FF2011: Official GWJFFLK-specific discussion thread

Jolly Bill wrote:

If you're really that against additional free agent inflation

I'm not against it. The only thing I'm against is having a high level of concern with the unlikely paranoia scenarios. Nobody is picking up free studs on Fridays. That's not something we have to go out of our way to worry about.

Your idea of $5-or-50% for free agents was, as I said when you posted it, totally reasonable. We don't have to concoct low-probability scenarios to justify it, or other plans like it.

I guess the continued conversation is just making it seem like everyone is more concerned than they really are. I don't think anyone is really that upset about whether we treat free agents differently or not, it's just the part we haven't figured out yet. Coul we get some kind of up or down vote for whether people want to handle free agents differently or studs differently?

I like the idea of $5-or-50% for free agent pick-ups. It rewards those who made a smart pick-up but tosses the majority of free agent pick-ups back into the pool for the next season.

Lets look at my team for examples:
Name / Draft Price / New Price / Thoughts

Draftees: $3-or-30%
Peyton Manning / $28 / $36 / High but keepable for this year
Matt Forte / $24 / $31 / High but keepable
Reggie Wayne / $33 / $43 / Too high but I paid too much for him originally.
Dwayne Bowe / $15 / $20 / A buy low is rewarded by still being low but much closer to market value.
Wes Welker / $20 / $26 / A player who was bought low due to injury is now at market value.
Fred Jackson / $3 / $6 / A washed up bench player who became a starter is now at a steal price.
Donovan McNabb / $5 / $11 / A bench player who never stepped up, McNabb is now over market value.
Jerome Harrison / $8 / $11 / A bench player who never stepped up, Harrison is now over market value.
Mike Sims Walker(trade) / $18 / $23 / Over market value but an intriguing prospect that will be fun to re-draft.
Eddie Royal / $14 / $18 / Over priced reach.

Free Agents: $5-or-50%
Peyton Hillis / $2 / $7 / The increased free agent cost makes Hillis's value increase faster but still a huge bargain.
Colt McCoy / $0 / $5 / A bench prospect is immediately brought up to market value.
Deion Branch / $11 / $16 / His pick-up value was market value originally, in the new year he is over-priced.
Jacob Tamme / $0 / $5 / An injury replacement who performed well, not that much to keep but might not see any playing time...

I like it, I would end up keeping about half my team. I have two steals to my name(F.Jackson & P.Hillis), but they are certainly not game breaking steals.

I'm on board with this.

This applies to people we put on injured reserve? Meaning, people who are injured inflate like everyone else.

garion333 wrote:

I'm on board with this.

This applies to people we put on injured reserve? Meaning, people who are injured inflate like everyone else.

Right. IIRC that was the whole reason for IR.

When you say free agents, do you mean just people that were picked up in the couple days after waivers ended or people from waivers too? I was under the impression that this new rate was just for people picked up after clearing waivers with no one claiming them.

I would be happy either way. I was assuming it was for everyone picked up for simplicity's sake, but the way you say it is fine too.

Elliottx wrote:

I like the idea of $5-or-50% for free agent pick-ups. It rewards those who made a smart pick-up but tosses the majority of free agent pick-ups back into the pool for the next season.

Lets look at my team for examples:
Name / Draft Price / New Price / Thoughts

Draftees: $3-or-30%
Peyton Manning / $28 / $36 / High but keepable for this year
Matt Forte / $24 / $31 / High but keepable
Reggie Wayne / $33 / $43 / Too high but I paid too much for him originally.
Dwayne Bowe / $15 / $20 / A buy low is rewarded by still being low but much closer to market value.
Wes Welker / $20 / $26 / A player who was bought low due to injury is now at market value.
Fred Jackson / $3 / $6 / A washed up bench player who became a starter is now at a steal price.
Donovan McNabb / $5 / $11 / A bench player who never stepped up, McNabb is now over market value.
Jerome Harrison / $8 / $11 / A bench player who never stepped up, Harrison is now over market value.
Mike Sims Walker(trade) / $18 / $23 / Over market value but an intriguing prospect that will be fun to re-draft.
Eddie Royal / $14 / $18 / Over priced reach.

