GM Meetings: Daly warns GMs about tampering. Considering shorter max term contracts

[dino7c]

Where are these SMRT GMs that don't hand out 7/8 year deals?

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Where are these SMRT GMs that don't hand out 7/8 year deals?

Really it's all situation dependent.

GMs should want to keep 7/8 year deals for their young players. Giving your stars coming off ELCs these long term deals tends to work.

Where GMs need to be more selective is giving players 29+ contracts that are 7/8 year deals.

IMO good GMs lock up their young players to 7/8 year deals, but are better at letting older players (29+) who aren't super stars walk or moving them instead of re-signing them to 7/8 year deals. (aka do the opposite of what Treliving did with Neal/Tkachuk)

As a fan of a small market team a max 5 year deal would terrify me. Players are UFAs generally after 7/8 seasons.

3 Year ELC
5 Year Max Contract
UFA in year 8 at 27/28 years old...that seems bad for a market like the Flames.

Edit: Thought of a decent example that started well (that we won't like) which is Florida.

He gave the guys that are superstars 8 year deals (Barkov, Tkachuk).

They made the tough decision to move Huberdeau and Weegar before giving them 8 year deals (looks like the right call for Huberdeau, but Weegar's deal looks good)

Forsling's 8 year deal is good because he's played like a superstar, and the $5.75M aav is a HUGE discount.

But I think now you could potentially question giving both Reinhart and Verhaeghe 8 year deals. Personally I probably would have kept Reinhart and considered moving Verhaeghe to try to get younger/open up some cap room.

I feel like they might make the decision to walk away from Ekblad too.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by blankall

That kind of unfairly punishes teams that are doing bad. A lot of the teams doing poorly are also the teams that have been most pressured into signing these bad 8 year deals, as they don't have the ability to draw in star players without the big contracts.

If you're the NYR you give away a late first and use your new cap space to sign more star players from other teams. If you're a lesser team, this doesn't help you much, as you aren't giving up your top 10 pick to get out of a bad contract.

Even with the Flames, they shouldn't be giving up their pick now. Maybe you give teams the ability to keep the buyout in the bank, until you are good?

The other side of that is the Flames give a 1st in 2019 (Pelltier) to make room so they can sign Tkachuk to a long term deal rather than a 3 year bridge. At the end of the day it still comes down to competent managment.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Parallex

Ok... so if signing those deals give them a competitive advantage on the whole then they're good deals and they shouldn't want to get rid of them. By the same token if they determine that signing those deals won't be a competitive advantage then they should just not sign them let one of their competitors make the mistake and let that mistake be their competitive advantage.

This is just a case of a bunch of grown men wanting their lollipop now, Now, NOW! The league and the union shouldn't have to get involved to save them from their own poor decision-making and lack of patience.

NHL CEO's and PoHO's... for the love of god just hire better/smarter people.

This whole post feels a bit naive, but suggesting GMs are stupid babies because they sign players for longer than 5 years is just totally absurd.

The reality is that GMs are competing against each other. This isn’t EA NHL where you’re playing in your own little bubble against a computer and the most agency anyone else has is broken AI. Anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of GMs have the same goal, and they are in direct competition with everyone else that has that goal. And it’s a zero sum game. Someone gets better, and someone gets worse, every time.

Some teams are cup contenders. They’re in “win now” mode whether you like it or not. Patience is irrelevant to these teams, as it should be. It’s about what gets you over the top. So sure, it’s easy to say “don’t sign anyone beyond 5 years” but in today’s reality, that’s just saying competitive teams should close or delay their window if the choice is between that or signing guys to a 7/8 year deal. Meanwhile everyone else is getting older, and other teams are going to take advantage of that and get better.

Removing >5 year options doesn’t “save GMs from themselves,” it saves them from players having that option as leverage. If 7 years is available elsewhere, players know that, and use that. Why wouldn’t they? They have agency in all this too.

Every GM would prefer shorter term, team-friendly deals. It’s not reality, so they don’t have the luxury of operating like it is. Sometimes that means a player has leverage and you have to risk long term pain for short term gain. Take away a player’s leverage, and you reduce the risk.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

This whole post feels a bit naive, but suggesting GMs are stupid babies because they sign players for longer than 5 years is just totally absurd.

The reality is that GMs are competing against each other. This isn’t EA NHL where you’re playing in your own little bubble against a computer and the most agency anyone else has is broken AI. Anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of GMs have the same goal, and they are in direct competition with everyone else that has that goal. And it’s a zero sum game. Someone gets better, and someone gets worse, every time.

