I'm not sure You recognize practical effects of mutants trick.
Manager, who does it, has normal roster, 8-10 players with reasonable salary. Without this roster he wouldn't be able to qualify to play-offs. Then he buys few mutants and he has to pay salaries of normal roster and extra salaries of mutans. Only salaries of mutants are additional cost for him. The same as in Your idea. So in Your idea nothing hurts him.
However please note, that in most cases salaries of normal roster cost more than weekly gate revenues. So he can sell few of these normal players (what hurts his long-term strategy) or keep them and pay more salaries during play-offs. In Your idea he can keep all these normal players without penalty.
So I suppose in Your idea last minute mutants purchase would be even more atractive than now.
So it isn't good idea because effects are oppsite than expected.
And still this idea has few defects. If I buy player for long term strategy, then week, in which I do it, shouldn't matter. In Your idea every purchase after ASW is penalized, independently on purpose of player (only for play-offs or for 10 seasons).
So long term strategy isn't supported in this idea unless player is bought before ASW.
I do understand the practical effects. As a general matter, a team that has a lot of money and wants to win using mutants will do so under any set of rules that allows them to do so. The problem is finding a way of making it unpleasant enough to do so in as uncomplicated manner as possible - and trust me, I'm sure I could come up with something far more complex and more targeted that would be even less attractive to discuss. ;)
I guess I'm just looking at the perspective that teams should look at the postseason as something where they are pretty much guaranteed to make a small amount of money without having to dismantle their team, but that if teams want to overspend late to supplement their roster, there should be drawbacks. This mechanism I still think has promise to do so, and definitely without argument does hurt a team buying mutants financially compared to one that stands with their current roster, but perhaps not enough to eliminate the mutant trick altogether.
As far as the long-term strategy thing, though, really? If you buy a player in the first week of the playoffs now and you advance to the finals, you pay his salary; if you don't, you don't. Same concept here: if you buy a player after the ASG and you advance to the playoffs, you pay his salary. If you don't, you don't. Of course, making the idea more complicated would be the option upon purchase to designate a player as "long-term" or some such which gives him the preferred salary status but renders him ineligible for the playoffs.
Anyway, I do appreciate your comments. I'm not sure this solution that I've proposed is ideal but I still consider it an improvement, but you've definitely raised valid concerns that would need to be considered.
