Fantasy Baseball 2013 (Why even bother playing against LL?)

[zoraster]

yeah i apologize. I should have been on top of that.

The tomfoolery would be increasingly lopsided trades for this season. For example, let's say Team A realizes he's out of contention this year and has Miguel Cabrera. It'll cost him $55 next year to keep him. While Miguel Cabrera may arguably be the best player in baseball, $55 is probably a fair price rather than a value. Team B is fighting for first this year and has Jean Segura, who he drafted at $1, so it'll cost $6 next year. Miguel Cabrera is a more valuable player than Jean Segura in absolute terms, but the value provided as a keeper, Jean Segura (who will likely go for $20 next year), crushes Cabrera. Since Team A isn't going to win anyway, the trade makes sense.

To an extent that's the fun of keeper leagues. You have to balance your need to compete now vs. compete later. But as the season progresses, more and more teams will be trading for the future, which will make current value of players go way, way, way down as opposed to their value for next season. The problem is that that makes the end of the season for those still competing feel less fair.

[gorckat]

How timely given the PM I just sent.

LOL

[zoraster]

what PM is that?

[gorckat]

Too honorable, man.

I was going to give you the WORLD!

[Rhinox]

The tomfoolery would be increasingly lopsided trades for this season.

Well yeah I mean of course there should be a deadline and all that I'm just more upset that we collectively as the whole league flat out missed it and we didn't have the whole trade deadline buyers and sellers dynamic. Its one of the things I was looking forward to all year as a neat dynamic of a keeper league.

I think we'd see the opposite of what you said though - decreasingly lopsided trades for the remainder of the season. Good value futures are increasing in value and expensive players are decreasing in value, that much is entirely true. But your conclusion is wrong. If it would have been fair to trade away Segura for Cabrera on August 3rd to help me try to catch LL, it doesn't become less fair the later in the season it gets. Cabrera is only going to continue to become less and less valuable to any team trying to compete this year. By the last week of the season, for example, there's no incentive for me to trade any futures because nobody is going to have enough time on my roster to have any affect. Its kinda like built in balancing. If this were head to head then yeah it could be unfair because 1 week of prduction could make a big difference, but in Roto it really doesn't. Not to mention, natural bidding wars between the top teams also balances out the fairness of the trades. Its the same justification for calling an auction draft fair, isn't it?

But I mean yeah I think we're already past the point where the value curves of futures and expensive elite players are crossing or have crossed. I don't think the deadline was too soon so as to prevent that dynamic at all. Just disappointed I woke up this morning sending out feelers to the bottom teams only to find that I missed the deadline by 4 days. Since everyone missed the deadline due to no announcements, I don't suppose there is any chance of getting the trade deadline extended an extra week, is there? If everyone was ok with it, that is.

[zoraster]

yeah i agree. i messed up by not reminding people about it.

[AGar]

For what it's worth, I don't see anything wrong with that scenario you outlined - that's the entire point of buyers and sellers. If you're already out of the running, why not aim for maybe getting assets for a better run next year? You are right that the amount of sellers will go up as the season progresses, but on the flip of that - the amount of buyers will go down. And the buyers aren't going to have a whole slew of valuable keeper assets. It's not like the top 4 are each sitting on 5-6 prospective keepers that are also going to pull in a massive upgrade to their roster. Like Rhinox said, if this were H2H there might be some merit to the idea (but even then, you can't guarantee week to week production is going to carry), but since this is roto, trading for Miggy or Trout in the last week really isn't going to help make a huge push in most situations. If anything, the deadline could probably be reasonably set for the end of August in future seasons, allow for a few more buyers and sellers to shake out.

[zoraster]

the problem isn't the two teams involved.

Don't forget you can always drop or acquire a player with FAAB money. I know for a fact I'd never keep Mike Trout at $60 next year. If I know I'm not going to win this year, I can always drop Mike Trout and add someone I think I might keep next year at $5.

