Scumleague FF 2015 (Locke, Yiley, TD37!)

[PokerFace]

The idea of divisions isn't that they are more fair (although I've learned from this thread that some people think they are?). It's that it's more fun. If you are 6-6 and there is no shot at making the playoffs, but you're pretty safe from relegation, you might get careless. Because why bother? But if you are 6-6 and tied for a division lead, you're going right down to the wire. Championships tend to go to teams that deserve it most of the time anyway. But yeah, just like the fact that we play head to head and not roto, it's just more fun. Even the relegation system adds to it. I mean, I'm 4-8 and I care more about this league than most of my others right now. If it didn't matter, I probably wouldn't have just won against Rob because I'd leave the better pickups for the past month to people who have a shot to do something and focus on my teams that are in playoff races right now. I mean, yeah, I always play to win. But I put extra time in where I really care.

You worry about players being without incentive to suceed or fail.

If you can't make playoffs, odds are you are in danger of being regulated. With the exception of Peg, this is currently true for all players in league 2. Either they got playoff shot or they are in danger.

As things stand Peg has clinched the 4th seed in the playoffs and odds are he will stay that seed. Only way he gets better seed is to win out and get certain other players to loose. He does not control his own destiny at this point. There's little incentive for him to play hard next 2 weeks, but its not like he has something better to do. He has no regulation fear with very little success incentive

So the situation you worry about KMD is only really gonna be a problem for someone that can't advance in league 3. There is no regulation fear or incentive for success for anyone without playoff hope in league 3

[zoraster]

I like that incentive for 1 and 2 you got there, but there is still the incentive for being 1 as things are. Team 1 should theoretically be playing the weakest of the 4 teams. 1v4, 2v3

This is why I like the rule
Playoff Seeding Options: Division winners advance but seeded by overall standings

Otherwise the wild card would always be 4

That rule helps things be more fair in the already unfair system

I don't think getting 1v4 is much of a benefit, but even so that's something you get as the #1 seed ANYWAY (or alternatively #5) in the semis.

If all games have a 50/50 chance (which probably isn't THAT far off the mark when you're talking about active teams that made the playoffs), you have twice the chance of winning it all with a bye vs. if you finish 3-6 (12.5% vs. 25%). To put it another way, by going from 4 to 6, you don't lower #1 and #2's chances of winning it all whatsoever, but you reduce the chance of winning it all as #3 and #4, which seems appropriate.

[Locke Lamora]

The elegant solution to all of these issues (if you think they're issues) is to go to 14 teams, drop back to a 13 week regular season with no divisions where everyone plays each team once, and have six making the playoffs with the format zoraster outlines.

[zoraster]

edit nm. i like LL's suggestion, but 14 teams is hard to do a lot on the waiver wire.

[Kmd4390]

6 playoff teams only works if you make Week 14 the start of playoffs. After that, it's debatable.

Preview edit: I agree with Lockerian2.

[Locke Lamora]

edit nm. i like LL's suggestion, but 14 teams is hard to do a lot on the waiver wire.

Yeah, I suspect complaints about the structure would be replaced by complaints about the scarcity of talent.

[PokerFace]

I also agree and I think scarcity of talent would be lead to less fun for everyone. Bad teams wouldn't be able to find someone to get good. You'd be stuck with crap

I like we play with 12. Try no divisions. If we no like, we change back the year after that

[T-Bone]

Our system is fine. The no division argument is dumb since groups of 4 teams will still be playing the same schedules anyway.

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Our system is fine. The no division argument is dumb since groups of 4 teams will still be playing the same schedules anyway.

That's not true, schedules would/should be randomized instead of featuring pods so each team would face three random other teams; I've only assumed identical schedules in my arguments because they could randomly turn out that way and because it's easier to demonstrate the inferiority of the current system by 1-to-1 comparison.

I'm just baffled by the continued calls for complexity when the solution is so simple and the default in every fantasy football league.

[Locke Lamora]

Aside from the neater structure of the schedule (and I know we've debated the benefits of that before too so I don't want to start that again), I like it because I think the schedule symmetry creates more late season showdowns between teams that are both competing for the same spot (in the Voodoo division this is actually both matchups this week, and potentially next week too), and the divisional record tiebreaker makes those games more important than the out-of-division games. With six games against the people in your division, it's also like a mini-league that if you win, you're most likely in the playoffs. I won't argue that it's fairer but it's more entertaining to me. Fundamentally, we do single head-to-head matchups because it's fun, not because it's fair, so the idea that it's fun to play the same group of people twice for a division title and playoff spot seems pretty in keeping with that. I'll agree that 'because the NFL does it' is not a good argument for it in the sense that almost none of the reasons that it's practical in the NFL actually exist in fantasy - but again, if someone finds it fun that NFL teams can make it into the playoffs with a losing record, they'll probably think the same in fantasy.

