Sometimes players are either playing a hybrid role, or in the preseason the fantasy site doesn’t know how to classify a player because their position isn’t set yet. I remember years ago Marques Colston was designated WR/TE in his first year, even though it was clear by the start of the season he was purely a WR. But people used him in their TE slots, which made him more valuable, since WR is a position that generally produced more points than TE.
I’m facing a situation right now where I have Denard Robinson who has become the starting RB of the Jaguars. He’s clearly a RB, yet he carries a WR/RB tag because of ambiguity in the preseason. He would’ve been my best choice in my flex WR slot last week, but I decided not to play him, because I felt like it would be cheesy and gamey to put a guy who was clearly RB into a WR slot that clearly didn’t describe his position.
Does anyone else feel the same way? Or would you simply plug the guy in wherever he was eligible and best helped your team even though it’s clearly not what he’s actually doing? Is it against the spirit of the game?
It’s quite common in fantasy baseball. Of course, position changes in baseball are common. Someone who played a few games at catcher the previous season will keep catcher eligibility for the entire following season.
I’ve seen it in hockey. While LW and RW eligibility is quite common, there’s a few players with both D and Winger eligibility. Dustin Byfuglien kept winger eligibility on Yahoo even during the years he was playing only defense with the Thrashers/Jets
I don’t have a problem with starting people at the other positions but I would draw the line at Joe Webb being classified at QB/WR
That’s what position eligibility is for. That’s like saying people shouldn’t get to draft Jimmy Graham and start him as a TE because he’s clearly lining up as a WR on 90% of snaps. Go for it. You’re playing within the rules that Yahoo has set. I even ran the Joe Webb at WR gambit a few years ago when he was starting. Fantasy Football is about eking out small edges where you can find them. (And not starting both Green and Sanu when Dalton decides to melt down. Dammit.)
I’d play him wherever he was eligible. It’s not like everyone else didn’t know he was eligible at both spots. You might as well say it was unfair to start Michael Vick at QB back in the day because he generated most of his fantasy points by running.
That’s exactly who I thought of. Although the percentage is closer to 67% of the time. So a guy who only spends roughly 1/3 of his time as a TE and 2/3 of his time as a WR, gets a TE designation because … that’s what the Saints want to call him so they don’t have to pay him more money under the franchise tag?
Personally though, I think starting a guy who spends 1/3 of his time at a spot is fine, but it gets really tenuous when the guy only spends maybe one or two snaps a game split out wide (less than many other RB’s) being called a WR. Denard Robinson isn’t a WR, and only has that designation because of an inability to tag his real role when drafting came around. To me, that’s not kosher.
If you’re playing in a money league, or you don’t much care what the guys in your league think, I agree. Take advantage.
But if you’re in a league with a bunch of guys you know and like (which I’m sure is the case of anyone in a league of mine), I think it would be kind of a jerk move to take advantage of what clearly isn’t the reflection of reality.
I have Robinson on one of my teams and I’m playing him at WR. In fact, it is an SDMB league in which SenorBeef also participates.
I picked up Robinson off the wire precisely because he had dual eligibility, not because I wanted to have any investment in the offensive Jaguars. Hell, I’ve had to start Andre Holmes and Davante Adams multiple times so, clearly, I had a hole to fill at WR. Admittedly, I did not consider the moral and ethical ramifications of starting him at the WR position when he is clearly a RB; I just considered it a strategic decision. One that I figured everyone else was considering as well but had chosen to pass on. He was available on the waiver wire after all.
Well, now I have outed myself as a “cheesy and gamey” fantasy player who just wants to win. Once again, my dubious moral character gets the better of me. My apologies to the fantasy community.
Ah yes, Joe Webb is an example, since we’re used to players who run and catch and it’s not quite as odd to combine RB and WR as it is QB and WR. For the purposes of this example, when Joe Webb was starting at QB for Minnesota, would you have put him in the WR slot? Obviously advantageous if he can produce average QB numbers, and yet the positions are so dissimilar that it would be obviously gaming the system rather than justification as some sort of hybrid role.
I don’t see it as cheesy, and will use it to my advantage anytime I can.
Years ago in a hockey keeper league when Bowman and Fedorov were having a dick swinging contest Bowman put him at D as punishment for enough games to make him eligible for D that season and the next. It’s kind of nice having a D slot give over a point a game
Unless you’re grabbing some one in the first round of the draft, everyone has the same chance to use that player to their advantage. The idea that it’s unfair is ridiculous.
He never said it’s unfair. He said it’s not a reflection of reality. Something can break the spirit of the game and not be unfair in the sense that everyone has a chance to do the same thing. But that doesn’t mean it’s good for the game. It’s a choice to follow the letter of the rules rather than the spirit.
This example isn’t quite spot on, but imagine if yahoo had an issue that made them not designate player positions at all. And once the drafts started, and people were drafted under that scenario, they decided to just go with it - no positional labels this year. I realize this is a ridiculous scenario.
Friendly leagues would probably all have people make a normal roster and play players in their correct positions. But there could be a guy who drafted 10 QBs and puts them in every starter position. And then that guy says well you guys could’ve done the same thing, so there’s nothing unfair here.
That’s basically the same thing on a larger scale. The fantasy sports provider, at least for football (I don’t know the validity of this in other sports) only lists players at multiple positions if there’s some uncertainty or ambiguity in the preseason about their positions. When Colston was listed as WR/TE, it was only in his rookie year, and only because they thought the unusually big receiver might be moved to WR, so they covered themselves by having him eligible for either position. Once it was clear they were going to play him as a WR, they kept it the same that year, because they won’t change positions after the drafts already begin, but fixed it the next year.