Free Agents: $5-or-50%
Peyton Hillis / $2 / $7 / The increased free agent cost makes Hillis's value increase faster but still a huge bargain.
Colt McCoy / $0 / $5 / A bench prospect is immediately brought up to market value.
Deion Branch / $11 / $16 / His pick-up value was market value originally, in the new year he is over-priced.
Jacob Tamme / $0 / $5 / An injury replacement who performed well, not that much to keep but might not see any playing time...

I like it, I would end up keeping about half my team. I have two steals to my name(F.Jackson & P.Hillis), but they are certainly not game breaking steals.

That all looks pretty reasonable to me. My roster would end up like this (definite keepers in bold, but not a final list):

Draftees:

Rashard Mendenhall / $40 / $52 - A strong starter who was arguably overpriced last year, and more so this year
Jamaal Charles / $30 / $39 - Returned his value last year, and is probably worth keeping again this year
Hakeem Nicks / $22 / $29 - Probably right about market value

Santana Moss / $14 / $19 - Overpriced last year, even more so this year
Hines Ward / $23 / $30 - WAY overpriced last year
Ahmad Bradshaw / $9 / $12 - Probably a huge steal
Tony Gonzalez / $8 / $11 - Overpriced both years
Matt Ryan / $7 / $10 - Probably a bit below market value, but not monstrously so
Austin Collie / $7 / $10- Highway robbery in a PPR league at $10
Chris Cooley / $7 / $10 - About market value last year, overpriced this year
Brandon Jacobs / $5 / $8 - A handcuff last year, not too overpriced to keep as the same this year
Derrick Mason / $5 / $8- A guy who's aging fast and probably not worth keeping at any price
Thomas Jones / $4 / $7 - Another handcuff situation
David Garrard / $3 / $6 - A backup that's not worth keeping at any inflated value
Devery Henderson / $3 / $6- A swing for the fences type pick last year, probably not worth keeping
Jordan Shipley / $1 / $4- Another swing for the fences pick that's probably not worth more than a buck

Free agent pickups/adds

Matt Cassel, Tarvaris Jackson, Chad Henne- All added on the cheap with the intent to be backups this year, probably none worth keeping
Dallas Clark / $1 / $6- A steal this year and probably for a few to come

I end up with a few steals, and a few guys I like at market value. Nothing game-breaking and probably the same as what a lot of people's rosters look like.

Jolly Bill wrote:

I would be happy either way. I was assuming it was for everyone picked up for simplicity's sake, but the way you say it is fine too.

I would think it would be only for non-waiver pickups, as they are always free pickups, while waiver claimed players can have values that get quite high in the bidding.

But if people want it to be for all FAs, that's fine too. We're in the land of sane inflation values now, so I'm happy.

Landshrk83 wrote:

Dallas Clark / $1 / $6- A steal this year and probably for a few to come

Rule B wrote:

For any player that was drafted and subsequently cut, the base value is the average of their initial draft price and the last price paid for the player through the blind bidding free agent acquisition process.

As with the inflation rules, I'm still open to discussion on base value calculations but I am 99% certain that there will be some form of "Rule B" in place.

Grumpicus wrote:
Landshrk83 wrote:

Dallas Clark / $1 / $6- A steal this year and probably for a few to come

Rule B wrote:

For any player that was drafted and subsequently cut, the base value is the average of their initial draft price and the last price paid for the player through the blind bidding free agent acquisition process.

As with the inflation rules, I'm still open to discussion on base value calculations but I am 99% certain that there will be some form of "Rule B" in place.

Oops, I mean to include something about that. At an average of his auction price ($19) and acquired value ($1) + 50% he's at $15, which is less of a steal but still low.

Grumpicus wrote:
Landshrk83 wrote:

Dallas Clark / $1 / $6- A steal this year and probably for a few to come

Rule B wrote:

For any player that was drafted and subsequently cut, the base value is the average of their initial draft price and the last price paid for the player through the blind bidding free agent acquisition process.

As with the inflation rules, I'm still open to discussion on base value calculations but I am 99% certain that there will be some form of "Rule B" in place.

What about players that were picked up on waivers, then cut, then picked up by someone else. Would the average price philosophy follow there?

