Explanation/Interpretation of cash in Trade (per the rules)

[David - Cleveland]

The Mets were in the market for a Starter. I proposed the following trade and feel the need, as Commissioner, to explain the trade, particularly the money component as it pertains to the ABL rules.
The money was entirely my idea, not that of the Mets GM.

ablootp.proboards.com/thread/355/la-angels-ny-mets

The rule relating to including cash states: Cash included in any trade must not exceed 50% of the value of the highest contract year.

Normally, in my opinion, this line would apply more often to sending CASH with a contract. Retaining salary is en entirely separate thing now in OOTP, thankfully.
As written, I based my interpretation on trying to "acquire" some cash (as I have none) as a component for trading COBB (Last year of $1.6M contract). As his is the highest contract (and only the one year) I feel this easily falls within the rules as written. If you disagree, please speak up below.

I think the rule is solid because it also allows "buying" players with half the value of their contracts, but stops acquiring players without contracts (like top prospects) as there is no money attached to them. And should a top prospect be on a minimum contract ($535k) you would be foolish to part with them for a rounded $220k.

Last thing I want to do is add rules, but also felt the need to explain this trade (even with the small amount of cash involved). Should I ever have to "rule" on a similar situation, this will stand as my thought process.

[Erick RockiesGM]

I actually really dislike cash restrictions in trades. I think it's unnecessary bureaucracy and if a team wants to buy a player for cash, it should be fine. There's a cash max in the league anyway so it'll be hard to really game the system, and if you're selling prospects for under $10 million, you're probably not a very good gm.

[David - Cleveland]

Sept 4, 2017 19:36:36 GMT -8 Erick RockiesGM said:

I actually really dislike cash restrictions in trades. I think it's unnecessary bureaucracy and if a team wants to buy a player for cash, it should be fine. There's a cash max in the league anyway so it'll be hard to really game the system, and if you're selling prospects for under $10 million, you're probably not a very good gm.

Mildly disagree.
I see nothing wrong with some kind of stipulation on cash just to protect the integrity of franchises in the league. I have found in past that GM's on the traditionally really cash-flush teams (Yankees, LA Dodgers, Boston) and the teams that always seem to be at the bottom of the list in virtually every league (no names, but it's consistent) can work out some sketchy deals in the name of desperation. You, in fact, described one.

Again, one of the luxuries of running your own league is that you can set the rules.
Curious. Does the PBA have anything in place regarding cash in trade?

[Erick RockiesGM]

I don't think there's anything sketchy about using an asset, cash, to acquire another asset, which is a prospect. Judging by BP and Fangraphs, prospects on the open market would fetch a ton of money, so selling them is simply bad GMing. With a cashmax, you're not going to have more than $10 million in cash anyway.

In my league there are also disincentives to be heavily overbudget. If a team gets there by taking on bad salary, that's bad GMing. At least being able to trade for cash would help offset that (though trading away salary also serves the same purpose). 

Most of the back end league details borrow heavily from this league, so it's the same stipulation right now. It's one thing I will heavily focus on getting rid of in the offseason, or at least tweaking. Investigating some of the trade restrictions are going to be the first thing I want to do this offseason. Right now, the only thing I've really touched is limiting the ability of teams to go significantly overbudget so that an owner's agency is somewhat respected.

[aaron_commissioner]

I can see both sides of the argument.

On one hand, savvy GMs should know what their prospects are worth and should be able to sell them for whatever they deem fit. However, especially with the eased restrictions on retaining salaries, keeping a restriction on CASH involved seems to make trades more straightforward and allows the amount of cash in the hands of GMs league wide to remain somewhat similar. While it could be possible to acquire or spend a lot of cash in a season, this is always a risk of the owner pocketing a chunk of it at the end of the year.

Ultimately, I think the rules as is are good. They protect GMs with less experience, and streamline the trading process.

[samtigers]

Sept 9, 2017 18:05:30 GMT -8 aaron_commissioner said:

I can see both sides of the argument.

On one hand, savvy GMs should know what their prospects are worth and should be able to sell them for whatever they deem fit. However, especially with the eased restrictions on retaining salaries, keeping a restriction on CASH involved seems to make trades more straightforward and allows the amount of cash in the hands of GMs league wide to remain somewhat similar. While it could be possible to acquire or spend a lot of cash in a season, this is always a risk of the owner pocketing a chunk of it at the end of the year.

Ultimately, I think the rules as is are good. They protect GMs with less experience, and streamline the trading process.

I concur with as-is rules. For situations involving larger contracts I think the commish should have leeway to make exceptions to allow possible larger exchanges, however by and large I think no limits on cash would lead to the rich teams fleecing prospects.

And to answer the Commish's question - the last I knew (it's been a few years) is that trades involving over $1,000,000 in cash exchanging teams required actual Commish (the real one!) approval.