Scumleague Fantasy Football 2014 (Voodoo Dynasty)

[zoraster]

/in

[zoraster]

yeah, might need to be adjusted at the bottom a bit.

[zoraster]

L1 looking pretty darn strong.

[zoraster]

L1 has 12.

L2 will be filled with the unassigned

[zoraster]

Feel like I shouldn't be in the greenhorns!

[zoraster]

True but it seems like it should be consecutive years! Bah!

[zoraster]

if at all possible, i'd love to avoid the weekend of labor day.

[zoraster]

good question. Last year the extravaganza cost me $160 in a speeding ticket and my pride in a Dominion defeat. Not sure I can afford another one!

[zoraster]

yeah. Labor Day is Monday, September 1st.

[zoraster]

I'm happy to do it again either with or without mith. What do you think, mith?

[zoraster]

i'm going to do the draft. i want to check to make sure no one minds me doing something untraditional for it (it still should be "random" just something other than drawing from a basket).

[zoraster]

is that the final list then? I'll do the draft orders this weekend if so

[zoraster]

Quick question.. What's the benefit of divisions?

makes it so that you play everyone in your division twice, everyone else once.

[zoraster]

mith may not have input the schedule yet.

[zoraster]

All right! ready to do ridiculous draft selection!

I have not done it yet, but here are the assignments:

League 1:

1. Talitha
   
2. BS2000
   
3. hasdgfas
   
4. LlamaFluff
   
5. Internet Stranger
   
6. Locke Lamora
   
7. pickemgenius
   
8. zoraster
   
9. Kmd4390
   
10. Debonair Danny DiPietro
    
11. Nero Cain
    
12. Rob13

League 2:

1. mith
   
2. Kublai Khan
   
3. T-Bone
   
4. AGar
   
5. ZachRulez
   
6. Panzerjager
   
7. Untrod Tripod
   
8. Rhinox
   
9. jasonT1981
   
10. xRECKONERx
    
11. Yiley
    
12. Xalxe

League 3:

1. gamsimbre
   
2. DeathNote
   
3. Juls
   
4. Bert
   
5. Titus
   
6. Micc
   
7. reinoe
   
8. Wraith
   
9. Flameaxe
   
10. Jahudo
    
11. PokerFace
    
12. Aronis

right before I post the link to the video, I'll ask someone to switch my letter with someone else's (or they can keep it the same if they want). That way, unless I just happen to have 12 videos at my fingertips, it'll make it so that I couldn't have cheated.

Draft Order will be decided in the following way:
Pick 1: Closest to the Wall
Pick 12: Second closest to the wall
Pick 2: Third closest to the wall
Pick 4: Fourth closest to the wall, etc.

[zoraster]

it's not nearly as cool as I was hoping. I got all these rubber duckies from the dollar store and wanted to do a race down a river with them. But then I tried.... and all the ducks stayed in one place. Anyway, video is uploading as we speak.

[zoraster]

okay. I need someone from League 1 (my league) to switch letters with me. You're also welcome to tell me to stay put at H. But it has to be someone in our league so they don't think I'm in cahoots with someone else.

Once someone does that I'll post the video!

[zoraster]

Damn.






Draft order:

1. H
   
2. D
   
3. I
   
4. K
   
5. J
   
6. B
   
7. L
   
8. E
   
9. G
   
10. F
    
11. C
    
12. A

[zoraster]

1. Debonair Danny DiPietro, Rhinox, Wraith
   
2. Llamafluff, AGar, Bert
   
3. Kmd4390, JasonT1981, Flameaxe
   
4. Nero Cain, Yiley, Pokerface
   
5. zoraster, xRECKONERx, Jahudo
   
6. BS2000, Kublai Khan, DeathNote
   
7. Rob13, Xalxe, Aronis
   
8. Internet Stranger, ZachRulez, Titus
   
9. picemgenius, Untrod Tripod, reinoe
   
10. Locke Lamora, Panzerjager, Micc
    
11. hasdgfas, T-Bone, Juls
    
12. Talitha, mith, gamsimbre

[zoraster]

Yeah, because DDD traded with me before I posted, he's actually #1, not me.

