I like that idea a lot better.
I was actually thinking of something like an expansion draft: what if each team was able to poach a player of its choice from the next team up, in turn, until the league champion, who could get an extra first-round pick as compensation?
We could set it up so that each team can protect up to 7 players, or something. I have no idea if Yahoo! lets you do this, of course.
I’d suggest that it’s not a good idea at this point to change the keeper rules, since we’ve pretty much settled from the start that you could keep up to your entire roster, and people may have already used roster spots on players on IR that they like and such who they may not have kept if they’d lose them at the end of the year in a numbers crunch anyway.
I suggested the idea of bottom teams being able to poach from top teams as a parity mechanism but it didn’t seem to enjoy any support.
I personally am not that concerned about parity - I’m not doing too well, but it’s in part because I didn’t have a very good draft, I haven’t put much effort into trading yet, and also because my team is fairly forward-looking and not built to win now. I’m prepared to tough it out with the team in the hopes that it improves or I can make trades.
It’s just that our current division structure is arbitrary anyway and not worth preserving, and grouping by success seems logical to me, since it’s a way to affect parody without directly forcing crippling factors onto people like limited keeper spots or having your players poached. You could say it sucks that only 2 people from a division can make the playoffs, but that’s more of a criticism of a division system in general.
Why not just switch to the normal Yahoo! everyone-in-a-bucket deal then?
Well, that’s an option too I suppose. I’m liking divisions so far but I’m not too attached to the idea. But reorganizing divisions by strength seems like a slam dunk idea to me. We’ve only heard from 4 of us about it - what does everyone else think?
All divisions in every sport are arbitrary. Life’s tough if you’re the worst guy in the best division, but at least you can snark on the other guys and how they have it easy. Hopefully over time you build rivaries. Plus it adds a dimension to trading; I am extra-reluctant to trade in my division, lest that guy kick my ass twice a year for the next however many years.
Realigning divisions annually is not done in any sport that I know of, and there are reasons; for one it sets up all sorts of peverse incentives. If you barely make it in the playoffs and lose, you are effectively punished by being forced to play the best teams again next year. More importantly, people who decide that they aren’t going to make the playoffs would be fools to not start tanking games, so they can get into the “easy division” next season.
One less keeper out of 15 or 20 is not “crippling.” It’s quite minor, in fact, and I say that as a guy who only has 3 or 4 guys who are non-keepers. Combine that with a losers-first draft, and I think you’ve done enough for parity.
My initial reaction is negative. I like the idea of building up rivalries over time, and I’m not wild about the sort of artificial parity that the realignment is aiming for. That said, if most people really wanted to do it, I would be fine with yielding.
Hmmm. Let’s have a look at my roster:
Guys in bold are obvious keepers. Guys in italics are possible keepers- Cadillac may end up getting downgraded to possible since his contract is up this year, and he’d be a lot less useful as, say, the #2 in Detroit, as opposed to the sometime #1 in Tampa.
I just inked a trade with Hamlet which will send Brandon Marshall and Chris Cooley out and bring in Owen Daniels and Josh Morgan. Daniels is obviously an instant keep; Morgan might or might not become a keep depending on what he does over the second half, and whether Meachem starts living up to his first-round -pickhood.
By my count, that’s 13 sure-fire keepers (including Cadillac) and 4 possible keepers- well under the roster limit even if some are taken away. Granted, Ahman Green and the Tampa defense certainly won’t be on my roster at season’s end, and Detroit probably won’t unless they can keep up their surprisingly good pass rushing numbers.
That means I’ll be adding a ton of players who are currently rookies via waivers just to fill out my keeper roster- since obviously it’s easier to pick up and stash them now than draft them later.
Rosters that need adjustment:
New York Fanboys
Deliverance
Hamlet
Warner’s Brothers
There was a trade issue where the players weren’t sure when it would go through, and made their intentions clear. If they don’t get a chance to adjust their rosters manually then their wishes (I assume) will count since they stated them clearly. Varlos, you can approve trades in less than 2 days if you switch it the review from league votes to commissioner approval. The way I do it is that I announce trades, give people a day or so (time permitting) to register any complaints - longer if it seems like it’ll be a controversial trade - and then push it through. It’s mostly a formality since we’re all acting in good faith and the majority of trades don’t really require much review.
