting for your players, fan bases target a rival teams bonus-eligible player and vote him into the starting lineup? For example, the Rangers Kevin Hayes is entitled to a $2M bonus for a first team all star selection. That would put $2M of dead cap on the Ranger's cap next year.

... Talk about fans being able to have an impact and leverage a gm into tough player decisions.

Click to read more...

 

[Donnie Shulzhoffer]

As you all know, in recent years sports wide, all star game fan voting has become a bit of a joke. Home teams routinely stuff the ballot box for their players, irrespective of merit.

What if, instead of voting for your players, fan bases target a rival teams bonus-eligible player and vote him into the starting lineup? For example, the Rangers Kevin Hayes is entitled to a $2M bonus for a first team all star selection. That would put $2M of dead cap on the Ranger's cap next year.

... Talk about fans being able to have an impact and leverage a gm into tough player decisions.

Hell to the No!!!!

 

[Fire Sweeney]

All star team and all star game are two different things.

 

[LSCII]

I think the bigger question is whether real die hard hockey fans give a flying **** about who plays in the all star game? I know I don't...

 

[Donnie Shulzhoffer]

I think the bigger question is whether real die hard hockey fans give a flying **** about who plays in the all star game? I know I don't...

But this is proposing that it affects a teams salary cap on top of it.

 

[LetEmPlay]

I think the bigger question is whether real die hard hockey fans give a flying **** about who plays in the all star game? I know I don't...

I think that's the point. They don't care at all, it's already a joke, so if there is an ability to impair a rivals cap situation it would be rather amusing.

 

[LetEmPlay]

All star team and all star game are two different things.

I don't know enough about what triggers these type of bonuses in ELCs to understand the difference. I suppose the question is, if a player is voted a starter in the all start game, does it actually trigger the bonus.

 

[LSCII]

I think that's the point. They don't care at all, it's already a joke, so if there is an ability to impair a rivals cap situation it would be rather amusing.

Yeah, I'm still going to have to say no. Why waste your time to that extent? Maybe if you've got nothing better going on in your life, but I think most reasonable people would lack the necessary bandwidth to move the needle to that extent. Plus I assume the league would invalidate it based on shenanigans being played.

 

[Gee Wally]

All star team and all star game are two different things.

That is the correct answer.

As you all know, in recent years sports wide, all star game fan voting has become a bit of a joke. Home teams routinely stuff the ballot box for their players, irrespective of merit.

What if, instead of voting for your players, fan bases target a rival teams bonus-eligible player and vote him into the starting lineup? For example, the Rangers Kevin Hayes is entitled to a $2M bonus for a first team all star selection. That would put $2M of dead cap on the Ranger's cap next year.

... Talk about fans being able to have an impact and leverage a gm into tough player decisions.

See above.

Bonusable All Stars are for the after season 'award' where a player can be named as a first or second team all star. (this has nothing to do with the all star game)

It's also minimal bonus as established in the CBA. 100K for first team. 50K for second team.


http://capgeek.org/nhl-salary-cap-faq-how-do-entry-level-contracts-work/

 

[Gee Wally]

I don't know enough about what triggers these type of bonuses in ELCs to understand the difference. I suppose the question is, if a player is voted a starter in the all start game, does it actually trigger the bonus.

No. See above post and link for what bonuses are, their schedules and pay out limits.

 

[LetEmPlay]

Yeah, I'm still going to have to say no. Why waste your time to that extent? Maybe if you've got nothing better going on in your life, but I think most reasonable people would lack the necessary bandwidth to move the needle to that extent. Plus I assume the league would invalidate it based on shenanigans being played.

Leaving what is going on in anyone's life aside, although we're all arguably wasting our time posting on an online forum:

I do wonder how hard it would actually be to manipulate this in the social media world we live in. There are probably tech/programmer types on this board that could easily launch a pro-ranger "vote for Kevin Hayes" website that could hide the fact that it would be a "hostile election." If you got it to catch on, you'd probably get half the ranger fans to vote for it as well without them resizing the impact...

 

[GarbageGoal]

There are not enough die hard fans to actually co-ordinate such Machiavellian thinking.

 

[LetEmPlay]

No. See above post and link for what bonuses are, their schedules and pay out limits.

That makes sense. Thanks, I knew someone here would know.

 

[jgatie]

There are not enough die hard fans to actually co-ordinate such Machiavellian thinking.

Habs fans flooded the system to get a post-Lucic beating, broken mind/body Komisarek elected to the All-Star game. Never underestimate the power of idiot fanatics with time on their hands.

But like Gee Wally said, bonuses are not awarded for the All-Star game, it is for the post season all stars.

 

[GarbageGoal]

Habs fans flooded the system to get a post-Lucic beating, broken mind/body Komisarek elected to the All-Star game. Never underestimate the power of idiot fanatics with time on their hands.

