SDMB Auction Fantasy Football 2011

Last Year’s thread

We are currently recruiting 1 member. We had 2 empty slots last year and had to run the league 10 handed. I’ve already recruited one replacement (D_odds who I know to be reliable from other leagues). I’m assuming the other ten will be back, but if I haven’t heard from them by early August I will look to recruit for their slots - I don’t want to wait too long and then have to run the league short handed like last year.

We’ll proceed as if we expect the NFL season to begin on time, since there’s not really anything else to do.

I picked the same relative day as we drafted last year - the Tuesday a week before the regular season opener. Tuesday, Aug 30, at 9:45pm eastern. We went to later starts last year to help west coasters get home from work, and the east coasters didn’t seem to mind starting late, so unless there are objections I plan on using the same draft times as last year. If there’s a problem with this, speak up now so that we can still get a good draft slot at the right time before they’re all booked.

I plan on using the sunday through tuesday waiver system for free agents that we used last year. Yahoo automatically puts all players on waivers as of 1pm Sunday, so you can submit a claim rather than having the person closest to the computer pick them up as free agents. We’ve done this for a while now. The added rule is that if there are any games that start before Sunday at 1, you can’t pick up those players after their game has begun - you have to wait until they go into the waiver pool on Sunday and put in a claim for them.

I also plan on doing the FAAB waiver system where you start with 100 to bid on players plus whatever leftover money you had from the draft.

I’m also going to keep the commissioner approval on trades for all the reasons I outlined last year. I will automatically and quickly approve any reasonable trade. If there’s something fishy about a trade we’ll discuss it, but there’s no real chance of a trade being rejected in this league - we’re all serious players, no one will say “fuck it” and throw their season, we all know enough not to get ripped off, and as we’ve proved, people tend not to want to rock the boat and vote against trades anyway.

Practically, this means you have later in the week to work out trades. Previously if you worked out a trade on friday evening, that trade wouldn’t go through by the time Sunday’s games started, so you’d be screwed if someone got hurt late in the week or if you just didn’t have time to conduct the negotiations. Now you can make trades up until Sunday morning and still get them through before the game starts.

I’m usually around early Sunday mornings to push trades through, but if you make a very late trade on Saturday night or Sunday morning, I may not be able to approve it in time. If that happens, both of you should make your intent clear “I plan on starting player X I just traded for in place of player Y” and I can retroactively make the rosters reflect that.

If there are any problems with these policies, feel free to voice them and we’ll discuss it.

Yahoo has some new scoring metricsavailable, so we should discuss if we want to use them, and generally any other tweaks we want to make to our scoring system.

Our historical standings:
2007:

  1. Omniscient
  2. Boozahol Squid, PI
  3. LOUNE
  4. SenorBeef
  5. VarlosZ
  6. Chuck (from off board - the roomate)
  7. Ellis Dee
  8. Kiros

2008:

  1. Hamlet
  2. It’s Not Rocket Surgery
  3. Mike (the random dude in our mock draft on ESPN who became part of our league)
  4. SenorBeef
  5. Kiros
  6. Boozahol Squid, PI
  7. Spiritus Mundi
  8. Ellis Dee
  9. Chuck
  10. VarlosZ
  11. Omniscient
  12. RNATB

2009:

  1. Exploding Pancakes (SenorBeef)
  2. New York Fanboys (Ellis Dee)
  3. The One Man League (It’s Not Rocket Surgery)
  4. Orlando Rage (RNATB)
  5. Quentin’s Jammers (Jules Andre)
  6. Overly Sentimental (Chuck)
  7. Show me your TDs (Mike)
  8. Varlos’ Zzzzzz (VarlosZ)
  9. Last Place (Kiros)
  10. The Jackson 4 (Hamlet)
  11. Chicago Cutlery (Omniscient)
  12. Cobra Kai (Boozahol Squid, PI)

2010:

  1. New New York Benders (It’s Not Rocket Surgery!)
  2. Quentin’s JAMmers (Jules Andre)
  3. Exploding Pancakes (SenorBeef)
  4. Varlos’ Zzzzzzz (VarlosZ)
  5. Overly Sentimental (Chuck)
  6. New York Fanboys (Ellis Dee)
  7. Chicago Cutlery (Omniscient)
  8. Show me your TD’s (Mike)
  9. Crowley’s Bentley (Hamlet)
  10. Phoenix Redbirds (dalej42)

I’m NOT going to finish in last place this year.

Anyone have interest in setting up some mock auction drafts? I’d love to do some mocks and I’m usually free on Weds/Sat/Sun.

I like keeping the draft time late for us Pacific Time Zoners. Thankfully, I’m changing to a very early schedule in late August, but the draft times are perfect for me.

We still have one slot to recruit for. I’ll only accept people with some history of being reliable FFers.

I’m interested if the space is still open.

You seem like good people MTRG, but have you done any SDMB fantasy football outside of the big league last year? It’s not a requirement, I’m just trying to size up the experience and participation level of the candidates.

I received an e-mail from Mike/Show me your TDs saying he wouldn’t be able to return this year, maybe next year. So we’ll have two slots open.

What can I say? I have been doing FF for years, ran a league back in the day (before computer scoring!) Recently, been mostly active in baseball and hockey, but felt like I wanted to get back into football.