I say average all prices. Too much potential for weirdness otherwise.

Lack of weekend discussion makes me sad...

Rules that seem to have been agreed upon:
$3 or 30% rounded up (whichever is greater) for keeping drafted players
$5 or 50% rounded up (whichever is greater) for keeping free agents
Base price is the average of all values for which a player was obtained within the last season (whether drafted, claimed, or added).*

*with the possible exception that dropping and picking a player yourself with no other team owning that player in between will not drop the base price. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, no dropping the base price for your guy if you drafted him high unless he 'renegotiates' with another team first.

If someone seriously objects to the 50% increase on claimed players I'll drop it, but it makes sense to me. Big players will be 1 year signings, and if you try to handicap your bid to make him a keeper you risk losing to someone else willing to bid higher.

Jolly Bill wrote:

Lack of weekend discussion makes me sad...

Rules that seem to have been agreed upon:
$3 or 30% rounded up (whichever is greater) for keeping drafted players
$5 or 50% rounded up (whichever is greater) for keeping free agents
Base price is the average of all values for which a player was obtained within the last season (whether drafted, claimed, or added).*

*with the possible exception that dropping and picking a player yourself with no other team owning that player in between will not drop the base price. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, no dropping the base price for your guy if you drafted him high unless he 'renegotiates' with another team first.

If someone seriously objects to the 50% increase on claimed players I'll drop it, but it makes sense to me. Big players will be 1 year signings, and if you try to handicap your bid to make him a keeper you risk losing to someone else willing to bid higher.

All of that sounds ok to me. If a player goes undrafted and then gets snatched up on the cheap from the waiver wire, then shame on the rest of the league for letting it happen and that team gets a freebie. Otherwise, most waiver wire acquisitions that were drafted and then cut will end up being one year rentals if kept the next year.

Lack of weekend discussion wasn't due to lack of interest on my part- I had a board game event in town, so I was gaming there 16 hours a day.

Jolly Bill wrote:

*with the possible exception that dropping and picking a player yourself with no other team owning that player in between will not drop the base price. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, no dropping the base price for your guy if you drafted him high unless he 'renegotiates' with another team first.

Woa there, what's with the random add in of a new rule? If a player was put through on waivers, everyone had a fair shot at him. My example, which I imagine people are referring to, is Romo. I cut him after he got hurt and had sat on my bench for a couple of weeks taking up a roster spot because the Cowboys refused to put him on IR so I could not do likewise, but he obviously wasn't coming back the rest of the season. Paying $21 in the draft then having whatever inflation from there was not worth him taking up a roster spot at that price so I cut him with the thought that if I could get him back cheaper, then he was worth wasting a roster spot on the rest of the season. If someone else picked him up, so be it, then I would have that spot open.

ukickmydog wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

*with the possible exception that dropping and picking a player yourself with no other team owning that player in between will not drop the base price. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, no dropping the base price for your guy if you drafted him high unless he 'renegotiates' with another team first.

Woa there, what's with the random add in of a new rule? If a player was put through on waivers, everyone had a fair shot at him. My example, which I imagine people are referring to, is Romo. I cut him after he got hurt and had sat on my bench for a couple of weeks taking up a roster spot because the Cowboys refused to put him on IR so I could not do likewise, but he obviously wasn't coming back the rest of the season. Paying $21 in the draft then having whatever inflation from there was not worth him taking up a roster spot at that price so I cut him with the thought that if I could get him back cheaper, then he was worth wasting a roster spot on the rest of the season. If someone else picked him up, so be it, then I would have that spot open.

I said possible exception. I was typing the average rule and realized that there's the obvious problem of people cutting a player just to pick him up two days later and essentially get a 50% discount for their trouble. Not saying people would do it intentionally, but it did happen last year.

That being said, the behavior you mention is what I was trying to avoid. Specifically cutting a player with an eye towards picking him back up cheaper, injury or no. I'd also be happy with the Commish being in charge of edge cases like that, similar to trades, which would probably be a better way to handle it. The option of removing all non-claim pickups was mentioned earlier, that would also fix the problem.

Mostly, I'm being a dick but in case someone else is legitimately wondering...