[zoraster]

you can do it on your phone, juls.

[zoraster]

Does your husband know how to drive? Could you teach your child how to drive? Could you force them all to wait around in a road-side..... Cracker Barrel (I don't know, I just know you live in the South) while you draft?

[zoraster]

Just a reminder for L1 that our draft is tomorrow at 12:30 EDT.

[zoraster]

I'm going to do a google hang out if anyone is interested.

[zoraster]

basically a voice and/or video chat thing.

https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/g56b ... 6ms4e2xaqa

[zoraster]

no voice

[zoraster]

that happened to him in the auction league last year.

[zoraster]

someone should stream the draft and i will heckle it?

[zoraster]

Highlights:

Adrian Peterson falls to #6 overall.
Reck accidentally drafts Tavon Austin instead of Miles Austin.
AGar's autopick team ends up with 8 RBs and 3 QBs.
mith doesn't get totally screwed by drafting WR/QB at the turn.

amazing

[zoraster]

His starting team is pretty good with the assumption that none get hurt and all live up to potential, which is what I think those projections are largely based on. Really if he had just drafted a backup WR instead of Cutler, his team would look fine. His large number of RBs are mostly from the last rounds, and the WR you can pick up there aren't that much more likely to pay off than waiver-wire WRs.

[zoraster]

For some reason yahoo is obsessed with Travis Kelce. It mentions him no fewer than 4 times:

You Snooze, You Lose
While the rest of the league slept on Travis Kelce, The Moo Cows pounced on him at pick No. 179.

Single Serving
By choosing only a single TE (Travis Kelce) and DEF (Houston), The Moo Cows elected to add depth elsewhere on the roster.

A Stretch of the Imagination
Grabbing Travis Kelce at pick 179 was, let's say, conceptually adventurous. Kelce is owned on just a handful of teams across all Yahoo! leagues.

Mr. Irrelevant
In terms of projected points, the choice of Travis Kelce with the 179th pick gave The Moo Cows the worst pick of the final round. This Mr. Irrelevant gets no parade, unfortunately.

[zoraster]

with vetoes it's not whether you agree with reasoning but whether someone else believes it.

[zoraster]

with vetoes it's not whether you agree with reasoning but whether someone else believes it.

Uh, what the fuck? Why would it get veto'd? The ONLY reason a veto should be used should be to prevent collusion, not because you personally dislike the trade being made.

I was the one who was wasted when I accepted that trade.

AGar is the one who proposed it.

...right? that's what i'm saying.

[zoraster]

So I learned yesterday that live drafts are fucking awesome.

I've always wanted to do one. Sounds fun but chances of me just messing up and flat out forgetting about a player approaches 100%

[zoraster]

The Atlanta Matthews were good to me today. Bryant and Ryan gave me a combined 49.42 points

[zoraster]

in my money league i'm having to start Michael Floyd instead of my first round draft pick Calvin Johnson. It does not feel good.

EDIT: Actually, let's see what people think. I've almost certainly lost this week. I'm currently down 40 points. I have my WR slot (Calvin Johnson or Michael Floyd) and QB (Phillip Rivers) left to play. He has his QB slot (Matthew Stafford).

So I have an extremely low outside shot of winning this IF I start Michael Floyd. I'd need a terrible game by Stafford and a great one by both Rivers and Floyd, averaging 20 points per person to make up ground, realistically a 30 point game from Rivers and a 20 point game from Floyd to have a shot.

So this seems pretty damn unlikely, but it's not impossible. I can't start Calvin Johnson and have any realistic hope of winning because any TD by Johnson gets 4 points for Stafford, netting only 2 points and yards would be a net of 0.6 points per 10 yards or 6 points per 100 I think, clearly not enough to get the clearance over Stafford.

