Money for nothing, and the chicks for free.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Arace once again comes through with a good article on how the Hurricanes have now become the blueprint for how to efficiently balance a team salary with skill. For those interested, here is a link to his new article at The Columbus Dispatch.
As Arace points out, Blue Jackets management and ownership are shooting for around $32 million to $36 million as the team salary once the season begins. After doing some easy number crunching thanks to TSN's Payroll Commitments section, the Jackets currently have a salary rounded to about $27.5 million. I was generous and assumed on good faith that Balastik's, Svitov's, and Eriksson's salaries would be for $500,000 apiece, just so I'd have numbers to work with. This leaves the Jackets with between $4.5 million and $8.5 million until they reach their self-imposed cap, followed by $16.5 million until they hit the actual league cap.
Of course this ignores players who are going to come back, but have yet to work out the kinks with qualifying offers (RFAs). This means at least for now, we don't know how much Leclaire and Zherdev were offered (or at least I don't), and how much they'll earn next season once haggling is done. Other notable players who probably (or definitely, depending on the person) will be back are Jason Chimera, Dan Fritsche, and Aaron Johnson, as well as Ron Hainsey. So that's six players who have yet to have deals agreed upon, but will most likely be coming back. So by the time those deals are done, will the Jackets be in their self-implemented "comfort zone" with no more wiggle room until they feel they'd like to get a player down the line? And even then, as the Arace article points out, using that extra cap space all depends on how the Jackets are doing and if they're still alive and kicking a few months into the season.
It's making my head hurt trying to figure everything out. But now I have Philosophy assignments to mull over. If anyone sees anything wrong with my numbers or names, do correct me. TSN's UFA and RFA list seemed off kilter at times, and even lacked a few people that SI.com's list had, making things more complex than I expected to analyze.
As Arace points out, Blue Jackets management and ownership are shooting for around $32 million to $36 million as the team salary once the season begins. After doing some easy number crunching thanks to TSN's Payroll Commitments section, the Jackets currently have a salary rounded to about $27.5 million. I was generous and assumed on good faith that Balastik's, Svitov's, and Eriksson's salaries would be for $500,000 apiece, just so I'd have numbers to work with. This leaves the Jackets with between $4.5 million and $8.5 million until they reach their self-imposed cap, followed by $16.5 million until they hit the actual league cap.
Of course this ignores players who are going to come back, but have yet to work out the kinks with qualifying offers (RFAs). This means at least for now, we don't know how much Leclaire and Zherdev were offered (or at least I don't), and how much they'll earn next season once haggling is done. Other notable players who probably (or definitely, depending on the person) will be back are Jason Chimera, Dan Fritsche, and Aaron Johnson, as well as Ron Hainsey. So that's six players who have yet to have deals agreed upon, but will most likely be coming back. So by the time those deals are done, will the Jackets be in their self-implemented "comfort zone" with no more wiggle room until they feel they'd like to get a player down the line? And even then, as the Arace article points out, using that extra cap space all depends on how the Jackets are doing and if they're still alive and kicking a few months into the season.
It's making my head hurt trying to figure everything out. But now I have Philosophy assignments to mull over. If anyone sees anything wrong with my numbers or names, do correct me. TSN's UFA and RFA list seemed off kilter at times, and even lacked a few people that SI.com's list had, making things more complex than I expected to analyze.
