The High Voltage Death-Clouds would like to urge caution for the upcoming season.  Making contact with the Death-Clouds is likely to result in serious injury/disability up to and including death.



You have been warned...

What the hell did Joe need help with on Sunday?

There once was a man named AP.
Whose bye week fell unfortunately.
For Joe he faced Dan,
The essence of man,
Poor Joe stood no chance don't you see?!

Joe thinks that he's worthy of fame.
Quite frankly, I think that he's lame
Hit his ceiling last week.
No AP? His team reeks!
I win 'ships like it's part of my name!

I'm not scared because you have Drew Brees.
I will surely beat you with great ease.
Last week Austin scored zero,
Josh Brown also scored zero.
It'll be easier than a making a sneeze.

I've got Rodgers, Dezeus, and D-Tom.
Add Jam-Cham in, that guys the bomb.
S. Janikowski,
And Hawks by the Sea,
You'll be trounced with stalwart aplomb.

Alright, I have a semi-original idea!!  Unfortunately by it's very nature it relies on unoriginalness...
Oh well, I don't have much time this week so here goes!

Dan vs Danny:

I am ASHAMED of you!!
...
Or, I'm very impressed by you.

Either way I expect all of you will begin to desperately seek out my approval.  I assume most of you have seen the Colbert Report at some point, so this will be an adaptation of his segment of the same name, no pun intended.  In case you don't know what I'm talking about...you know what, figure it out.  So without further ado:

My first Wag of the Finger is for the most egregious of offenses, unoriginalness, and it goes to...Me (Dan).

Butterflies, Flowers, and INTENSITY!!!

While I don't apologize whatsoever, I do recognize that (most of) my pieces haven't been original in form.  However, until I come up with my own, I'm going to try to recreate others' success.  Because in the end, isn't that what the entertainment industry is all about?


Tip of the Hat:  Tim-picking up Joique Bell.

Me giving Tim a glare as he steals Joique out from under me.

We definitely all should have bid more on Joique, but as the next closest bidder I was particularly annoyed/approving of Tim's budding bidding skills.  Well met young man, well met.  I'm going to say Tibs over Danny by 5 just for that.  Also, good jabs at AK, which leads me to...


Wag of the Finger:  Arun-Picking up Edelman for $46.

Really?  Looks fine to me.

Oops.  I'm sure Arun will continue to defend his move well past when Amendola and Gronko are leaving Edelman with 2 targets on 8 snaps in a couple of weeks time.  Honestly I should probably be tipping my hat, because when a real keeper hits the block, Erun will have blown his whole load...and in a shcool zone!

Tip of the Hat:  Bryan-151 Points



Wag of the Finger:  Kenrisa, for going up against the Bad Shapes.
It may not be totally his fault, but still not a good move.  I say Shapes by 20.
http://realmencrytc.blogspot.com/2013/09/ode-de-noob.html
Enough Said.


Tip of the Hat: Bear, for securing top waiver priority in tie-breakers by sucking ass!

Get it?

Seriously though, good job!  It was fun watching Erun just barely lose out on Thomas.  I predict Siems will bounce back and take the week 92-84.

Wag of the Finger:  Jeff, for not scoring enough points.

You're supposed to score enough points, Jeff!  I say Jeff loses by 39 again, because that's what he's proven hes' capable of.  So I guess that means Jose 39-Jeff 0.

Tip of the Hat: Joe, for having AP on your team.

Duh!

Still I think Bryan takes it by at least 10...or loses by 1.  Yeah he's probably going to lose by 1.

And one final Tip of the Hat to...

Whoever starts to do a weekly match-up preview...or other weekly article...or semi-weekly article...or excessively talks trash...or you know, whatever.

0-2, that’s you, 0-2

You know the, Bad Shapes are beatin' you!

What you get when you type "keeper" into Google Images.

                                     

Basically, my system uses an either/or clause and two equations to determine how much a player's price will go up each year.  One is simply a flat percentage of what an owner paid in the prior year.  The second, takes    in to account the difference in value between the current year and what you paid before designating a contract. Using this two-equation system it does less to strongly favor one end of the price spectrum.  For bad/unproven players you pay less, for good/proven players you pay more.

Additionally a contract system has been worked in.  An owner can decide whether to do a 1 through 5 year contract.  As the contract length increases, the price of keeping the player decreases, but the penalty for breaking the contract increases.  Furthermore with a longer contract, obviously there is greater risk of the player not living up to the increasing price.

I believe that this will allow owners in our league much more strategic room.  If you want to risk a big penalty to lock in a low rate for that value stud, go for a 5-year contract.  If you want to minimize risk, go with a 1-year. You can also lock in a speculative play at a low rate.  You may end up throwing draft money down a pit, but you could hit big once in a blue moon.  Of course you always have the option do split it right down the middle too.

The calculator in the link (below) explains the system pretty well, so go ahead and check it out, play with some numbers and see how it feels.  Let me know if you have any questions, constructive thoughts, concerns, etc.


2 Questions:
Are you in favor of enacting the Richter Scale for determining keeper costs?

If we do adopt the system, for players currently in the 2nd year of their 3-year contract, do we:
             a). Convert said contracts into contracts using the new system.
                                  (calculate for a three-year contract, but only use first two numbers)
             b). Void all current contracts
             c). Other.

• 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.

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?