5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:13 pm

I was wondering the same thing. It certainly seems difficult, but that may just be that each year everything just really comes together for someone...or vice versa. I mean my pitching staff is better on paper than last year's and its awful. It was easily the best in the league last year.

Kraftster
Posts: 2073
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:22 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kraftster » Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:36 am

I guess we never passed the Kicksave team back to Kicksave. Should we even bother at this point? Kicksave, were you just offering to stand in for the season, or did you want to jump back in?

Kicksave
Posts: 3113
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:41 pm
Contact:

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kicksave » Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:48 am

I offered to stand in for the season, knowing that I probably would get sucked back in full time. Now that I can actually communicate with you guys, it probably would make things 100x easier for me.

Kraftster
Posts: 2073
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:22 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kraftster » Thu Jun 11, 2015 8:50 am

OK, I'll figure out how to give you management credentials.

Troy Loney
Posts: 27522
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:03 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Troy Loney » Thu Jun 11, 2015 2:14 pm

I offered to stand in for the season, knowing that I probably would get sucked back in full time. Now that I can actually communicate with you guys, it probably would make things 100x easier for me.
Do you want to take over my team?

beerman
Posts: 420
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 6:13 am

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby beerman » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:12 pm

I’ve been thinking about this league and the enjoyment/competitiveness level of it for a little while now. I noticed the couple posts over the last page or two and Cooper and I were talking about it a little the other evening.

I'll start by saying that I think the biggest issue is participation or lack-thereof. I'm not sure if we need to try and find a few new owners who are willing to really keep up with a team or if we need to try and tweak the rules of the league so that teams have an easier time competing and half the league isn't out of it by early May. I saw Kraftster's post asking about roto leagues and if they're always this difficult to make up points? In my experience they aren't, but this one seems to bury at least half the league a month in. Once again I think this probably turns back to the participation issue. I've never really been in a roto league where the bottom several teams stink in every category. Most times each team at the bottom is stealing points from the top tier in at least a category or two. That helps the teams in 2-5/6 place have more areas where they can try and get back into it and gain on the leader. I don't think it's a big issue if on occasion a team runs away and wins this league by a wide margin, wire to wire, but that's the rule here rather than the exception.

To me this is really starting to take away the enjoyment of the league and has for some time. A league of this depth with majors/minors and contracts should be a lot more in depth and fun. I really don't think it's a time commitment issue for the most part. Personally, I don't think this league commands much more time than the other standard keeper league I'm in. The only area where it does is the draft because you've got to cover a much wider range of players but I think it balances out some because we pick less players due to the contracts and it's spread out over a month so you can really take your time and continue research as it moves along.

It's pretty frustrating to see that most teams seem resigned to their position already. Colby already said he doesn't really have an incentive to try and buy, I don't disagree with him given the way the standings are set-up, but from a big picture view that really sucks. 1/3 of the way through the season and we may as well call it now. No team in the middle or bottom of the pack can attempt to sell and improve for next year.

So that was all a round-a-bout way of saying I think we can make this league a whole lot better. I’m not necessarily advocating for major changes, maybe all we need are a couple different owners or maybe we don’t change anything. What I’m hoping though is that we can at least throw a bunch of different ideas out on the table now in the hopes of making this league more competitive. If we don't start trying to improve it now we'll probably go into next year with the same state of the league and I think it can and should be better without much more effort at all. I thought of a few potential idea's which I'll list in a separate post so this doesn't turn into a novel. I'm not even sure I like all the ideas but they're just to get the ball rolling on league improvement.

TLDNR version: This league is boring and half the league doesn't care, the champion is pretty much decided by May, isn't it time we re-evaluate and try to improve it?

