2012 Offseason Contract Extensions

[Virtual Jarmo]

Attn: ALL NON PLAYOFF TEAMS

The window to offer contract extensions and arbitration to players will be THIS WEEK starting Monday and ending Friday. NO TRAINING CHANGES ARE PERMITTED BETWEEN NOW AND FRIDAY for non-playoff teams.

I will be updating all non-playoff team salaries with E5 bonuses either tonight or early tomorrow. If you want to figure out what your player will get from the formula chart listed in the Rulebook, you can. If not, just post the player you wish to extend and the amount of years you wish to offer in the CONTRACT OFFERS forum. Please also be aware that we will use the EHEC Fastsim file if necessary to establish a player's value.

As for arbitration, please remember who is eligible for arbitration. All players 27 & over and all goaltenders are eligible for arbitration. Post that you wish to send a player to arbitration in your contract offers forum post. Contract length is not necessary, as that will be discussed via PM.

Please be aware that arbitration hearings may take time as some arbitrators are still in the playoffs and one, STL, has resigned from the league so I will be looking for a replacement. If you wish to be considered for the open arbitrator position, feel free to shoot me a PM outlining why I should consider you. If I don't get any responses, I'll just start asking people.

I also intend to start working on the draft class again this week as the end-of-season CSB final rankings are out. Some of the players already in the file may be edited slightly to represent rising or falling in the rankings.

I will be acting in the best interest of STL, VAN, and DAL, although we do have a new VAN GM who will be joining us shortly. (Edited to say new VAN GM)

Remember that this contract offers period is ONLY for non-playoff teams. As teams get eliminated from the playoffs, I will update this post accordingly.

[Virtual Jarmo]

I've decided that I'm going to change up the arbitration process a little bit.

For starters, the guys who I employ to be representing the players are now going to be referred to as "agents". I am basically the sole arbitrator, so that wasn't the right name for them. I make the final decision. So, the GMs will do their thing lobbying for a lower price and the guys who are helping me out will be the agents representing the player and lobbying for a higher price, rather than trying to be diplomatic.

As usual, I will have two Eastern Conference agents and two Western Conference agents. If there is a conflict of interest due to draft picks or whatever else, I will be sure to handle those situations.

So, with that in mind, the agents (formerly known as arbitrators) will not see the GM's proposed salary number beforehand. Each party will just submit to me and I will make the final determination.

This makes a lot more sense for all involved.

[Parker]

I guess. I thought offering fair contracts made more sense. I'm gonna feel like a dick lowballing all my guys just because I know that's what I'll have to do to reach a fair middle ground between a greedy agent's demands and what the player is actually worth.

[Virtual Jarmo]

I guess. I thought offering fair contracts made more sense. I'm gonna feel like a dick lowballing all my guys just because I know that's what I'll have to do to reach a fair middle ground between a greedy agent's demands and what the player is actually worth.

My response to this would be that:

A. You can't propose more than a 20% salary decrease anyway.
and
B. You're going to take your bargaining power away by simply "mailing" it in and offering the 20% decrease on all your players. Take the Jonathan Bernier arbitration last year. Bern effectively took away all of his bargaining power by ignoring Bernier's absurdly high CON and with comparables that simply didn't make sense.

I see the concerns that it may lead to, but I don't know many times I had one of my guys say something to the effect of "Well, I'll just go with 4.75M so that it gives you a middle ground number" when the GM offered 4 or 4.25. That's not what I want this to be.

Honestly, I think this makes the GM's job a bit tougher. If you have a guy who made 3.25M last season, had an 80 point year, you know that you can't just offer 3.25M again or even a decrease because the agent will point to a player who may be better than that who had a 65 point season and use that to their advantage. Then you'll have a 1.5M gap and I'd obviously rule in favor of the stronger case.

Again, I have final say, just like I always have. I've shown to be a fair Commissioner in regards to most things. That won't change.

Agents in all sports are full of shit. Depending on how the four guys I "employ" will embrace the role of agent, there are going to be times where the agent is just entirely unrealistic and the GM is in the stands rather than standing outside the left field gate, so to speak.

We'll see how it goes with the first few cases and evaluate its performance. I'll be speaking with my four agents to outline what I expect from them in this process so that there are no misconceptions.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Quick note: I'm calculating contracts and then it's up to you to decide that you want to offer that to your player or not. If you don't answer in the designated thread for your team, I'll assume that you're fine with making that offer.

If you don't want to make an offer, you can either offer the RFA price (see Rulebook) or you can just allow the player to enter free agency.

Remember, if you let a player walk, you cannot bid on him in free agency.

[Virtual Jarmo]

If teams don't post anything in the Team Personnel forum about expiring staff, I'm just going to give default contracts to all expiring guys.

[Parker]

It's true that agents are pieces of shit. Their job is to get the most money possible, and that's all they do. Because of this, GM's have to lowball guys in their own organizations as a pre-emptive way of reacting to the agents' insane contractual demands. I'll still try to be fair with my offers (the write-ups I did for last year's arbitration hearings were intended to get the arbitrators to AGREE with my offers, which is why a couple well-paid veterans were actually offered raises based on their strong play and leadership) but I'm a little worried the process just turned a lot more adversarial.

[Virtual Jarmo]

All teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs should be getting their contract offers together. Again, just list the players and the number of years you'd like to sign them to and I'll calculate them for you.

[Virtual Jarmo]

The following teams have not done their 2012-2013 contracts yet:

Winnipeg
Boston
Carolina
Chicago
Dallas
Nashville
Philadelphia
San Jose
St. Louis
Vancouver