I'll also agree that we don't have the optimal setup to make the best argument for divisions: as we use relegation, divisions are somewhat less relevant because there are very few teams that fall into the category of not having anything to play for with two games left, and we do lose some of the rivalry aspect too because of that.

[T-Bone]

Our system is fine. The no division argument is dumb since groups of 4 teams will still be playing the same schedules anyway.

That's not true, schedules would/should be randomized instead of featuring pods so each team would face three random other teams; I've only assumed identical schedules in my arguments because they could randomly turn out that way and because it's easier to demonstrate the inferiority of the current system by 1-to-1 comparison.

I'm just baffled by the continued calls for complexity when the solution is so simple and the default in every fantasy football league.

I don't think you understand how not different the schedules would be without divisions, there would still be pods so to speak.

[AGar]

We're arguing over the worth of divisions while we still play 3xWR/2xRB instead of 2xWR/2xRB/FLEX...

[hasdgfas]

We're arguing over the worth of divisions while we still play 3xWR/2xRB instead of 2xWR/2xRB/FLEX...

Flex is bad.

[Kmd4390]

Nuh uh

[AGar]

We're arguing over the worth of divisions while we still play 3xWR/2xRB instead of 2xWR/2xRB/FLEX...

Flex is bad.

I didn't know that opening up roster choices and making for differing draft strategies was a bad thing...

[PokerFace]

I like flex. Would like that to be on a year trial as well.

If we did 14 teams flex would absolutely be necessary. Finding 3 wrs in 14 team is near impossible. Finding 2wr 2rb 1te and 1flex(wr,rb,te) would be more doable

[Locke Lamora]

It's all relative. You have to adjust your points expectation downwards but everyone's on the same playing field. At some point you actually get to the stage where you hardly have a choice at all, but that's well beyond 14 team league level.

[Rhinox]

Selfishly, it would be very nice to take advantage of my plethora of RB options I managed to assemble, by being able to play one in a flex slot.

But in another league I'm playing in, the lineup is 2RB + 2WR + R/W flex + R/W/TE flex, and it is pretty horrible - only a few TE worth playing on a weekly basis, so the waiver wire for RB and WR has been pretty dead for weeks. The 7 deep bench doesn't help matters either in that regards .

So yeah, too much flex can def be bad.

[Wraith]

For my two cents I am 100% in favor of FLEX next year. It's incredibly frustrating getting 3 starting-caliber WRs in a 12-man league. Steve Smith going down came very close to dooming my season. It was really frustrating having only 2 starting-caliber WRs while having 3 starting-caliber RBs and having to sit one of the latter on the bench every single week. I got incredibly lucky that LaFell came off the PUP List when he did.

[Rob14]

Yo Lamora, am I assured to not be relegated?

[Locke Lamora]

The last odds I posted were up to date, so not quite. There is a scenario in which six teams get 7 wins, you lose both remaining and go down with T-Bone, Kmd and one of Nero or Zoraster. That happened twice in 5000 though, so almost assured not to.

[T-Bone]

NO STOP I STILL HAVE A CHANCE

[Flameaxe]

#DareToTBone

[PokerFace]

It's all relative. You have to adjust your points expectation downwards but everyone's on the same playing field. At some point you actually get to the stage where you hardly have a choice at all, but that's well beyond 14 team league level.

Selfishly, it would be very nice to take advantage of my plethora of RB options I managed to assemble, by being able to play one in a flex slot.

But in another league I'm playing in, the lineup is 2RB + 2WR + R/W flex + R/W/TE flex, and it is pretty horrible - only a few TE worth playing on a weekly basis, so the waiver wire for RB and WR has been pretty dead for weeks. The 7 deep bench doesn't help matters either in that regards .

So yeah, too much flex can def be bad.

What if we did 14 team with 2wrs, 2rbs, 1te and thats it. no flex, no wr3. Instead of 15 starters and 6 bench its 14 starters and 6 bench. I think that could actually work with 14 teams

[zoraster]

well, honestly, premier running backs tend to be the biggest thing that will be scarce with those who manage to snag big name replacements in injury situations benefiting pretty huge. Wide receivers rarely are so limited. Traditionally people like to start RBs as a flex, but with 14 teams, it's unlikely everyone will want to do that as the 29th best running back is unlikely to be considerably more attractive than the 29th best wide receiver, particularly now that more teams tend to share running loads.

The 29th best running back this year has 86.60 points (7.8 points per game) whereas the 29th best WR this year has 88.9 points (8.1 points per game).

Currently in our 12 team league the 25th best RB scored 91.4 points while the 36th best WR scored 75.6 points. So vs. a flex we've (kind of) artificially created a situation that plays low scoring WRs when we could easily get a balance of RBs and WR in a flex.

That said, the true reason I like the flex is that it's become standard for everything but yahoo and it's one less thing for people to worry about. They can evaluate players the same way whether they're playing in some ESPN leagues or in the ms one.