On Being A Commissioner...

[Chef99]

...Trudem's "Fair Deal?" thread made me start thinking. As a commissioner, how exactly do you determine the difference between collusion and a bonehead trade?

Besides the ones that are blatantly obvious, I mean. It seems to me that if a guy makes a steal of a deal, it's possible that he could be penalized for it in the name of "unfairness" or "collusion".

This commissioner thing must be a tough gig.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Not sure but in one of my leagues we have a failsafe that i hated but now understand and love... The last place team pays 50 dollars to the 3rd place team... Who wants to give up if you have to pay more money than everyone else...

 

[Trudem]

Not sure but in one of my leagues we have a failsafe that i hated but now understand and love... The last place team pays 50 dollars to the 3rd place team... Who wants to give up if you have to pay more money than everyone else...

thats actually pretty brilliant...it would be a very hard sell initially though. Especially in a dynasty league that last place is awarded the first pick next year

 

[Johnnydollaz89]

My league is $400 a team, 10 teams. I co-commish with my best friend, all close friends and family in the league. Our trades are voted on by the other 8 members in the league and if they veto it, they need to state why they are vetoing in the deal in a message on the CBS message board on our league's home page. And it needs to be a legit reason, not something like ''i'm playing him this week so i'm not passing it'' and then ultimately it goes to the commish if it is shutdown and he gets the final say.

 

[Trudem]

we only do $50 per team but this is the first year of this league. My kid turns 1 tomorrow so expendable income still doesnt exist for me

 

[SmokingMonkey]

always very hard to tell collusion from bad trades. No way to make it easy.

what makes it harder is when one bad trade goes through, and another gets vetoed. creates a lot of animosity.

 

[Trudem]

always very hard to tell collusion from bad trades. No way to make it easy.

what makes it harder is when one bad trade goes through, and another gets vetoed. creates a lot of animosity.

Agreed...thats when people check out and it kills leagues.

 

[SmokingMonkey]

we only do $50 per team but this is the first year of this league. My kid turns 1 tomorrow so expendable income still doesnt exist for me

Happy bday to the little guy (or girl).

you won't have money or a lot of free time until they move out!
you've got plenty of years left to go, lol

 

[Trudem]

Happy bday to the little guy (or girl).

you won't have money or a lot of free time until they move out!
you've got plenty of years left to go, lol

Thanks!

Lucas Alexander Lovins

Little boy!

 

[MilkSpiller22]

thats actually pretty brilliant...it would be a very hard sell initially though. Especially in a dynasty league that last place is awarded the first pick next year

Well there lies the problem... why do you reward the last place team... instead why dont you reward the best team that did not win money... 4th place should get the first pick....

 

[Trudem]

Well there lies the problem... why do you reward the last place team... instead why dont you reward the best team that did not win money... 4th place should get the first pick....

With the amount of keepers we have we are trying to make it very similar to the NFL. That way if the last place team decides to bail on the league it is an easier sell to someone taking on a shitty roster if they get the first pick.

 

[wilwhite]

People won't make bad trades in dynasty leagues unless they're planning on checking out anyway. And a last-place team with little hope of improvement is a strong candidate for abandonment.

 

[wilwhite]

Having to explain vetoes also helps - but I hate vetoes in the first place.

The last-place-pays-third-place idea is genius. That plus a reasonably early trade deadline solves a lot.

In one of my money leagues (redraft/snake) we're trying something new - people get to select their draft position next year, and selection order goes by PF over the last three weeks. That way there's a strategy motive for doing well late.

 

[TREFF]

Well there lies the problem... why do you reward the last place team... instead why dont you reward the best team that did not win money... 4th place should get the first pick....

Who gets first pick in the NFL draft? IMHO, The Best fantasy leagues mirror reality in as many ways as possible. . this is a big one that should be mirrored, at least to me.

 

[Chef99]

People won't make bad trades in dynasty leagues unless they're planning on checking out anyway. And a last-place team with little hope of improvement is a strong candidate for abandonment.

Will, what i'm asking is how do you decide what is fair and what isn't? As The Man in the MBBRL leagues, have you ever had to veto a trade? If so, what was your thought process? Seems to me that you're a "live and let live" kinda commish, but it also seems that all of the people in our leagues are stand-up guys, so i'm wondering what you would do if presented with a "situation"? I'm kinda fascinated by this.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Who gets first pick in the NFL draft? IMHO, The Best fantasy leagues mirror reality in as many ways as possible. . this is a big one that should be mirrored, at least to me.

Yes, but if you dont want owners to quit on the season, then you should not reward losing...

 

[TREFF]

Chef..as a commissioner in various leagues across nearly 20 years, is say that only the blantently obvious collusion trades should ever be vetoed.
I'll give ya a somewhat long story

Just this year, about 4 weeks ago, a second year owner in my league called me up and asked my opinion of dumping Julio Jones for Donnie Avery.. I know retarded right?? Anyways, I asked him why, said he just didn't like Julio. So I said, take any WR from my team that you want. . he choose Fitzgerald. I said "are you sure that's all you want?" Yep, done deal. Now, bear in mind, I had first waiver choice. . could've let this owner do the ridiculous, and grab Julio for Vincent Brown off the wire. Now, the trade looks ridiculous in and of itself, but given the circumstances, I helped that owner out. .and as it turns out, I'm the one that got shafted.
Point being you can't stop stupid people from doing stupid things, had he not made the stupid trade, he would've made a stupid waiver claim.

Btw, this owner is currently in second place, so can't even really say he's stupid..he's kicking my ass

 

[wilwhite]

so i'm wondering what you would do if presented with a "situation"?

First, you want to set up a league to avoid those situations. The worst thing is a friends-and-family league, because some people are almost certainly more committed to relationships than to the game of FF, and you can get dynamics that have little to do with the game itself ("when I say McFadden for Bernard is unfair you all need to listen to me for once!").

There are different kinds of collusion. Some may be personal ("I just want to make sure X doesn't win"), which doesn't seem quite as bad as doing it for money, but from a league integrity perspective is still a problem. Some "collusion" is a perversion of competitiveness ("if I help Y win, I kinda feel like I won somehow myself"). And then there's straight-up split-the-pot collusion.

Good rules help avoid that, but if I ended up faced with a situation where it was clear that somebody was throwing the league (not just a minor tweak, but major changes), I'd be totalitarian about it and reverse the trade using the "best interests of the league." The fact that I'm very open-minded about how trades can be justified should give me a little leeway. And I'd call them both out, ask them why they're really in this league, and generally sap all the joy out of whatever they're trying to do.

 

[wilwhite]

About last place gets first pick - one way that fantasy football can't mirror the NFL is that in the NFL your financial viability is tied up in the team and you can't just say screw it and walk away. Also the distribution of money is a lot more equal among NFL owners than in fantasy - in fantasy one person gets most and most people get nothing. If you played fantasy football under twenty-year contracts with dynasty teams and sliding payouts from first place to last there wouldn't be collusion.

 

[SmokingMonkey]

in my keeper league we are doing this for the first time this season - consolation tournament = draft position for all the non-playoff teams.

I don't feel like you should reward a playoff team with the chance to get the #1 pick, like the 'last 3 weeks avg score' rule. All playoff teams should draft after all non-playoff teams in a keeper league. That way, you give the teams that performed the worst in the previous season the first shot at the good leftovers/potential breakout rookies. I prefer rules/formats that encourage bad teams to rebuild and get good within a season or two, and prevents 1-2 teams from blowing the rest of the league out every year