SDMB FF Dynasty League: Year Five

The Game Room
21

So this is gonna surprise you guys, but I’m pretty high on my team this year.

QB:
Aaron Rodgers. Top 3 fantasy finish barring injury.

Backup: Weeden. I think he’ll finish top 20 this year under better coaching. Eh, I literally had no backup QB last year, what are you gonna do.

WR:
DeMaryius Thomas. 4th year WR, #6 scorer last year, healthiest he’s been in his career. Top 10 finish pretty likely.

Josh Gordon. I’m really high on him, surprise surprise. Too bad he’s usually high. 2 game suspension at least and may be a dumbass. But I seriously think he’ll put up top 15 per game numbers this year, he’s got crazy talent and Weeden is bound to be less retarded with good coaching.

James Fucking Jones. You wouldn’t guess it but he was the #17 scoring WR last year with 14 TDs. Likely to repeat? Probably not, but someone in GB has to catch all those TDs.

Jordy Nelson. Came back down to Earth after a great 2011. Makes me wonder what’s in store for his future. Solid WR2?

Lance Moore. Here’s another guy in the top 25 that you wouldn’t really think of.

Other WRs: Davone Bess, Stephen Hill, Kevin Ogletree, Donnie Avery, Keshawn Martin, David Nelson.

RB:

Trent Richardson - put up pretty decent fantasy numbers despite playing the whole season with 3 broken ribs in a retarded offense that always tipped off when it was a running play. Norv Turner makes him his plaything and he puts up top 5 RB numbers.

LeSean McCoy - consistently among of top tier RB producers.

Ryan Mathews - Yeah, alright, consistent disappointment, but one of the better RB3s in the league. One of these years he has to put it all together.

Daryl Richardson/Isaih Pead - I’m not sure which one, but one of them is likely to get the Rams starter spot. I guess RBBC is the big worry here. Considering I can use the more productive one as my RB4, not a bad situation.

James Starks - yeah, well, he had a good game once.

TE -
Rob Gronkowski - not sure when he’s coming back, but he’s going to be a top tier producer again.

Jermichael Finley - every year he disappoints me.

Jordan Cameron - someone has to play TE for the Browns, and he’s one of those ex-basketball athletic projects. If anyone can turn him into gold, it’s Chud/Norv. So boom or bust here. May end up surprising.

Everything else: Dan Bailey, Atlanta, St. Louis, Cleveland.

Meh. I actually think Cleveland will be a pretty decent fantasy D/ST this year, lots of sacks. I’ll play matchups. Kicker, who cares.

Overall my roster is really strong. I could use a premium tier defense certainly, and if I could trade some of my WR potential for a proven stud that’d be nice, but overall I’m looking pretty good. QB is top 5 at worst. McCoy/Richardson probably the 2nd or 3rd best RB combo. Thomas/Gordon and Moore/Jones/Nelson has to be an above average WR unit. I probably have the top TE unit overall.

I see myself as one of the top 3 scorers again this year.

22

I’m looking to make trades. I’m willing to move LeSean McCoy and take my chances figuring out the Rams RB situation as my RB3. It’d take a premium WR and probably something else, maybe a top defense or a promising young WR or RB in return.

I’m willing to trade multiple WR pieces for a higher tier WR. Everyone is up for grab. Maybe something like Nelson/Moore for a top 15 WR kind of guy?

23

How we’ve finished throughout the years, 2009-2012, ranked by average finish



	2009	2010	2011	2012	
stringer	2	1	2	4	2.25
hamlet	3	5	10	1	4.75
beef	12	3	1	3	4.75
furt	5	7	6	2	5
bailey	4	8	3	6	5.25
petey	8	4	5	5	5.5
rnatb	1	6	7	11	6.25
varlos	7	9	8	7	7.75
retro	9	11	4	9	8.25
dale	6	6	12	10	8.5
ellis	11	2	9	12	8.5
mh/omni	10	10	11	8	9.75
24

I like the “If you traded a late pick you don’t have, you must trade the next highest pick you have available” rule. I think that fixes almost all of the objections. But I also think there isn’t going to be much value in late round future picks during the season. Right before the draft, sure. But I think during the season, any of us that might swap players for picks will only be talking first rounders.

25

Does anyone know of any sites that’ll let you do a private mock draft? Yahoo has practice mock drafts, but there’s no way to keep them limited to a certain group of people as far as I know. I think it’d be really interesting to do a mock draft of a totally new dynasty draft. What we’ve learned, how it’d play out, just for fun. If we can somehow schedule a mock draft on a free site, let’s try that sometime.

26

I’m shocked. Truly, I am.

But I have a good feeling about my team too. I picked two potentially great WRs in the draft last year (Alshon Jeffery and Rueben Randle) and both are being projected for 750/5. If they go beyond that, I could be looking at a huge traffic jam at WR this year (especially since my “Steve Smith Can’t Catch Every Pass in Carolina” plan has to work eventually).

27

In not very high on my team.

You can have any three players not named Bush on my roster.

28

Disagree strongly on giving people with roster holes free draft picks. Let them fill their holes on the waiver wire like everyone else. Giving them waiver-free picks for draft picks they don’t have is charity.

29

They have to have picks because yahoo won’t let you draft a partial roster.

30

In that case, trades have to be balanced otherwise people who trade away draft picks get free draft picks back, while the person they trade them to will lose out on picks they should get.

Imagine I trade away my last 2 picks in next year’s draft for some scrub. Next year’s draft rolls around and I get a free 2 picks at the end of the draft. What did I trade away, exactly?

31

Well yeah, that kind of trade won’t work. Even if we allow them to trade non-specified draft picks, it would in that particular case have to be “the two picks before my last two (which are in effect going to you)”.

It’s good that we talk out the various scenarios now.
I’m hesitant to throw in a new level of potential complexity, but another option to keep these trades numerically balanced would be to borrow the concept of the Player To Be Named Later from baseball. So, for example:

It’s the middle of this season and I’m in full rebuilding mode with a 1-6 record. I trade Larry Fitzgerald to Justin_Bailey in exchange for Reuben Randle, Jared Cook, and his 2014 1st Rounder. Instead of sending him my 5th Round pick or whatever to balance next year’s draft, we agree on a list of 3 minor players from my rosters, then at the start of the next offseason he picks one of those players to complete the trade. (I guess I wouldn’t be allowed to drop any of these guys w/o Justin’s ok, so it would be a bad idea to make this kind of deal at the start of the season.)

This would generally provide more value to the team in Justin’s position than any one of those three players or my 5th Round pick, since he get’s to see which (if any) have improved their stock in the intervening months. It could also be used as the whole point of a trade: maybe Justin has 3 prospect types that I like, but I’m having a crap season and have no use for them this year, so I trade him a Fitzgerald-type in exchange for the right to pick from one of them at the start of next year (and he get’s my 5th rounder to balance it out).

32

Also, I’m looking for a starting RB in the trade market. I can mostly offer multiple young players to teams with an eye towards the future, but there are a couple of established players for teams who think they have a shot this year. Some of the young guys can be had a relatively small investment: I need a RB with some value this year, even if his long-term prospects are dim.
Established Players: This is basically just Larry Fitzgerald and Randall Cobb. Neither is cheap, of course, but both are realistically available.

Young pieces:

Kenny Britt – Flashes of brilliance, has been derailed by injuries so far. He’s healthy now, big potential.

Justin Blackmon – Had 865 receiving yards (615 in his last seven games), as a rookie (5th overall pick), on a lousy team. The day will come, and soon, when Jacksonville is not an offensive black hole. Simple mediocrity would be more than enough to make Blackmon a very good fantasy player.

Emmanuel Sanders – 26 years old, and the clear-cut starting WR2 in Pittsbburgh.

Mohammed Sanu – 24 years old, starting WR2 in Cincy, and with the whole secondary focused on AJ Green, he only has to be average to start putting up Top-25 fantasy WR seasons.

Michael Floyd – Huge talent, last year’s 13th overall pick, now with a competent QB in Arizona.

**Jon Baldwin **-- 24 years old, 1st Round pick two years ago, now starting opposite Dwayne Bowe.

Robert Turbin – Clear-cut backup to Marshawn Lynch; one injury away from being one of the most valuable fantasy RBs in the league.

Shane Vereen – With the recent exodus/injury/incarceration of offensive skill position players, someone has to get the leftover touches in New England. The former 2nd Round pick is a good bet, and his stock is rising.

Jonathan Stewart, Michael Crabtree: Both are likely to miss the first half of the season, so this is about next year. Crabtree in particular looks good long term: finally has a dynamic QB throwing passes, and SF isn’t exactly swimming in good WR options.

33

That list of three players thing is too complicated. If it’s just for numerical balancing, make it any player the sending team wants to get rid of.

34

We’re way overthinking the trade thing. Moving the unused spots to be filled at the end of the draft is an elegant solution to the problem. You’re only getting players no one chose after they concluded their drafts. It’s not exactly a huge advantage to pick from the dregs to fill out your roster. It’s what you’d do by picking up free agents after the draft anyway.

35

I’ve got Cam Newton available for trade, looking for a WR.

I’m liking my team going into this season the most during this league’s history.

QB Drew Brees
RB CJ Spiller
RB Lamar Miller
TE Jimmy Graham

I’m weak at WR, but that’s a position that is easier to fill. Sidney Rice might have a decent year if Harvin is hurt seriously.

36

No, it’s not, and that’s the heart of my objection to unbalanced trades. At the end of the draft all the players go on waivers and you have to spend waiver dollars to pick anyone up for the first 2 days. Giving someone free draft picks at the end of the draft is a real, tangible benefit in that they totally circumvent this process.

Consider it this way: Does anyone ever pick up any players from the waiver wire after the draft? Ever? If it happens even once, then free draft picks at the end of the draft is way too much value to hand out for free.

I am strongly opposed to unbalanced future draft pick trades.

37

I tend to agree with this, but how do you get around Yahoo to implement?

38

Require all trades to send an equal number of draft picks in each direction.

39

With our method, draft picks are created arbitrarily depending on how many players you want to cut. If you cut 5 guys instead of 4, boom, you created a draft pick. They aren’t inviolate and holy, they’re granted based on how we’ve decided to work the system. All of these proposals are essentially arbitrary decisions as to when to create draft picks, which we already do. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’m saying you tend to create mindsets in which you’re determined that one arbitrary thing is the objectively right way to do things when it’s really just a matter of how we agree it should be run.

I happen to think that the flexibility of having fewer limitations on trades is better for the league than not sufficiently punishing someone who traded away some picks by giving them freebies at the end of the draft. For instance, let’s say a guy only cuts 3 players, but he’s trying to trade for the second round pick of someone else. Well, he’s forced to send his third rounder as part of the exchange for the second rounder, which significantly devalues higher pick - it essentially becomes moving up a round rather than gaining a fresh second rounder. There are a lot of potential trades it would inhibit. In comparison, grabbing a few players at the tail end of the draft when only dregs are left and everyone has made all the picks they want is fairly minor.

That said, I don’t really care about this. I’ll propose an alternate solution: Yahoo requires you to have full rosters to finish the draft, yes. But we can just have the person who had insufficient picks to fill up his roster draft random/arbitrary players at the end of the draft, and the commish can remove those players from his roster immediately after the draft, and then he has to use his FAAB dollars like everyone else to put waiver claims out to fill his roster.

I think that solution addresses everyone’s concerns. You can balance trades if you want to, but you don’t have to. You can finish the draft with empty roster spots, we just have to trick yahoo temporarily to allow that to happen. Then everyone is on waivers and up for grabs for FAAB.

40

Yeah, I can’t see how this wouldn’t work.