Discussion - Rules & Settings

[Dutch]

I am in favor of the commish setting lineups when a manager goes inactive and he can drop injured players as well as far as I am concerned.

However what if the commish goes inactive? Don't say it does not happen, cause it happened last year. I understand why it happened at the time. But we do need to look at this as well.

[samo]

I am in favor of the commish setting lineups when a manager goes inactive and he can drop injured players as well as far as I am concerned.

However what if the commish goes inactive? Don't say it does not happen, cause it happened last year. I understand why it happened at the time. But we do need to look at this as well.

We try to select commissioners from among the pool of "most active" Cafe regulars, but of course we're all human and certain things cannot be helped, which is why Rounders Block is back in the league and contributing while the other non-active managers are not. I don't know of anything that can be done in the Yahoo system when a commish goes inactive. Oh, wait, yes I do. Each commish could designate an assistant commish and give that person his Yahoo login information and if the commish goes AWOL, the understudy would be able to sign on as the commish and run the league.

I guess the lineups could be set in a couple of different ways, either a) fill out the roster at the start of the week with the top 10 players according to bbm and have no daily changes for that week b) fill out the roster on each individual day to get the highest number of games. Since I have the the habit of coming up with unlikely hypothetical scenarios what do we do with a very competitive orphaned team?

B would seem to be a better option, since it would give a result most reflective of actual team strengths. I'd very much like to hear from other Octagon members who care to offer an opinion on this, particularly this year's commissioners Rounders Block, mbuser, and jaytizy. I would think that if the orphaned team ended up being competitive and finished Top 3, if the manager had a reasonable excuse for his absence, such as climbing Mt. Everest, kidnapped by terrorists, death/illness in the family, such that he was invited back to the league, he should be allowed to "move up" leagues the following year, so to speak. If there's no reasonable excuse but the team still finished in one of the top spots, then I think you treat it as a "dummy" team and the three highest managers who stayed active would then advance. The point in letting a commish set lineups for inactive teams is only to try to even the playing field so the order of finish among the actively managed teams isn't skewed by the inactive teams being noncompetitive in matchups.

This is all still in the "brainstorming" phase, but it seems like we could keep this more objective if the commish was only required to set the players already on the orphaned team and was only required to set lineups at the request of managers who can establish that the orphaned team has been "orphaned" for at least a full week. I'd just prefer that commissioners not be expected to snoop around every team to make sure its staying active. I'd rather leave that to the league as a whole to police. Lets continue to solicit opinions from the rest of the league, particularly the 07-08 commissioners.

[Netsfan5]

In Head to Head that will be a pain in the a-s-s for the commish unless he does just the best starting lineup and leave it at that (not changing in every day).

I know for H2H, the requirements your team demands is much tougher, and switching two lineups a day would be tough.

[mbuser]

...since Yahoo doesn't seem to have a "replace manager" function.

customer care can transfer a team .. i used to do it all the time

[samo]

...since Yahoo doesn't seem to have a "replace manager" function.

customer care can transfer a team .. i used to do it all the time

That may be the best answer for early season disappearing acts, just get a new manager (maybe from the wait list) to take over the team. Not sure we could get much interest in a new manager taking over an abandoned team late in the season that has no chance to be competitive or finish Top 3, so then we're back to letting the commish take over the abandoned team and set the lineups.

I don't think it matters whether an individual commish sets the 10 best players for a week w/o rotating bench players in, or takes the extra few minutes to actually set the daily lineups, but I think whatever a commish decides they need to stay consistent from team to team and week to week. Can't just set the 10 and leave it if the dead team is playing the Commish, but set the daily lineups when the dead team is playing a close opponent of the Commish. That's why I think it would be better to have an objective standard going in so we all know how its going to be handled if the issue comes up, and the issue of dead teams probably will keep coming up, unfortunately.

I know for H2H, the requirements your team demands is much tougher, and switching two lineups a day would be tough.

I'd imagine the commish would set the daily lineups at the beginning of the week and not try to manage them daily. But either way you cut it, if there are three dead teams like we had in our H2H live league last season, its potentially gonna be a lot of extra work for a commissioner. The alternative is to let the dead teams be dead and just let the luck of the draw determing who gets to pad their record against them.