To me, going with the letter of the rules against the spirit of the rules is a violation of the social contract of playing a friendly game. You could argue that in some sort of tournament setting, or for against strangers for money, or something like that - then any technically legal move should stand. But in a friendly setting it seems wrong to me, so I won’t do it.
To be clear, while I’m fine with starting Robinson as a WR, I’m against other legal-but dickish moves, like add-dropping all playable RBs on a Saturday when your opponents starting RB gets hurt, so they have no one to pick up (churning the wire). I guess everyone draws the line a little differently.
Well you clearly have strong feelings on the issue. The fact that you even started this thread, the characterization of it as an “ethical” issue, designating players who feel differently than you do as “cheesy and gamey” and as “violating the social contract of a friendly game” underscore the gravity of whether Denard Robinson catches passes out of the backfield or off the line of scrimmage.
C’mon man, seriously?
I agree, your scenario is ridiculous. Here are a couple that are slightly more realistic.
It’s been reported that your opponent’s #1 RB has a gimpy ankle and is questionable for Sunday. In a stunning lack of foresight, your opponent has failed to handcuff his RB and the backup is on the wire. Using either your superior free agent dollars or higher waiver priority, you scoop up the backup and stash him on your bench with no intention of starting him. Ethical? Cheesy and gamey? A violation of the social contract?
It’s Monday afternoon and you are currently leading your opponent by a single fantasy point. (S)he is finished for the week and all you have left is your D. Not wanting to risk negative numbers, you bench your D and take the zero, thus guaranteeing the win. Ethical?
You have a great fantasy team but have a bye week nightmare, a couple of injuries, and terrible matchups for your remaining starters. To fill your starting lineup you’ll have to drop a guy you’d really rather not have to because you know he’ll be snatched up off the wire as soon as he’s available to the rest of the league. You choose to just concede the week and not fill out the roster and then be back at full strength the following week? Ethical?
My feelings on the issue actually aren’t that strong, and that’s why I created the thread. If no one else agreed with me, and everyone else thought it was silly, then I was going to go ahead and use Robinson as a WR, if that’s what people consider a normal part of your game.
I don’t find any of your scenarios unethical. I guess the difference in this case is that the only reason (most) hybrid players are classified that way because there is some ambiguity before it gets cleared up, and by the time it gets cleared up, the fantasy site is unwilling to make changes to players that are already drafted. So you make a move knowing that move wouldn’t exist if not for that fleeting ambiguity that is now gone.
So it exploits an informational flaw that would be fixed if not for other limitations, and it also ruins the verisimilitude of the game. Fantasy football’s premise is based on that - that it somewhat resembles a reflection of the real game it’s following. When you start playing people obviously out of position, it breaks that connection. So do other things like two QB leagues, but I think the fact that it’s combined here with exploiting an outdated informational ambiguity pushes it over the edge.
I guess your 2 also breaks the verisimilitude of the game, and I know some people are indeed uncomfortable with doing that. I don’t think I’ve ever sat a defense like that, and in fact I think I’ve played one before in that situation where it opened me to risk, but I wouldn’t fault someone else for doing it.
Hmmm… now that’s in interesting point. I suppose I was looking at the dual position eligibility as an additional layer of information/strategy when evaluating whether or not I want a player. Something akin to also considering his natural abilities, the system he plays in, his QB, the efficiency of the offense, his injury history, is he in a timeshare, does he stay in on 3rd down, etc.
As far as my three scenarios. I don’t find any of them unethical either. I mean, it’s a pretty simple strategy game - you try and win as many weeks as you can and make the playoffs and win the championship, whether it’s a money league or not or whether it’s with long time buddies or on the internet. As long as you’re making decisions with that goal in mind, then I don’t have a problem with it. Wire churning is bullshit but I don’t think there is any ambiguity with that.
If Denard Robinson was as versatile in real life as the positions he’s been listed at in fantasy and actually played the WR position, then there shouldn’t be a problem. But he’s not. He’s a running back, who, almost exclusively, plays the running back position. He just happens to have an additional designation because no one knew that he would be playing the RB position almost exclusively. It’s the extra designation, not his versatility, that is the problem.
I can see Beef’s concern, and I don’t entirely disagree. It is a little gamey. However, since everyone exploits it when they luck into situation like this – and since many people value players with hybrid position listings more highly for just this reason – I don’t think there’s any obligation not to use Robinson as a WR. We’ll all just take turns being gamey in this way when the opportunity presents itself, and in the long run no one is harmed.
I think those are all fine. Only #1 strikes me as at all questionable.
In a stunning case of cosmic retribution for gaming the system… both of my benched WRs (Anquan Boldin and Mike Evans) outscored Robinson and my QB blew out his knee. Sorry Carson. I may have won the week but lost the war.
Personally, I am not bothered by fantasy being dissimilar to real football. There are many ways that it could be made more true to football, but league designers generally don’t. In real football, QBs and defenses are much more important than in fantasy, but if their importance were boosted, it would reduce the strategic options. Admittedly, Denard Robinson seems more like Yahoo’s mistake than intentional design consideration, but Yahoo had still made the intentional decision that if they can’t figure out a player’s position, they’ll give them a dual position and not correct it when the position becomes clear. As a disclaimer, I don’t find much in fantasy football to be unethical outside of collusion, assuming that the rules are set up well to prevent add/drop churn to lock up the waiver wire