It's different to get your own fans to rally around your own guy. Even casuals can largely buy into that.

 

[Mathews28]

Yeah, I'm still going to have to say no. Why waste your time to that extent? Maybe if you've got nothing better going on in your life, but I think most reasonable people would lack the necessary bandwidth to move the needle to that extent. Plus I assume the league would invalidate it based on shenanigans being played.

Dude...not necessary!

I do agree with the you that it's very difficult to have any material impact. But he was just chucking an idea out there.

 

[jgatie]

It's different to get your own fans to rally around your own guy. Even casuals can largely buy into that.

I'd normally agree, but think about it: It was Mike Komisarek!!

 

[Fire Sweeney]

Yeah, I'm still going to have to say no. Why waste your time to that extent? Maybe if you've got nothing better going on in your life, but I think most reasonable people would lack the necessary bandwidth to move the needle to that extent. Plus I assume the league would invalidate it based on shenanigans being played.

Don't underestimate hockey fans, remember the NHL 15 cover spam ?

 

[LSCII]

Dude...not necessary!

I do agree with the you that it's very difficult to have any material impact. But he was just chucking an idea out there.

I didn't mean that as a dig to the poster, so if that's how it came off, I apologize to him or her. I meant it as who has the free time and availability to do something like that, which would be clearly labor intensive, you know?

 

[Mathews28]

I didn't mean that as a dig to the poster, so if that's how it came off, I apologize to him or her. I meant it as who has the free time and availability to do something like that, which would be clearly labor intensive, you know?

Gotcha. And I agree.

 

[Boston BROin]

If this were baseball where the All Star game actually meant something, I would be a little more concerned with who gets to represent the East. It's not baseball and it doesn't mean anything, so I don't care if the first defensive pairing is Matt Irwin and Kevan Miller.

 

[talkinaway]

If this were baseball where the All Star game actually meant something, I would be a little more concerned with who gets to represent the East. It's not baseball and it doesn't mean anything, so I don't care if the first defensive pairing is Matt Irwin and Kevan Miller.

The ASG still doesn't mean anything in baseball. Every team being equal, it only flips the World Series advantage half of the time. And, assuming that the only advantage is the actual location of the game, and not necessarily the order of the games or "knowing that you have a game seven at home", the advantage only matters when the WS goes to game 7. Again, assuming evenly matched teams, the WS only goes to 7 games 31.25% of the time, which is pretty close to the empirical 35 out of 91 times (38%) since 1922.

Thus, the ASG in baseball only has an effect about 15.6% of the time - or about once every six years.

In practicality, since 2003, when the rule took place, there have only been two game 7s. In 2011, it did flip - the AL Texas Rangers had a better record, but the NL St. Louis Cardinals hosted and won game 7. In that case, it did make a difference, at least in theory.

Last year, the AL Kansas City Royals had the advantage over the NL San Francisco Giants thanks to the ASG - but the Royals would have had it anyway due to their regular season record.

That said, ASGs in baseball and hockey are fine for the kiddies, but I don't like them counting for anything - the less they matter, the better. I'm also for mitigating the impact of less standardized games like the WC/Heritage Classic/Stadium Series by having them be the "odd man out" game in a series that would be dropped in a head-to-head comparison.

And as for cap hell, that doesn't matter. The "naming to an imaginary all-star team" happens in all four major pro sports leagues as an award/honor, if I recall correctly. In the NHL, it's voted on by sportswriters - it's basically a "3 star across the league for the whole season", but with 12 stars - 6 players on each "team" for each position. As stated before, this is separate from the actual all star game, and ordinary joes can't vote for it.

Now, could sportswriters in theory collude and stuff the ballot box - or at the very least avoid voting for players who play for their team? Yeah, probably. And players can be given bonuses for being selected to the actual ASG, too - a mirrored version of CapGeek that I found from last year says that they're both Schedule A bonuses.

Now, I found that an individual player's Schedule A bonus can't exceed $212,500 per player, yet Iginla cost us over $4 million - I can't figure that one out. Perhaps it changed.

The obvious solution for clubs is NOT to tie bonuses to either the ASG or to the "all star team" - and, generally, they don't. In a case like Iginla, the bonus is set at a reasonably low number (Iggy got $3.7 mil of his bonus for playing 10 games), and is tied to simple stuff like games played or goals scored. It's an accounting practice that allowed the Bruins to pay 2013-4 salary with 2014-5 cap money - which is part of the reason we stunk last year.

 

[weaponomega]

In the NHL, I see no problem with home fans stuffing the ballot because the game has 0 meaning. The fans just want to see their home team players play in the game. In the MLB it is completely different because stupidly they give the winner of this farse exhibition home field advantage in the World Series.