[Rounders Block]

Good idea brought forth guys. I've been at my beach house by San Diego this weekend, so let me shed some light on this real quick:

1) I am very opposed to the alternative of letting the dead teams be dead and just let the luck of the draw determine who gets to pad their record against them, especially when we actually come up with a viable solution the problem. A 8-1 or 9-0 victory against a dead team can really boost a team in the standings, and depending on how close the teams are, it can boost you as much as 2-3 places. Just as we decided to not let the H2H playoffs be the deciding factor in a team's final standing, we should keep it consistent and have the same attitude towards dead teams. Getting a late season handicap in playing one or multiple dead teams should not separate you from another manager, as it really requires little to no skill in coming away with the victory that week. Even the playing field so the order of finish among the actively managed teams isn't skewed by the inactive teams being noncompetitive in matchups.

2) The potential risk of the commissioner being inactive is an important issue as well. I apologize again for my mid-season inactivity last year, but fantasy basketball was far from my mind when my brother passed away. Everyone here knows that I am one of the most active members at the Cafe and can be trusted on to maintain that activity next season. I feel the same way about Buser, jaytizy, and samo as well. I would have no problem giving my ID and password to samo or Buser to take over my commissioner duties if an emergency came up. But designating an assistant commissioner is subjective, because there are only a handful of guys in the Octagon that I actually know well enough to trust with my password. If Buser and jaytizy trust someone in their league with their password then I guess we can go with that, but if not then we can keep it to the EC + jaytizy. Just to let you know I am fine with the assistant commissioner idea. I have no problem giving my password and handing off the duties to Sports4lyf, as I've been good friends with him for 8 years now.

3) Let's keep it to the commissioners handling the inactive teams, I don't think the idea of passing off teams to other managers would work. Potentially, there could be up to 10 teams that go inactive. We would realistically have trouble finding 2 or 3 replacement managers. Keep it systematic.

4) With a competitive dead team, the commissioner should manage it the same way as he would if the team was in dead last. It would defeat the whole purpose if we did a softer job of managing the competitive dead team than the one in dead last. I understand it is unfair that the competitive dead team makes the top 3 or top 6, and hope you can trust the EC to make the correct judgment call. We will make a case-by-case decision whether to keep this team in this top 3 or top 6 group, demote it to a lower division league, or remove the manager from the league all together. It will be determined by things like how long the team was inactive for, the reason for inactivity, and the overall reliability of the manager before this incident. The deserving manager(s) will advance.

5) The suggestion that we ban members from other Cafe leagues isn't feasible. We only hold the EC responsibilities and duties of this league and cannot decide what other commissioners will do with their own leagues. A commissioner of another league could use a manager's inactivity in this league as an excuse to remove the manager from their league, but we don't have (nor really want) the jurisdiction to do so.

And in regards to the issue of how to do it...
- Again I'd like to keep this as systematic as possible to avoid any conflict. I agree with samo that it shouldn't be the commissioner's lone responsibility to spot inactive teams. Everyone in the league should be keeping an eye out. I'm for daily changes instead of weekly changes, and it wouldn't really be a pain in the ass for me. It'll just take it from the hour or so I'll spend on my teams a day to an hour and 15 minutes. Not too big a deal. Lineup setting should be simple -- the top 10 ranked players according to BBM/Yahoo each day. A big reason why I'm with the daily changes instead of the weekly changes is because I'm not down with making add/drops for the team. We are not trying to make this team win the league and do the manager any favors; rather, our goal is to just even the playing field. And I believe that just setting daily lineups will strike a fine balance between leaving the team dead and for the commissioner to be actually managing the team like he would his own.

I feel like there's more to cover, but that's all I have on my mind right now. Let me know if there's anything else.

[Netsfan5]

I absolutely believe that a dead team should not have pick ups made for them. Just the setting of lineups.

Too bad we didn't have this last year when my team went dead for a month or so.

Edit: Why does the angry smile post as a kiss smile?

[jaytizy]

I definitely say no to commissioner authority in ROTO... I also say no to commissioner authority in H2H (though not as whole heartedly as in ROTO).

1) I don't think this league (champions league) will have too much of an inactivity problem.

2) What would be the league authoritys parameters for stepping in? Would it be after 1 day of a manager not setting his lineup properly?... 2 days? ...3 days? It would certainly have to be the latter of those options, because who is to say that if a manager does not play certain players (or even all of his players) on a certain night/s that that's not the direct result of him trying to utilize a particular 'game plan' (IE attempt to win/lose certain cats or sure up the %'s and TO's). And while I realize it would be my duty as a the commissioner to recognize the possibility of the manager utilizing a particular 'game plan'... in many of those cases it would largely be a judgment call. I may play percentages/TO's differently then the manager (in question) of the team in the match up that I am trying to asses.