Some teams are cup contenders. They’re in “win now” mode whether you like it or not. Patience is irrelevant to these teams, as it should be. It’s about what gets you over the top. So sure, it’s easy to say “don’t sign anyone beyond 5 years” but in today’s reality, that’s just saying competitive teams should close or delay their window if the choice is between that or signing guys to a 7/8 year deal. Meanwhile everyone else is getting older, and other teams are going to take advantage of that and get better.

Removing >5 year options doesn’t “save GMs from themselves,” it saves them from players having that option as leverage. If 7 years is available elsewhere, players know that, and use that. Why wouldn’t they? They have agency in all this too.

Every GM would prefer shorter term, team-friendly deals. It’s not reality, so they don’t have the luxury of operating like it is. Sometimes that means a player has leverage and you have to risk long term pain for short term gain. Take away a player’s leverage, and you reduce the risk.

That's why I can't talk about the Flames in real life to anyone remotely seriously.

WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST SIGN TKACHUK FOR $5MILL A YEAR FOR 5 YEARS! Because its a negotiation.

Why didn't you just get a 0.18% Mortgage rate you idiot?

[iggy_oi]

You’d think teams would prefer to remove the term limits altogether. I’m sure Chicago would love to be able to re-sign Connor bedard to a 10+ year deal at today’s rates/cap hit limits instead of doing an 8 year deal and then having to re-sign him for $5M more annually on the next deal as the cap goes up. Sure the other side of the argument is that the player might decline, but as has already been mentioned the GMs don’t need to offer a contract length that they don’t want to. If another team wants to sign them for that term, why shouldn’t they be able to?

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Why would they want to shorten the max term?

League trying to save Edmonton from themselves.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

League trying to save Edmonton from themselves.

The Edmonton Neerdowells.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

This whole post feels a bit naive, but suggesting GMs are stupid babies because they sign players for longer than 5 years is just totally absurd.

The reality is that GMs are competing against each other. This isn’t EA NHL where you’re playing in your own little bubble against a computer and the most agency anyone else has is broken AI. Anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of GMs have the same goal, and they are in direct competition with everyone else that has that goal. And it’s a zero sum game. Someone gets better, and someone gets worse, every time.

Some teams are cup contenders. They’re in “win now” mode whether you like it or not. Patience is irrelevant to these teams, as it should be. It’s about what gets you over the top. So sure, it’s easy to say “don’t sign anyone beyond 5 years” but in today’s reality, that’s just saying competitive teams should close or delay their window if the choice is between that or signing guys to a 7/8 year deal. Meanwhile everyone else is getting older, and other teams are going to take advantage of that and get better.

Removing >5 year options doesn’t “save GMs from themselves,” it saves them from players having that option as leverage. If 7 years is available elsewhere, players know that, and use that. Why wouldn’t they? They have agency in all this too.

Every GM would prefer shorter term, team-friendly deals. It’s not reality, so they don’t have the luxury of operating like it is. Sometimes that means a player has leverage and you have to risk long term pain for short term gain. Take away a player’s leverage, and you reduce the risk.

How is it any different in baseball and why don’t they hand out 7 year contracts to 30-year-olds like candy? Maybe because the dumb ones have been largely purged and they realize how silly it is to handcuff their payroll to replacement level players.

Giving out those contracts means losing, not winning.

[Jason14h]

It’s a combo - having no term limits actually is better than max IMO .

This is what NBA found as well . Every player demands max if there is one

Remove any upper limit , and allow one free buyout every X years . Also player and team options like in baseball would probably help . Here’s a 8 year deal with a team option after 5 to pick up last 3 years or a buyout cost

NHL cap is the worse for flexibility and actually causes most of these issues. Small market teams are restricted in options to lock up players long term at great deals (like baseball has shifted too , great teams can’t keep their home grown players by going over the cap with a penalty/ tax (like NBA) , and contracts have no real outs (Like NFL - where players counter it with large signing bonuses and different cap calculations that allow team in contending mode to push out cap hits a bit during go for it years )

NHL cap if made for simplicity and because of that it is constant - and easily - abused

First it was backloading multiple no salary years to lower average cap hit , and now it’s LTIR abuse

They honestly need to think about a new cap structure all together in my opinion vs constantly band aiding this one

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by butterfly

How is it any different in baseball and why don’t they hand out 7 year contracts to 30-year-olds like candy? Maybe because the dumb ones have been largely purged and they realize how silly it is to handcuff their payroll to replacement level players.