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:15 pm

Yeah, my team is putrid, i shouldnt be bouncing around near the top of the league. Im nust grinding it out by being active.

beerman
Posts: 420
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 6:13 am

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby beerman » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:38 pm

-Head to Head
I generally hate this format for baseball but it might keep this league a little more interesting throughout. I think a h2h format with playoffs, maybe two divisions, could really help the competitiveness and attention span of the league. Maybe we can't ever get every team to pay attention all year long but I think this could keep more teams involved. Even though you can climb back from a bad month to month and a half in roto, it just really looks daunting when there's a ton of points separating you from the top especially if you aren't overly familiar with the format. This maybe makes it seem more feasible by stringing together a few good weeks. In the end this would have more teams feeling like they could contend and wanting to buy rentals and give up more prospects which in turn makes it more interesting for the teams that are out of it.

-More categories
(K for hitters, avg/ops – holds, k/bb).
Just a couple potential ones there. K for hitters is interesting that it ends up being a negative mark depending on how many swing for the fence type guys you run out there. It keeps you from being able to go power at all costs and here with league participation a potential issue, it will skew the top teams downward some and help raise up point totals for lesser teams. I don’t think average should be added alongside the existing obp (I prefer obp anyway) however what if we were to switch from obp to avg and then add ops (obp and ops are probably a little too redundant but I wouldn't be against it)? I think adding holds or switching to saves+holds would be a nice add, especially with the structure and depth of this league. I think it makes the best relievers valuable rather than just a small sub-set. I dislike it when a guy like Addison Reed is more valuable than say Tony Watson (at the draft anyway). K/bb can vary dramatically from just K’s and it seems like the ratio stats offer the least predictability (speaking in terms of the best staffs in counting stats don’t always translate to best ratio’s).

-Bigger rosters and/or maybe a farm only spot
I think I’ve pitched this idea a few years ago but larger rosters both in terms of spots on the team, increase from 22 to say 24 or 25. But also an extra starting spot or two? The farm only spot would have to be tightly managed as there wouldn’t be a yahoo setting to police it but it would basically be an extra spot on your roster that you could only fill internally. There’s a bunch of good prospects out there that could be used to help teams but instead they sit on the waiver wire until they reach 500ab/200ip. Bigger rosters in general would help with this, I counted 31 top 150 players and 14 top 100 players that are available via free agency. Some of these are prospects but many aren’t. If the roster size increases why not add an extra utility (maybe also an OF spot) and then on the pitching side a 4th regular P slot?

-More free agency moves
I know we decreased this a few years ago and for good reason. However, I think if we could figure out a way to allow teams to make a few more free agency moves throughout the season it would be beneficial to competitiveness. As I stated above there are 31 players rated in the top 150 that could be of help to teams. The yahoo rating system has it’s flaws but I’d venture to guess we could find plenty of guys on rosters who shouldn’t be owned and could be upgraded. I don’t think we go to an unlimited move system but finding a way to allow for a few more transaction wouldn’t be a bad thing either. Maybe we dump the buyout years, we’d have to factor those in elsewhere as cap penalties or something, and go to a cap on the number of transactions.

A potential idea but quite a dramatic change: We raise the cap a little say 55 or 60, but with it abolish the free buyout options. If you choose to buyout players you have the ability to do so but the contract continues to count against your cap all year (small wrinkle could remove the cap hit if someone else signs them) once you hit the top of the cap you can no longer make moves. In this scenario you'd be able to make as many moves as your salary cap allows you to make. If you start the year with an older squad on short term deals you'd have the luxury of being able to make a bunch of changes. If you manage the cap like the Pens you might make a move or two but your otherwise screwed.

-Less time for prospects
This is tied a bit to the above numbers with the number of top players available. In some cases it’s extremely helpful to have the extra time to evaluate a player and in others it just results in a top guy riding the pine. Joc Pederson, Kris Bryant those guys don’t require evaluation and we should try and find ways to get them on teams. I don’t think the numbers need drastically changed and going to something like service time instead of ab/ip is probably way too messy but I think we could improve this.