So to have any chance of winning, I have to start Floyd.

The alternative is to chalk this game up for what it probably is: a lost cause. In that case I could go for points for, which after Winning Percentage is the tie breaker for playoff seeding. In that case, I should probably start Johnson so that he gets as many points as possible.

If it helps, this league is a 10 teamer with 2 divisions taking the top 2 seeds and 2 wildcard spots. I think this probably makes the tie breaker slightly more likely to decide who goes to the playoffs than a 12 or 14 teamer, but not sure.

A win being the difference between me going to the playoffs and not is higher than points for making that difference, but the likelihood of scoring higher than Floyd with Johnson is much higher than the likelihood of winning.

Anyway, your thoughts please!

[zoraster]

I'd start johnson since floyd won't win it for you. You got better odds stafford gets injuried and Orlavsky throws johnson the ball

The most sure thing you got is that calvin will score alot, go with the sure thing over a risk in fantasy. After all you may loose other weeks and need calvins points even more to make up for them.

week 1 < rest of season. I'd afford the loss

Yeah, I'm leaning this way too. The point about stafford getting hurt is a good one, though that would be TERRIBLE for my season overall given Calvin Johnson.

So this seems pretty damn unlikely, but it's not impossible. I can't start Calvin Johnson and have any realistic hope of winning because any TD by Johnson gets 4 points for Stafford, netting only 2 points and yards would be a net of 0.6 points per 10 yards or 6 points per 100 I think, clearly not enough to get the clearance over Stafford.

So to have any chance of winning, I have to start Floyd.

This is terrible logic. You not starting Johnson doesn't prevent Stafford from getting points, it just means you don't benefit from Stafford getting TDs off Johnson. Don't sit your studs.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Stafford has a bad game because I don't start Johnson, obviously.

What I'm saying is that I need to make up major ground. And the only way that Calvin Johnson gets points in this scenario is that Stafford does too (unless for some reason Calvin Johnson starts running the ball). In other words, Johnson's points are highly correlated to Stafford's. Johnson can outscore Stafford for sure, but it'll take a lot of yards or even more TDs to make up that distance. If Stafford performs poorly, Johnson is unlikely to do well. If Johnson does well, Stafford is likely to have done well too. Get it?

Whereas it's perfectly possible for Michael Floyd to have a great game and Stafford not to.

[zoraster]

Well I played Johnson, and looks like that was a good call. No way I'd have won either way, so might as well take the 28.5 points vs. the 14 or whatever floyd is likely to give at the upside.

[zoraster]

the two sites are very similar, beast. The biggest difference is that Yahoo uses three WR instead of 2 but doesn't use a flex. There are some small scoring differences, but they're not really things you're likely to pay much attention to (e.g. interceptions are -1 point in yahoo, -2 in ESPN, defenses don't use yards allowed as a measurement in yahoo whereas they do in ESPN).

[zoraster]

i'm going to lose my money league by 31.8 points, but I would have beaten every other team in the league this week. I would have beaten all but one team by at least 10 points. Ah luck, you fickle thing. Hopefully I get one of those 68-63 wins in compensation.

Glad to win my first League 1 matchup!

[zoraster]

I don't understand the Romo hate for fantasy.

[zoraster]

I just made a trade in my money league that involves a series of 3 trades over the course of the next 5 weeks. It wasn't even my idea to make it into this ridiculously complicated system.

[zoraster]

scratch that. apparently it made people mad. so now we're just doing the trade straight up. It's a really dumb trade. Tannehill (my starting QB. heh) + Brandin Cooks for Kaepernick (her backup)+Chris Johnson. I offered her trades that made her team better! But for some reason she really wanted Brandin Cooks.

[zoraster]

Okay, so here's the full story:

I wanted to wait on QBs because it's a 10 team league, so I targeted Tony Romo late. The person who drafted RG3 picked up romo as his backup in the pick right before I was going to take him. Fair enough, that's the way the draft goes. So I was stuck with Phillip Rivers who I drafted toward the end (who I dropped and added Tannehill for this week).

Anyway, while everyone else was drafting backup QBs I drafted a lot of RBs and what not. Basic stuff. Come this week I was looking to trade someone's backup QB for one of my many RBs.

So I made some offers. This person has Kaepernick as their backup for Manning, so other than week 4 Kaep doesn't play. I offer Terrance West (she has Ben Tate) for Kaep figuring we might settle on Shane Vereen. Instead at some point she starts focusing on Brandin Cooks and somehow Chris Johnson gets thrown in. I have no idea how it happened, but I'm not likely to turn this down am I? Anyway, she does it under two conditions: (1) that I not play Kaep against her in the regular season [not an issue, his bye is the week I play her] and (2) that for manning's bye I give her Kaep only to be returned the next week.

Anyway, people reacted poorly to the trade as a whole, which I think is understandable, but more specifically to the tradeback provision. I think that's probably the most fair part of this trade, but whatever. Anyway, when she offered to do the trade straight up, that took away the thing they were harping on, and now they're left saying "but it's still not fair."

The weird part about this trade is that I have little need for more quality RBs than I do WRs, but the value here is just too good for me to turn down.

[zoraster]

We've got great deals on Ray Rices and Knowshon Morenos this week at Mask of Zorotter!

[zoraster]

usually november 14 (or after week 10 of the season).

[zoraster]

who is that?

[zoraster]

why do you say that? I like its interface far better than yahoo's

[zoraster]

my scrappy little team has come through to go 2-1. Kelvin Benjamin came up big to assure me the victory. very important because i'm also 2-0 in division, even though my points for is atrocious.

Lamora gets the unlucky finish, with the third highest score and yet losing.

[zoraster]

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/fantasy-footb ... n6447.html

If two or more teams tie for a wild-card (non-division leading) position, the following tiebreakers will be used to determine the standings

Total fantasy points (season total).
Fantasy points scored in last week's matchup.
Fantasy points scored in the matchup two weeks prior.
The comparison continues until the tie is broken or no more weeks remain to compare. At that time, a coin flip will settle the tie

Spoiler: Divisional Tiebreaker comparison

If two or more teams tie for the lead in a division, the following tiebreakers will be used to determine the division winner.

Division winning percentage.
Total fantasy points (season total).
Fantasy points scored in last week's matchup.
Fantasy points scored in the matchup two weeks prior.
The comparison continues until the tie is broken or no more weeks remain to compare. At that time, a coin flip will settle the tie.

[zoraster]

He's so bad that he loses even when he has the ability to see into the future.

[zoraster]

I'm in the same predicament on the other side: I have Kniles Davis. At least if I play him I'll probably get a few points even if charles plays.

[zoraster]

it's weird that the auction league doesn't use decimal points.

[zoraster]

i hate wide receivers.

[zoraster]

because you don't spell your name Tally.

[zoraster]

I played Foster in L1 and don't have the lead because of Andrew Luck, but I'll gladly take that.

[zoraster]

so I will beat Tally if and only if her kicker scores 2 or fewer points. here is praying for many missed FGs!

[zoraster]

okay. so now I'm up by 0.54 on Tally. So need her kicker to go 0 or negative. yikes.

[zoraster]

yahoo does have flex option. but the default does not.

[zoraster]

i've found yahoo to be more accurate, but i have not actually done any math to see whether that's actually been true.

[zoraster]

no. that would mess with the league promotion/relegation system that i think is valuable.

[zoraster]

yahoo thinks there's an 8% chance Arian Foster scores fewer than -3 points.

[zoraster]

likewise, i'm beating LL who had Sanders because Foster was even better!

[zoraster]

dear everyone. please beat LF.

[zoraster]

oh wait. not LF. i meant beat hasdfgas

[zoraster]

i need you to lose more, thanks.

