There are two dynamics at play here that have always been a beef of mine with the game- although I do immensely enjoy the design as-is as well!
- We call these “loans” when they never have to be ‘paid back’ to either the team or the league
- The economic system does not reward/track team “savings”
Regarding both points, one solution might be to integrate loans into the Arbitration system:
- First, set each team’s Arbitration allocation dollars each off-season according to the inverse of the amount of money a team has “loaned” to other teams the previous year (by rank or by degree over/under $400, not necessarily dollar-for-dollar). So the more money a team has traded to other teams to take on higher-paid players who likely won’t be selected as Keepers, then the less amount the team can allocate on players in Arbitration.
- And second, make player “Arbitration Coupons” a universal feature based on team “savings”. So how much money under their team’s cap an owner saved at the end of the year would transfer (dollar-for-dollar or fraction-of-dollar, or by rank/degree as with Arb allocation dollars) to Coupons they could use to discount the Arbitration increases of their players (and then teams might be able to better hang-onto certain individual players a little longer before being priced off their roster).
As this is a general economic issue regarding player salaries, I’ll also give a shameless plug for a Wishlist item I posted last year regarding the Automatic $2 base salary increase for players. I’d actually like to see a scaled approach to the auto inflation increase, where the Top X% scoring Hitters and Pitchers (ranked separately) each year increase by (say) $5, then the next Y% increase by $4, and the next Z% increase by $3 (etc.), with the bottom 50% of scorers increasing by $0. That way teams can hold onto their younger/ prospect players at the salaries they acquired them for longer, while the top-performing players each year would be more likely to be priced-off rosters and be available for the draft. The bonus effect would be that owners might have more freedom in allocating Arbitration dollars with regards to fair market value rather than to try to price a player off another team’s roster (e.g., fewer Arb allocation dollars spent on a $80 Mike Trout and more on a $5 Fernando Tatis Jr).
All-in-all, if loans are an issue, instead of a tweak of the current system I’d rather see an alternative economic system developed that better strung each franchise’s moves together year-to-year than with the current complete financial re-set at the Keeper Deadline (although, again, I love the current format as well!)