Empty Roster Spot Question

sportscrazy · Post #1 » by **sportscrazy** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:25 am

Let's say a team had $6.5 Million in cap space and a free agent wanted a starting salary of $7 Million, would filling the empty roster spot with that free agent free up $525,093 in salary cap during the signing giving that team enough cap space to make such a move or is that roster spot technically not filled until after the free agent is signed and they can't include the additional $525,093 in the first year salary?

DBoys · Post #2 » by **DBoys** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 6:14 am

sportscrazy wrote:Let's say a team had $6.5 Million in cap space and a free agent wanted a starting salary of $7 Million, would filling the empty roster spot with that free agent free up $525,093 in salary cap during the signing giving that team enough cap space to make such a move or is that roster spot technically not filled until after the free agent is signed and they can't include the additional $525,093 in the first year salary?

Let's say a team had $6.5 Million in cap space and a free agent wanted a starting salary of $7 Million, would filling the empty roster spot with that free agent free up $525,093 in salary cap during the signing ...

Nope.

It has to do with how "cap space" is calculated. Teams are required to have a minimum roster of 13. Assuming a team has 12 or less, the calculation of "how much cap space does a team have to spend" figures out how much is used on the first 12 roster slots, and then you subtract that total from the cap. The amount left is the amount a team can spend on any one player (to fill the 13th slot).