Salary Cap Confidential: Managing The Cap
Many salary cap owners may feel like managing the cap and contracts is pretty straight forward, making decisions based solely on the answer to the question, “how much do I like this player?” Answering with, “I like him a lot!” many times turns into a large bid in an auction or a long contract offer. But valuing players based on how much you like them is incredibly shortsighted for a salary cap owner.
There are many factors to consider when pondering the value of a player, which we touched on briefly in Salary Cap Confidential: Cap Penalties. They are production, age, situation, salary, and contract.
One unique advantage that owners in salary cap leagues have over other fantasy football formats is that they directly affect the value of the players in the league by deciding 40% of what creates that value, the salary and contract length.
This installment of the series will focus on making sound decisions from a salary cap point of view and offer some strategies towards making these decisions. You’ll find that most of the strategies covered here revolve around what I feel is the most important part about managing the cap: keeping salary cap flexibility.
Managing the salary cap is perhaps the most important job a dynasty owner has, and having a solid plan and structure in place to assist in all decision making throughout a fantasy year is critical to staying competitive over a long stretch. Doing this obviously begins when creating your budget during your startup auction which we covered earlier in the series but your budget shouldn’t die there.
When I complete a startup auction, the budget I created in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for the auction immediately becomes the budget that I use as long as I own that franchise, and looks like this.
I fit a lot of information into my spreadsheet but the basics include a column for a player’s position, name, and salary for each year he is under contract. Totaling my franchise’s current salary commitments for each of the coming seasons is also a must. In this league, I also identify rookie contracts in red and veteran contracts in black because our rules treat the two quite differently.
This particular screenshot of a roster comes from the end of the 2018 season when there are a handful of roster decisions to be made on expiring contracts.
As the off-season progresses, the spreadsheet gets updated with new information. Players who won’t be returning, like Jerrick McKinnon and Gus Edwards, will be removed. Next, I like to add my rookie picks for that season into my roster so my total for the season reflects an accurate number including rookies. And as more roster decisions are made, I continue to make changes. Drew Brees will get the franchise tag which will add salary to my 2019 budget. Rob Gronkowski’s contract will get retired and his salary removed. Amari Cooper and Jameis Winston will either get new contracts or be tagged as restricted free agents once again changing the available salary cap space I have for the free agent auction over the summer. The adjustments then continue throughout the season.
More than anything else, keeping a spreadsheet with this information keeps your franchise’s salary cap situation clear both in the short and long term. Every decision from franchise tags and auction bids in the off-season, to trades and free agent additions in-season are made easier by keeping this spreadsheet.
And I don’t stop at my team. I actually keep this information updated for every franchise in my league. Updating it only a handful of times a year, and doing live updates during the free agent auction in the summer gives owners the data needed to make informed decisions at every turn.
The strategic advantages the spreadsheet allows makes the work put into it well worth it. Looking into the future and seeing exactly what you and other owners have committed to salaries next year and beyond comes in handy regularly.
Depending on the league’s rules, I like to keep a certain percentage of cap space from year to year for roster flexibility. The minimum is around 25% (however I like to have as much as possible) in a league with strict penalties for dropping players. I also like to take advantage of fellow owners that fail to do so and the spreadsheet gives me the information needed to bring that to the attention of my competition. Imagine at the trade deadline or early in the off-season, knowing a team is already up against the cap next year. Depending on how your cap is set up, you can take on a bad contract from the other owner. Often times, the other owner will be so grateful to create cap space, they’ll be willing to give a valuable player or draft pick for a little flexibility.
The spreadsheet also comes in handy when re-signing players so you know how much money is committed down the road, making trades so you know exactly how much salary another owner can inherit in the deal, and when putting in blind bids in-season to know exactly how much space other owners have.
Perhaps the most useful time the spreadsheet comes in handy is during the free agent auction when bidding. Looking at the other owners’ salary cap situation will paint a clear picture of what he or she can bid. Whether that means dropping out of the bidding to stick the other owner with a player they can barely afford, or paying just the right amount to get the player you covet depends on the particular circumstance. But as we all know, every dollar matters. And saving a dollar or two here and there because you came prepared could be the difference between having the $1 sleeper that busts out and not having the cap space.
Outside of using a spreadsheet to track the salary cap across a league, there are a few other strategies worth employing when it comes to managing the cap.
The first one is relatively obvious to most but completely overlooked by many and revolves once again around cap flexibility. I mentioned above that it’s important to keep at least 25% of cap space available going into an off-season. Adding to that, it’s also essential to keep around 5% of your cap space available for in-season transactions. Many owners think the only way to accomplish this is by spending only $95 of their $100 cap, which when taken literally is keeping 5% available, but is completely inefficient in a league that gives salary cap relief when releasing players.
Traditionally, league rules give a percentage of a player’s salary back to the owner when a player is released (unless we’re talking about a fully guaranteed salary league which makes this point mute.) In these leagues and especially in leagues where minimum ($1) salaries are completely unguaranteed, a savvy owner will figure the cap relief from releasing the bottom few players on their roster into their available cap space. So taking advantage of that last 5% by taking shots on “end of the bench” players or spending an extra dollar on a free agent because it’s not guaranteed anyway can be a subtle move that pays huge dividends.
The second strategy, taking advantage of everything given to you as a dynasty owner, is similar to the first but again, is overlooked regularly by cap owners. That means cap space, active roster spots, devy roster spots, injured reserve benefits, and anything else your rules offer.
If you have a 30-man roster and only have 28 players on yours and have cap space, you’re wasting an opportunity as long as your league doesn’t have fully guaranteed contracts. If you get cap relief for players on IR and aren’t using the spot but have players that qualify, you’re wasting a chance to get better. And if your league allows a higher percentage of cap relief on player salaries that are dropped before or after a specific date and you’re not planning around that, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Paying close attention to those types of details in your league is the quickest way to get a leg up on the competition.
The final tip I have for managing the cap is to keep an open mind. There are many ways to creatively create cap space, either for yourself or for another owner when making a trade. Whether it is trading a highly rated player for a lesser-valued player with a smaller salary, covering a portion of a player’s salary so the player fits in another team’s budget, offering a franchise tag (or another tradeable asset that isn’t a player or pick) to another owner in return for cap relief, or cutting a player only to immediately put a lower salaried waiver claim in for him, every dollar matters. The additional flexibility offered by even a dollar of cap space is incredibly valuable and keeping an open mind on ways to create that flexibility should always be a priority to cap owners.
In the next installment of our series, we’ll continue with Salary Cap Confidential: Managing Contracts.
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