# How do in-season adds and cuts work?
**URL:** https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134
**Category:** Ottoneu Basics
**Created:** [March 30, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134 "2021-03-30T15:04:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bstines82](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/bstines82)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/1 "2021-03-30T15:04:15Z")
3 questions. For all of them, assume the team left the auction with 40 players and $400 spent:
1. can you bid on auction free agents?
2. if you trade a $1 player for a $10 player, now your team salary is $391. Does that team now have $9 to bid on auction free agents?
3. if you do that same trade above, but are the other team, is it ok that you are now above $400 team salary? How far above $400 can you go? Are there any consequences?
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### Author:  [@nivshah](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/nivshah)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 3:07pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/2 "2021-03-30T15:07:42Z")
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. You won’t be able to set lineups, make trades, bid on auctions, etc until your team is legal (under cap, enough cap to fill 40 man roster assuming $1 per roster spot).
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### Author:  [@nivshah](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/nivshah)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/3 "2021-03-30T15:09:40Z")
Teams can “get legal” by cutting players (keeping in mind a 50% cap penalty, rounded up for any cut players) or having trades that were already proposed accepted and processed.
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### Author:  [@bstines82](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/bstines82)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/4 "2021-03-30T15:22:38Z")
If you cut a $1 player, can you then simply add a $1 player? Or that’s a cap hit and you really need to drop a $2 player in order to afford that $1 player? Again, this all assumes you have 40 players and $400 salary.
If you cut a $6 player (and nobody else puts a claim in or picks him up), do you get $3 free dollars?
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### Author:  [@walt526](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/walt526)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 3:24pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/5 "2021-03-30T15:24:13Z")
If a player acquisition is going to bring your roster into an illegal state, have a plan for making it legal before you bid or trade for the additional player. Otherwise you’ll find yourself in a roster crunch and might have to cut a player that you don’t want to cut. It’s a crappy situation and entirely avoidable, but many Ottoneu players experience it when they’re first starting out.
The key thing to remember is that cutting $1 players will not help the situation; in fact, it can make things worse because you’ll still have to fill the roster spot and you now have a $1 penalty.
As I was typing, you asked:
“If you cut a $1 player, can you then simply add a $1 player? Or that’s a cap hit and you really need to drop a $2 player in order to afford that $1 player? Again, this all assumes you have 40 players and $400 salary.”
The second one. You have to cut a $2 or $3 player to recover $1 in cap space.
“If you cut a $6 player (and nobody else puts a claim in or picks him up), do you get $3 free dollars?”
Yes.
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### Author:  [@bstines82](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/bstines82)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/6 "2021-03-30T16:50:37Z")
Do you still accrue stats with an invalid lineup?
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### Author:  [@nivshah](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/nivshah)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 4:53pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/7 "2021-03-30T16:53:47Z")
Yes, though you won’t be able to move players in and out of your lineup.
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### Author:  [@jrl133](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/jrl133)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/8 "2021-03-30T18:41:40Z")
and if I recall, the player you added does not go into a vacant lineup spot, the player goes to a Bench spot so you get no benefit at all from that player addition, nor the benefit of any salary cap from the exchange, until your team is legal
bstines82…understanding the impact(s) of adds and cuts relative to your own (and your opponents’) salary cap is a key element of managing in this game…read and re-read the rules, ask questions, and you’ll learn a lot by following other League managers’ transactions as well as your own
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### Author:  [@jrl133](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/jrl133)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2021, 7:15pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/9 "2021-03-30T19:15:03Z")
…those dollars aren’t “free”…the $6 of salary once belonged to your roster, and with the drop, you reclaimed $3 of the $6 in cap space
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### Author:  [@Youngblood\_Allgood](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/Youngblood_Allgood)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2021, 8:36pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/10 "2021-04-05T20:36:27Z")
Let’s say I’m going to cut a $15 player. The system is telling me I’ll have an $8 “cap penalty” if I cut him. What happens if someone else in the league picks him up? Do I get my $8 back? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@nivshah](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/nivshah)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/11 "2021-04-05T20:40:17Z")
Yep. If someone adds a player, any cap penalty he is associated with is wiped. The auction for that player will have a minimum bid of the cap penalty.
If no one adds a player you’ve cut after 30 days, you can start an auction for them and, if you choose, cut them again to halve the cap penalty.
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### Author:  [@leifman](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/leifman)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/12 "2021-04-13T15:41:01Z")
Can I cut someone as soon as I get them? For example: I win someone at 8:33 AM can I then cut them at 8:34 AM?
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@nivshah](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/nivshah)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/13 "2021-04-13T15:53:08Z")
The only players you cannot cut is someone in a trade that is accepted or a player that is voted off if you are in a league with that kind of arbitration.
Immediately cutting a player you won at auction is a big part of [the 30-day cycle](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/re-auctioning-players-after-30-days/1961/2) that everyone should be taking advantage of if possible.
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### Author:  [@leifman](https://community.ottoneu.com/u/leifman)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2021, 4:44pm UTC](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/how-do-in-season-adds-and-cuts-work/9134/14 "2021-04-13T16:44:31Z")
> [@nivshah](#):
>
> g a player you won at auction is a big part of [the 30-day cycle](https://community.ottoneu.com/t/re-auctioning-players-after-30-days/1961/2) that everyone should be taking a
Thank You, that is why I was asking!