12/22/24
February 04, 2004
Did we decide on fantasy baseball yet... what league we are going to use, who will be the commish this year? If we are going to use Yahoo, we should probably try to grab a decent live draft time now.
posted by jerseygirl to navel gazing at 09:29 AM - 56 comments
Registration for the 2004 Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball season will begin in mid-February. But yeah, I agree, we should jump on yahoo once it is available. I'll commish if no one else wants to, but we should go ahead and get the ground rules out of the way. All trades go through unless are contested by a certain percentage of the league? votes done here or on the yahoo board?
posted by corpse at 10:23 AM on February 04, 2004
Same here, I'll commish if need be. I just will not put up with any crap, especially from you Jerseygirl! just kidding I agree with corpse, if there is trade that is a contested up to a certain a percentage, we should discuss it. I'd prefer to do it here in the locker room because yahoo's boards aren't that user friendly. As for draft times, how about later in the evening instead of the middle of the day or morning?
posted by jasonspaceman at 10:37 AM on February 04, 2004
The baseball league is probably going to be very popular. How many teams will there be (and will there be room for newcomers)?
posted by dusted at 10:51 AM on February 04, 2004
I know there needs to be some oversight, but I hate it when trade reviews become an issue. I prefer that we find a group of trusting/honest folks who won't use trades to better other clubs and ruin the league. Even majority rules or a higher percentage can become a problem if someone is playing a hunch and feels a player will have a brek-out year. I've had this happen in the past and there is nothing worse than looking back on a trade that was denied only to realize that it not only wasn't unfair, but it worked in the exact opposite way everyone believed. I'd be fine trusting folks to do what is right. Draft times in the evening work best.
posted by 86 at 10:51 AM on February 04, 2004
We shouldn't have more than 20 teams. Anything beyond that and it might get unwieldy to agree on scoring, trading and draft times. We definitely need to nail down the scoring system and how many players per team (including IR/bench players) before we start to set up the league. As well, maybe we should have a pre-signup list here (or on the front page) to see how many people are interested. And I disqualify myself from being the commish. It'll just look bad when I whoomp all you folks.
posted by grum@work at 11:16 AM on February 04, 2004
I would like to play this year. I can't commish, but I'm trustworthy, loyal, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent*. I can draft any time. *except clean and reverent.
posted by jeffmshaw at 11:17 AM on February 04, 2004
I'm in. If there are more than 20 teams, I'd be willing to join a newcomers/relegated league.
posted by dusted at 11:43 AM on February 04, 2004
If we get to 16 we should have two, eight-team leagues and divide them up evenly for anything over that. Just my two cents. We could break it down a couple of ways. We could have a returning league for folks that played last year and a newcomers league... Or we could have a division of team owners based on fantasy baseball experience. Thoughts? And for the long run we could make this a A division/B division league with winners being promoted and bottom-dwellers being relegated. Again, thoughts? I'll be a commish as needed, but I would prefer not to have the responsibilities.
posted by 86 at 11:50 AM on February 04, 2004
Couple things I can think of off the top of my head: - I think we should agree straight out to let the default Yahoo trade processing time be our processing time. Otherwise, that's way too much effort and time required from the Commish to make sure trades are ALL processed with exactly the same time after both sides agree. If we stick with the default (2 days was it?) then the Commish doesn't have to wrestle with that issue. - If anyone (Commish included) has a problem/question with a trade, post it to the Yahoo board. All team managers can discuss it there, explain their reasoning for the trades and then the other managers can vote on the trade approval if needed. This may be a bit more work (as far as checking the boards regularly) but if you are in there arranging your team for the day's games, you're in there anyway. This will put a stop to any post-mortem "I thought that Curt Schilling straight up for Darren Oliver trade was lopsided but didn't say anything then" stuff. You either talk while the trade is on the table for 2 days or you lose your opportunity. I only wish there was a way to toss out teams who are inactive and throw the players back into the waiver pool. We had a few dead teams by midseason with decent players (ARod namely) that the other managers would have liked a shot at.
posted by jerseygirl at 12:01 PM on February 04, 2004
I can play as well this year...not as up on baseball as I am in other sports, but with my Marlins as reigning WS champs, I'm feeling lucky!
posted by bcb2k2 at 12:02 PM on February 04, 2004
i'm excited theres so much new interest! all newcomers are totally welcome. the more the merrier, guys, so come on down :)
posted by jerseygirl at 12:08 PM on February 04, 2004
I only wish there was a way to toss out teams who are inactive and throw the players back into the waiver pool. We had a few dead teams by midseason with decent players (ARod namely) that the other managers would have liked a shot at. - by jerseygirl We can do that. People would have to be ok with letting the commish be able to change their lineups. For me, that isn't a big deal if we have a trust worthy commish.
posted by jasonspaceman at 12:24 PM on February 04, 2004
Cool, I wasn't sure how newcomers would be welcomed. Thanks! :) RE: dead teams... The only problem I can see with dumping top players like ARod onto the waiver wire is that it has the potential to ruin the competitive balance. For example, if the first place team has top waiver priority and claims ARod, the race for first place is over. Is it possible for the waiver priority to be assigned according to standings rather than last claim? If the last place team got first dibs on ARod, it would make for an interesting season. It would also be closer to the MLB system for transactions.