Trade went through this morning, and Hamlet has activated Marshall, so we’re good.
Son of a bitch! I trade for Owen Daniels and is on my team for six freakin’ plays before spraining his knee.
You are lucky it wasn’t Steve Slaton putting up 150 yards and 3 TDs like it was supposed to happen, Ellis.
Frank Gore is back baby! Now begins my long climb out of mediocrity.
I (Warner’s Brothers) accepted a trade from Fightin’ Quakers. Quakers trades Devery Henderson, Jonathan Stewart and Seattle D to Warner’s Brothers for the Arizona D.
A step down in defense for me, but I’m hurting at running back. I also grabbed Jake Delhomme as a free agent. That way, I won’t ever have to start JaMarcus Russell again.
I posted on the league page, but I’ll repost it here - WTF? He’s giving up two productive players and a productive defense with a terrific matchup for… the Cardinals defense?
Here is my post on the league page:
Well, I do think Arizona will have a much better defense going forward. Whiz wanted their D-coordinator out of there last year. I’ll play with Seattle but I’m also thinking of picking up the Tampa D as I think they have talent but aren’t playing the right system.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever voted against a trade, but I’m voting against this one. I don’t expect any sort of collusion – at all – but the trade seems *extremely *unbalanced.
furt, what was the thought process here? Seattle and Arizona’s defenses have performed almost identically so far – 9.4 points per game vs. 9.8 per game. So, in exchange for a tiny upgrade in your second best DEF, you’ve given up two high-upside youngsters, in a dynasty league? Put another way, you’re trading your 3rd and 15th Round picks for dale’s 19th Round pick . . . and it’s not like a whole lot has changed for these players since the draft.
Just a heads-up: if the trade doesn’t get voted down then it should stand, but I think in this case I have to send a message out to the league asking everyone to make sure and take a look at it.
Outside of posts on the SDMB, I don’t know furt. I do like Arizona’s defense more than Seattle and I think they’re only going to get better. I picked up Tampa’s D off the free agent list as I think they’re likely to improve in the future, but I’ll play with Seattle’s this year unless Tampa makes a major turn around.
I did vote against it, for the record. Stewart is furt’s fifth running back, and he doesn’t have a sixth on his roster. Henderson is basically his fourth wideout.
He has the Chicago and San Fran defenses, both of which are arguably more valuable than Arizona’s.
There’s no way I can parse this as a fair trade.
I could understand making the trade in a regular league. Certainly it isn’t one that I would make, but Henderson and Stewart probably aren’t starting a whole lot of games for anyone *this *season, and if you really like Arizona’s defense for some reason then ok, whatever. But in a league where you get to hold on to the highly drafted youngsters on awesome pass and rush offenses, respectively – and where, going forward, who the hell knows if Arizona will be any better than Seattle – I just can’t grok the trade.
Stewart is a moderately-high-upside back, but look at the rest of my roster. I have keepers coming out my ass. Stewart is my 5th best RB and probably my 14th-best keeper. Yeah, he’s useful, but not essential to my plans. I’ve had him on my list as my prime trade bait for the whole season. Devery Henderson is my 6th best WR and probably 18th best player overall. Neither of them has been in my starting lineup even once this year. I included Seattle’s D since I was trading for the only one he had and there was not much in the FA pool.
Arizona’s defense is only pretty good, but I think they’re getting better and I might keep them. Certainly, they have several easy matchups coming up. But far more importantly: after last week, I think I’m in excellent shape for the playoffs. Arizona’s matchups during the two weeks of the playoffs? St. Louis and Detroit.
Yeah, I slightly overpaid. But y’know what? I get frustrated with the fact that people don’t counteroffer, or don’t communicate as to why they don’t want to make a given trade, or who they will or won’t trade, or they take four days to consider an offer … fuck it. It seems like the only way to get a trade done is to overpay (I’m taling about most of my leagues in general, not just this one), and for me, trades are part of the fun. And then there’s the fact that we still don’t know how many players we’ll get to keep. All of them? 15? 17? Fuck it, I might not be able to keep Stewart anyway.
Vote against it or not, whatever. But it’s hard to get a sense of what players are worth when we don’t know the rules.