Dead Cap

[hockyplr 0]

Mike,

 

First time user...

 

So looking to get a question answered as to "Dead Cap". At first I thought this was the cap space the team has spent. An example is my league allows 5 keepers, with no cost of draft picks. We have 12 teams, I input everyone's keepers, inputting, Position, Name, and then the cost of the player. I assumed Dead Cap was the amount they spent, which as powerful as your spreadsheet is I couldn't imagine why it didn't just add those columns up. none-the-less, I put that value there. However, looking at the summary it adds the dead cap and the amount spent together. Okay, that can't be right, so I zeroed out the dead cap. Which does give a correct value now, HOWEVER, Players like Aaron Rogers go from a total market value of $31 max bid, to $149. That doesn't seem right, since my entire cap space is $260, his salary being over half my space.

 

I guess I am just not understanding the dead cap, and why the huge jump if it in max bid salary....

 

Thank you

[Mike MacGregor 20]

We already started to discuss this by email, but for the benefit of others I'm going to copy my response here:

 

Dead cap is not applicable to all leagues, but if you are in a contract-keeper league, and you have a guy under a multi year deal and cut him, there is usually a penalty against your salary cap for doing so. Think of it as a salary cap adjustment with no player associated with it (or at least one who is still on your roster). That is what the dead cap box is there for.

 

Now, in terms of whether the Max Bid amounts calculated by Draft Buddy seem right or not, that is an entirely different story. First, go to the options tab and check the overall ranking method. It should be for most auction leagues, Compiler Auction Recommended, although it may have defaulted to Compiler Draft Pick Recommended since a draft pick style league is the default. If you need to change it, then change it and hit Compile Cheatsheets again. WAIT... first make sure to change the reset keepers option to no BEFORE hitting Compile, or it will wipe out your keepers. At 5 keepers per team, that would be a pain to have to put them back in.

 

Okay, so if there were any changes, do the Max Bid amounts look a little better now?

 

Next thing, if the keepers cost considerably less than the estimated value for those players, then you're going to have some hefty inflation, which could be another factor driving the price up on the remaining players. Do you think that might be the case?

 

Third, premium players do go for a high % of the cap. It will all be factored in from the number of teams in your league, number of starters, backups, etc., and just how much better players like Rodgers are compared to an average player at their position. That isn't to say you should drop 50% of your cap on one player, but isn't entirely out of the question that is his value. Hopefully you wouldn't need to spend that much.

 

Auctions change so much from one to the next it is hard to peg dollar values, and then I find you really have to get into the auction and see how the flow is going. My recent auction, the other owners were bidding much more aggressively than they had in prior years - same owners, same rules. That is the fun thing about auctions, but predicting them with a math formula can be tricky as a result.

 

I hope that helps explain some of the stuff you are seeing, and maybe there are changes to be made to get the bid values more in line with what you would expect.