Open Comment Thread for Potential Rule Change - More control in the Startup Draft with Cash bids

As much as possible I like to give people control over their fates in the startup draft.  I still like total team salary as the first tiebreaker rather than draft ranks because in the end we're still trying to distribute the talent as much as possible.  If you get a high-priced player that 6 other guys were shooting for, then it's not unreasonable that the high salary keeps you out of the running for a while on other contested picks.

I think separating salary 100 players starting in 2014 and awarding them in succession first had the intended effect: In the past a team that went overwhelmingly with cheap players/prospects that won out early on for a cheap player was often set up to miss the most desired expensive players - which in turn eliminated those other teams when going up against the prospect-heavy draft list...that team kept getting players and a salary hit at 100-200 at a time still kept them at the top.

Also, with reintegrating the "draft rank" several years ago as a tiebreaker, we've cut down on the number of random draws required to settle a player's selection.  We might get 1-3 per draft now where 8-12 random draws were the norm back in the past.

I'm also looking to cut down on the number of tiebreakers.  I think consulting the number of pitchers vs hitters on a roster or number of third basemen or whatever has kind of lost its value.

Here's the current order of draft tiebreakers:

1. Most salary cap space
2. Team with the fewest number of awarded players in the draftee's category (hitter, SP, or RP)
3. Team with the fewest number of awarded players
4. Team without a qualifying starter at the draftee's position
5. Player ranking
6. Random draw

What I'd now suggest:

1. Most salary cap space
2. Team with the fewest number of awarded players
3. Player ranking
4. Random draw

And now the new bit...this could be modified for amounts or processes, but this is the basic idea:

• Allow a team to reserve up to $5 million (5000) of it's statup draft cash for "draft bidding" or "contract bonus"
• Along with picking a player, fitting him into a roster position, and giving him an optional draft rank for tiebreakers, a team could use some of its cash pool as an extra tiebreaker - listing a bid/bonus amount for that player
• We'd make it simple - minimum bid is $500 and would be in $500 increments, making the draft bid an easy menu choice on the screen (a pulldown menu of 0-500-1000-1500...5000).
• The bonus amount comes out of the original draft cash and will be counted in the draft list's salary total.  For example, if the salary cap for the draft is 40000 and a team uses all of it's possible 5000 in bonus cash, that means that the total salary for all the players on the list has to be 35000 or lower.
• On a contested draft pick, the new first tiebreaker is the "bid/bonus" - this provides the control factor beyond the randomness of how much cash you have left at the time the player comes up.
• If no team offered a bid/bonus, tiebreakers continue as normal
• If one team offered a bid/bonus, that team gets the player
• If two or more teams offered a bid/bonus, the team that bid the highest dollar amount gets the player
• If the highest bid comes from a tie between two or more teams, those teams with the highest bid continue with the remainder of the tiebreakers...all other teams out of the running for this player.
• If a team wins out via the bid/bonus, they pay the cash that they listed.
• I'm not sure if that cash bonus counts later on in the tiebreaker of cap space (actually I think it does because the rule is "cap space" left, not team total salary - and I think the bonus would count against the cap), but regardless, that cash is gone - even in Phase Two
• Teams that lose out to higher bids keep their cash for future use (for Phase Two or the regular season).

Thoughts?