What if prospects could be added to the MLB roster at anytime with no penalty? Currently, you need to have an injury occur to do this but what if they are just available? You have full control of them until the first offseason after they reach their milestone 500ab/200ip and then you must sign them. We could make a cap that you could only do this a set number of times, we wouldn’t want someone to have 8 free prospects and stock up on a bunch of long term deals.

-Draft lottery
It would help discourage tanking a little bit. Last place gets 11 balls, 10th get 10, etc. Not a perfect system but not a straight “if I don’t check my team for 4 months I get the first pick” kind of thing that we have going now.

This would also work well if we did a h2h with playoffs, only playoff teams get in the lottery and everyone else goes in order of finish.

Another potential solution if we stay with roto. In my money league as a way to keep interest we decided to take away the payout for 4th place (your money back) and give it to the team that gains the most points over the last month of the year (teams placing in the money, top 3, were excluded). This meant that even teams who couldn't win it had something to play for in the final month. Last year was the first year we played under these rules and it really made a difference. For this league without money maybe the top point getter could get the first pick in the following years' draft. We should probably exclude top 2 or 3 but it really gives incentive for everyone to try and stick it out and have something to play for at the end. Incentive to try and move up rather than suck as badly as you can.

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:03 pm

I think maybe dropping UT and adding IF and another OF could work.

Also as far as prospects...i dont know how to do that. let them hold a spot on the roster the same way you would now as a dl fill in? so they operate basically on a sliding 1 year contract until they cross threshold?

Kraftster
Posts: 2073
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:22 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kraftster » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:20 pm

I'm on board with improving the league. The year things were close was so much fun. I'm not even having that much fun this year with a good team because it seems half the league is done, so nothing's going to change.

My opinion would be its a manager issue and if we fix that and there are still problems then we'll know we need to do more. Doesn't seem like there's angthj g intrinsic with the league that would make it that much harder to make up ground.

But, can we get a bunch of new people? Seems like Cooper is in for good. no offense to these guys but loaf, schreib, Kicksave team seem to be consistent nonparticipants. I know CBear has had some injury issues, but has looked like waning interest after draft/first month.

Separately, I wouldn't mind adding a position or two and a 12th team back if we could.

Sam's Drunk Dog
Posts: 6707
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 7:10 pm
Location: Less Coronavirus; More Donnie Iris
Contact:

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Sam's Drunk Dog » Fri Jun 12, 2015 7:08 am

I am open to any changes, but wouldn't be down with anything that makes the offline process anymore complicated.

I think moving to head to head would be the simplest fix and would keep teams in it for longer. We could also keep points in the equation by having the two top teams based on points receive first round byes in the playoffs.

The biggest issue for me when it comes to roster upgrades is that with the minor leaguers not being on the rosters, it takes time to research what players are available. If we could find a format to replace Yahoo that would fit our league setup, that would make it easier for everyone to manage their team.

The other option is to stick with Yahoo but expand rosters so that minor leaguers are rostered. In most cases you wouldn't be using your minor leaguers in your daily lineup anyways.

I like Beerman's ideas regarding implementing a draft lottery and would be in favor of reducing farm player limits.

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:24 am

The lack of activity is almost definitely the problem not the symptom, so finding new people would be nice. I just dont think people are interested.

Beveridge
Posts: 5358
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:17 pm
Location: 8-8-1

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Beveridge » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:34 am

The biggest issue for me when it comes to roster upgrades is that with the minor leaguers not being on the rosters, it takes time to research what players are available. If we could find a format to replace Yahoo that would fit our league setup, that would make it easier for everyone to manage their team.
I think it's someone in this group that doesn't like the site, but the kind of league you guys seem to have sounds just right for Fantrax.

The league I do with friends use their site (granted we have lifetime premium membership) allows us to keep contracts, keepers, minor league players on the roster, custom scoring, salary cap, minor league eligibility, etc. Just about anything you want to do.

I love that site for our baseball league.