posted by dusted at 12:30 PM on February 04, 2004
I like your idea for waiver priority, but I don't know if that's something Yahoo lets you control. It may be one of those pre-set deals. I wish I could get into Yahoo to set up a dummy league now, just to check out the available settings so we could have an answer now. and kind of playing off of the waiver issue... I think letting the commish change the lineups is fine, as long as we have a commish who is trusted enough by everyone and of course, the commish would agree to only touch the teams in the instance of a dead team scenerio. That may be a hard sell though, but we can certainly try. We'd also have to establish some sort of time period for defining a dead team.
posted by jerseygirl at 12:45 PM on February 04, 2004
Sorry, been out of the loop. I think capping it at 16 teams is probably a good idea. In the football and hockey leagues, we have so many damned teams there's not much out there to be had in the free-agent market. I'd like to see 10 teams in two leagues, with a World Series somehow at the end. Contesting trades should be on a majority basis. I don't think we'll have much of a problem with that, though. If the guy you think is getting screwed can give a reasonable agrument for the deal (helps the team, expects this guy to explode in the near future), then let the damned trade go. I'm also perfectly willing to be commissioner. I'm bossy, unfair and petulant, so I'm perfect, I think. :)
posted by wfrazerjr at 01:01 PM on February 04, 2004
I don't like the idea of expelling dead teams, as long as they have some sort of a semblance of a lineup playing everyday, they should be allowed to stay. The idea of disperseing players either via a draft or by waivers is just a logistics and competetive balance problem. If Arod is on a dead team (like he already is), he should stay there.
posted by corpse at 01:17 PM on February 04, 2004
Also, we may want to consider the yahoo plus package, I forget the price and what it offers, but it should offer more control over the league.
posted by corpse at 01:18 PM on February 04, 2004
I'm bossy, unfair and petulant, so I'm perfect, I think. :) noooo!
posted by jerseygirl at 01:31 PM on February 04, 2004
Has anyone participated in one of the ESPN leagues?
posted by dusted at 03:03 PM on February 04, 2004
I'd love to play in a yahoo league.
posted by mbd1 at 03:26 PM on February 04, 2004
I've got boras on the phone right now, and I can guarantee that I'll improve on last years performance.
posted by trox at 04:51 PM on February 04, 2004
For the right price, you mean.
posted by dusted at 05:07 PM on February 04, 2004
I'd like to join. If we're going to do two leagues (Expert/Novice), I'll gladly participate in the novice league. I will not be Commish. Evening is the best draft time for me, and regarding trades, I think a majority vote is good. Dead teams should remain dead.
posted by rocketman at 07:26 PM on February 04, 2004
Do people want to break it up into expert and novice? Who gets to say who is an expert and who is a novice? :) It may be better to just do a cross section of the entire lot of people? im rambling because i am over-tired. sorry.
posted by jerseygirl at 09:33 PM on February 04, 2004
I'm in, and I'd love to be commish again, lol, just kidding, don't you all get crazy, but I would join the league, and I'm gunning for jersey this year.
posted by jbou at 10:32 PM on February 04, 2004
gunning for jersey! as opposed to the rest of the year when you're merely beating me with your police baton. excellent!
posted by jerseygirl at 10:52 PM on February 04, 2004
Running a league above a certain numbers of teams becomes counterproductive because you can't find anyone worth a crap on the waiver wire. I think 16 is about right for a baseball league, with the new folks falling into a second separate-but-equal league. I don't know how to classify novice vs. expert.
posted by wfrazerjr at 08:46 AM on February 05, 2004
If we are going to have two leagues, why not randomly split people up since this is the first time we might do this? I agree with wfrazerjr, but split the league into two, with a limit of 16 teams in each league.
posted by jasonspaceman at 08:58 AM on February 05, 2004
so far for commish we have corpse, jasonspaceman and wfrazerjr. and under the "if i have to, i will" 86 & jerseygirl maybe we leave this open for another 24 hours to see who else is interested in commishing and then start voting?
posted by jerseygirl at 11:19 AM on February 05, 2004
Sounds good to me. BTW, does anyone have an informal head count on how many people want to play? My quick count turns up 13 in this thread, but I wasn't in the league last year, so I dunno.
posted by jeffmshaw at 11:44 AM on February 05, 2004
I'd go for the "randomly assign" system for the two leagues. As well, I'd like waiver wire pickups and free agent availability to be tied to specific days of the week (Wednesday and Sunday, for example). That would give people the opportunity to pick up players without having to visit the Yahoo page every single day.
posted by grum@work at 12:05 PM on February 05, 2004
arent you visiting the page every day anyway, to set up your starters and whatnot? or was that just me?
posted by jerseygirl at 12:30 PM on February 05, 2004
Let's take the randomly assign a little further. How about we have two leagues?: American and National. Of course, that would depend on how many people we have.
posted by jasonspaceman at 12:30 PM on February 05, 2004
Many leagues split in two and do the American and National League set-ups. That would have to be smaller leagues, however, unless you are just talking about using the names.
posted by wfrazerjr at 03:20 PM on February 05, 2004
I've got dibs on last place!! Make that second to last, someones got to give-up sometime during the season right?
posted by lilnemo at 05:50 PM on February 05, 2004
I'd like to join a novice league as well. