Post by Macho Man on Jan 12, 2018 21:06:10 GMT
Alright guys, here are your first look at some of the highlights of the new league. FYI, not everything is necessarily set in stone, but this will give you the general gist of the most important parts of the league.
1. Entry Fee - $155 annually. The first year, however, will be an estimated $225 to cover graphics and your “limp biscuit fund”, you’ll read about it more below.
2. No Contracts – We will do away with contracts of all kinds (i.e. no salaries, no contract years). While I enjoy this feature in many of my other leagues, in the new league I want to make it less demanding to manage your team by eliminating the need to worry about contract assignment and cap space when acquiring or trading players.
Besides with the Raid below there will be enough shake up year in year out.
3. Scoring System and Starting Lineups – The system is going to be very similar if not the same as WDF. Same with the starting lineups. The roster size will have a lower limit, however, since there are no contracts.
4. Draft Lottery – The rookie draft will not be determined by victory points, winning percentage, etc. as it has been traditionally in most leagues. Instead we will hold a Draft Lottery like the NBA to determine our rookie draft order. This will accomplish multiple things: (1) I think it will be fun because everyone, even the 8th place team, will have a shot at the #1 pick, even if that chance is very small. I may even decide to stream it live on Facebook or skype or something for those that want to watch the drawing; (2) I would suggest it’s rare that the team with the lowest VPs is in fact the worst team. Injuries play a large role in the success of a season and there are plenty of times a team(s) gets riddled with injuries to their top players that come back healthy the following year. Giving that team a top pick just based on their VP finish, one could argue, doesn’t necessarily help bring the balance to the league that the rookie draft attempts to offer; and (3) I think in some small part this method helps to discourage tanking. No guarantee of a top pick just because you tank your team. Obviously, it would still increase your chances of a better pick, but that’s ok because I have another anti-tank rule coming right up!
5. Limp Biscuit – I love this rule for two different reasons. First, it will discourage tanking (I think) and secondly, it’s just fun 😊. This rule is very simple. Everyone at the beginning the league will give an extra $50, this will act as a deposit, but also as each teams “limp biscuit fund”. Every week of the regular season the lowest scoring team will pay the highest scoring team $10. It’s that simple. Money for these payments will come out of, or go into your fund. At the end of every season, if your fund is in excess of $50 you will receive the surplus, however, if your funds are deficient of the $50, you will need to pay whatever amount it takes to restore it to $50. This will provide plenty of incentive not to tank so hard as to run your team into the ground for better draft picks. For example, in WDF this year it was clear from a few weeks in that Undertaker was playing for next season, shortly thereafter Beefcake threw in the towel and then a couple week like I followed suit. Beefcake tried hard to move good healthy players for draft picks, young players or injured players so that it could reduce his starting options to shit balls so he could have a shitter starting lineup then the Undertaker’s starting lineup. Even in this scenario beefcake was the lowest scoring team only 3 times. I believe that with competitive owners who pay attention to their teams, are active in the league, don’t make too stupid of trades, etc., will won’t have a situation where some team is the lowest scoring team 7 or 8 times out of the season. If it were to get to that point we could reduce the dollar amount, but for right now I really want to discourage this behavior unless a team is willing to pay the price.
6. Progressive Pot – Every season $15 from each entry fee will be placed into a progressive pot. Achievements that have yet to be decide will award owners monetary rewards. Of course, there will be a jackpot in which a team can win whatever is left in the pot at the time they hit the jackpot. $210 will be added to the progressive pot every year!
7. Owner of the Year Award – This is part of the progressive pot, but I wanted to make it known. At the end of every season, I will email all owners individually to vote for the Owner of the year. Owners will not be able to vote for themselves. It is my hope that Owners will be fair and honest in their vote and not swing it a certain way for a few bucks. Don’t confuse “Owner of the year” for “Team of the year”. The team of the year is already determined by who wins the league. Owner of the year should be rewarded for their league activity such as, participation in league chat and forum, responsiveness to trade offers, willingness to negotiate trades, their tone in those negotiations, the vibe they bring to the league; in addition to how they managed their team such as how well their draft picks produced, how well did their trades turn out, how well have they positioned themselves for the following year in terms of talent and draft picks, etc. I haven’t decided yet how much the Owner of the year will get, but any money is nice right?
8. The Raid – FYI, I’m still open to hearing opposing ideas regarding the structure of the Raid, but not to the raid itself. Basically, the Raid is an event that is somewhat similar to a draft that is held prior to our rookie draft. Before the Raid begins, each team will protect 1 player at every position (you can protect no one at a position if you choose) and 2 players at any positions (flex protections). The order the of the Raid will be the same as the order of the rookie draft. Each team will raid 5 players from any roster of the remaining 13 teams, but will also have 5 players raided from their own team. This way all teams will end the Raid with the same number of players that they started. Every time a player is raided from your team, you will be able to protect another player on your own team. Once a team has had 5 players raided from it all players become protected and that team can no longer be raided. You may also not raid any player that was raided already in the same Raid.
Other things yet to be decided that I would love your input on:
9. The Roster Squeeze – I have toyed with the idea that teams after the raid and after the rookie draft have to reduce their roster size significantly so that they are forced to cut some pretty decent players, not stars obviously, but good bench players. The u upside behind this idea that it would enable us to still have a meaningful Unrestricted Free Agent Auction. Without talent in the UFAA I don’t see any reason to hold one. We can just simply run a $BB waiver instead. The downside to this is that more decent players are leaving the teams. If for example teams can have up to 45 active players and a 6 player taxi squad and they are forced to cut it down to 30 active players prior to the UFAA… owners will be losing some decent talent they I bet they don’t want to lose.
10. Hybrid inaugural draft – This is an idea that I toyed with previously, but never did because I do like a normal serpentine draft where we can trade top picks. A hybrid draft consisted of an initial auction where each team nominates 5 players for bidding. Those players are won using either $BB or a temporary set of auction funds. After the auction is over, we have a regular serpentine style draft where the order is decided by the amount of auction funds each team spent during the auction starting with the lowest. i.e. the team to spend the least amount in the auction would get the top pick in the serpentine order.
11. Points for First Downs rather than PPR– Scott Fish added this in his annual Scott Fish Bowl Invitational this year and I found it interesting. He took out PPR and replaced it with what he felt was more symbolic of actual production on the field. The argument for it would be that a lot of players catch small 1 to 2 yard passes, and they shouldn’t be awarded for a full point when they hardly accomplished anything on the field. First downs, however, no matter if they are big or small yardage-wise, help a team refresh their downs and continue possession.
Also I need suggestions for a league theme!!! I personally like themes that have a category and then the owners choose sub-categories, e.g. Game of Thrones where each team is a different House, etc.
Lastly, if you know for sure you want in the please reply in this thread or message me privately! I may be forced to turn down people if I get a lot of interest as I'm posting this on two leagues. If I am unable to invite you please don't take it personally. I'm looking primarily for those I know are active active owners that get along with owners, know how to kid around and have a good time without disrespecting others, responds within hours to trade proposals, pays attention to league emails and notifications, etc. If I let you know you are in, payment is expected immediately to hold the spot.
If you have any question or comments let me know!
1. Entry Fee - $155 annually. The first year, however, will be an estimated $225 to cover graphics and your “limp biscuit fund”, you’ll read about it more below.
2. No Contracts – We will do away with contracts of all kinds (i.e. no salaries, no contract years). While I enjoy this feature in many of my other leagues, in the new league I want to make it less demanding to manage your team by eliminating the need to worry about contract assignment and cap space when acquiring or trading players.
Besides with the Raid below there will be enough shake up year in year out.
3. Scoring System and Starting Lineups – The system is going to be very similar if not the same as WDF. Same with the starting lineups. The roster size will have a lower limit, however, since there are no contracts.
4. Draft Lottery – The rookie draft will not be determined by victory points, winning percentage, etc. as it has been traditionally in most leagues. Instead we will hold a Draft Lottery like the NBA to determine our rookie draft order. This will accomplish multiple things: (1) I think it will be fun because everyone, even the 8th place team, will have a shot at the #1 pick, even if that chance is very small. I may even decide to stream it live on Facebook or skype or something for those that want to watch the drawing; (2) I would suggest it’s rare that the team with the lowest VPs is in fact the worst team. Injuries play a large role in the success of a season and there are plenty of times a team(s) gets riddled with injuries to their top players that come back healthy the following year. Giving that team a top pick just based on their VP finish, one could argue, doesn’t necessarily help bring the balance to the league that the rookie draft attempts to offer; and (3) I think in some small part this method helps to discourage tanking. No guarantee of a top pick just because you tank your team. Obviously, it would still increase your chances of a better pick, but that’s ok because I have another anti-tank rule coming right up!
5. Limp Biscuit – I love this rule for two different reasons. First, it will discourage tanking (I think) and secondly, it’s just fun 😊. This rule is very simple. Everyone at the beginning the league will give an extra $50, this will act as a deposit, but also as each teams “limp biscuit fund”. Every week of the regular season the lowest scoring team will pay the highest scoring team $10. It’s that simple. Money for these payments will come out of, or go into your fund. At the end of every season, if your fund is in excess of $50 you will receive the surplus, however, if your funds are deficient of the $50, you will need to pay whatever amount it takes to restore it to $50. This will provide plenty of incentive not to tank so hard as to run your team into the ground for better draft picks. For example, in WDF this year it was clear from a few weeks in that Undertaker was playing for next season, shortly thereafter Beefcake threw in the towel and then a couple week like I followed suit. Beefcake tried hard to move good healthy players for draft picks, young players or injured players so that it could reduce his starting options to shit balls so he could have a shitter starting lineup then the Undertaker’s starting lineup. Even in this scenario beefcake was the lowest scoring team only 3 times. I believe that with competitive owners who pay attention to their teams, are active in the league, don’t make too stupid of trades, etc., will won’t have a situation where some team is the lowest scoring team 7 or 8 times out of the season. If it were to get to that point we could reduce the dollar amount, but for right now I really want to discourage this behavior unless a team is willing to pay the price.
6. Progressive Pot – Every season $15 from each entry fee will be placed into a progressive pot. Achievements that have yet to be decide will award owners monetary rewards. Of course, there will be a jackpot in which a team can win whatever is left in the pot at the time they hit the jackpot. $210 will be added to the progressive pot every year!
7. Owner of the Year Award – This is part of the progressive pot, but I wanted to make it known. At the end of every season, I will email all owners individually to vote for the Owner of the year. Owners will not be able to vote for themselves. It is my hope that Owners will be fair and honest in their vote and not swing it a certain way for a few bucks. Don’t confuse “Owner of the year” for “Team of the year”. The team of the year is already determined by who wins the league. Owner of the year should be rewarded for their league activity such as, participation in league chat and forum, responsiveness to trade offers, willingness to negotiate trades, their tone in those negotiations, the vibe they bring to the league; in addition to how they managed their team such as how well their draft picks produced, how well did their trades turn out, how well have they positioned themselves for the following year in terms of talent and draft picks, etc. I haven’t decided yet how much the Owner of the year will get, but any money is nice right?
8. The Raid – FYI, I’m still open to hearing opposing ideas regarding the structure of the Raid, but not to the raid itself. Basically, the Raid is an event that is somewhat similar to a draft that is held prior to our rookie draft. Before the Raid begins, each team will protect 1 player at every position (you can protect no one at a position if you choose) and 2 players at any positions (flex protections). The order the of the Raid will be the same as the order of the rookie draft. Each team will raid 5 players from any roster of the remaining 13 teams, but will also have 5 players raided from their own team. This way all teams will end the Raid with the same number of players that they started. Every time a player is raided from your team, you will be able to protect another player on your own team. Once a team has had 5 players raided from it all players become protected and that team can no longer be raided. You may also not raid any player that was raided already in the same Raid.
Other things yet to be decided that I would love your input on:
9. The Roster Squeeze – I have toyed with the idea that teams after the raid and after the rookie draft have to reduce their roster size significantly so that they are forced to cut some pretty decent players, not stars obviously, but good bench players. The u upside behind this idea that it would enable us to still have a meaningful Unrestricted Free Agent Auction. Without talent in the UFAA I don’t see any reason to hold one. We can just simply run a $BB waiver instead. The downside to this is that more decent players are leaving the teams. If for example teams can have up to 45 active players and a 6 player taxi squad and they are forced to cut it down to 30 active players prior to the UFAA… owners will be losing some decent talent they I bet they don’t want to lose.
10. Hybrid inaugural draft – This is an idea that I toyed with previously, but never did because I do like a normal serpentine draft where we can trade top picks. A hybrid draft consisted of an initial auction where each team nominates 5 players for bidding. Those players are won using either $BB or a temporary set of auction funds. After the auction is over, we have a regular serpentine style draft where the order is decided by the amount of auction funds each team spent during the auction starting with the lowest. i.e. the team to spend the least amount in the auction would get the top pick in the serpentine order.
11. Points for First Downs rather than PPR– Scott Fish added this in his annual Scott Fish Bowl Invitational this year and I found it interesting. He took out PPR and replaced it with what he felt was more symbolic of actual production on the field. The argument for it would be that a lot of players catch small 1 to 2 yard passes, and they shouldn’t be awarded for a full point when they hardly accomplished anything on the field. First downs, however, no matter if they are big or small yardage-wise, help a team refresh their downs and continue possession.
Also I need suggestions for a league theme!!! I personally like themes that have a category and then the owners choose sub-categories, e.g. Game of Thrones where each team is a different House, etc.
Lastly, if you know for sure you want in the please reply in this thread or message me privately! I may be forced to turn down people if I get a lot of interest as I'm posting this on two leagues. If I am unable to invite you please don't take it personally. I'm looking primarily for those I know are active active owners that get along with owners, know how to kid around and have a good time without disrespecting others, responds within hours to trade proposals, pays attention to league emails and notifications, etc. If I let you know you are in, payment is expected immediately to hold the spot.
If you have any question or comments let me know!
