[feature request] Mid-Level Exception and/or Veteran's Minimum

[tjhighley]

Free agency would be more interesting for salary-capped teams with the implementation of a simplified version of the Mid-Level Exception and Veteran's Minimum salaries.

The Mid-Level Exception could be implemented as simply a single player per year that can be signed at $5 million dollars per year even if you are already above the salary cap. Motivation here is the same as the MLE in the NBA - allowing contenders to have the flexibility to find that one missing piece.

The Veteran's Minimum could be implemented based on years of service. 0.75M minimum for 0-3 years of service + 0.2M for each year of service, to a max of 9 years of service:

0-3 years = 0.75M
4 years = 1.0M
5 years = 1.25M
6 years = 1.5M
7 years = 1.75M
8 years = 2.0M
9 years = 2.25M

The motivation here is that salary-capped teams would have a larger pool to choose from because more veterans would be willing to play for their minimum salary. It would also make the younger (and generally worse) free agents more tempting since they would be cheaper. In terms of gameplay, though, it wouldn't be as easy to tell who is willing to accept a minimum contract, so some visual indicator would be needed.

[dumbmatter]

We were emailing about this too, but let's continue the discussion here (which I should have done in the first place, sorry...)

Veteran's minimum - too complicated for not enough gain, let's leave that out.

MLE - I like what you wrote in your last email:

On the page where contracts are offered, at the bottom include a checkbox that says "Use mid-level exception". If the MLE is already used, have that option grayed out. Tooltip over the words "mid-level exception" state, "Each team may ignore the salary cap once per year when signing a free agent at $5M or less."

I would put that in the game.

[jacksontysonjordang6]

I agree the vet minimum would change almost nothing. You can always sign a player at the min, so having different minimums wouldn't change IF you could sign them.

In the NBA there's actually three types of MLE's. One for tax paying teams, non tax paying teams and teams with room under the cap. Those numbers are $5.2, $8.4 & $4.4.