Final Fantasy Football XXX
12:32:00 PM
First I’m going to include the too long didn’t read version for those of you who don’t care as much:
- I think our keeper prices should increase based off of percentages instead of flat rates, so that we don’t skew toward high priced keepers. This way we could keep low-mid value picks at a reasonable rate, thus increasing owners strategic options.
- Someone who drafts a player for $5 and gets $60 production is similarly as lucky as an owner who picks up a player with free agent cash and gets big production. Thus I don’t think we should discredit them. The above suggestion does temper the luck factor as well (read long version for more details).
- Disclaimer: I haven’t discussed 3-year contracts here, we can figure something out for those or just get rid of them, but that’s a different convo.
Anyone who doesn’t want to read more right now, skip to the bottom and look at my two easy questions. Respond with two yeses, noes, or a combination please!
For the rest of you, this is my proposal that will forever* fix our fantasy keeper framework. I say framework because we may want to modify the numbers involved, but our system would be in place. I think it will also really fix the whole keeping pick-up issue. I didn’t want to separate this from that issue because I feel like this really affects it. People who care give to read it all, I welcome feedback/concerns/questions. Without further ado:
I believe that our current system of flat rates of increase unduly favors high priced keepers. It isn’t possible (or at least reasonable) to keep low-medium price players at a value rate (a player you spent $10 on last year who is going for $15 this year). Really it removes flexibility in keeper strategy, unless you got an unbelievable deal in previous years, you have limited options.
To fix this I propose we use a system in which your price increases according to x or y, whichever is higher. In this equation, x would be a fixed percentage of what you paid last year, while y would be a fixed percentage of the difference between what you paid last year and the average going rate on espn 7 days before the start of the NFL season. Don’t be too put off, it’s really not that complicated. Example (x = 20%, y = 30%): Last year, Dan drafted Jordy Laforge for $10, this year Jordy is going for $30 a week before season start. If Dan keeps Jordy it will cost him $16 (20% of 10 = 2, 30% of 30-10 = 6). If Jordy was only going for $15 on average this year, Dan could keep him for $12 (20% of 10 = 2, 30% of 15-10=1.5). So it isn’t over complicated, all that we need to do is figure out what percentages we want.
What this does is brings players up to market value faster if there is a giant discrepancy (that doesn’t mean it has to be “fast”). Someone can still get very good value for a pick who outperformed his prior year draft position. Also, it makes it possible to keep low-mid “value” keepers without being charged an unproportionate sum. If you drafted someone for $10 last year and they are going for $15 this year, I feel you should have a reasonable option to keep him. The other thing this does is temper the effect of keeping a wire pick-up who is all of a sudden valued at $50. In my mind we would use the 50% baseline and then apply our keeper system. We just need to figure out what numbers we want, i.e. how fast we want the gap to close/how many years we want certain keepers to be kept.
On the topic of pick-ups, there is enough luck in drafting in the first place that it seems silly that pick-ups should be so severely discriminated against. In the draft there are plenty of random names that people get lucky on when they blow up. Most picks are in the $1-$15 range, and if a player blows up from there it’s similar luck to a well executed waiver pick-up. Waiver pick-ups are an integral part of the game, and they often require a good amount of thought and foresight to grab a high potential pick. I’m all for cutting out some of the giant benefit by creating the 50% baseline, and doing the percentage based increases but everyone gets an equal shot at every pick up and limiting people in that way limits people's ability to strategize. We could even do something crazy like not do secret auctions. We could have the option of putting up any player up for a live-ish auction (i.e. post on an auction page). If there is a lot of interest we could have a facebook multi chat to settle it. It could get pretty intense, maybe even have live deals being done, “Billy Noname is at 65! Shit I only have 64 dollars! Jose I’ll give you MJD for Johnny Knox and $100 Free Agent Cash right now!”.
So in the interest of getting things done, I’m going to ask two very straighforward yes-no questions that everyone should be able to answer without too much thought. We then can move on from there to actually accepting specifics.
Question #1
Should we be able to keep pick-ups to some degree?
Question #2
Should we move away from the flat rate keeper pricing in favor of a simple percentage based system?
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