Giving out those contracts means losing, not winning.

Probably because, instead of signing 30 year olds for 8 years, they sign slightly younger players to significantly longer contracts.

Ohtani’s 10 year contract, for 70 Million dollars, started at 29 and takes him to 39.

The top 5 contracts were signed by players 27, 28, 29, 30, and 30 years old, for 12, 12, 10, 11, and 9 years respectively.

The LA Dodgers signed two of those contracts, by the way. They just won the World Series. They beat the Yankees, who signed another one of those contracts, along with two others in the top 12 (both until they’re 38, and both for over 9 years).

But those managers must be stupid.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Probably because, instead of signing 30 year olds for 8 years, they sign slightly younger players to significantly longer contracts.

Ohtani’s 10 year contract, for 70 Million dollars, started at 29 and takes him to 39.

The top 5 contracts were signed by players 27, 28, 29, 30, and 30 years old, for 12, 12, 10, 11, and 9 years respectively.

The LA Dodgers signed two of those contracts, by the way. They just won the World Series. They beat the Yankees, who signed another one of those contracts, along with two others in the top 12 (both until they’re 38, and both for over 9 years).

But those managers must be stupid.

Who are you talking about? Glasnow? Signed a 5-year deal. Ohtani is the definition of a unicorn. Yamamoto? The process to get these people out of NPB is kind of silly. Soto? Free agent.

[Ped]

Plus it's a little different in a league that doesn't have a hard cap.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Ped

Plus it's a little different in a league that doesn't have a hard cap.

Yeah, the MLBPA is the strongest union in sports. No one is stopping anyone from offering a 29 year old a 15/$1.5B deal. But they don’t.

[butterfly]

If you’re trying to argue that Andrew Freidman is stupid, that’s ridiculous. He’s an analyst, not some hack.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Who are you talking about? Glasnow? Signed a 5-year deal. Ohtani is the definition of a unicorn. Yamamoto? The process to get these people out of NPB is kind of silly. Soto? Free agent.

Trout, Betts, Judge, Machado make the top five.

Then you’ve got guys like Harper who signed for 13 years at 26, Stanton for 13 years at 25. Much different than 8 years at 30? Not really.

Cole, Lindor, Turner, Boegarts, Rendon, etc.

The MLB has a whole bunch of guys on 7+ year deals that take them into their late 30s.

Ohtani might be a unicorn but he has the 12th longest contract and of the 11 longer than his, five are going to be older than he’ll be at the end of their respective contracts.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

This whole post feels a bit naive, but suggesting GMs are stupid babies because they sign players for longer than 5 years is just totally absurd.

The reality is that GMs are competing against each other. This isn’t EA NHL where you’re playing in your own little bubble against a computer and the most agency anyone else has is broken AI. Anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of GMs have the same goal, and they are in direct competition with everyone else that has that goal. And it’s a zero sum game. Someone gets better, and someone gets worse, every time.

Some teams are cup contenders. They’re in “win now” mode whether you like it or not. Patience is irrelevant to these teams, as it should be. It’s about what gets you over the top. So sure, it’s easy to say “don’t sign anyone beyond 5 years” but in today’s reality, that’s just saying competitive teams should close or delay their window if the choice is between that or signing guys to a 7/8 year deal. Meanwhile everyone else is getting older, and other teams are going to take advantage of that and get better.

Removing >5 year options doesn’t “save GMs from themselves,” it saves them from players having that option as leverage. If 7 years is available elsewhere, players know that, and use that. Why wouldn’t they? They have agency in all this too.

Every GM would prefer shorter term, team-friendly deals. It’s not reality, so they don’t have the luxury of operating like it is. Sometimes that means a player has leverage and you have to risk long term pain for short term gain. Take away a player’s leverage, and you reduce the risk.

That someone gets better, someone gets worse isn’t true

Different organizations have different depth charts, and different organizational needs, which make different types of assets expendable, and others attractive

Case in point: Markstrom trade

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

That someone gets better, someone gets worse isn’t true

Different organizations have different depth charts, and different organizational needs, which make different types of assets expendable, and others attractive

Case in point: Markstrom trade

Markstrom was a trade, though. Not a UFA signing.

And, if Markstrom improved the Devils, somebody got worse.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Markstrom was a trade, though. Not a UFA signing.

And, if Markstrom improved the Devils, somebody got worse.

Uh… What?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Uh… What?

Can you be more clear about what you don’t understand?