Similarly, you can always get with someone and organize a simultaneous drop. Neither of you are assured of getting the player you want, of course, but since Mike Trout is basically uselesss to DGB, she won't mind dropping him in exchange for even a chance at someone she wants for next year. And of course, if you happen to have the most FAAB money out of realistic people who might fight you for a player, you know you're getting the player.

The difference is that it evens the playing field.

[gorckat]

So how many weeks before the end is good? 5? 6?

When is the MLB deadline?

Regular season ends end of September, so mid-August seems to allow enough time to benefit from a trade and see most of the action by teams calling up guys and making moves.

Also- have dates been set for the off-season? Do we have a plan for adding teams? Plans to consider stat category changes?

(For adding teams, assuming a committed player is found- voted on?- I'm thinking some kind of expansion draft where each team protects three keepers, the new player picks 5 players, if they take an unprotected keeper, that owner's other keeper is now protected. Any owners losing a keeper get to draft a free agent off the market in the order their players were picked...or something...it would be exciting!)

[zoraster]

MLB Deadline is July 31. We can certainly discuss changing the trade deadline for next year after the season.

As for adding teams, I'm happy to add them, but not at the expense of current teams, since everyone plans on their keepers based on the knowledge they have now. I'm not sure it's fair to current teams to say "you can keep up to 6, but now SURPRISE you can't." In other words, I think it'd be fair if after keeping up to 6 players, an expansion team has the option of keeping any player at the price he would have been kept (or maybe with a small discount of 2 or 3 dollars per player).

I think stats are a tough thing to alter in a keeper league, but I'm open to it, especially if we're changing the stats in the main league. it's possible that we might require a year lead time to change any statistic category.

As for practical discussion: You may trade keeper rights from the end of our season until probably about a week or two before our draft next year (might just set it to something like March 1 to make it easy). You may also trade money for the next season's auction, up to $20 per person and no team may have more than $320 or less than $240 before exercising keeper rights.

[AGar]

The March 1 deadline would be just flat out easy to remember. I'm fine with the current stats, I don't think much change is necessary at the moment. As for new teams, I like the idea Zor broguht up.

[DrippingGoofball]

How come no one accepts any of my shamelessly terrible trade offers???

[AniX]

I would have if you didn't pick my 11th ranked!

[Kmd4390]

Why don't I have the little star for clinched playoffs? Worst I can do is 12-9. The best the 7th place team can do is. 11-9-1. Six make the playoffs, right? And I can't finish worse than 6th, right? Am I missing something?

[zoraster]

i'm not sure

[Zachrulez]

How come no one accepts any of my shamelessly terrible trade offers???

I have too much integrity to deliberately tank.

[AGar]

TIL Zach could never be an NBA GM.

[zoraster]

well. by tying I think I ended Aguilas' outside chance of making the playoffs. If we both win next week, Gorc and I will be playing our last game against each other for (I think) the pennant.

[qwints]

It may have been an outside chance, but it was MY chance.

*cries*

[zoraster]

oop. looks like if gorc and i both win gorc wins the pennant regardless. because we'll have split our head to head matchups and i think the next rung is number of wins. Canadian Blizzard has come on strong.

[AGar]

Dammit Khan.

[Zachrulez]

I can't believe how I managed to lose that last game. The handful of strikeouts I needed was in the pitcher I never got around to playing on Sunday.

[AGar]

In another show of fantastic oversight, I left 26 Ks and 3 QS on the bench in the keeper league...

[DrippingGoofball]

Are the Herons officially out of the race?

[Locke Lamora]

I might be wrong, but I think if the Otters lose both weeks and you win next week, or if Canadian Blizzard lose next week and you win, you're still in, because the tiebreaker basically depends on who has the best winning streak. If you lose next week then you're screwed whatever happens. I guess the greatest night of pitching you've had all season could still bring it back this week, if the Nats can also pummel Santana.