Jolly Bill wrote:

Base price is the average of all values for which a player was obtained within the last season (whether drafted, claimed, or added).

So if a player is undrafted ($0) and then claimed for $10 does that make his base price $5?

Jolly Bill wrote:

That being said, the behavior you mention is what I was trying to avoid. Specifically cutting a player with an eye towards picking him back up cheaper, injury or no. I'd also be happy with the Commish being in charge of edge cases like that, similar to trades, which would probably be a better way to handle it. The option of removing all non-claim pickups was mentioned earlier, that would also fix the problem.

I'd prefer we had something codified lest I be accused of various biases.

Grumpicus wrote:

Mostly, I'm being a dick but in case someone else is legitimately wondering...

Jolly Bill wrote:

Base price is the average of all values for which a player was obtained within the last season (whether drafted, claimed, or added).

So if a player is undrafted ($0) and then claimed for $10 does that make his base price $5?

I was assuming undrafted players would have no draft price to add to the value, as opposed to $0. Sounded like that was the general impression, anyway.

Jolly Bill wrote:
Grumpicus wrote:

Mostly, I'm being a dick but in case someone else is legitimately wondering...

Jolly Bill wrote:

Base price is the average of all values for which a player was obtained within the last season (whether drafted, claimed, or added).

So if a player is undrafted ($0) and then claimed for $10 does that make his base price $5?

I was assuming undrafted players would have no draft price to add to the value, as opposed to $0. Sounded like that was the general impression, anyway.

Like I said, I was just being a dick (before someone else got the chance ) but yes, my "ruling" is the same as your assumption.

Undrafted == None # not 0.

Jolly Bill wrote:
ukickmydog wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

*with the possible exception that dropping and picking a player yourself with no other team owning that player in between will not drop the base price. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, no dropping the base price for your guy if you drafted him high unless he 'renegotiates' with another team first.

Woa there, what's with the random add in of a new rule? If a player was put through on waivers, everyone had a fair shot at him. My example, which I imagine people are referring to, is Romo. I cut him after he got hurt and had sat on my bench for a couple of weeks taking up a roster spot because the Cowboys refused to put him on IR so I could not do likewise, but he obviously wasn't coming back the rest of the season. Paying $21 in the draft then having whatever inflation from there was not worth him taking up a roster spot at that price so I cut him with the thought that if I could get him back cheaper, then he was worth wasting a roster spot on the rest of the season. If someone else picked him up, so be it, then I would have that spot open.

I said possible exception. I was typing the average rule and realized that there's the obvious problem of people cutting a player just to pick him up two days later and essentially get a 50% discount for their trouble. Not saying people would do it intentionally, but it did happen last year.

That being said, the behavior you mention is what I was trying to avoid. Specifically cutting a player with an eye towards picking him back up cheaper, injury or no. I'd also be happy with the Commish being in charge of edge cases like that, similar to trades, which would probably be a better way to handle it. The option of removing all non-claim pickups was mentioned earlier, that would also fix the problem.

It's not like I cut him the last week of the season to try and pull a fast one on anybody. He was legitimately taking up a spot on my roster even though he was injured. If I could have put him on IR, I would have. What you are saying is I should have done one of two things, both of which are detrimental to me: 1) to let him sit on my bench, taking up a roster spot, with no chance of having his price be reasonable as a keeper or of him helping me the rest of the season; 2) to cut him and not even try to pick him back up, therefore giving him away cheaply to someone else for the next year.

ukickmydog wrote:

It's not like I cut him the last week of the season to try and pull a fast one on anybody. He was legitimately taking up a spot on my roster even though he was injured. If I could have put him on IR, I would have. What you are saying is I should have done one of two things, both of which are detrimental to me: 1) to let him sit on my bench, taking up a roster spot, with no chance of having his price be reasonable as a keeper or of him helping me the rest of the season; 2) to cut him and not even try to pick him back up, therefore giving him away cheaply to someone else for the next year.

Ok, I went and looked at Romo. I have no problem with your draft price ($21) and the claimed price ($5) averaging out.

I do have an issue with an example like Kolb earlier who was cut so that Garion could add another player... and then picked back up two days later. What happens to Kolb's keeper price then? (Sorry Garion, only picking on this example because I looked it up earlier.)

To restate: I'm not worried about how the claim prices average into keeper values. It's only the specific case of unclaimed additions that go back for $0 to the team that originally drafted them with no other transactions in between. Admittedly an edge case, but one that's happened already at least once. If you think that no worthwhile player will ever be dropped and added in that way, then we should just ignore it. I'm curious how you would want to calculate Kolb's value in this example, though.

Jolly Bill wrote:

I do have an issue with an example like Kolb earlier who was cut so that Garion could add another player... and then picked back up two days later. What happens to Kolb's keeper price then? (Sorry Garion, only picking on this example because I looked it up earlier.)

Ah. Throughout this entire thing I never realized you were talking about that. I didn't even realize that's what happened. I certainly don't remember doing that, but it was quite a while ago.

Jolly Bill wrote:

To restate: I'm not worried about how the claim prices average into keeper values. It's only the specific case of unclaimed additions that go back for $0 to the team that originally drafted them with no other transactions in between. Admittedly an edge case, but one that's happened already at least once. If you think that no worthwhile player will ever be dropped and added in that way, then we should just ignore it. I'm curious how you would want to calculate Kolb's value in this example, though.

Here's a thought: maybe unclaimed players shouldn't be kept at all. Adding players post-waivers is really just emergency roster moves anyway. Maybe they should be treated like street free agents being signed to a 1-year deal.

The rule becomes, if you want a player to be keeper-eligible, you have to spend money to acquire him. (And if you had one that you wanted to keep later, you could always throw him back and bid to re-claim him).

If we did this, I would say that for this year, we would treat all added players as $1 free agents, since the rule didn't exist. But then it would be in effect going forward.

The funny thing is, we're spending a disproportionate amount of time worrying about this extra style of free agency which is basically used for emergency kicker additions the night before the games. So maybe we just say, "fudge it - first-come first-serve free agents aren't keepers" and just not worry about it.

Fine with me... then again, I'm not keeping any of my free agent pickups. Garion might disagree (Kolb), as might Grump (Brandon Lloyd).

Regardless, we'd have to worry about it next year anyway. Unless we turn off adding players post-waivers?

Jolly Bill wrote:

Unless we turn off adding players post-waivers?

This is not possible in FleaFlicker, which really is the main reason why we have post-waiver free agency at all.

Hm. Gentleman's rule for GWJ? Does that get too complicated?

It doesn't make a lot of sense to belabor the point here, but at the same time everyone has to be happy with whatever we work out.

Why would we turn off non-waiver free agency? Not every player who will turn out to be useful is drafted (and then released), especially defenses and kickers.

Jolly Bill wrote:

Hm. Gentleman's rule for GWJ? Does that get too complicated?

Well the entire keeper part of the league is an out-of-band process, so whether we wish to allow keeping non-claimed players or not is no more or less complexity than devising rules for inflating them differently.

I kind of like the idea because it places additional meaning on the claims process - bidding $1 on a guy in claims now has meaning instead of just being a waste of a dollar if the guy wasn't bid on by anyone else.

But yes, this idea would require agreement from everyone else. What say you, everyone else? (Recognizing that this won't affect your adds from last year, so nobody would get screwed by an after-the-fact change).

garion333 wrote:

Why would we turn off non-waiver free agency? Not every player who will turn out to be useful is drafted (and then released), especially defenses and kickers.

Well, it's a moot point since it can't be disabled if we stay on FF (and we like FF), but originally the idea was that all free agency would be limited to bidding waivers, so that there's no first-come first-serve advantage to miss out on at all (no matter how minute). Indeed, these leagues have always used the WCOFF rules as our foundation that we've made just minor deviations from, and I believe that WCOFF is bidding only, no post-waiver pickups.

Bidding waivers are plenty sufficient to be the only means of free agency (and I believe we did as such in the Fanball-based AOL leagues), but since it can't be disabled on FF, we just reduced it to a means of emergency adds after the waiver date, and it's worked out OK in that role. It certainly isn't hurting anyone and the friendliness of being able to make last-second roster moves helps make our leagues a little more casual-friendly, as we aren't the kind of hardcore paid league the WCOFF ones are.