And even if we decided on a say... 3 days. That would be extremely difficult to enforce with a 100% success rate. Because we're all human here, it's completely feasible that both a league authority and an opposing manager would at some point in time not realize another teams inactivity for 3+ days. Thus leading us to...

3) The inevitable unfairness that this authority will bring. Example:
Billy, a regularly superb and active manager, goes inactive (unannounced) for much of a weekly H2H matchup. Now either 3 things can/will happen from there. 1* , his opposition does the right thing and reports his absence. 2* , his opposition does not report it, and the inactivity carries over a few days into the following week before being noticed by league authority. And finally 3* (this being an unlikely example) the inactivity goes unnoticed and unreported for 2+ weeks before league authority is able to take care of it.

There's obviously a huge problem with all three of those scenarios but IMO mostly in the first. Because 1* is the most likely to happen. Yes the opposing manager did the right thing by reporting the inactivity in due time, but that manager would also stand as the lone beneficiary of that absence. Thus giving him an irreversible 1 week advantage over the rest of the field. And since the prospect of this rule it to finitely manage a league, then that 1 week advantage then becomes immeasurably important to the integrity of this leagues results. In scenario 2*,the result is similar to scenario 1's except now we have 1.5 teams with a decided advantage over the rest of the field. And finally in scenario 3*, our prosthetic has failed completely. We are now at a point of no return. Once two+ teams have unfairly benefited from unannounced inactivity then one could even argue it would be unfair for the rest of the field not to have that same opportunity and/or 'bye week'. Scenario 3 is highly unlikely, but so are the curve balls that life throws at us all. Thus taking me into my next point.

4)While I think this idea is a valiant effort to ensure this league's ultra elite status... I do think it may be a bit too ambitious. For something like this to work it would take all 12 managers working as 1 and being highly active monitoring not only their own team, but their opposition as well. And that's not to say I dont think we couldn't possibly accomplish something like that... but I do think it would be difficult, if not impossible to execute it efficiently enough to avoid all unfair advantages from taking place. And I do stress 'all' because the second one unfair advantage slips by, becomes the second that the attempt to finitely manage this league has failed.

Inactivity is a part of fantasy basketball and fantasy sports in general. While it may be one of it's uglier components, it's still a component.

5) A more direct response to RB's comment,

I'm for daily changes instead of weekly changes, and it wouldn't really be a pain in the ass for me. It'll just take it from the hour or so I'll spend on my teams a day to an hour and 15 minutes

To me there's so much more to this than meets the eye. If my only available time slot in a 3 day period (lets say Fri -Sun) to check/maintain my leagues rosters is late Thursday night... Then I will literally have to set the entire leagues rosters for the next 3 days. Because we all know that many managers sometimes do not get around to setting their lineups until just prior to game times. This also creates a huge rift in the notion that all teams in this league will/have done exactly what they needed to do to be successful. Because no one can foretell the future, I might actually be doing a team more harm then good by setting pre-determined lineups. Which leads me to my next point... When is it ok to hold a fantasy managers real life happenings accountable? This may sound harsh, but it is reality. If I am going into 2008 with the knowledge that my job/school/family schedule will prohibit me from actively and consistently be able to check my fantasy teams/numbers... Then I am going into 2008 knowing full well that I am not going to be as competitive a fantasy manager as Id want to be. We all have lives outside of fantasy sports (shocker, i know). And like it or not those lives inevitably will always find a way to dictate/handicap our fun and games. I think this proposed rule is borderline trying to turn this league into a utopia of sorts. Yes we are protecting the active from the inactive, but we are also eliminating several factors of responsibility and dedication. In other words my fear is that we are lessening the actives accountability by creating a, 'meh, if i dont set my lineups tonight, Jay will'... kind of thing. We might as well just create a machine that will do all our dirty work for us and then all we gotta do is draft and make FA pickups... It just doesnt seem right to me.

Also, at this level of play I think it would be more then fair to assume we are all mature enough and responsible enough to inform our commissioners when/if we must take leaves of absences. Even if that absence is a direct result of lack of interest or lack of 'hope' for winning a league. A simple PM stating your intentions would take less then a minute to do. Whether the particular manager was to inform us that he would be gone for a week, month or the season would not matter. What is important there is that the commissioner could then safely assume full responsibility of that managers team until his return (or the rest of the season if need be).

Of course these are just my initial feelings. I have much more on my mind pertaining to this topic but I'll leave it at this for now. And as a commissioner of the league I will be more then happy to do whatever is instructed of me pending the results of these discussions (whether I like the result or not)

[samo]

Of course these are just my initial feelings. I have much more on my mind pertaining to this topic but I'll leave it at this for now.

