Late Season High Priced Buyout Rule

[Moorestown Big Dogs]

I am open to feedback on this, and I am guessing it hasn't happened yet or there would already be a rule, but thought it should be looked at.

The Rule: After the Trading deadline, owners may not buyout the contract of any player with a salary of $25 or higher (very open about where to set this line) until the MLB season ends.

My reasoning is as follows: I can envision a scenario where a player (say Bryce Harper on my roster) gets hurt in late August and the team is out of the race, so they shut him down. I own him at $47.50, but could free up $23.75 in Cap Space by buying him out, allowing for a few moves down the stretch. So far, so good.

However, he is now a Free Agent, and based on current available Cap, he will likely be signed for something in the $15 range simply because there is not enough Cap flexibility this late in the year for anyone to come up with much more. A player of Harper's quality signed for $15 (likely for 4 years) due to an uncompetitive market just seems wrong.

I realize that a alternative solution is to simply say "Bruce, don't do something stupid like buying out a star player late in the season." But I still think this should be considered.

[Dynasty Empire]

The only way i can see doing this is to have certain players tagged as "franchise players" meaning they are similar to the Yahoo don't drop list. This could in itself be problematic as it is opinionated. You could buy out this "type" player during the season but those bidding on them would only be able to "rent" them at the winning bid price for the remainder of that season and they would become a FA and go back into the pool for FA the following year.This would take a lot of work to get hammered out but i do see your point. The other thing could be unless the player is won for a bid that is within $5 if the buyout salary (Harper $37,FA win bid would have to be at least $32 to resign him). Something along these lines.

[Moorestown Big Dogs]

LeVeon Bell over in Contract Football is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Fortunately there are enough people with either Cap Space or the willingness to create some to get him up to $30 already, but ideally he should be coming up in the Pre-Season Free Agent auctions for next season, not right now.

[Moorestown Big Dogs]

Responding to Dynasty's suggestion of only being able "rent" them at the winning bid price for the remainder of that season and they would become a FA and go back into the pool for FA the following year. This ties in with my rule change suggestion that all players signed as Free Agents during the season be signed to 1 year deals, so adopting that rule would clear up this concern as well.

[Moorestown Big Dogs]

Just wanting to bring this to the league's attention again, as Paul Goldschmidt hits the market over the All-Star break. While he is definitely having a down year, I still think that he would go for $25 or so at the start of next season if he were on the market when all owners could participate in the auction. Due to the mid-season nature, he is unlikely to reach more than $15, if that.
I think the best solution is to have in season contracts of bought out players be only for the current year, but am happy to hear others thoughts on the subject.

[Easy Freese]

Appreciate your thoughts on this. I do agree that upper tier players becoming available and signing for below market deals during the season is not ideal. I will make sure to put this updated proposal on the next rules survey sent out in the offseason