Kicksave
Posts: 3113
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:41 pm
Contact:

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kicksave » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:38 am

We started this league on Fantrax and then moved to Yahoo.

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:47 am

This isnt a threat, but im at a point where i wont do fantasy sports on a site other than yahoo or draftkings. I have dropped out of all leagues that arent on yahoo so all my fantasy games can be in one place. If people want to move there, someone can take over my team.

Also fantrax is horrible.

Kicksave
Posts: 3113
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:41 pm
Contact:

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kicksave » Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:56 am

This isn't a threat but if we move sites, I'm quitting.

Beveridge
Posts: 5358
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:17 pm
Location: 8-8-1

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Beveridge » Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:36 am

No idea how you think fantrax is horrible unless it's been a while since you used it.

Oh well, doesn't matter either way.

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Fri Jun 12, 2015 12:29 pm

I actually think it may be worth ceasing this league. We arent going to find more than 6 or 7 people that want to actively participate.

Kraftster
Posts: 2073
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:22 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Kraftster » Fri Jun 12, 2015 12:36 pm

lol what? I'm amazed you came over to 5AF since you have such a strict policy against having to type new/different domain names in your browser.

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Fri Jun 12, 2015 12:40 pm

I dont type the domain names into my browser. Since ive used the internet, there have been bookmarks, favorites, etc. you should check that feature out, its really useful.

FYI You can also store phone numbers in your phone.

Cooper7108
Posts: 87
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 8:10 am
Location: FC

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Cooper7108 » Fri Jun 12, 2015 2:37 pm

My thoughts:

I like Yahoo and have not been a fan of other fantasy sports sites. Yahoo seems the most friendly and popular of the bunch.

I personally don't like head to head unless it's in football. Might be worth trying but I would rather keep roto.

I think adding another utility spot is a good idea.

I also think expanding the stat categories to allow use of more players is a good ideas, as I brought up before adding holds or saves/holds would be one way to make great relievers more valuable instead of focusing strictly on closers.

Why can't we sign a prospect in the middle of a season? Maybe if we could allow each team to do that once a year. That way you could get a prospect on your team even if you don't have any one to put on IR.

I also like the idea of raising the cap (which I would suggest making it 65) without any buyout years. So right now its 50 with 10 buyout years for a total of 60. So if you raise it to 65 or even 70 you get more than you currently have. It would allow for more in season moves. Only thing we would need to work out is say you sign Player A to a 3 year deal before the 2015 season then decide to cut it. Does he take up space for only 2015 then are you free of his contract? Or does he count as 3 against the cap in 2015, 2 in 2016, and 1 in 2017. Also, if another team signs him the same season you cut him do you get a break? I would say its better to keep it simple.

CBear3
Posts: 7666
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 10:02 pm
Location: KC, MO

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby CBear3 » Fri Jun 12, 2015 3:14 pm

The only thing that sucks is that there isn't a database of our minor leaguers on Yahoo. On more than one aoccasion I've gone to sign a DL replacement only to find he's owned on somebody's Farm team.
I like the idea of adding holds to the save stat because it opens you up more.

I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I love the depth of the league which is what enticed me to join. I'm obviously not very good either :)

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Fri Jun 12, 2015 3:36 pm

You can sign a prospect in the middle of a season now. Adding holds kills the value of closers. Id be ok with doing it, but if we do we have to look at the closer contracts in the league and start counting holds the year after the longest contract expires.

CBear3
Posts: 7666
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 10:02 pm
Location: KC, MO

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby CBear3 » Fri Jun 12, 2015 4:29 pm

My other gripe with Yahoo,
Seriously, who only uses 5 DL spots. At least 9 is necessary :rolleyes:

Craig
Posts: 7020
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09 pm

5AF Fantasy Baseball Dynasty League

Postby Craig » Fri Jun 12, 2015 4:51 pm

Dl spots are set by the commissioner arent they?

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests