'Trading' and 'drafting'

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I really don't understand all this drafting and trading that goes on in sports over the pond. Why don't they just buy and sell players under contract like everyone else?

In football, a player signs a contract with a club. If another club wants that player, the 2 clubs have to settle on a mutually beneficial agreement for his transfer (usually a big clump of cash). They certainly wouldn't just 'trade' their player with a player from the other club, unless the other player is better than theirs. In which, why would the other club trade?

Also, what is a 'draft? What decides which players the clubs can draft? Is it only young players? Why aren't the best young players already under contract somewhere else, if they're really worth picking up? (clubs here send talent scouts allover the world looking for the best young talent around and sign them up on contracts as early as possible - it's not uncommon for 14/15 year olds to be offered contracts, if they have the talent).

 

Because some players are spoiled little brats who believe they deserve to be treated like the princesses they think they are. Okay, I've just never gotten the whole "players can break their own contract without repercussion but coaches can't" deal. It seems blatantly unfair to me. You signed a contract to play, you f***ing play; none of this BS 'holding out' drama. If you want out or want more money, get another team to trade for you. And if you intentionally play lackluster to pressure your coach, you don't get paid for that game. Stop coddling the b******s. [/rant]

That wouldn't really work over here because of something we have called the salary cap. Even if you get a huge gob of money, you can't spend it because you're limited on what you can spend each year on players. Well, you could spend it on upgrades for your stadium or for extra revenue to keep away the people who are always offering to pay for naming rights, but you couldn't spend it on players.

3 quick reasons:
1. Better player is holding out, so something is better than nothing.
2. They desperately need someone at least competent at the other position while they're almost overloaded at the better player's position.
3. Can't take the player's f***ing attitude.

Sounds like you have the gist already, draft order, mostly yes, for standardization. Okay, now long answers:

The draft is only for kids leaving college*, as a sort of fairness so that teams can't "poach" players early. Of course, "poaching" in this case would also be fair IMHO if practiced by all, but...that's just not how we're set up, I guess. Who gets drafted by whom is determined by draft order, which is determined by how well you did that year, with the crappiest going first. So if you sucked out loud, you've got a chance to revitalize your team with some good fresh blood.

*There are a couple exceptions to this. The most common is exceptional players who never went to college. We're not going to exclude them just because they ain't got no formal schoolinin'. But the other exception is when a new team enters the league: you can draft players already on another team by a process I've not familiarized myself with (though I do know it happens, as that's how Tom Boselli ended up with the Texans). NFL.com/draft may have more answers for you.

 

Cheers Fel, good man . A few things though if I may, I'm still a bit so-so on some...

Players can break their contracts there? In football, when a player signs a contract then that means he does exactly as the club says. He eats what they tell him, goes where they tell him, sleep when they him and bloody hell play when they tell him. The only thing he can possibly do is just do a runner and simply refuse to play for his team. In that case, he'll be heavily fined and left to rot in his contract. I've only ever heard this happen once or twice and those players went on to ruin their careers, because no club wants a player with that attitude.

Ah thanks for bringing that up, that's another thing I don't understand. The salary cap. Why does the sport want to punish success? You win trophies, get a good following of fans, use marketing superbly well and achieve great success... then the league holds you back. I can see that the powers at be want to try and level the playing field, but I don't see any incentive to being successful if you're limited in how you can use the benefits of your success. It's like your boss promoting you at work, then giving you less money for it.

The idea of the draft actually seems like a pretty cool one. Again though, it's kind of making all clubs 'uniform'. In other sports, it's in every clubs interests to find the best scouts around, choose the best locations to send them and do whatever you can to help their success so that they can find you the best young players around. Why ever bother doing that, when you know you're just going to get a pick of the best automatically anyway? I heard that the teams who were poorest get first pick too, is that right?

Do young players actually have any choice of where they go, too? If some crappy team gets first draft pick, can't they refuse to join when they know full well that they have the talent to play for a much bigger team? Then again, with salary caps, there can't really be any 'massive' gaps in quality...

I can see why this is done, but I think it hinders more than it helps. Smaller teams here clammer, scratch, claw and scrape to try and achieve success because that means they will be able to get more money, attract better players and climb up a few places in the 'ladder' of things. With the draft system as I understand it, it's more like an incentive to be *crap*, because that means you will be better next year when you get first pick in the draft. There's no... hm... intensity I guess is the word I'm looking for. In football, the rewards that come with success are great and you're allowed to use those rewards however you like so the will to win is absolutely massive.

I hope I kind of made myself clear, I'm no good at this long post lark

 

That's the "holding out" I was referring to. Players can refuse to play for whatever reason with NO consequences. It's BS. You signed the contract, you abide by the contract; it should be just that simple.

I think it was originally instituted out of the fear of one team forever owning the game. Football started out pretty small (in terms of number of teams), and the Packers were big news for many many years. They won the first two Super Bowls, even, leading to them permanently naming the trophy after Packers coach Vince Lombardi; Green Bay is even nicknamed Titletown because of it.

The cap is designed to keep the playing field level, just as the completely artificial XP caps in RPGs are meant to keep the play level. It keeps you from getting too good to be challenged.

Interestingly enough, this has lead to another measure of sportsmanship. Some players show team loyalty by taking less money to remain with their team. It's looked on as a great sacrifice for team unity.

Ah, but you don't! Eli Manning, for example... "The son of Archie Manning, the brother of Peyton Manning! He'll be the next big star! *watches high draft pick fall flatter than an 8-year old Japanese girl* ...Crap."

Not as far as I know, though that may be something with the new-team-to-the-league special rules or something like that. And of course there's something of a correlation in:
not having enough money -> buying low-salary crap players to stay well below the salary cap because you can't afford much -> sucking the whole season -> getting high draft pick
Sort of a "we don't have the money to be good now, so we'll save money, intentionally suck, get good draft picks, and make a comeback in a few years when we have money again AND good players."

I don't think so, really. And as a result, draft contracts are usually short (2-4 years) and very low-paying. But as soon as that contract's over, BAM! This may also be one of the reasons that players are able to hold out, so that players that prove themselves good can renegotiate these crap contracts, but I still think there has got to be a limit on it.

Actually, no. Because you are allowed to trade draft picks just like you can trade players. Heck, that's how we got Favre. Favre was drafted by the Falcons, had a couple of crap games as a backup, but Holmgren (or someone on his staff; I don't really know who) saw something in him and traded away our first-round (not first overall, but in the first round) draft pick to Atlanta in exchange for Favre. (I think we got a good deal on a Superbowl win and another appearance. ) Even up to while the draft is actually happening you'll see teams jockeying for position with draft pick trades, even trading draft picks one or more years in the future on speculation! IMHO it adds a whole new dimension to off-season strategy, and adds to the intensity.

 

Because then rich teams will start spending money from outsides sources. In baseball, there is no salary cap (although, there is a tax you have to pay if you go over a certain amount of money). The Yankees had a payroll of 200 million in 2006 (down from previous years, I think), with the next highest being the Red Sox at 120 million. The Yankees payed over 10 mill in taxes, I believe (that is one great player or two good ones). The lowest payroll in 2006 was 15 million (Florida Marlins). The Yankees had 5 players each being paid more than 15 million. A salary cap would make it so the Yankees would not be able to do somethign like that. I would like a cap at 100mill or so, forcing teams to spend less and players to accept less. But it will never happen so long as Bud Selig is in Steinbrenner's pocket.

 

That happened in the AFL (Australian Football league - we play something a bit like Gaelic footbal down here) a bit. Saint Kilda was accused of playing **** for a couple of years just for the picks. They ended up with one hell of a team but then failed to capitalise.
There was also an instance a few years ago at the end of the season when a coach essentially had the option of playing **** for the draft picks or playing well but having no chance of making the final. The team ended up winning their last five games or so, missing out on the draft picks and the coach was criticised by some for the move (ended up top place on the ladder a year or two larter though).

Also football clubs get a tonne of financial backing from supporters in the form of donations. Other sports simply don't get this and as such success results in money but also requires it. A poor club is not going to have the players to win.

In terms of trading personal tiffs can also play a part. At the end of last year a Brisbane player in the afl got into a bit of trouble for saying some things deemed inappropriate to the media. He was put into defence for the remainder of the season (this bloke is usually quite a colourful goal kicker) and traded at the first available opportunity. He probably didn't do anything explicitly wrong, it was more of a personal disagreement.
I kind of support the salary cap - it wouldn't be the best if all the games were equivalent to Australia vs Bangladesh cricket matches (forgetting that one dayer before the last Ashes). Close games are definetly more exciting.

 

I don't know much about the structures in all sports, but I'll explain with Hockey.

Salary Cap : It was implemented two years ago after a year-long lock-out. What happenned, is that players wanted bigger and bigger contracts, which not a whole lot of general managers could pay. The salary cap is set at 45 million (meaning a team cannot have more than 45 million in total player salary), and there's a bottom at 22 million I beleive (so a team cannot spend less than 22 million of total salary). The reason for that is to establish balance. Before there was a cap in Hockey, you had the three richest teams signing the best players because they could afford the big contracts. The smaller teams couldn't pay them, so they had to let them go. Meanwhile, their audience diminished and they were making less and less money. It's a viscious circle. It's not so much as limiting a team's succes, but evening the playing field so the best general managers get an equal chance (it's not the amout of money that shows a manager's succes, but how he spends it).

Drafting : In Hockey (Canada specifically), kids 16 to 20 play in the minor leagues (Ontario Hockey League, West Hockey League and Québec's Junior-major League). At age 18, they're eligible to the National Hockey League draft. The previous year's standings determines the drafting position (If Team A finished 3rd in the league, and Team B finished 30th (last spot since there's 30 teams), Team A will get spot 27 in the draft and Team B will get first draft.)

One after the other, the teams pick one player. That player won't necessarily play in your team ( you can send him back in his junior team). You just hold the rights to that player. There have been incidents where players refused to play for the team who signed them (Eric Lindros when he was drafted by the Québec Nordiques, and he refused to play because he hated french canadians, so the Nordiques didn't have any choice than to trade him to Philadelphia), bu that sort of thing is pretty rare.

Trading : Teams can trade players to other teams. There are several ues for that. First, let's say you have three goalies (one to spare), but you lack a defenseman. You can trade your goalie somewhere in return of another player. Another reason is, as a saying goes "general managers trade problems". You might have a player that has personnal problems and needs a change of environment, or a player whose game doesn't fit with the rest of the team and has a chemistry problem, etc.

As Fellinoid said, you can trade you draft pick for a player. The value of the pick is with how early you are drafting (a first round 2nd spot has a much better value than a fourth round 26th spot). The difference is : Drafting is for the future, getting a player is for immediate success. As the trade limit approches, you have a lot of eliminated teams who trade off big players in return of high ranking draft pick. In return, teams in the playoff run get a player who can help them win..

One final note, in hockey, there are consequences if a player doesn't feel like playing for that team anymore. A player gets suspended without pay if he refuses to play. If he refuses to play for, let's say, his final year, he still has a year left in his contract that he must, under law, play. Of course, the team can bail out of this by trading him. But that sort of thing is pretty rare. In the last 15 years, I can only thnik of maybe 4 situations (Lindros with the Nordiques AND Philadelphia a couple of years later, Micheal Peca with Buffalo and Alexei Yashin with Ottawa). Lindros (both times) and Peca were traded after a year. But in Yashin's case, he wanted more money even though he still had a year left on his contract. He refused to play if he didn't get a raise, so he played in Russia for that year. But he was suspended from the National Hockey League by the commisionners. So in essence, if he wanted to play again in the NHL, he had to play a final year with the Ottawa Senators, which he finally did.

I hope that this loooong post helps you a bit, Barmy army...

 

One for one trades are not really that common - much more common are package deals with say two for one, three for two, one for no actual players now but one or more draft picks later etc. etc.

It also gets really interesting when you consider contract duration. A team that is not going to make the playoffs can often trade a top quality player whose contract will expire at the end of the year to a team that will make the playoffs. In return they will usually receive players who are younger and/or have longer duration left in their contracts. It gets really fun when the traded star player turns around and resigns with the team who traded him after the season is over and his contract has expired. This has happened a few times in recent years.

Oh and scouting is still very important - if you don't do any scouting then you really don't know who to pick with your draft choices. It does make it so that finding the player first isn't an issue but knowing what the people are capable of and having an idea how they will develop in the future is still very important.

 

Here is my take on drafting, trading and salary caps...

Drafting is an orderly way in which new players (roughly 210 per year) can enter the NHL system. Each team gets one selection per round, based on reversed order for finish. The draft lottery is in place to prevent teams to intentionally tank to get the best pick. Draft picks can be included in deals to get assets for your team immediately while yielding benefits down the road for your own club.

Trading is basically a swap of assets. For example the player you draft or sign as a free agent isn't doing what you expect, or his contract is about to expire, you may trade them. This usually means trading some assets (players, prospects or draft picks) to acquire other such assets. It is about getting the best fit for the needs of your team. In the lat 80's one player fro the Toronto Maple Leafs scored 51 goals in a season, but he also caused havoc with the team by sleeping with the wives of other players. By 1991, they'd had enough of his antics, and in January of 1992, the packaged this guy, a tough guy, a mediochre defenceman, a young defenceman that was being hyped and a young backup goalie to the Calgary Flames. In return, they got a second line centre, a top four defenceman, a veteran depth defenceman, a veteran Backup goalie and a young forward that was reperesenting Canada at the 1992 olympics. Trades are analyzed based on impact. While the players coming out of Toronto floundered en masse, Doug Gilmour became team captain, and Jamie Macoun became a steadying presence on the Blue line. Toronto clearly came out ahead on that deal...

Late in the season, teams who will not make the playoffs will trade players that will be free agents at year's end to teams that have a shot at the Stanley Cup in exchange for minor league players that could benefit the club in future years and draft picks.

The Salary cap was designed to level the playing field. The idea is that if teams can only spend so much money, then salaries will not spiral out of control and no team can build a powerhouse team and continually win year after year. This prevents rich teams from offerring huge contracts to top players in struggling markets to take the player for nothing, while it makes smaller market teams attractive to bigger names because they can pay them more...