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Subject: Auction Keeper League

Posted by: R9 - [2854239] Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 15:23

For a few years now I've wanted to join/start an auction keeper league, but have been hesitant to do so given the complexity of the rules most leagues have. After looking over other auction leagues both keeper and non-keeper, I've seen what does and doesn't work, and have come up with the following as a starting place for discussion. For each setting I discussed why I've decided on this, to help with any debate or recommended changes.

16-20 Teams:
Reasoning - A standard league is 12 teams. In most 12 team leagues, I've discovered that the vast majority of roster moves are WW pickups. Simply put, the league isn't deep enough to require major moves. Outside of the top talent, the rest of the rosters are filled with players who are too similar in value to force trading as an option. When a 80-20-90 OF'er goes down, you can probably find a replacement on the WW who will produce similar stats, so why trade?
The bigger the league the thinner the wire and the deeper the rosters, making trading an enticing option. It also produces more division between contenders and rebuilders, which again encourages trading.

Starting positions:
C
1B
2B
SS
3B
OF
OF
OF
Util

P
P
P
P
P
P
P
Reasoning - To create the desired depth stated above, you can either add roster positions like MI and CI, add two starting C's, two Util's, etc. or add more teams. I prefer having more teams as opposed to more starting positions. This is debatable, and I can go either way. For now I'd be in favor of copying G20's recipe for success, but I can be convinced otherwise.

10 bench spots:
Reasoning - Deep benches are good for competitive, but a big reason for me putting 10 here is to accommodate my solution for minor league players. Will be discussed later.

Limits:
162 Games at each position
1400 IP
Reasoning - Fairly standard. The 162 games at each position is to keep the enlarged bench from playing a huge role. Instead it just plays the decent-sized role it is supposed to. Anything larger, like the 170 G20 has, would be abusable by such a big bench, imo.

Categories:
Runs, RBI, HR, SB, OBP or AVG
Wins, Saves, K's, ERA, WHIP
Reasoning - Nothing too different here. I like OBP in G20, but we can decide on this as a league. I would vote against expanding it to 6x6 or 7x7, as I think that starts making things too convoluted. If we want to take a category out and replace it that seems fine, but 6x6 and 7x7 leagues again start making trading more difficult as player values start becoming more different to evaluate for each manager.

Auction:
- 260 salary cap for the auction.
- Once the auction is over, the cap is gone for the year. (So you may exceed 260 in trades, for example.)
- The following year (a week or so before the auction) all one-year contract players are dropped from the roster, and you must be under 260 again, and have enough for 1 for each roster spot you must fill. Failure to do this will result in a penalty. (I'm thinking something really punishing. Something like: All the other managers put forth proposals that force that manager under the cap, and then we all vote on which proposal WE like best. So, if someone proposes you having to drop 5 cheap, young, quality players along with a big contract vet, and after voting it wins, thats what happens. Moral: Don't be over 260 in longterm contracts going into the auction!)
Reasoning - See below. Auction and contracts are intrinsically linked, so I discuss them together.

Contracts:
- After the auction, you decide on a contract for each player: 1, 2 or 3 years.
- During the season, anyone on a 1 year contract may be dropped, with no penalty.
- During the season or off-season, players dropped with a 2 or 3 year contract will cost a penalty in the following year's auction. My first thought would be half the value of the future years remaining on the contract. (Meaning, a 3-year contract has 2 years remaining in the future, and a 2 year contract has 1 year remaining in the future.) So, dropping a 9$ player on a 3-year deal would cost half of 9$ for the next TWO years auctions. Dropping a 9$ player on a 2 year deal would cost you half of the 9$ for the next year's auction. This is all debatable, and I'd like examples and reasonings to find a good equilibrium between punishing the manager for poor contract management while not crippling them.
Reasoning - This is the most difficult part to balance. I had a few things in mind when tinkering with the auction and contracts.
- For starters, I wanted the league to be very easy to manage from a commish/website standpoint. Having to constantly check on salary cap status in-season would be a huge pain, and would curtail trading. I actually didn't see any real value to having the cap be in force during the season beyond wanting to mimic real-life teams. By allowing teams to exceed 260 in-season, the competitive teams can trade for expensive players to try to win it now, and rebuilding teams will find more potential teams for their expensive players. Basically, restrictions on trading = bad, free market = good.
- The one handicap on trading that remains is forcing teams to be below 260 going into the following years auction. All one-year contracts are gone at this point, so the only way a team would be over is if they have excessive long-term deals and then trade for more long-term deals. This is not prohibited, but that owner must them spend the off-season trading/dropping players to get back under the cap, or suffer the penalty mention before. A legit strategy would be trading for tons of high-salaried top players to try and win it all and then trying to firesale in the off-season. Sounds fun to me. :) The fact that a team loaded with longterm deals might not want to trade for another longterm contract player might prohibit some trading, but sound contract management is a part of the process.
- The adding/dropping rules make in-season management for the commishs non-existent. The only requirement is that the league be on a hosting site that keeps track of all transactions for the year. Before the auction, the commish's would then check each teams' start-of-the-year roster and contracts and compare it to the end-of-season roster, and then find out where the (if any) longterm contract players that are no longer on the roster went. If they were dropped the commish's can then alter that teams' 260 budget downwords based on the penalty above (or whatever we end up deciding on). A little work, but off-season commish work is really not an issue.

Minor-league Rosters:
None.
Reasoning - The one other factor I noticed when examing other auction keeper leagues is that inflation/deflation is often a problem. By keeping contracts to a max of 3 years inflation problems go away, as the constant re-adjusting of players values is able to happen as even longterm players reach the auction fairly soon. Leagues with contracts as long as 7 or 10 years faced this issue, where money was tied up all over the league in players who didn't deserve it, resulting in undesirable market (and thus auction) factors. Deflation on the other hand mostly occurred as a result of lots of major bargain contracts emerging from promoted minor league players not having to go through the draft. What would often happen in auction leagues is that minor league players could be kept for 3-5 years after being promoted, often at salaries like 1-3-5 or 1-2-3-10-25. The end result would be lots of bargains, deflating the market, and leaving teams with ridiculous amounts to bid on filling needs for 1-year contract types. Things like Figgins going for 80$ 1-year for example, to a contender filling a 3B need, because he had 10 promoted minor league players all ably filling key positions for as little 1, 2 or 3$ each.
I couldn't find a reasonable solution to this. Anything reducing how long you can keep the prospects for reduces their value. For example, drafting a prospect in a prospect draft and then only being able to keep him one year after promoting him, reduces the value of drafting him to almost nil. (You draft Heyward, watch him grow for 3 years, call him up this year, and now he goes back into the auction? Awful, and thats an example of a top prospect. Imagine the solid-but-not-surefire guys who aren't a top 5 overall prospect.) Trying things like making him a restricted free agent or something in his 2nd/3rd years (you can match the winning bid from the auction) makes things a mess to manage.
So I figured, to keep young players salaries at the deserved level, and to enable managers to speculate on young players (winning Heyward on a 2$ 3-year deal in March 2009 for example, would have been a nice speculative bargain for this year and next) would require the roster space to do so. Having large benches allows managers to do this, but also allows contenders to load up on able vets if they so wish. Adds lots of potential strategies managers can use, but also keeps things really simple for commish management.

So, the large benches add strategy, allow prospects to play a decent role, keep commish responsibilities nil, and eliminate inflation/deflation issues that can ruin a league.

So that’s my proposal. I'm posting this now so any interested managers can post their thoughts, questions, proposals, etc.
My only comments with regards to changes:
1) Keep things simple from a commish standpoint, 2) Keep rules easy to follow/keep track of,
3) Avoid anything that makes trading difficult. (I.E. I need a vet OF, you need a young guy, but we can't make this obvious deal that makes perfect sense for both of us because rule X would mean I'm over the cap, or you don't have enough contracts, or reason X, etc.) Anything else goes.

Hope to see some interested managers! If I can't fill it here I'll head on over to some other boards, but we really do have the best and brightest fanatasy managers here, so I'll give it a nice long while here first.

R9
ID: 2854239
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 15:50

Wanted to add:

The main reason why I have the penalty for the dropping of 1-year contracts be nothing, is to enable an easy waiver-wire, and to also handle waiver-wire contracts easily.

Basically, once a player is given a 1-year contract, his $-value no longer matters. Since there is no in-season cap, and since that player will not affect the team's auction draft the next year, the salary # plays no role. Waiver-wire pickups are the same thing. They have no salary and like 1-year contracted players will be going back into the auction the next season.

I might not have made that clear; there is no contract signing in-season. After the auction you decide on contracts for your players, and that is the end of contract issues for that season. The only concern in-season you have regarding contracts is the sum of your longterm (2 and 3 year contracted players) deals.

Basically, I see a season progressing like this:
We have our auction, you win players. You then decide on contracts for them.
The season starts, you can make roster moves as you would in a normal league like G20. You can add/drop players from the wire at will, trade players at will, etc. with no need to worry about your current cap.
The only rules having any affect on any roster moves you might make:
- Any trades you make that put your LONGTERM (2 and 3 year contracts) deals over 260, will have to be remedied before next year's auction draft.
- Any 2 or 3 year contract player you drop will cost you money in future auctions, so treat them carefully.
- Any waiver-wire pickup, even guys who used to have longterm contracts on other teams, have 0$, 1-year contracts.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 16:08

I'm in if you'll have me.

I took the past year and a half off from fantasy baseball keeper leagues and cut down on my participation by choice. But by the end of this past season and during this offseason I'm feeling ready to go again.

beebop
ID: 2611351415
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 16:21

Im interested! Ive been looking for a new league to join.

The rules seem straight forward, easy to follow.

weykool
ID: 138481617
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 16:48

In. Sounds like fun.

AJ Leight
ID: 5211152020
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 21:15

I'd love to join. Sounds great.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 21:34

I would definitely be interested. I'll follow this up with some of my thoughts one your proposed rules. I am interested regardless though because after joining DD last year I was hungry to start a team from the beginning.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 21:45

First comment I would have would be with benches that big pretty every player would be owned. Seems to mean that the WW would be filled with pretty much junk and few moves would be made. In this sense if your stud 3b is injured he is impossible to replace (likely every starter is already owned). Seems to add a factor of luck. Also it would mean that the draft would be all that matters and the next 6 months then just play out (even in an active trading league, they still wont be frequent). I would also be concerned with so many teams the gap between haves and have nots will be huge. Also finding 20 committed managers is a more daunting task then 12

One reason that you liked this was so minor leaguers needed contracts but with the 3 year limit they cant be held cheap too long. Maybe a system of minors where once they pass the ROY standards they need to be assigned a contract(for a set price, 5 or 10) for the future season. A contending team with Heyward would then have called him up in season and given him the 3 year contract. A rebuilding team could wait til prior the auction and still have 3 years left. An advantage, but limited.

The categories, position limits and lack of an in season cap make perfect sense.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 22:09

One other thing-Shouldn't everyone be priced at market value after the auction (ideally not realistically) so how are we deciding right away who our best bargains are? Are contracts normally given right away? How would it work if we waited until the end of the season? Or even ASB?

Also, how do injuries work. It seems crippling to have a severe injury to the player who I just offered a 3-year contract at 50M to. Thats 10% of my budget in fines.

AJ Leight
ID: 5211152020
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 22:43

@dpr - If your 3B goes down, you should be able to replace him by using someone on your bench. Position limits wouldn't be bad to make sure this is possible, but with a bench that big, you are sure to have at least one or two backups at every position; especially with flex players.

@R9 - I'm in a 12-team keeper league with real MLB salary of the previous year (meaning we use the 2010 salary for our players during the 2011 fantasy season). Our minor league system works in a simple, fair method. Each year, around the real MLB Entry Draft, we hold a minor leaguer draft. We have two spots reserved for MiLB players, however they do not factor into our salary until they are "called up" We can not benefit from their statistics until they are called up either. These players cannot be dropped/added throughout the year unless involved in a trade. However, at no point can a non-drafted prospect be added to a roster (other than the draft itself). A team can also never exceed the two player maximum. Once a MiLB player reaches the IP limit or the AB limit to be considered a MLB player, he must be "called up" and therefore added to the payroll. If not, the player will be released to the WW. However, this has never happened in our 5 years of doing so. The draft order is chosen the same as our FA draft (reverse of last year's standings). It is a great hassle-free way of handling the minor leagues. Limiting to two per squad also makes it so no one team can be stacked with the stars of tomorrow.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 22:59

AJ-With 20 teams and 30 3bmen (although more would have eligibility) not every team can have 2. Either way the drop from stud to platoon guy is crippling.