[zoraster]

i mean if i win out i'm confident i'll make the playoffs. but if I go 3-1 i think there's a chance I miss out and if i go 2-2 i'd need some major help to make it at 8-6 along with some very big weeks.

[zoraster]

that would be ideal, but i'm not sure what happened with scheduling.

[zoraster]

also it's weird that i play rob, who isn't in my division, twice, but I don't play (for example) cow twice

[zoraster]

thanks!! a final week meeting between the moo cows and me is on track to be pretty important!

[zoraster]

yeah but you're still in position not to get relegated

[zoraster]

thank goodness i picked up alfred blue

[zoraster]

asdlf;kjasdf;lkjasfd kmd

[zoraster]

my entire season needs sad trombone sound.

[zoraster]

if you finish 8th you're fairly likely to stay up because i think that puts you as the first person not to get relegated if someone doesn't sign up again

[zoraster]

Yeah, it's not a great place for him, no doubt, but overcoming the points difference is not ridiculous and we could all lose.

Better than my shot at getting into the playoffs, where Beavers has to lose and I have to get more than 100 points over Beavers.

---

I once played in a setup that made kickers less powerful. Extra points didn't count (as these are automatic and have nothing to do with the kicker) nor did under 20 yard FGs, 21-30 was 1 point, 30-40 was 2 points, 40+ was 3 points (or something like this, i forget what the cutoffs are). Good kickers will still differentiate themselves over mediocre ones (actually more so than before), but kickers rarely did anything but determine very close matchups

[zoraster]

yeah but doesn't really matter. i don't get relegated and I wasn't getting into the playoffs.

[zoraster]

because the entire point is to have the best record in your individual matchup. EPE is a fun thing, but we'd just use points for or something if we wanted "fair."

[zoraster]

I think if you want to have head-to-head matchups that actually mean something, you have to accept that there are going to be luck-based fluctuations in results that don't always reflect the overall quality of teams in terms of scoring at the end of the season.

This.

Fantasy football is great because it's a series of weekly battles between you and an opponent. Using EPE or some other method (and I don't really think EPE is superior to total points for and TPF is way easier to calculate) may reduce bad and good luck slightly, but it does so by damaging what makes fantasy football fun.

Frankly, if you want to play a fantasy sport that isn't subject to these forces, play fantasy baseball roto.

[zoraster]

I wouldn't say EPE is superior to total points - they just measure different things. If you were doing a league without head-to-head, either would be a solid choice, just depending on your preferences.

I do think EPE is a better indication of how a team has performed with respect to a head-to-head weekly system; total points doesn't take into account when the points were earned. That's not the whole story of team strength - after all, someone with lots of points but a poor EPE is suffering from a different kind of luck (how their players' good and bad weeks happened to line up) - but it does matter in a head-to-head league.

That said, I wouldn't want to use EPE for determining playoff spots or relegation either...

i mostly agree with that. EPE is very interesting and I love to see the results of it --- at the very least and captures head-to-head better than total points, but it's not perfect. I've certainly played different people than I would if I were competing against all people because I'm in a unique situation in my individual game. Just one example: I didn't start a Defense in one week because all our players had played except my Defense and I was up by 1 point.

[zoraster]

i agree with mith. i like divisions. we don't have enough weeks to play everyone twice, so it makes sense to add some order to the process of who you do play twice. yes, that's going to mean there are easier and harder divisions, but that's okay with me.

[zoraster]

14 is too much. your crazy idea is fun.

[zoraster]

Wait. A coach made a safe, suboptimal choice rather than an aggressive choice? I can't believe it!

[zoraster]

meh, it also seems unlikely theyd have converted the fourth down the way the game went

If they couldn't convert a 4th and 1, they weren't going to win the game regardless.

[zoraster]

This is the earliest I have given up on a Cowboys season... I mean, they don't even look that bad, apart from the turnovers. But Romo just looks lost out there.

I mean... I don't really care as I'm not a cowboys fan really, but...

[zoraster]

Pointless if you remove rbs

[zoraster]