Got into the league last year. Kind of want a bit more this year.

Got sold on the Auction draft over the past year and want to give it a whirl for football.

Would much rather play with the SDMB gang, since I at least recognize a few of the folks.

If you are concerned about me being active, don’t worry, I work at a computer all day and am not the kind of guy who would drop out.

I’m also interested - I’ve played fantasy football & baseball for 10 years, been commish for the last 3-4 in baseball.

I’ll fight MTRG for the last spot <g>.

Alright. Usually in the auction league I tend to want to find people that have an established history on the SDMB - it’s probably our most competitive league overall (IMO) so it’s not a starter league. But I know MTRG compiled a good year in the big league last year, so that’s cool. I sent you an invite through the normal yahoo channels, tell me if you need the league ID and password.

DragonAsh, you have no history but you do seem to be interested in the sdmb fantasy leagues so I think I may roll the dice on you. I notice you’re from London … it’s essential to attend the draft in an auction draft even moreso than it is for regular drafts. We’ll be drafting at 9:45pm eastern, which I believe would be 2:45am your time. Would you be able to make the draft for sure?

OK Beef, thanks for the go ahead.

Duke’s Devils are now on the roll call. Have the draft on my calendar and can’t wait.

Kind of suprised that you let a Pittsburgh guy join, but hey, guess you have to mix it up a bit.

Dibs on a spot in next year’s auction.

I can’t figure out how I didn’t see this post - did I miss out on the spot?

In any event - yes, a 3am time is fine for me if it’s on the weekend.

I did my first mock auction draft of the year, and, once again, I realized how tough it is to conduct one with the computers running the show. We had 12 players to start, but after guys blew their wads getting three huge names, they’d brag about their great team and then leave. When the computer takes over, you lose any chance of getting your hidden gems on the cheap. It basically comes down to waiting for the computers to fill their rosters with guys you don’t want, and hope the guys you do don’t get nominated.

I imagine that they’re can’t be a whole lot of other options for mock auction drafts though. Anyone know of any, or had better luck on yahoo?

By the by, my team rocked.

  1. Peyton Manning (Ind - QB) $27
  2. Steven Jackson (StL - RB) $28
  3. Calvin Johnson (Det - WR) $39
  4. Larry Fitzgerald (Ari - WR) $34
  5. Green Bay (GB - DEF) $4
  6. Ryan Mathews (SD - RB) $22
  7. Brandon Marshall (Mia - WR) $24
  8. Roy Williams (Chi - WR) $2
  9. James Jones (GB - WR) $2
  10. Mason Crosby (GB - K) $2
  11. Zach Miller (Oak - TE) $7
  12. Kevin Kolb (Ari - QB) $2
  13. James Starks (GB - RB) $2
  14. Reggie Bush (Mia - RB) $1
  15. Jermaine Gresham (Cin - TE) $2

Of course, I thought my team rocked after last year’s draft, so take it for what it is worth.

bah - Mock auction drafts are pretty much meaningless if the PC is running things after the first few picks. Why’d you spend $4 on DEF? And…I mean, no, you’re right. Brilliant strategy! In fact, I think you under-invested in DEF and K. Probably want to focus more of your money there…

Anyone like to get a mock auction draft together from some people from this league? We could set a time to meet on yahoo and hopefully fill enough of the draft room to get a somewhat meaningful auction.

I think it’s a cool idea.

I would really try to make a set time. during the day or evening?

Would have to be in the evening for me as I’m in Pacific time. Friday night maybe? Should be a slow time for mock drafts.

Personally, I think we have to let Boozahol/Cobra Kai have his spot back over someone new. A man so established should be able to have a year off and come back.

My first post, btw. Only took 4 years.

Cobra Kai would be first up because of his history of the league, but he says he’ll be unavailable this year, and that he can play next year. Problem is - if we let in someone new this year, and no one quits, I can’t really boot anyone to make room for him next year. He’d definitely be first up to replace anyone who decided to leave though.

This is copy/pasted from my all-pro post, but we have pretty much the same issues to discuss in this league:
Ok, so let’s discuss any settings changes.

The default trade deadline is Nov 18, right before week 11. I’m inclined to bump it up to its latest date of Dec 2, right before week 13. The main reason for the trade deadline is so that someone can’t just say “fuck it” and dump players to a friend that late into the season when they know they’re screwed. Since none of us are going to do that, I see no reason not to extend the trading season as long as possible - there are still valid, mutually beneficial reasons to conduct trades that late.
Commissioner review of trades and fast tracking, as well as FAAB is detailed in the OP, but speak up if there’s a problem with either.

We can reseed the playoffs. By default, there’s a bracket formed at the start of the playoffs and the bracket will always play out that way. But we could do it like the actual NFL playoffs where every round a new bracket is made so that the top seeds always play the lowest seeds. I’m inclined to turn that on.

We can tweak our current scoring system. There are also new scoring categories added to yahoo this year.

Should we add or change any roster positions?

I assume we’re too firmly established to do anything drastic like start having keepers or drafting defensive players, but if you have any ideas go ahead and voice them.

I like as late of a trade deadline as possible. This isn’t a keeper league and no one in this league is going to trade Michael Vick for a kicker.

I agree with the adjustable seeding. The more benefits given to teams with the better records during the playoffs, the more meaningful the regular season becomes.