20x26 is 420 players drafted. There are 246 starting hitters. 150 SP and 30 closers. We are drafting every starting player pretty much so there will be nothing on the wire. (I took the high number of teams and there will be prospects and MR have some value but still)

AJ Leight
ID: 5211152020
Mon, Dec 20, 2010, 23:11

I know what you're saying and you have a point, however that's what happens when you have an injury. You must fill that hole with the best available player. It can't be expected that if you lose Longoria that there is another guy who will hit 90/20/100/.290 just sitting on the WW. But, I think even in a 20 team league, you can find a replacement who will get you stats. Not great stats, but stats.

Honestly, my suggestion would be to draft the real-life backup to whoever you have at 3B. If you're going to start A-Rod, then have Eduardo Nunez as your backup. That's just an example, but you get the point. Sure Nunez might only see 80 ABs all year if ARod is healthy, but he becomes fantasy relevant when he goes down.

Of course there will be exceptions to this, but I think the mix between actual backups (i.e Nunez), prospects (i.e. Moooooustakas), and the flex-players (i.e. Macier Izturis) there will be more than enough players to go around, even if the league gets 20 owners.

Khahan
ID: 13126822
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 08:39

I think 20 managers and a bench of 10 is a bit of overkill. I think wanting to stockpile minor league talent should be an optional strategy, not a necessary tactic. With 20 managers and 10 bench, you basically have to buy minor league players.

Even at 16 managers and a bench of 5 I think you'll still see a good number of minor league players on rosters. But managers have a choice at that point.

There are some managers who thrive on minor leagues. But I also know from other discussions on these boards there are just as many who are turned off by it. Isn't going with a system that leaves that as an optional but viable strategy better for the manager pool?

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 09:40

Is that really a realistic line for the waiver wire (it looks like longoria, a 2nd rounder)? Making the league deep enough that you get a bottom ten 3bmen seems fair, but to be stuck with a platoon means the winner is the team with the least injuries. It seems that a better balance between depth and every player being owned should be strove for.

Also the 3 year limit really hits the minor leaguers. A harper/trout/perez really arent worth much to maybe get them their 3rd year. As I think about it though bidding on these players in the normal auction does sound like a fun element, although I would like to see them still kept on a separate team. You bid for 20 roster spots plus 3 minor league ones (the less savvy minor league guys stock there real roster while others build for the future)

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:08

although I would like to see them still kept on a separate team

Again, this is forcing a minor league sytstem which will drive away managers from wanting to participate.

I think R9's original idea of a lot of managers and deeper than normal bench will facilitate the ability to allow minor leaguers for those who want it (and provide a really nice benefit) but not completely force it upon managers who just don't have time/inclination to look into the minors.

I just think the numbers need tweaked is all.

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:59

Awesome, nice to see some discussion already.

One other thing-Shouldn't everyone be priced at market value after the auction (ideally not realistically) so how are we deciding right away who our best bargains are? Are contracts normally given right away? How would it work if we waited until the end of the season? Or even ASB?

This is never the case. Every auction has bargains, and has guys overpriced due to positional need/different evaluations/homerism/favorite player. The decisions for each manager are based on more then just bargains. Its based on longterm expectation, the direction your team is headed, the contracts you already have, etc. Lets say you get Arod at 27$ this year. That is probably a slight bargain. Will it be in 3 years? Do you have other guys you want at 3 years more?

That said, a legit strategy could be to put everyone on 1-year contracts and see how things play out for other managers.

If we waited until the end of the season, what you would see is every major bargain getting a 3-year deal, and the deflation of the auction would grow year-to-year. There should be some bad contracts in the mix along with the good contracts, and that only happens if you make your decisions based on projections, and not on garanteed performance.

Also, how do injuries work. It seems crippling to have a severe injury to the player who I just offered a 3-year contract at 50M to. Thats 10% of my budget in fines.

Its only a fine if you cut the player. If someone gets lost for the season, you can put them on your bench and have them for next year. If you have a 50$, 3-year contract (which may not be a great play) and that player gets hurt in April for the year, you still have 2-years with the guy. If he gets a career-ending injury, well... that is part of the risk you take signing a 50$ player so long.

I agree that a 20 team/10 bench league is too deep. My plan on the bench was to adjust it based on how many teams we got. If its 16 teams, a bench of 10 makes it almost the same in size to G20. If we get 20 teams, a bench of 8 makes it identical. So we're definitely flexible on that.

dpr, I can tell you from G20 that even with 20 teams and a bench of 8 (same positions) we have a ton of WW movement, and injuries are always dealt with as they come. If you lose a top 3B for the season and are still a contender, you usually see a trade made to fill the gap. If you lose that same 3B for, say, a 2-3 week period, the tradeoff between starting his replacement/some young kid getting half the PT/running a platoon between both etc. or trading for a guy becomes the dilemma. But I think you are also forgeting about players who are multi-position elgibile, which really boosts the number of players available at each position. Too, MR's play a valuable role on the pitching staff, so they come into play. Finally, with rosters that deep, having a couple young AAA guys close to a callup just starts to become common.
With rosters so deep, starting a lower-tier 3B isn't anywhere near as bad a problem as it would be in, say, a 12-team league. Other teams have weaker players starting as well.

On the minor leaguers: I am not opposed to a seperate roster for minors, lots of leagues have that. But, it has to handle deflation properly. It was the #1 problem I saw in other leagues, and once you have a minors system that requires seperate rosters, you can't go back. Too, it makes commish work alot harder. Prospects cannot be protected from being picked up off the WW, so we constantly have to be checking for illegal pickups. If there is a website that lets us set up minor league rosters, this would be much more feasible.

But yeah, part of the fun could be bidding on the young'ins who are expected to play a role. Think of how you would of bid on Strasburg, Heyward, Stanton and Santana this past year. If they are all protected on prospect rosters, that takes some of the fun away from the draft.

I'm 50/50 on this. I like following the minor leagues and have no problem if we eventually go to a fullly seperate prospect roster. But I know other managers aren't as gung-ho about prospects as I am, and I like the idea of being able to use your roster spots for either young prospects or less talented-but-more-immediately-useful-MLB players.

Even at 16 managers and a bench of 5 I think you'll still see a good number of minor league players on rosters. But managers have a choice at that point.

I do think 5 is too little, when one takes into account having a couple SP's on the bench, a couple DL'd guys and a backup bat or two. For 16 teams I could see 8, with less if we get up to 20 managers. I'm happy with whatever the majority would decide on here though.

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 12:03

Also the 3 year limit really hits the minor leaguers. A harper/trout/perez really arent worth much to maybe get them their 3rd year. As I think about it though bidding on these players in the normal auction does sound like a fun element, although I would like to see them still kept on a separate team. You bid for 20 roster spots plus 3 minor league ones (the less savvy minor league guys stock there real roster while others build for the future)

The main reason for avoiding really longterm prospect rosters is to avoid a scenario where a guy like Harper, after being drafted to a prospect roster, gets called up once he hits MLB and ends up on a roster for 3-4 MLB years for as little as 1-5$. If he's slugging 40 HR by his 2nd MLB year while batting .290, there's just no way he should be priced at 3$. Thats the kind of deflation that ruins the auction process.

weykool
ID: 138481617
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 13:05

I like the ideas put forth by AJ.
A bench of 8 seams ideal.
Add two more slots for minor leaguers.
Prospects can only be added via the auction and contracts need to be assigned once the player meets minimum playing time.

As for injuries/depth I think the purpose of the depleted WW is to force managers to look for trades.
If your 3B goes down and you can find a suitable player on the WW then it takes out some of the strategy.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 13:43

I would be against bench slots designated specifically for minor leaguers. Again, it should be a viable option, not a mandate. With the number of managers and roster/bench spots we're talking, it seems as if we're going to end up with minor leaguers anyway.

But for those that are not big on the minors, at least let us choose the depth of our involvement. This is wholly a 'fun factor' argument.

As for AJ's proposal to 'just draft your starters backup'...thats all well and good in theory. When I get A-rod, how many people are going to 'just let me' draft Nunez? There is a sharp divide between theory and reality in a situation like that.

I also don't want to have to deal with minor league stats, IP's and total ab then figure out if I can keep a guy around or if he's ineligible the next year or what have you. Been in leagues like that. Not fun at all. Just a hassle.

I'm not opposed to having minor league players involved in rosters. Just opposed to forcing a certain number or extra busy work for tracking purposes. We're going to have enough to track with draft dollars, contract value/length etc.

wiggs
ID: 356532011
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 13:43

I would like to play if there are any spots.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 13:59

One other thought - $260 is a pretty standard dollar value for auction leagues but with an increased roster size, perhaps we should up that a tad?

I guess in the end its kind of relative, but many of the valuation guidelines are based on a ratio of dollars to roster spots.

Again, up for debate and if its not changed I'm fine, but thought it was worth considering.

R9, I have a long history here of being a league commissioner (Took over gurukeepers, started Dirty Dozen, have commished some of the ribc leagues over nearly a decade of board participation back to smallworld!). If you are looking for an assistant to help you organize, let me know.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 14:25

Reading through the responses most of the answers seem to make sense. Still a bit concerned about injured players as the difference to stud to replacement level is greater. I guess with WW I can leave it to people with more experience and don't remember it being an issue in RIBC where with 16 teams and CI/MI we drafted a lot of players, although I forget about the bench size.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 14:33

dpr- stud to replacement due to injury is simply we all have to contend with. Given, with 20 teams and 10 bench slots I think it would be crippling if you MUST rely on the WW. But as pointed out, in those 10 slots you are likely to have a utility man or back up anyway.

But from that respect, its an even playing field - we all have the same vulnerability pre-draft. Draft wisely to reduce that vulnerability.

But that brings up another 'fine detail' point: How is WW determined? Reverse order of 1st player drafted? does it rotate day to day based on standings? Random order to start?

Sounds like if Rob Deere signs with the brewers and I pick him up off the WW, no matter what he's back in the draft next year with no option for me to keep him?

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 14:36

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 15:00

It is something that we have to contend with and lowering the risk with a versatile bench is a skill that a manager would have the injuries seem to be lucked based. I am sure that I am exaggerating the issue though.

On the free agents, it would seem to be that they would need to be let go after the season. A possible alternative would be that on the day you called them up you had the option to sign them to a longterm contract at the free agent rate (5,10). I would be fine with any rule that allowed you to keep 50 year old players on your team indefinitely for $5 though.

With waivers, don't auction leagues often have FAAB, so they would be bid on? Although R9 was looking for a commish friendly league and this wouldn't satisfy that.

AJ Leight
ID: 5211152020
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 00:10

Well, if I am invited into the league, I can bring something to the table. I have been working on computers my whole life and have devised the most immaculate Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet known to man in order to keep track of the league. It's obviously set up for a different league at the moment, but a complete overhaul would take less than one evening to complete. By using this, it can take some of the legwork out of certain proposals to not have that burden of "extra work" some have complained about. I could honeslty set it up to do any requested action (within reason) so that we let the Spreadsheet do the work for us. It has changed the game for many of the current owners in my league.

By the way, none of this is meant to say that I am, in any way, better than anyone else. My point is that it will help do some of the things owners usually don't like doing. If I was accepted into the league, and the Spreadsheet did come into play, everyone would be encouraged and permitted to keep track of their own information. This would just help to have a fall-back plan should anyone get behind.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 03:07

Khahan 21, I thought about that too. 260$ is just a baseline, I think upping it might make sense too. Would be nice for all the guides out there to be relevant for us.

Also, everyone who has posted thoughts/questions should consider themselves in. My only real requirement for membership is activity, and if you are passionate about some rules discussions in December I can only imagine you would be active during the season. :)

Khahan 21 and AJ 26, the offers of help is definitely appreciated. I can imagine us having several commissioners to ensure one is always around should anything arise, and a league record keeper sounds like a good idea too. I'm fairly decent with Excel myself, so I can see the value in what you propose.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 03:12

Sounds like if Rob Deere signs with the brewers and I pick him up off the WW, no matter what he's back in the draft next year with no option for me to keep him?

That is correct. My basic thoughts on this is that I'd want anyone who could be signed to a 3-year deal to have gone through the auction process. Which is why I'm hesitant on the minor league rosters. Promoted young'ins would avoid the auction.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 03:15

With waivers, don't auction leagues often have FAAB, so they would be bid on? Although R9 was looking for a commish friendly league and this wouldn't satisfy that.

I always thought FAAB handled the transition from NL to AL and AL to NL for AL-only and NL-only leagues.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 03:17

Would there be a limit on the number of longterm contracts(or years) that a team could offer? I don't see it being necessary but could add an interesting strategy. Say we have 20 roster spots you are limited to 45 years that you can offer (maybe a minimum too). It adds strategy but also protects people from locking up their entire future.

This seems like something we could do as well, though I think we need to think through the pros/cons of limiting longterm vs. allowing anything goes.

weykool
Leader
ID: 41750315
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 11:16

Would this be a slow draft or one day draft?

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 18:48

I'm up for either. I think a 1-day draft would be alot of fun, but also rather hectic. We'll have alot more players to buy, especially in year 1, then most auction leagues do, and those auctions can take up to 6 hours. I'm not sure if we could get all 16-20 managers around at the same time for 6+ hours tbh.

A compromise solution could be a multiple session auction using some of the auction software out there. What are other people's thoughts on this?

A board auction could take ages as well, as you'd want players to stay on the board for at a while to ensure everyone had a chance to bid on them. If we go this route I might send KKB an email and see if he could write up a slow-auction software we could use for this at Kafenatid.

Khahan
ID: 13126822
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 18:58

I did a slow auction draft on these boards a few years ago. It went pretty smoothly actually. It did take a while but it went smooth.

weykool
ID: 138481617
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 19:38

We did a slow draft on these boards for football a couple years back.
Went fairly smooth from what I recall.
Each manager nominates a player so there should be 20 players on the board at all times.
One of the reasons I bring it up is that it would reduce the amount of research required for minor league players.
If the only players who can be offered multi year deals are players who have gone through the auction process, managers would be able to research players as they are nominated.

beebop
ID: 2611351415
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 20:11

I like the sound of a slow draft on the message boards. Time zone differences would be a bit hectic. What weykool has suggested about everyone nominating 1 player at a time sounds great!
Would there be an innings minimum aswell? I could have say Roy Halladay and Mo Rivera and hope niether blows up and dominate ERA/WHIP(Maybe add some other closers to the mix to nail down the saves category too).

wiggs
ID: 2679223
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 20:54

I have run a couple slow auction drafts on here and they are fun. I would be willing to help out.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 22, 2010, 22:05

#35, Yeah, I put us with a 1400 IP limit. We can change that its too much/too little. 1400 is enough for 5-6 starters a 3-4 RP arms.

#34, I like the sounds of that. I think in the end the slow-auction is what will work best. We all know how well Kafenatid's software helped our board drafts too, so I'll send off an E-mail and see if KKB could do something there.

AJ Leight
ID: 5211152020
Thu, Dec 23, 2010, 00:03

I too agree that a slow draft is the way to go. We currently do an e-mail chain draft in my league and it seems to work out fairly well for all involved. It is, however, a bit nerve-racking when someone take too long to pick. Is there going to be any sort of timer? Even if it's a 24-hour clock, I think it should be instituted. I apologize if this was already covered, but I haven't read every post yet.

God, I love baseball.

weykool
Leader
ID: 41750315
Thu, Dec 23, 2010, 02:05

The way a slow draft works is 20 players are nominated.
You can bid on any or all of the players.
Once a player has gone 8 hours without a bid he goes to the manager with the highest bid and that manager then nominates another player.
8 hours allows managers from different timezones to have a chance to bid on every player.

AJ Leight
ID: 5211152020
Mon, Dec 27, 2010, 02:45

Aha, yeah I've never been a part of one of those. I'm sure I'd catch on quick, though. Sounds good to me. I was just confusing a slow draft with an e-mail draft. We'd have last year's standings to determine order and just send our picks via e-mail. After 24 hours, the highest rated player (we have our own ratings with salary, age and potential accounted for) would be drafted for the lame duck team. However, we only had to pick for a team once and it was because the guy's wife went into labor and we didn't know, lol.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Wed, Dec 29, 2010, 14:27

Any waiver-wire pickup, even guys who used to have longterm contracts on other teams, have 0$, 1-year contracts.

Was just looking at this rule and thought it may be interesting to have waiver-wire pickups have contracts attached to them.

In other words I signed Al Leiter to a 3 yr deal at $20 per year then drop him. R9 picks up Leiter off of waivers and gets him for the remaining 3 years at $10 (maybe even I get stuck w/ the other $10). If a player clears waivers I'm stuck w/ his full $20/year for 3 years.

This kind of thing may also start to get a bit complicated but it definitely opens up strategic decision making processes for people.

Also, where do we stand on getting things started? I guess we really have a few months yet but like I said, I'm ready to go with fantasy baseball. Bring it on!

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 29, 2010, 19:47

I'd like to wait for more people to see this thread before we start doing anything more then basic organization. I'd like them to be able to comment on the rules and add any thoughts before anything gets written in stone. With the baseball forum being ignored during the off-season, I figure another month at least before we start seeing more interested managers. Around the time the RIBC's are getting off the ground maybe?

I thought about how to handle WW contracts, and ended up with the 0$ thing to make the WW easy to handle. Your way does add some complexity, although since contracts are only added up before the auction each year I guess it doesn't change the way the WW works in-season at all, so I'd be ok with that.

Anything that makes in-season stuff difficult to process/makes transactions harder to figure out then other leagues I'd be against. Anything that adds to the work to be done in the off-season I'm completely ok with, if it adds to the league.

R9 picks up Leiter off of waivers and gets him for the remaining 3 years at $10 (maybe even I get stuck w/ the other $10).

For starters, Al Leiter was awesome. ;) Had him almost every year in my leagues.
As it works now, you'd already get stuck with the w/ the other 10 anyway, since its a multi-year deal.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Dec 29, 2010, 19:50

Ah, just had a thought. Say you drop Leiter, and get the 10$ penalty the next two years. Then 4 weeks later, manager X is perusing the WW and sees Leiter there. They pick him up, not really remembering that he has a 3-year contract attached to him. He drops him 2 weeks later for another SP, and then in the off-season discovers that he dropped a 3-year contract guy and now has 10$ less in his auction draft.

Unless the website we use allows contract years and $ amounts to be displayed, I would probably be against this.

Khahan
ID: 13126822
Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 00:55

Then 4 weeks later, manager X is perusing the WW

That was good to clarify. I guess once a player is dropped they are on waivers perpetually? No FA?

I was kind of thinking there was a waiver period. If they clear waivers unclaimed, you (the manager dropping him) are stuck w/ the whole contract but any manager can now pick him up for free for the rest of the year.

But if he is claimed off waivers, the claiming manager splits his current contract with you.

I guess thats 'inseason bookkeeping.'

Boozer
ID: 11653319
Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 10:00

I'm interested if there is room

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Jan 18, 2011, 11:21

Any updates here?

It looks like 8 people have expressed interest so far. What timeline were we looking at running the draft?

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jan 18, 2011, 13:12

What can we do to whip the masses into a frenzy and fill this league up?

so far we have (in projected order of finish)

1. khahan

(from here out its all random cause it doesn't matter)
2. R9
3. dpr
4. boozer
5. aj leight
6. weykool
7. wiggs (have I ever been in a league you weren't in?)
8. beebop

Maybe I should withdraw until another 7-8 people sign up. I can only assume my presence in the league is dissuading people from joining since they know they are fighting for 2nd place at best. :)

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Jan 18, 2011, 14:28

I would think as the season gets closer and people come here for RIBC leagues we would get more interested. A title alluding to a new league and looking for managers wouldn't hurt however.

mailedfoot
ID: 500471814
Tue, Jan 18, 2011, 15:48

I would like to participate

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Jan 18, 2011, 20:18

You can add Species to the list, he emailed me saying he wanted to join.

I agree with 48, once RIBC gets going we should see more posters. Anyone know how to change a thread title? "NEW Auction Keeper League Forming" would probably be a better title.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 14:00

Something I noticed: Why 7 starting pitcher spots and 1400 innings? I know you alluded to 5-6 starters and 3-4 relievers which makes sense given the innings limits. Why not give the slots to start that number and not have to worry rotating lineup all the time. Also, I think this somewhat addresses my initial problems with the deep bench, as it really would only be 8.

For the fine involving releasing a player. What do we do if it is an odd number?

Also realizing that the draft will not be until at least a month away are we looking at starting around then or more mid march? (assuming that we need to do a slow draft which will take weeks)

Fosten
ID: 360482013
Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 14:50

I'm interested in joining this league. Eagerly waiting for baseball season to arrive!

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 14:59

1. khahan
2. R9
3. dpr
4. boozer
5. aj leight
6. weykool
7. wiggs
8. beebop
9. species
10. mailedfoot
11. fosten

I think at this point it would be a good idea for everybody to post a current email address.

beebop
ID: 2611351415
Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 16:12

I have 2, it just depends if its a Friday/Saturday(US time). Im in australia, so effectively thats my weekend going by that time.

daleteekz@yahoo.com (Home, easier on weekends)
Dale.Hagstrom@BTFinancialgroup.com (Work, easier during the week).

wolfer
ID: 190562019
Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 20:56

depending on the site, I will throw my hat in.

wiggs
ID: 2679223
Thu, Jan 20, 2011, 21:48

<----email

wolfer
ID: 25521311
Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 13:18

email.

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 15:35

after reading through this thread, this league sounds interesting. put me on the short list.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 16:37

1. khahan
2. R9
3. dpr
4. boozer
5. aj leight
6. weykool
7. wiggs
8. beebop
9. species
10. mailedfoot
11. fosten
12. youngroman
13. wolfer (depending on site, I think we're close enough that we need a firm yes or no cause these last few slots are filling).

jseth333
Dude
ID: 24100310
Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 20:12

Would like to be in if there is still room...vampireweekend...

wolfer
ID: 190562019
Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 20:34

In, please.

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Fri, Jan 21, 2011, 21:57

WG
ID: 36017251
Tue, Jan 25, 2011, 02:17

In, pretty please.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jan 25, 2011, 10:09

1. khahan
2. R9
3. dpr
4. boozer
5. aj leight
6. weykool
7. wiggs
8. beebop
9. species
10. mailedfoot
11. fosten
12. youngroman
13. wolfer
14. WG (assume thats you wazzup guy?)

Thats 14 folks. League rules r9 posted state league is to be 16-20, so we're getting close.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Jan 25, 2011, 13:02

Post 60 also so we are at 15 expressing interest.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 23:44

How long do we think the draft will take?

MikeV
SuperDude
ID: 25924115
Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 19:58

I'd like to join.

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 20:15

1. khahan
2. R9
3. dpr
4. boozer
5. aj leight
6. weykool
7. wiggs
8. beebop
9. species
10. mailedfoot
11. fosten
12. youngroman
13. wolfer
14. jseth333
15. WG (assume thats you wazzup guy?)
16. MikeV

#66, I think it depends entirely on how we do the draft. How many players will be active at a time, how long is the bidding time, when does a player expire, etc. I'm open to all suggestions on how we do this.

beebop
ID: 2611351415
Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 20:23

If its a 16 team league, 26 roster spots, that is 416 players to be drafted. If every team nominates 1 player each day, 24 hours until bidding expires on that player, it should take at least 26 days to complete.

Im not too experienced in auction drafts so im not too familiar with the normal time frames. Does this sound like something that is do-able?

One problem i see is making sure everyone submits a player to have bids on in time. If not everyone provides a player, maybe a player is selected at random instead. Is 24 hours too short? Maybe make it 48 hours on weekends?

dpr
ID: 1990714
Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 20:33

I have used 8 hours of no bids for a player to be won. Not sure how long that would take for everything to get done tho. One thing about auctions is that you cant leave queues so everybody needs to be able to check in regularly or they really miss out. If we are falling behind we could increase the players available but it is tough to have too many out at a time.

It seems we would want to get an earlier so that we can be sure that we are done in time. Maybe the end of the month even?

Also i know that i will be traveling alot in march so figuring out the details will help me figure out how to make it work. I am especially worried about the actual travel days.

wiggs
ID: 2679223
Wed, Feb 02, 2011, 21:29

DPR- You have done my auction draft right?

I like the 8 hours- no bids and the player is sold- it works very smooth. Put a downtime from like 1 am to 7 am est or something like that. That way you can bid before you go to bed and then the downtime and the 8 hours you have plenty of time to make your bids.

R9-If you want/need help with this let me know. I have run about 10 auctions.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 10:53

I've participated in 1 auction league before and we worked out some of the kinks as we went. 1 thing I distinctly remember and that was discussed was the length of the clock. There were early motions to cut it from 8hours to 6 hours, which I think is probably a good idea.

We have a lot of players to bid on.

Another point I see being raised is having everybody place a player on the board to start. We do need to manage all this. 16 names on the board at all times will get confusing. I'd like to propose 10 managers (randomly selected) post their initial players and we keep 10 players on the board.

wiggs
ID: 356532011
Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 11:03

Khahan- 16 players isnt too bad- What I liked to do was post what was happening about every 4 hours, or when someone was sold.

It would say something like

Babe Ruth $49 to Khahan at 3:50 PM
Hank Aaron 43 to Wiggs at 4:25 PM
Mickey Mantle 34 to R9 at 5:25 PM

and so on. As long as this is done there will be no issues with 16

R9
ID: 2854239
Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 22:03

I'm trying to think of a way to reduce confusion. Having 16 names always on the board in one draft thread would be horribly confusing. One possibility, and I'd have to look into buying some forum software or something, would be:

1) Have a seperate thread for each player being bid on. This would allow us very easily to see the last time each player was bid on, and once the player is won we can change the thread title from "Mickey Mantle" to "Mickey Mantle - Sold"

One key component to think about is the nominating process. A key part of any auction draft in knowing when to nominate someone, and of course being able to be the 1st to nominate the cheap 1$ players. At first I figured we'd just have whoever won a player nominate someone to replace him, but thats probably not very equitable.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 22:31

To me all the separate threads seems like it would get even more confusing. Doing it all in one thread if you have someone who is regularly available to summarize the results in a table it makes things much more organized.

In terms of nominating that is the way that I did it last time. I wouldnt say that it is inequitable because everyone still gets to nominate the same number of players but this way you "earn" the right to do it in order. One problem is at the end when people who were aggressive early dont have the money to buy players to nominate their last few spots.

Also, on the concept of shrinking the clock time, I would not be in favor just because it is so important that you don't miss a chance to check in with no queues available.

loki
ID: 611411
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 12:02

I have only sporadically followed this thread, so I know I have missed a lot, but have you considered using ESPNs auction software? A number of Gurupies participated in an auction draft in 2009 and were satisfied with it. In fact, dpr, you were in the league but had to drop out before the draft because a conflict with I believe a Stat course. The issue of course is that everyone has to be on line at the same time, but that could be obviated by having multiple pauses and restarts. When we formed the league we intended that it continue in 2010, but there was no interest. I would have liked to join your league, but it would have been a 3rd league which was more than I wanted to be in. Good luck with yours.

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 12:46

Loki,

Thanks for the tip and its something we should consider. But I think the drawback may be too big. We have people from all over the country here. Finding time to coordinate work, kids, other activities etc thru 4 timezones may be more than we can manage.

Thats one nice flexibility of the slow draft on the boards. Gives everybody an opportunity to work the draft into their schedule.

As for multiple threads, I'd suggest this:

1 thread for all player nominations/bids
1 thread to track teams and all winning bids
1 thread for discussion

All should be in the leagues/standings forum.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 13:03

Loki,

I am impressed that you not only remembered that I was interested in the league but also my reason for leaving. I went back and looked it up and ironically R9 ended up being my replacement.

One problem with doing it at one time is getting everyone to agree on a time like Khahan said. This would be particularly difficult in a keeper league because in year 2 finding replacements for managers who schedules just dont match up(like mine for the previous league) would be a bigger issue. I would hate to be building a team and then have to back out because I couldnt make the draft time.

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 15:35

I just found a site that can run slow auction drafts. here is a currently running draft: CouchManagers

cost would be $2.99 per team. don't know if this would be an option and if they can support our league settings.

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 17:00

Awesome. That is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of when I asked KKB. 3$ per team seems very reasonable, and brings up another question; G20 has a prize pool. Would you guys want one for this league?

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 17:01

78, I think I had to be replaced as well after I couldn't make the draft either. Would be pretty funny if I was replaced by someone in this thread too. :)

dpr
ID: 1990714
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 17:20

I tried to look at that website to see the ways that you could set up an auction draft but was disappointed that it seemed you needed to pay for a membership before you could even check that. Maybe there was something that I missed but the website could prove to be an asset.

In terms of a fee for the league, I think it could be a good idea as it makes people be more serious which is always a good thing especially in a keeper league.Either way though.

Khahan
ID: 13126822
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 19:25

I don't mind having a nominal fee to keep it interesting, but I'm also perfectly happy in a league with no fees. $10 $20 is fine with me (I have a slightly higher threshold, but no need to go there right away haha).

But I do have a problem paying a site a few bucks that won't even let us preview what they can do for us.

I'd rather pay KKB if he has something that can support this and barring that, do it here on guru. Despite my best intentions i've never donated to guru yet but will gladly do so.

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 19:58

Its 10$ to subscribe for the year, and when added with this, taken from the site:

Want to host a draft for your league?
Subscribers will receive 2 credits to apply to custom drafts they created to turn them into drafts that non-subscribers can join. If you need more than 2 drafts you can purchase one you created for $4.99.

-------------------------------------------------

So basically, I register for 10$, setup the league for our purposes, then use one of my two credits to make it free for all of you to join. Seems like a great deal to me.
They have a message forum, and I posted asking some questions. At first glance it seems to do exactly what we need.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 21:41

Any updates here?Is everything settled?

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 00:04

I've been following CouchManagers for a couple of weeks now, and am pretty well convinced that it is exactly what we need. It will help keep the auction pace at whatever we decide we want it to be, but I feel comfortable that we can start in early March and be done by the end of the month.

Any discussions on what website to use? I'm leaning towards ESPN, as our G20 website search has us leaning that way as well.

As far as everything else, if everyone listed in post #68 can send me an email with their name and RG user ID (title it AKL so I don't delete it as spam :p) I can start getting things set up. Those I haven't heard from in a couple days I'll e-mail.

Finally, if everyone can go through my 1st post and either state an 'ok' or alternative suggestions for each topic, that'd be great. I really want this league to be what its owners want it to be. My initial post is really just my starting suggestions, and I'm open to changing anything. If several ideas come up for each topic, we can vote as a league on the popular ideas. There was some discussion in late decemeber about alot of various things (bench sizes, innings limit, starting money, etc.) so lets get it organized into things we want to debate/vote on.

Khahan
ID: 301311119
Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 07:26

I'm ok with the league as you presented it and a the few tweaks we've discussed that there seems to be general consensus on.

As for using espn, I'd rather not. I really don't want the leagues I'm in to be spread out among different sites.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 12:00

I think everything looks fine though there seemed to be a few unanswered questions reading thru the thread.

I will reiterate a couple I had from post post 51. If we have 1400 innings why just 7 pitching slots. This seems to just cause us to have to shuffle our pitching lineup too frequently, especially if we have a good number of relievers. Why not have this be 8-9 so we still have to worry about rotating for matchups but dont have to switch in our star pitchers every week.

The other question was how odd released contracts will be handled. In the initial post you refer to a $9 contract. DO we lose 4.5 dollars? DO we round up? Round Down? Do we add all such fines and then round up? Down? Dealing with half numbers seems pointless and unnecessarily confusing.

Just to make a list of other unresolved things I noticed:

-AVG or OBP was mentioned in post and never discussed (im impartial)
-Increasing the salary cap (I vote no)
-Host site(I favor yahoo
-Money (I prefer a small 10-20 for prize pool)
-And then details about the auction. It seems we are using couchmanagers but time limits, how new players are called,etc. (I prefer not shortening the time limits too much as I am traveling a ton in March)

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 12:28

if its up to a vote I'd go for

1. BA - personal preference is all
2. salary cap - should be increased in proportion with the roster size. The standard $260 cap is based on x number of players. we have y. I'd want to increase it proportionally because most of the $$ values people will be seeing in their research will be based on a ratio of $260 for X players.
3. yahoo
4. none or small
5. these things I think r9 needs to decide and tell us how its going to run. its nice to get our input, but administrative details need to be taken control of by the commish and we need to adjust. Otherwise we will have 16 different opinions.

Have we settled on a final bench size? Again, I think this is something where we'd be better off simply being told 'this is the bench size.'

One last point. We are having an open auction and generic "P" slots with no limits on how many slots must be SP or RP. The FA/draft/contract system does prohibit micro-managing with add/drops to maximize roster slots. Would we be better off giving a minimum innings pitched? that way if people want to go heavy on SP and boot saves they could. If they want to boot wins and go heavy on closers or middle relievers they could. A max innings Ive found can really prohibit trading late in the season, "yeah, thats a great deal. well balanced...but I only have 30 IP left so no need for your pitchers." A Max also leads to dead roster slots as you don't want to drop roy halladay the last 2 weeks but also get nothing for his starts.

Yes, I'm aware 'proper roster management' and watching your pitchers can solve this issue. But there are perfectly reasonable and viable strategies that lend themselves to accumulating mass innings.

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 21:37

I've heard from 5 managers so far, some here and some via e-mail. I'll wait for more before saying too much more, but what I will say is that on some things I'll definitely be putting things to a league vote.

wiggs
ID: 2679223
Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 22:17

looks good to me.

MikeV
SuperDude
ID: 25924115
Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 10:48

1. OBP
2. $260
3. Yahoo
4. None

jseth333
Dude
ID: 24100310
Thu, Feb 17, 2011, 07:17

Folks - don't think I am going to have the time to devote to this league. Please find a replacement.

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Feb 19, 2011, 03:20

Ok, so we're 15 so far. I need the emails of WG, Weykool and Boozer. If you have their addy from another league please forward it to me, or hopefully they see this message soon.

I know WG and Weykool from previous leagues and RG activity, but does anyone know Boozer? Is he a regular I just haven't met, or someone new? I have no problem with new people joining, but he's only posted once (way back on Dec 31st) and I've never met him before. So we may be 14 if he's MIA.

I'd like to get to 16, so anyone interested please feel free to post. We are not full yet.

dpr
ID: 1990714
Sat, Feb 19, 2011, 10:24

I sent a message to Boozer and Weykool telling them to check in.

Fosten
ID: 581451917
Sat, Feb 19, 2011, 20:08

1. AVG
2. $260
3. ESPN
4. none

wolfer
ID: 190562019
Sat, Feb 19, 2011, 21:53

1. OBP
2. $260
3. ESPN
4. none

Toral
ID: 3411172119
Sat, Feb 19, 2011, 22:09

I would be interested in playing if a slot is still available.

100

wiggs
ID: 2679223
Sat, Feb 19, 2011, 23:29

1. OBP
2. $260
3. Yahoo
4. None

101

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Sun, Feb 20, 2011, 05:03

1. OBP
2. $260
3. ESPN
4. none or small

102

R9
ID: 2854239
Mon, Feb 21, 2011, 06:09

AJ leight emailed me to withdraw, but Toral replaces him, so we're back to 15 again. I've heard from 12 managers, just waiting on Weykool, WG and Boozer.

104

Boozer
ID: 11653319
Mon, Feb 21, 2011, 22:49

I gotta catch up on the reading, but i'd still like to get in.
havnt been around as much as the TSN days (JackHammers), but I still play a League once in a while.

105

weykool
ID: 21139222
Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 03:39

1. OBP
2. $260
3. Yahoo
4. $20

106

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 08:39

Excellent, just waiting to hear from WG. Anyone else interested in joining, we're at 15 and I'm gunning for a 16-20 team league, so feel free to post your interest.

The early voting looks like we have some trends. I'll be sending out an email with a formal list of questions on all the issues once we've got a completed league roster.

107

WG
ID: 25148814
Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 23:56

Sorry for the delay. I'd still like to play if I can.

1. AVG
2. Agree with Khahan
3. Yahoo
4. OK with money

108

Donkey Hunter
ID: 211282311
Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 12:28

I am interested if you still have spaces.

109

R9
ID: 2854239
Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 09:00

Excellent, welcome DH! We are now 16. Sometime later today I'll put together an email with the questions we need anwered.

110

Toral
ID: 3411172119
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 07:32

If it's OK I'm changing my vote on #2 and will delete my priginal vote.

1. OBP
2. Agree with Khahan
3. Commissioner's choice
4. None in the first year -- consider small beginning in second year

111

dpr
ID: 1990714
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 11:00

I have a question about the premise of question 2. Do we really have more slots? Compared to an espn league we have 1 less CI, 1 less MI, 2less O, and 2 less P (6 less starting spots) but then counter this with 7 more bench spots (assuming that we go with 10). 6 starting spots obviously requires more money than 7 bench spots (by alot likely). Even accounting for the number of teams we only draft 256 starters versus 220 on espn. Not really seeing that big of a difference. Frankly there are too many different factors that we would be guessing to normalize the new value appropriately (effect of different number of starters per team, different number of teams, different bench size)

I couldnt find yahoo default but pretty sure they have slightly larger starting rosters, a smaller bench and obviously less teams.

Also, with going to OBP, as seems to be more popular, we already are negating the default dollar values that you see on most sites. I dont see how you can vote for obp and more than 260. It seems the argument for more than 260 would carry over to BA also.

112

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 12:58

Alright, this should get us started. I know some of you have already voted on some of these things, but vote again here to keep it organized.

1. Starting positions. In emails I received a positive response to adding MI and CI spots, so the vote will be:
a) C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF, DH and 7 P spots
b) C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, 3 or 4 OF (state preference if you vote on this one), DH and 7 P spots

2. Bench Spots. I initially wanted a large bench to allow for future gambling on prospects (like bidding on Harper this year for a 3-year deal, etc.). Some said 10 seemed too big, maybe they are right. 8 was proposed as well.
a) 10
b) 8

3. IP Limits. I haven't seen much discussion on this one way or the other, so lets go with:
a) 1400
b) less than 1400
c) more than 1400
d) none

4. Categories. Other then OBP vs. AVG, I haven't seen anything else desired. I think we all like 5x5, but feel free to suggest any other categories for voting here.
a) OBP
b) AVG

5. Contracts. There hasn't been any discussion on my original proposal for 2 and 3 year deals at the start of the year (right after the auction). I thought it would make our league a bit more unique that the standard auction leagues that keep a few players based on their salaries at the end of each year, but I'd like to see people's opinions on this.
a) My proposal.
b) A more standard, decide on a set number of keepers at the end of the year.

6. Website. Please state a preference, even if you don't really care. I don't either, and if there is no preference I'd probably end up choosing something as simple and selfish as 'my other league is on EPSN'. Even if your reason is nothing more then that as well, that is ok; Seems fair that if 12 people have Yahoo leagues and 4 of us have EPSN, that we use Yahoo to support the majority, and vice-versa.
a) Yahoo
b) ESPN

7. Prize pool. This wont be a strict majority wins question. If there are enough managers not wanting to have one, even if the vote is like 9-7 in favor, I'll probably scrap it.
a) none
b) small (20$ or so)
c) bigger (name yer' price)
d) maybe next year

Other thoughts.
- Salary Cap. There is some debate on the desired size here, but I think it will be dependant on the answers to questions 1 and 2, and maybe even 3. So feel free to continue discussing this, but we'll vote on this one after everything else is settled.

- Minors. I guess I'll use my commish powers here to decide on this one for now, and say we will start with NO separate minor league rosters. I'd like to see how things work with a bigger bench and prospects being freely bid on in the auction. We can take a look at this one again next year if we want.

- We're going to use CouchManagers for our slow auction. Talking with some managers from their forum who have used it before, it sounds perfect. It looks and feels exactly like KKB's site does for snake drafts. If it ends up not being everything we hoped for, we can decide on something else for next year.

113

WG
ID: 25148814
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 13:17

1. b (4 OF)
2. a
3. a
4. b
5. a
6. a
7. b or c (open to diff amounts)

My votes lead to 29 roster spots... I'd probably just vote for an even 30, and increasing the salary cap to account for 5 more players.

114

dpr
ID: 1990714
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 13:20

1)A, although I would be fine adding an additional, pitching, OF or UT spot. Dont want to have to deal with starting 24ish SS. ugh.

2)B

3) Doesnt matter but not D

4)AVG slightly

5)Your proposal sounds interesting although I am still looking for the small clarification I expressed in post 88 regarding released contracts.

6)yahoo

7)B although fine with whatever.

Have you decided details regarding couchmanagers? Dates you expect it to run? How long a player is up? How players are nominated?

115

MikeV
SuperDude
ID: 25924115
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 13:22

Choices are based on 16 team league. They would be different with 20
1. b4
2. 10
3. none
4. OBP and SLG
5. b
6. a
7. none

116

Toral
ID: 3411172119
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 13:39

I have listed multiple choices in order of preference for the 4-option questions:

1. b4
2. a
3. a/c/b
4. b
5. a
6. a
7. d/a/b

117

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 13:41

1. a
2. b
3. no preference but if I have to choose a
4. b
5. a
6. a
7. a

118

beebop
ID: 34030216
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 14:23

1. A
2. A
3. A
4. A
5. A
6. A
7. B - never been in a money league and it sounds fun.

Im fine with no minor league roster. It is something extra to track and a pain when looking at which FA's to add.

119

mailedfoot
ID: 500471814
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 14:36

1. b4
2. a
3. a
4. a (would also prefer SLG to HR)
5. a
6. a
7. a or b

120

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 14:39

1B: CI + MI + 4 OF. I would even make it 9 pitching slots, because for 1400 IP we would need them anyway. and with 9 pitching slots you won't need to update your roster daily.

2B: 8 or even less if we go with more pitching slots.

3A: 1400 IP

4A: OBP, would prefer SLG over HR like in RIBC

5A: define contract lengths early in the season, maybe a maximum number of 3yr contracts.

6B: ESPN, not really a preference, but I have to choose one. reason for ESPN: it might have better commish control.

7A: no fee

salary cap: I'd go for $10 per roster spot.

prospects: I would considere them as normal players, so they should be available in the auction and as free agents during the year. if you are not into prospects you are free to not bid on one. if you want to rebuild, just bid on a lot of them and sign them to longer contracts. there is still the risk that they won't be called up in time or play as expected, so it is not an automatic winning strategy.

121

Donkey Hunter
ID: 211282311
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 14:52

1.b) with 4 OF spots
2.b)
3. a) 1400
4. b) AVG
5. b)
6. b) ESPN
7. b) small (20$ or so)

122

weykool
ID: 138481617
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 15:14

1. b) with 4 OF spots
2. b) 8
3. a) 1400
4. a) OBP
5. a)
6. a) Yahoo
7. b) small (20$ or so)

123

wolfer
ID: 190562019
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 19:32

1-a with 4
2-b
3-c
4-a
5-b
6-ESPN
7-0, the first and $10-$20 after that. We need to get this going first before we decide on the prize pool

124

wiggs
ID: 2679223
Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 21:30

1) A
2) A
3) A
4) A
5) A
6) A
7) A

125

Fosten
ID: 46128280
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 01:47

1. B4
2. A
3. C
4. B
5. A
6. B
7. A

126

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 18:48

b3
b
a
a
a
b
b

127

R9
ID: 2854239
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 19:52

Alright, the results:

1) Starting positions. (Vote was 9-6)
We will be going with 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, 4 OF, DH

2) This finished close (8-7) (boozer's vote could easily tie it) so league consensus is sortof impossible. I'll say we'll go with 8, for no other reason then because I don't know how long the auction will take, and shorter is probably better for our first year. We can go up to 10 next year if we want to.

3) 1400 IP it is. This wasn't really close, with a 12-0-2-1 vote.

4) We'll be using OBP (it won 9-6) and SLG over HR seemed to have some traction. We'll vote on that next.

5) My proposal won out 12-3. dpr's question in 88 with reguard to decimals for dropped contracts; I like the adding up all such fines and then round it negatively. Meaning, if you have say, 9.5 in fines, you go into the draft with 250$ instead of 260$. You really have 250.5 but you can't bid the 0.5, so like Chase Utley's 2010 offseason trade value it dissapears completely, never to return again.

Are there any other questions/issues about contracts?

6) We'll be using Yahoo. (10-5 vote)

7) This one was also close; 5 for none, 7 for small and 2 for waiting until next year. My intention here wasn't really to go with the highest vote, but to get a feel for interest. I was sort of hoping for a clear winner either way; as it stands, I don't see the point of forcing 5 (maybe as high as 8) managers who don't want to put money in to do so.

Its probably for the best anyway. Species is going to win (he wins everything) and he'd just blow the prize $ on Baseball America and Baseball Prospecus subscriptions anyway. :)

I'll set up our 2nd (and probably last) vote in a bit. Then I'll get us set up on CouchManagers and send out the invites there and on Yahoo. We should probably start drafting in the next 5-7 days or so.

128

R9
ID: 2854239
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 20:30

2nd vote:

1. SLG or HR?
a) SLG
b) HR

2. Starting pitching spots.
a) 7 (initial proposal)
b) 8
c) 9
d) Other

3. Salary cap.
a) 260$
b) Youngromans' proposal of 10$ per roster slot.
c) Other

4. Eligible to be nominated for auction. (Thought of this when typing up the constitution)
a) Must be in Yahoo's DB
b) Anyone
c) Some other proposal

Yahoo's DB has most of the top prospects, but is obviously missing Japanese, Cuban and other types.

129

wolfer
ID: 81372819
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 20:38

1 A
2 A
3 A
4 A

130

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 20:39

1) HR. I think it more fun to cheer for something more tangible. Yes my guy hit a HR run means alot more than woohoo I am slugging .600 today! Also, I dont see the need to make all the settings identical to RIBC.

2)8 or 9, assuming these come out of bench, if not 8.

3)260

4)Anyone, assuming doesnt make things to complicated to manage.

131

mailedfoot
ID: 331372820
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 21:37

1. a
2. a
3. a
4. a

132

Donkey Hunter
ID: 371522820
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 21:52

1. b
2. c
3. b
4. b

133

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Mon, Feb 28, 2011, 22:11

a
a
b
a

134

wiggs
Leader
ID: 04991311
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 00:09

1) b
2) a
3) a
4) a

135

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 00:50

Vote #2:

1. B HR - cause chicks dig the longball
2. A
3. A
4. A

136

weykool
ID: 4025611
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 02:56

1) b
2) a
3) b
4) a

137

beebop
ID: 34030216
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 03:18

1 -HR
2 - 9 (i assume this means pitching slots that count, not actual SP spots as apposed to RP).
3 - $260
4. A

138

Boozer
ID: 11653319
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 07:14

1- HR
2- 9
3- $10 per roster slot sounds ok (260$ is the original recommended amount for 23 roster slots, and reflects values seen in research material. I think you have to go higher with the large bench)
4- A (more easily managed?)

139

Toral
ID: 3411172119
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 07:36

1. a
2. c
3. a
4. a

140

MikeV
SuperDude
ID: 25924115
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 09:52

1. a
2. a
3. a
4. a

141

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 10:02

Guess I wont be drafting Rendon this year. Other ones seem to still have potential to go either way.

142

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 13:46

1A: SLG
2C: 9 pitching slots
3B: $10 per slot
4B: anyone. most prospects are in the Yahoo DB. If someone wants to bet on the next sensation out of Japan/Korea, be my guest.

another question: how will the waiver order be determined after the draft. we could go with the guy with the most money left gets #1, the one with least money left, gets #16. ties need to be resolved randomly, at least in season 1. for the following seasons we could use the final standings of the previous season.

143

Species
ID: 5191716
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 13:51

dpr -- yeah, my vote on the universe of eligible players was solely based on management. I would love to gamble on soon-to-be draftees or Japanese pros. I was the one to bring that concept to G20, and Darvish IS on a prospect roster because of it. Sadly, for this league the logistics would be a nightmare....hell we are expecting a nightmare in G20 now due to a site hosting change.

VERY excited to move forward for in this new league.

144

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 13:58

HR vs slg is looking interesting. I'm counting 6 from each. This is one that I wasn't aware was really a big deal. But it would be nice to know asap as its going to have the greatest impact on pricing and pre-homework which needs to be done.

Most of the other stuff is pretty easy to deal with. But having to re-evaluate every single player based on a %stat instead of a counting stat is pretty major. Whether we go from $260, $300 or even $240 repricing based off that is simple ratios on the guys you want. But HR to slg% can change the guys you want.

145

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 14:57

Voting there looks close. I'll put my votes down now, and once fosten and wg vote I'll hopefully not have to figure out a tiebreaker. Any thoughts on what to do if the vote is 8-8?

1. b
2. b
3. b
4. a

For transparency's sake, since I included my votes in the totals for the last 7 questions but never put them in the thread for all to see, I voted: a, a, a, a, a, a, b.

146

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 15:08

Any thoughts on what to do if the vote is 8-8?

Obviously from my comments I'm pro-HR. But even that bias aside, you originally advertised this as a HR league, not a slg% league. Isn't the vote to change from hr to slg%? In the case of a tie, there was not a majority in favor of change. Wouldn't it make sense to keep it as originally posted? or kick out the malcontents!!! (just kidding)

147

wiggs
ID: 247362516
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 15:15

I think we need to get this going. Season starts in a month

148

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 17:10

I'm setting up couch managers now, and they really have a ton of settings for us to use. Would like some input on the following from people who have done auctions before:

1) Original Time Limit.
This is the amount of time before the initial nominator wins the bid.
2) Time Extention.
This is the amount of time that is added once someone makes a new high-bid.

So, we can have different amounts for either if we wish. Either can be between 15 seconds and 24 hours.

3) Nomination Rule.
Who nominates a new player once a player is won; the original nominator, or the winner of the player?

4) Max # of nominations in play, which is basically how many players will be up for auction at a time

5) How many each manager starts nominating by.

I'm thinking two each to start, and thus a max of 36 at any one time?

Depending on how the voting goes, we'll have between 432 and 464 players to buy.
If we can average about 20 players won per day, the auction would take about 23 days. With MLB starting up April 1st, I'd like to have the league input and setup by March 28th or so. This means I'd like to start the auction no later than this Friday. Is this reasonable?

What kind of timers would we need to have 20 players won per day, given that 32 players will be on the board at any given time?

149

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 17:15

Or, should we have 3 per team on the board, for up to 48 players at a time, but put the clock at the max 24 hours?

150

WG
ID: 25148814
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 17:55

1. B
2. C
3. A
4. B

151

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 18:41

With WG's votes, we have conclusions on 3 questions.

1. We will be using HR, as it won 9-6.
3. We will be using a 260$ cap, as it won 9-6.
4. Players must be in the Yahoo database to be nominated.

As for question 2, there seems to be alot of support for either 7 or 9. 7 has 7 votes, 9 has 6 votes. Is 8 an acceptable compromise? So we would have 28 man rosters.

152

Toral
ID: 29223113
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 18:56

Is 8 an acceptable compromise?

Yes.

153

dpr
ID: 824121
Tue, Mar 01, 2011, 22:04

On the couch managers:

I am traveling thris week thru sunday (and stuck using public computers) and starting before then would make things very difficult to start things on the fly. I realize we need to get things moving but does starting right before a weekend make the most sense?

In terms of the settings. One problem with too many players on the board is that how you bid on players depends on whats off the board. I would suggest that we start with a lower number esecially as we learn the site and then reevaluate if we need to speed up.

For times limits I have used 8 hours before and that has worked well. There is no leaving queues so it is really important that you can check in within every time period.

For nominations by winner or otherwise. I prefer by winner as I think it rewards people who save money for the end (by allowing them first crack at $1 bids instead of luck) but whichever is fine.

One potential issue: how is couchmanagers player pool?

154

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 13:54

Are we looking at having a weekend pause?

155

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 16:27

Hmm, I've encountered a problem at couchmanagers that has a few solutions.

Problem: I input all our positions (along with 7 P's) last week when setting up our draft to get a feel for their site. However, once the roster setup is input for the league, the league host cannot change it.

Solution #1: Setup a new draft with 8 P spots and send out new invites.

Solution #2: We auction as-is, and on Yahoo I give us 8 P spots. So, we'd all have 1 extra roster spot to fill via FA.

Solution #3: We just go with 7 P spots.

156

wiggs
Leader
ID: 04991311
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 20:25

157

beebop
ID: 48122118
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 20:36

158

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 20:44

159

MikeV
SuperDude
ID: 25924115
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 20:51

160

wolfer
ID: 190562019
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 20:59

161

Fosten
ID: 31230222
Wed, Mar 02, 2011, 23:30

Glad I wasn't needed for the last vote. Sorry about that. This time I vote 2.

162

mailedfoot
ID: 500471814
Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 07:33

163

Toral
ID: 29223113
Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 08:49

1 then 2

164

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 08:59

Either 2 or 3 is fine with me.

165

WG
ID: 25148814
Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 09:43

166

dpr
ID: 4828312
Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 13:09

1 then 2

167

R9
ID: 2854239
Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 14:26

There seems to be either solid or acceptable support for 2, so thats what we'll do.

Are people going to want a weekend pause?

We'll start with 2 players per manager on the board, for 32 total players. The winner of a player will then nominate a new player.
I'll leave the clock at 24 hours to begin, just while we get used to the website.

When we need to speed things up our experience the first week or so can tell us weather to reduce the clock, add more players, or both.

I'll be turning on the auction the evening of Sunday, March 6th.
I figure we want to start Monday, but that it might take a little while for everyone to put their 2 players on the board. With a 24-hour clock, anyone who can't check in until Monday is not harmed in any way.

We're still missing 3 managers. dpr, weykool, fosten and wolfer (with one of them being the team homers heroes).

168

weykool
ID: 138481617
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 14:59

A 24 hour clock is way too long.
I would say 12 hours from nomination and 6 hours from last bid.
The site has a max bid option:

Auction Help
• To make a hidden max bid (reserve bid on eBay):
Uncheck the "Make your max bid your real bid" in the Page Options below. Use the black bid box to enter your bid, and click the black "Bid" button. Only available for slow auctions

This will help managers who will be away for longer than 6 hours.
Checking in twice a day shouldnt be that big a deal considering we should all be prepared to invest significant time in a league such as this.

169

dpr
ID: 50211414
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 15:16

good find weycool. That seems like it could help alot. I agree that 24 hours too long although I think there is some merit to starting a bit slower. Times like those could be more fitting starting tuesday or wednesday.

R9, In terms of the last vote, did you try contacting the website to see if they could switch it over for us? This could conceivably be done even after we start, as we wouldnt want anything holding us up at this point.

Also, I signed up last night leaving only 2 spots empty.

170

wiggs
Leader
ID: 04991311
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 15:22

I would use 8 hours with no bids should sell the player- with the down time you only need to check in 2 times.

171

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 19:01

I was thinking with the 24-hour clock that I'd let the draft run continiously, with no nightly downtime.

Is an 8 hour break each night, with a shorter clock more desirable? I'm indifferent to either really, so whatever you guys think would be best.

dpr 169, yeah I asked on the forums if it was possible to change, but its hard-coded. He suggested I start a new draft, but since I had already opened it up (which uses the 10$ auction credit) I would've had to buy another.

172

wolfer
ID: 190562019
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 21:06

I was registered and changed my name.

173

dpr
ID: 2621421
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 22:03

with a 24 hour clock I would think it would be possible for most players to be open for days. If we need to win 20, I dont think this would get us there. Not sure that we need a long overnight break either. If you check soon before bed and after you wake up that shouldnt be more than 12 hours which a 4 hour break with 8 hr extension would cover. Also if the reserve bid thing weykool mentioned works well that will really help people who have more trouble checking in.

174

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 22:10

Unfotunately I have to pause the draft manually, and it doesn't look like I can add multiple people as commish, so it has to be me that pauses it. And as much as I'm looking forward to this auction and league, I don't think I'll be waking up after 4 hours to start it back up everyday. ;)

Also keep in mind that we have a few west coasters, a few east coasters, and youngroman out in europe... so not everyone sleeps at the same time.

175

dpr
ID: 2621421
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 22:38

The coast part wouldnt make a difference as it still would be 12 hrs and the break would be at some point during the night for everyone but Europe. Although if it needs to be manual this is a moot point. This likely makes a draft pause of any kind rather difficult unless you dont normally sleep too much. Maybe a 12 hr running clock would work? Although I guess we can just see how it plays out and adjust as needed.

176

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Fri, Mar 04, 2011, 23:51

We're still all on a level playing field. Some players will fall and be sold at a time when east coasters are in bed. Some will happen when west coasters are in bed. Some will happen when youngroman is in bed.

I say leave the clock on all day and give us an 8 or 9 hour clock to start. If no bids after 8 or 9 hours, the player is sold.

As mentioned we also have the max bid option where we can place a bid for $15 but have a max bid of $25 and I don't think we need to be on line to push it. It should do it automatically.

177

beebop
ID: 34030216
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 00:31

Plus theres me in Australia. I don't really mind with the clocks, I should be able to find a way around it anyway.

178

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 05:29

I am fine with a 8 hour bid clock. the auto-bid feature should also help.
maybe we can set the clock for opening bids to 12 hours, to really give all managers the chance to put in a (auto-)bid for every player. otherwise all managers may not be able to, if they sleep longer than 8 hours, which may happen for some (weekend) nights.

179

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 12:59

To me, the auto-bid feature is a huge help. I think we all agree that there will be times that we miss "the gavel" on a guy and didn't get a last bid in, but I think it's fair and manageable.

180

dpr
ID: 37210513
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 14:11

The problem with an 8 hour clock and no pause is that then you could conceivable be sleeping the entire time a player is up for auction and unable to place a reserve bid on them. A 12 hour initial with shorter extentions should work as then at least everyone should be alerted of each player up for auction.

181

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 15:19

dpr, the likelihood of that happening is pretty minimal. Realistically I can't even see it happening. Somebody would have to post a player and have absolutely nobody else bid for him during that time frame. We've got people across all times zones. There'll be bids.

182

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 15:42

Yeah, I think 12 and 8 is a good solution. While it might not happen often, having someone put up for bid around say, midnight, and winning them at 8 am after no bids leaves some room for abuse.

With an initial 12 hour clock, that gets reset to 8 the minute someone makes a bid on that player, removes that possibility.

183

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 15:46

We're still missing Fosten at CouchManagers.

184

weykool
ID: 49218519
Sat, Mar 05, 2011, 20:19

The problem with the clock isnt going to be the first 150 players its going to be the last 150 players.
The big names will get plenty of action and everyone should get an opportunity to bid.
The problem is going to be at the end of the draft when certain players only fit a few teams due to position needs or lack of funds for bidding.

It is very important we keep the draft moving at the beginning so we are not faced with a short clock when it counts.

185

wiggs
Leader
ID: 04991311
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 10:52

we really need to get that last manager signed in so we can get this started. I have a feeling we are really going to be pushing this to finish in time.

186

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 13:27

Fosten is IN.

Let's start this sucker.

187

R9
ID: 44251613
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 14:51

I'll be back from hockey in about an hour, I'll start it up then. Baseball is back! :)

188

R9
ID: 2854239
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 17:30

... and by one hour, I clearly meant 3. ;)

Alright, throwing the switch now. Bid smart, and bid often!

189

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 17:44

lol.....was just going to say that there must have been a stop at the pub involved.

All teams need to nominate their 2 players. Find the player, click on the Q+ at the end to put them in your queue. Actually you can put all the players you want in your queue...click the name of the player you wish to nominate and then they are there.

190

R9
ID: 2854239
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 18:05

One thing I noticed right away is that even if a bid is made right away on a new player, the new clock does not go down to 8 hours. So 12/8 means every player will be there at least 12 hours.

We may change this to 8/8 at some point soon, but I'll leave it as-is for now.

191

dpr
ID: 1990714
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 18:50

If it went down to 8 immediately it would allow the exact situation we you describe in 182. A player could even do this to there own bid. As wiggs states at the end when there is less competition for each player could get worse.

If we get comfortable with the reserve bids we could try lowering the second number so that they arent extended as long.

192

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 18:56

I'm having issues bidding. I'll give away a bit for 2 real examples cause I'd rather have help.

Albert Pujols was at $21. I put in $35 in the bid column then hit 'outbid by 1.' It went to $22. Donkey Hunter then outbid me by $1 and went to $23. How do I set it so that $35 would stay and I'd always get that bid to go up to my listed max?

At the same time I did the exact same thing w/ evan longoria. I put in a bid of $28 when he was at $22 and hit 'outbid by 1' Nothing happened. Its like it didnt register my bid. Tried 3 times and nothing.

193

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 19:05

Khahan - I'm learning too, but I think to the immediate right of that box you can enter in the amount of your bid and click the BID button -- not the outbid button -- to input your bid.

194

Species
Dude
ID: 07724916
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 19:31

You're right. I can't seem to just jack up the bid to a level above and beyond anyone else's max bids.

195

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 19:35

We were talking in the draft chat and figured it out. If you check, "make my max bid my real bid" at the top you get proxy bidding. If somebody outbids your current bid, it autobids to outbid them by $1 up to your max.

So if rob deere is at $5 and I enter $20 and you enter $19 w/ that box checked, it will keep outbidding your bid vs my bid until I end up with the winning bid at $20.

196

dpr
ID: 1990714
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 19:56

With the way the reserve works I am not sure that sure that we need the longest time extension. If we go something like 12/4 most players will not be up for more than a day and everyone will get to see every player. We should easily do 20 a day with this setting.

A problem with this is that if you do have to go away for awhile you need to decide where do assign your money (say you have limited funds, or there are both pujols and cabrera expiring at same time, it makes it tough to bid)

197

dpr
ID: 1990714
Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 22:27

One thing which is good is that a reserve bid doesnt reset the clock.

198

weykool
ID: 49218519
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 00:12

The problem right now is we need Beebop, Wazzap, Boozer and Fosten to check in and nominate players.
Would not be good for player to expire without them getting a chance to bid on them.

Once everyone check in we need to take a look at lowering the bid times.

199

beebop
ID: 34030216
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 02:18

Sorry about that guys. Monday at work is usually not too bad for me... except i was in an all day forum with no computer access. I was checking in before i had to leave for work but it had not started yet.

It should be smoother from here on out from me.

200

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:03

We still have 2 managers who have not even nominated a single player yet. I'd like to suggest we put a time limit on how long you have to make a nomination for 2 reasons.

1) If people are inactive, its going to hurt the rest of us unless we get their nominations out there

2) Towards the end of the draft, it'd be too easy to sit on your nomination for as long as you as a strategy to get players you want without much or any competition.

201

dpr
ID: 1990714
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 11:19

Khahan

Good point. Open nominations just slows down the draft. Even a few hours every time will add up. Can we enforce a time limit? How long? For now it is easy as players extra players can just be nominated from the top of the rankings but how do we handle it later when most players are only going for a couple dollars. At this point nominations are very important and we can have someone nominate a player they dont want and get stuck with them.

202

Species
ID: 5191716
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 12:53

IMO the extension timeframe really needs to be lowered.....AT LEAST to 4 hours and maybe less. With the reserve bid function available, there is plenty of time for guys to get in, see bids and consider what to bid.

Ok, after the superstars I'm sure the bidding slows down...we could adjust on the fly...but we're nearly 20 hrs into this and 6 guys have been auctioned.

203

R9
ID: 2854239
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 13:36

I would like to see our last two managers check in before we lower anything.

204

Boozer
ID: 11653319
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 14:05

havn't had alot of time this weekend but i'm here. i'll get some players in there

205

Toral
ID: 29223113
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 14:25

Getting a 403/Forbidden

206

R9
ID: 2854239
Mon, Mar 07, 2011, 14:28

I was too, but its back now.

207

Toral
ID: 29223113
Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 08:13

Major problem: I see no active auctions.

208

Toral
ID: 29223113
Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 08:20

OK closed browser and opened new one; now works.

209

weykool
ID: 138481617
Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 14:50

Can we clairify the rules on contracts?
Is there a limit to the number of players or the number of years?
Thanks.

210

dpr
ID: 1990714
Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 15:19

There arent any listed in the constitution

211

Species
ID: 5191716
Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 15:58

No limits to the number of players.

Contracts are to be chosen after the auction and are a maximum of 3 years, which includes the current season.

212

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 01:26

Correct. The only limitation to contracts is that you must go into the pre-auction deadline each year under 260$, while still having 1$ for each roster spot.

Since all the 1-year contracts are off the books before this deadline, the only way to exceed the limit is to have all your 2-year and 3-year contracts (plus any 2-year and 3-year contracts of players you traded for) exceed the limit.

I encourage everyone to read the league constitution before deciding on contracts and anything else. I emailed it to everyone, and it is also the Commish's note in our Yahoo league.

213

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 01:28

Fosten, you are not replying to emails. Could you join the Yahoo site please? You are the last one, and I need everyone registered before I can start inputting the rosters. I'd like to start doing that right away.

214

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 13:49

Any time after the draft is over, can we make trades involving cash from future drafts?

Say bryce harper is signed to a $3 year deal, gets called up this year and goes on a tear. Could somebody offer me $15 for him and next year I get $275 in the draft and that manager gets only $245 to start?

Or is that the kind of administrative tracking we want to stay away from?

215

weykool
ID: 138481617
Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 14:37

I say no to trading cash.
The simplicity of this league is the $260 limit is ignored during the season and only comes into play during the auction draft.
Your cash available is the $260 minus the contracts from multi year players.

216

dpr
ID: 1990714
Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 15:28

Its seems to be implicitely outlawed in the constitution. However I dont think it would change the way we have drafted so maybe it would be ok to consider.

I definitely see how it would increase the number of trades. Not only would there be trades for money but in cases when sides were close but couldnt quite agree, a few dollars could swing one way to make it work. Having an active trading league was one of the initial ideas behind the league setup.

However, would there be too many dump trades of players on the last year of their contract? Is this a bad thing? Would it jus t make things to complicated? Could couchmanagers even handle it?

217

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 20:13

At present, coachmanagers does NOT allow for different starting cash amounts, so this would not be possible to implement. If in the future they add such ability, we can bring this back up.

As of now though, I am unsure of how it would affect the league. I think its positives to trading would be great. I also think however that it could be abused without some limitations. Such as, I trade my entire roster over the course of a year to different managers for $ each time, and enter the draft with 450$. ;) A legit strategy I suppose, but is that something we want to see?

218

Toral
ID: 29223113
Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 07:31

I am against trading cash.

There will still be the opportunity of some distinction between teams finding themselves in the hunt and those finding themselves outside in the form of trading good older players with 1-year contracts for lesser players with desirable multi-year contracts. More strategy in this than buying players.

219

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:23

I'm not so much saying I want to trade cash, just looking for clarification was all.

220

mailedfoot
ID: 1321138
Sun, Mar 13, 2011, 09:01

Re 217

We already will need a system that allows for different cash amounts, no?

221

Species
ID: 292481311
Sun, Mar 13, 2011, 12:48

Trading cash would be fun.....but yes it opens things up to "dumping" (which is going to be an issue anyway) so there is some danger there.

220: One way we could do it would be to "auction off" the long term contracted players through the Couchmanagers system at the pre-determined contract amounts to the appropriate teams.

222

R9
ID: 2854239
Sun, Mar 13, 2011, 13:19

I can input our keepers (contracts) before I start the auction, but everyone begins this process with 260$.

223

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 04:38

Couchmanagers is currently down because of maintenance. I wanted to up the bid on Chase Headley to $5, but can't. I hope that I am not forced into a meeting and that I recognize it early enough that the site is available again.

just in case: is it possible for an admin to enter bids for other players?

btw, my 2 open nominations will be Jake McGee and Fernando Rodney. I will add them as soon as the site is up again.

224

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 07:21

Unfortunately I can't enter bids for anyone else.

In the future what could be done if anyone ends up in a similar predicament is to email me (or anyone in the league really) your user ID and password, and I'll log in as you and place the bid.

225

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 08:35

just came back from lunch with 5 minutes left on the clock. that was close.

226

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 10:14

it looks like the maintenance done earlier today did not go as planned. they now have database (mysql) issues. I don't know if the clock is still running. could affect some of the bidding that was going on. I hope they are back soon.

227

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 10:22

I have paused the auction (I hope) and will check back in a bit later to see if the issues have been fixed.

228

beebop
ID: 48122118
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 17:29

Is the site completely down, or has my access been blocked from work?

229

MikeV
SuperDude
ID: 25924115
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 19:09

I'm in so I think you are blocked

230

beebop
ID: 48122118
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 19:59

Well thats no fun! Have i won anyone recently?

231

dpr
ID: 1990714
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 21:59

How is the site for everyone now? It just loads and loads. O have been able to open the homepage but not our particular draft. Anyone?

232

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 22:37

Same problem here. :( I guess his site update didn't go as planned.

233

weykool
ID: 26242134
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 22:44

It seems to be working for me.

Recent picks:

$1 Garrett Jones wiggs
$2 Chris Iannetta wolfer
$3 Jake McGee beebop
$2 Mike Pelfrey wiggs
$3 Miguel Tejada wiggs
$5 Chase Headley youngroman
$1 Fausto Carmona weykool
$3 Tim Stauffer mailedfoot
$5 Frank Francisco Dilligad
$5 Nate McLouth wiggs
$3 Andruw Jones wiggs
$10 Huston Street Fosten
$3 James Loney beebop
$2 Bronson Arroyo Khahan

234

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 22:49

Yeah, I got in, the website is just slow.

The forums have an update from the admin, saying he can't change anything until tomorrow morning. While slow, as long as everyone can get in ok we should be alright. Beebop, have you been able to get in?

235

Boozer
ID: 11653319
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 22:50

i still cant get in

236

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 23:22

It says you are logged in, but now the page seems frozen. If I can get in again, I'll pause the auction until he fixes things tomorrow.

237

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 16, 2011, 23:47

K, I paused it until after they put in their update tomorrow.

238

beebop
ID: 48122118
Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 02:02

I just got in now, im assuming it will also work better at home too. Im free to start up again ASAP.

239

Boozer
ID: 11653319
Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 08:38

in as well

240

Boozer
ID: 307192515
Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 12:42

not anymore lol, been several hours

241

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 12:47

cant load couchmanager from work or home (one on ie explorer the other on mozilla)

242

R9
ID: 2854239
Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 14:23

Yeah, I've still got in paused. I'll be waiting until tonight some time to check back in and see if its running smoothly again.

I'm glad we are ahead of pace, this would've been quite the snafu had we been tied to the clock.

243

R9
ID: 2854239
Thu, Mar 17, 2011, 17:38

Ok, looks like the server is fully upgraded now, so I'm turning things back on.

244

youngroman
Sustainer
ID: 02934823
Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 12:04

now that my draft seems to end soon, I have a few questions how to proceed:

1. until when do we need to declare the contract lengths?
a) directly after the auction is over
b) on opening day
c) a few weeks (2?) after opening day

2. how will the payments of long-term contracts be calculated.
scenario 1: I sign a player to a $1 3-year deal. if I drop him, do I lose
a) $1 the next 2 seasons
b) $1 only next season
c) nothing at all
scenario 2: I sign a player to a $10 3-year deal. if I drop him I need to pay him
a) $3.33 = $4 in season 2 and 3
b) $6.67 = $7 at once in season 2?

3. how are contract lengths announced?
a) here at the boards
b) mail to a person not managing in this league, nobody would know other players contract lengths.
c) mail to the commish, who needs to be trusted.

I see an advantage for those waiting until the last minute, because they can structure their contracts in a way that they can target specific players in the season 2 draft. for example: Pujols only gets a 1-year deal. everyone knows this. I have also a stud 1B in Ryan Howard and want to target Pujols. so I give Howard only a 1-year contract too, to have more cap-space available for Pujols. If I would not know the length of the Pujols deal I might give Howard a longer contract because he looks to be a good value.
this is mostly a season 1 problem, because if Pujols gets a 2-year deal, I can plan in advance if I end up signing Howard in the season 2 auction.

245

dpr
ID: 1990714
Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 13:48

1) I like the idea of opening day (or the evening before) but any can be done. I will add that the weekend of the 24-27th is very busy for me so a deadline after this period would be appreciated

2.1) You would have a .5 charge in each of the remaining seasons.
2.2)This would be a $5 charge for each year.
To add, once all fines are totalled we either round up or round down, I forget which but it is listed in the constitution. So if these were the only 2 cases you would lose either 6 or 5 depending.

3) Good point about waiting and possible solutions. We could also say you could change them so if I guy announced releasing pujols early, he could then go back and switch after baiting people into suboptimal decisions.

246

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Mar 18, 2011, 14:24

dpr, we aren't using decimals, but rounding up. So in the case of a $1/year 3yr contract you would lose $1 each year.

hmm, reading over t his I think we need clarification.

If you have 2 players at $1/year for 3 year deals and drop them both, do you have to pay $2/year or just $1?

247

dpr
ID: 1990714
Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 00:00

Thats what i meant by the .5. You round up the total. Or in that case there is no rounding. You lose $1. So we are using decimals, we just round them before the auction. I had asked this question earlier and I know R9 put it in the constitution.

248

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 01:58

Good questions YR. My answers:

1) Ideally, I'd like for us to have a week or so to think it over. So I think we'll make the deadline a week after we are set up. Shouldn't change too much, and weather it becomes April 1st or April 7th doesn't really change much long-term.

2) The way I set it up in the constitution is that you lose half of the player's value in the remaining seasons. So in your examples:
scenario 1: You would lose 0.5$ in each of the next two years.
scenario 2: You would lose 5$ in each of the next two years.
We round UP, but we first add up all decimaled amounts before rounding up. So if you were to drop both of these players this year, you would lose 5.5$, rounded up to 6$. If you were to drop TWO 1$, 3-year players and the 10$ 3-year player, you would lose 0.5 + 0.5 + 5 = 6$.

So there is room for strategic manipulation if you think things through and keep track of your add/drops of contracts.

It also hasn't come up yet, but I think in each off-season everyone can have the chance to 'drop' players and their contracts still, with the same penalties for doing so. In other words, you don't have to have dropped the player before the last day of the regular season; right up until the pre-auction deadline you can do so.

3) Good points, and I like the idea of a neutral 3rd person collecting them in an e-mail account, and then maybe mailing them to me/posting them after the deadline. I'm open to suggestions on nominees. Maybe Guru will be open to helping.

249

weykool
ID: 7230191
Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 02:30

R9 should send his contracts to Guru so they are locked in and then R9 could collect them for the rest of the league.

250

beebop
ID: 34030216
Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 06:02

I personally do not mind if contracts are emailed to R9 directly. In another league i am in with nerfherders, we all send him contracts, fa's, etc and there has never been a problem. Then on a given date, all the contracts are announced.

I think there has to be an element of trust involved.

251

Khahan
ID: 373143013
Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 10:00

I don't see this as too different from posting keepers in keeper leagues. There is an element of strategy to wait and see who others post. But most keeper leagues do just post their lists.

I'm fine with either, but it just seems that simply giving us a deadline and leaving it up to each manager to choose when they post their contracts here is the easiest solution.

And nothing is locked until that deadline, just like keepers. Say we pick April 8th as the deadline. I can post my contracts then go back and make alterations if I feel necessary w/out any penalty until April 8th.

Or we could do the email thing and put all the work on R9 to post them!!!

252

R9
ID: 2854239
Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 19:13

Sent out an email dealing with the waiver order and a couple other details. Everything is set up on Yahoo and all non-purchased players are on waivers.

I'll decide on the method we'll use to post contracts, but the deadline for submitting them will be 1 PM EST on Thursday, March 31st.

253

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 20:35

my team looks good. thanks r9.

254

Donkey Hunter
ID: 441162516
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 11:18

1 $17 Brian McCann C-ATL
1 $14 Kendry Morales 1B-LAA
2 $17 Martin Prado 2B/3B-ATL
2 $21 Adrian Beltre 3B-TEX
3 $9 Starlin Castro SS-CHC
3 $3 Freddie Freeman 1B-ATL
1 $1 Edgar Renteria SS-CIN
3 $25 Matt Kemp OF-LAD
3 $40 Carl Crawford OF-BOS
3 $21 Jacoby Ellsbury OF-BOS
2 $17 Andre Ethier OF-LAD
2 $18 Jayson Werth OF-WSH
1 $9 Jonathan Broxton RP-LAD
1 $19 Dan Haren SP-LAA
1 $13 Jonathan Sanchez SP-SF
3 $3 Rafael Soriano RP-NYY
1 $2 Jair Jurrjens SP-ATL
1 $1 David Hernandez RP/SP-AZ
3 $2 Ivan Nova SP/RP-NYY
1 $1 Sergio Romo RP-SF
1 $1 Johnny Damon DH/OF-TB
3 $1 Phil Coke SP/RP-DET
3 $1 Jamey Carroll SS/2B-LAD
3 $1 Lucas Duda OF-NYM
3 $1 Scott Cousins OF-FLA
1 $1 Daisuke Matsuzaka SP-B

255

weykool
ID: 15240251
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 17:15

- The one handicap on trading that remains is forcing teams to be below 260 going into the following years auction. All one-year contracts are gone at this point, so the only way a team would be over is if they have excessive long-term deals and then trade for more long-term deals. This is not prohibited, but that owner must them spend the off-season trading/dropping players to get back under the cap, or suffer the penalty mention before. A legit strategy would be trading for tons of high-salaried top players to try and win it all and then trying to firesale in the off-season. Sounds fun to me. :)

I would like to bring this up for discussion now and see if this rule cant be tweaked.
The problem I am having with this is the allowing of trades during the off season.
I think it opens up too many doors for abuse.
Lets take DH's team as an example:
If DH is out of contention a manager in contention could propose to trade a couple of decent prospects in exchange for Crawford, Kemp, and Ethier and then make a deal to trade them back during the off season for a few scrubs.
I have no problem with a manager making bold moves to win it all this year, but I do have a problem if there are no penalties for doing so.
It seems if manager ends up over the cap AFTER all the expiring contracts are removed he should be required to pay the 50% penalty for dropping a long term contract.
This would also add to the strategy of trading for expiring contracts.
Using DH again there would be good trade value in a Haren, Morales, or McCann because those contracts would be off the books the following season.

256

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 18:07

If DH is out of contention a manager in contention could propose to trade a couple of decent prospects in exchange for Crawford, Kemp, and Ethier and then make a deal to trade them back during the off season for a few scrubs

This is something that is potentially a problem in ANY keeper league. Simply put that would be an example of collusion and I suspect R9 would deal pretty harshly with it.

I have no problem with a manager making bold moves to win it all this year, but I do have a problem if there are no penalties for doing so.

The penalty for making too many bold moves to win it all is potentially being over the cap and not being able to offload players in time.

I think the issue we'll most have to watch for is dumping. For example, if I'm at $295 roster value going into the offseason, I should not be able to simply send out Adrian Gonzalez to another team for say $1 Jamey Carroll.

That issue and the issue you are bringing up shouldn't be prevented by rules because any rule we put into place will eventually block a legit trade from happening. I think the better question to ask is what kind of trade review/veto system do we have? Is it majority vote? Purely commish review? 75% vote? etc.

257

wiggs
Leader
ID: 04991311
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 19:11

Is there a limit or minimum amount of contract years required, or is it just your preference?

258

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 20:04

No limits or minimums. If someone wants to run out all 1-year deals and redraft their entire team next year (or trade for some 2 or 3 year deals, etc.) that is a perfectly fine strategy. On the other hand if someone else likes their team so much that they want everyone signed for 3 years, likewise, go for it. I expect to see lots of stuff in between those extremes, but to each their own.

259

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 20:39

It seems if manager ends up over the cap AFTER all the expiring contracts are removed he should be required to pay the 50% penalty for dropping a long term contract.

I think this could be a serious drain on trading, and I would rather not impose restrictions like this unless it becomes obvious that it is neccessary.

Weykool: I have no problem with a manager making bold moves to win it all this year, but I do have a problem if there are no penalties for doing so.

I'm not sure why there should be off-season penalties here. If DH is out of it in June and wants to trade me Crawford, I'm sure he will exact a high price in whatever it is he wants in return. Why would I then be punished further in the offseason? Balancing current and future needs is what all of us will decide on. I don't want to punish anyone for making astute moves...

The only legit purpose for your rule would be to punish people employing your trade-and-return scenario. And as Khahan pointed out, that is blatant collusion. We don't need a rule to prevent that (certainly not one that also hurts legit trading) because anyone engaging in obvious collusion will not be welcomed back. Nobody likes cheaters.

-------------------------------------------------

The trade review system; I have it set in Yahoo as Commish review. I very much dislike systems where anyone can annonymously vote to veto a trade two managers have worked out between themselves.

So here's what we'll do. If two or more managers have an issue with a trade, and have stated as much publicly in our thread, it will trigger an immediate review by me. If the complaints seem valid (and I may ask for some outside input from other league commishes and such on this) I'll call a league vote, where 10 managers (2/3rds) voting publicly against it would be required to deny it.

I will say this though. If a trade gets vetoed, its because its either incredibly unfair or is clearly circumventing the rules in an obvious and unethical way. In either case I would examine how that happened, and either rule changes and/or manager changes may take place. In other words, its something I would take very seriously, and is something I don't really expect to happen often (or at all). We seem to be a pretty dedicated and fair group.

260

weykool
ID: 15240251
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 21:16

10 out of 14 managers (I would assume the two involved in the trade are for it) Seems a bit much.
It has been my experience that out of 14 managers at least 4 of them will say "You should never vote to overturn a trade unless there is collusion".
How you could ever possibly prove collusion is never mentioned.
Collusion is cheating...how can you prove cheating unless you have access to private E-Mails?
If 4 out of 10 would never vote to overturn a trade no matter how lopsided, it seems to me that if 7 of the remaining 10 thinks the trade is out of line my guess is it is out of line.
And yes.....I agree that if you vote against a trade it should be a public vote.

261

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 21:34

... there is so much speculation and random numbers in your post I'm not sure what to say. ;) Maybe this league has 7 of your 'never veto' types, or maybe we have 1 or none. We could also have alot or none of the type who are 'i veto everything i dont like'. 2/3rds requirement is pretty standard for alot of leagues though.

262

weykool
ID: 15240251
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 22:00

A public Yahoo league only requires 3 out of 12 or 25%.
10 out of 14 is 71%.
It has also been my experience that Guru managers are much more astute than your average public manager and for the most part are extremely hesitant to veto trades even when there is some "imbalance".
I think we need to trust the managers in this league to use restraint, but at the same time 10 votes pretty much ensures almost anything goes.

263

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 22:07

We have 16 managers. 2 would be involved in the trade leaving 14. 7 is 50%. 8 is a simple majority and 10 is a 2/3. why not split it and go with 9?

264

R9
ID: 2854239
Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 22:39

Alot of Guru leagues have no league voting for trade vetoes at all, because of the fact you mentioned; most of us are far more astute managers then you'll find in a typical Yahoo public league. They simply use commish intervention when it is needed.

and for the most part are extremely hesitant to veto trades even when there is some "imbalance".

That fits me to a T, and I would hope also fits the majority of us here. We will not be vetoing a trade because some think it is imbalanced. Most trades are. If two managers come up with a deal they both like, are not violating any league rules and are not being unethical, it will go through.

but at the same time 10 votes pretty much ensures almost anything goes.

Thats the key word, and you are correct. Almost anything will be ok, assuming the two key things I mentioned above are observed.

265

mailedfoot
ID: 1321138
Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 08:21

Are trades allowed prior to contract deadline?

266

R9
ID: 2854239
Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 14:53

Sure. I could definitely see trade opportunities between teams that value players differently contract-wise.

The only (probably and hopefully rare) scenario I could see being an issue; you make a trade pre-contracts on March 30th, and then both teams submit their contracts on the 31st with their new players. The trade then gets vetoed by the league on, say, April 1st. In this scenario, the players would be returned and the teams would have a time extention to decide on contracts for the returned players.

267

dpr
ID: 1990714
Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 20:20

Something that we may hopefully do not have to deal with fora few years but it is always better to have a policy in place.

How will we deal with replacing managers? With our setup there seems to be a few options that we could have. I think the important thing to discuss is whether the new manager would inherit the new managers cotracts or start from scratch. It would be unfortunate to join a league and be stuck with the previous managers poor judgements. With our format, having the new manager start from a clean slate would be possible (I would wager that by year 3 a good number of us would take a reset if we could). Personally, I would like to see the new manager have the option to retain the roster they were given or to release all there players and start from scratch in the auction. Thoughts?

268

beebop
ID: 34030216
Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 05:25

I think just keep what you get. The contracts are not that long, so it should not be too long for that manager to pretty much start from scratch anyway.

I do not feel strongly either way though.

Just so I am clear, I can just pick up anyone I want at anytime right now to fill that last roster spot?

269

weykool
ID: 15240251
Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 07:18

I dont think a full reset would be warranted but perhaps a 1 time waiver of the 50% penalty for dropping any players?

270

R9
ID: 2854239
Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 15:40

beebop, yep, now that every player has cleared waivers, pickups and drops are the same as always.

I think we can handle any replacement managers on a case-by-case basis, but I like the idea of either taking the team as-is or starting completely fresh. I think allowing them to ditch some contracts but not all could be too powerful.

272

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Sat, Apr 02, 2011, 07:47

A little confused on trades. It looks like we have a trade time of 2 days. Mailedfoot and I made a trade on the the 30th. We've had the 31st and the 1st go by. Here we are in day 3 and the trade is still pending.

273

R9
ID: 2854239
Sun, Apr 03, 2011, 01:09

Apparently I have to athorize its acceptance. Not sure why. I'm going to check to see if that can be waived. As long as the 2-day waiting period is there, I see no reason for trades not to go through immediately.

274

dpr
ID: 1990714
Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 19:38

man I have 4 hitters on the DL, the starting lineup is getting very ugly.

275

weykool
ID: 7348811
Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 20:44

#273
I am commish for a hoops league that uses commish review with a 2 day trade reject time.
I dont think the day you make the trade or the day the trade is processed counts.
In addition the 2 day waiting period may not have started until the league actually started (April 1).
We will have to wait and see what happens on the next trade.

276

R9
ID: 2854239
Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 05:11

274, I think we need bigger benches. ;)

275, Good to know. Yahoo replied to my email by saying it should have happened automatically, so maybe it would've gone through a few hours after I pushed it.

277

Khahan
ID: 54138190
Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 07:42

thats kind of a lot of waiting for a trade. I can understand if people make a trade at 11:30pm then that day shouldn't count. But there are scenarios where a '2 day trade review' time can stretch into 4 days. The day its made, 2 full days, then the day its processed. I'll often make trades with another move (an add/drop or something) planned. That can make it frustrating.

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