I think we needed to hear that perspective. As jaytizy points out, its a tougher call than it might appear on first glance. We want to make these leagues as fair and competitive as possible, but also keep things reasonably simple. Hmmmmm.

No possible way could a commish be expected (or even allowed) to interfere with a team's settings after only three days. When I played those three consecutive inactive teams late last season, I was really at a loss of how to handle it. The primary opponent I was fighting for a spot in the upper league was Dynasty Deacon, and I saw he'd be playing a couple of the inactive teams too. I decided it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie (so to speak) and not mess with anyone's lineup, since I only realized my opponent wasn't setting his lineups halfway through the week, so if I'd set his lineup (basically, moving Lebron and Boozer off the guys bench) I'd already have had the benefit of 4 days of inactivity, and DD would not have had this benefit, so I just left things status quo (even though I wanted to get Bron's TO's into my opponent's column that week, lol).

As jaytizy rightly points out, any attempts to make future matchups more competitive (by setting a dead teams lineups) will fail to address the benefits reaped by the recent opponents of dead teams, who presumably won't be expected to give back any part of their 7-2 or 8-1 win. Sigh.

Lets keep thinking about this. On the one hand, I agree with jaytizy it could be an administrative mess if the number of inactive teams get beyond 1 or 2 and the commish is supposed to set their lineups on a daily basis. On the other hand, while it would be easier just to keep the ten best bbm ranked players set into the dead teams lineup, I'm not sure that would even accomplish very much, since an actively managed team should still be able to crush any team not rotating in its bench players in h2h. So I don't know. Lets keep thinking about it and see how the discussion / brainstorming goes. I appreciate jaytizy taking ownership of this issue and giving us such a good and realistic perspective.

[Rounders Block]

Let's revert back to the original plan and purpose of the commissioner intervention:
To even the playing field so the order of finish among the actively managed teams isn't skewed by the inactive teams being noncompetitive in matchups.

I don't think we would necessarily 'fail' to accomplish this as jaytizy pointed out when he said, "the second one unfair advantage slips by, becomes the second that the attempt to finitely manage this league has failed." Our goal is to minimize the effect of inactivity, not to stop it all together. Think of this like global warming -- the unfair advantage of playing a dead team is like the unfair health benefits future generations would receive. We shouldn't just sit by and do nothing about it when there's a way to fix the problem.

1) We are making a policy for all 3 leagues, not just for the champions league itself. Even though I agree that it will generally be the case that the champions league won't encounter this issue as often as the first division leagues will.

2) I wasn't expecting an instantaneous detection system to be in effect. To be honest I was thinking more week to week than day to day. Plus I would think it'd be fairly obvious when a manager is not setting his lineups -- when he has the same guys playing for more than 3 days at the exact same positions with no other add/drop or trade transactions during that period of time. If you're worried about having to make judgment calls on this then we could put a simple middle of the week check-in policy into effect -- having all the managers post a simple 'here' on the Yahoo league page every Wednesday.

3) The prospect of this rule isn't to finitely manage the league, it is to minimize the effect of dead teams. It is better to have one team receive the unfair advantage and solve the problem of the dead team than letting it go on and having multiple teams reap the benefits. samo's example where he played 3 dead teams at the end of the season is just simply unacceptable. I would say the latter is much, much worse than the first situation.

4) My proposed solution of a mid week check-in would solve this problem of monitoring each team and being able to distinguish the dead teams from the active ones. It is now only each manager's responsibility to check-in instead of everyone's responsibility to be the league watchdogs and keep an eye out.

5)- "Then I will literally have to set the entire leagues rosters for the next 3 days." That's assuming the whole league is inactive, which won't be the case. The proposed solution isn't to set everyone's roster daily, just those of the dead teams.

- "I might actually be doing a team more harm then good by setting pre-determined lineups." Our rule is meant for the good of the league, not for the individual team/manager. We wouldn't be discussing this issue if a dead team had no effect on the competitiveness of the league as a whole. Plus it is safe to make the statement that a dead team has a lower rate of success and competitiveness than a team with its lineup set every day.

- "Yes we are protecting the active from the inactive, but we are also eliminating several factors of responsibility and dedication." I agree with this statement and acknowledged the importance of it earlier. That is why the proposed solution will only have the commissioner setting the dead team's lineups, not making any add/drops or trades. We would be doing the bare minimum in order to find a balance between leaving the team dead and giving the dead team a considerable advantage of an actual active manager.