Question about retained salaries

rasnell · 07-31-2018, 01:40 AM

If you retain all of the salary of a player and he is traded back to the original team, is there a penalty or is this a clean wash on payroll?

Example: John Doe is traded and all of his salary is retained. $5 mil a year for four years appears as retained on the original team's salary page.

Then Doe is traded back to the original team. Does the same $5 mil expense still show on the original team's salary page -- making no net change in team payroll?

Timofmars · 07-31-2018, 02:16 AM

The % retained salary for the team goes away, since they are back to a normal salary situation. They will also have full range to retain the salary again or not in a future trade of the player, just like nothing happened.

rasnell · 07-31-2018, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Timofmars

The % retained salary for the team goes away, since they are back to a normal salary situation. They will also have full range to retain the salary again or not in a future trade of the player, just like nothing happened.

Thanks

Drstrangelove · 07-31-2018, 03:07 AM

I've done this, so I'll hopefully not confuse the issue.

Per my experience, you can't trade back the retention. The reason, based upon my observation is that once you split the salary from the player, they can't be reassembled, "as if" it never happened.

E.g., you trade "Smith" to Washington, but keep 90% of his 3-year, $10 million dollar a year contract. So, you retain $9 million per year, for 3 years, and Washington now has him and owes $1 million dollars a year. Washington can trade Smith back, but the best they can do is retain all of the $1 million they still own. They can't owe the other $9 million because there's no mechanism to have them pay you $9 million per year. You can't "trade" the $9 million bill back to them as an annual bill, because cash can't be sent that way in trades. If it's cash, it's all at once. The only way to do it beyond one year is using the retention feature, but a team can't retain more than it currently owes.

You might be able to force it by using commissioner powers by artificially inflating the salary in Washington (before the second trade) from $1 million to $9 million and then having Washington retain all $9 million, but it's not a trade feature and might muck up things even worse. At least, that's how it looked when I tried to reverse a trade where I had retained the salary. If someone can spell out how to do this through trades, I'd be happy to be wrong.

07-31-2018, 01:40 AM	#1
rasnell Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Frankfort, Kentucky Posts: 3,739	Question about retained salaries If you retain all of the salary of a player and he is traded back to the original team, is there a penalty or is this a clean wash on payroll? Example: John Doe is traded and all of his salary is retained. $5 mil a year for four years appears as retained on the original team's salary page. Then Doe is traded back to the original team. Does the same $5 mil expense still show on the original team's salary page -- making no net change in team payroll? __________________ Charlie Root won more games for the Cubs than any pitcher (201), yet was remembered for one pitch to Babe Ruth. Find out more about the 1929 World Series in my book, "Root for the Cubs: Charlie Root and the 1929 Chicago Cubs." See the web site at www.rootforthecubs.com. The book is at http://www.amazon.com/Root-Cubs-Char...t+for+the+cubs. Beta tester, OOTP 2007-2023 and iOOTP 2011-2014.

07-31-2018, 03:07 AM	#4
Drstrangelove Major Leagues Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 346	I've done this, so I'll hopefully not confuse the issue. Per my experience, you can't trade back the retention. The reason, based upon my observation is that once you split the salary from the player, they can't be reassembled, "as if" it never happened. E.g., you trade "Smith" to Washington, but keep 90% of his 3-year, $10 million dollar a year contract. So, you retain $9 million per year, for 3 years, and Washington now has him and owes $1 million dollars a year. Washington can trade Smith back, but the best they can do is retain all of the $1 million they still own. They can't owe the other $9 million because there's no mechanism to have them pay you $9 million per year. You can't "trade" the $9 million bill back to them as an annual bill, because cash can't be sent that way in trades. If it's cash, it's all at once. The only way to do it beyond one year is using the retention feature, but a team can't retain more than it currently owes. You might be able to force it by using commissioner powers by artificially inflating the salary in Washington (before the second trade) from $1 million to $9 million and then having Washington retain all $9 million, but it's not a trade feature and might muck up things even worse. At least, that's how it looked when I tried to reverse a trade where I had retained the salary. If someone can spell out how to do this through trades, I'd be happy to be wrong. Last edited by Drstrangelove; 07-31-2018 at 03:21 AM.

07-31-2018, 02:16 AM	#2
Timofmars Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Feb 2018 Posts: 251	The % retained salary for the team goes away, since they are back to a normal salary situation. They will also have full range to retain the salary again or not in a future trade of the player, just like nothing happened.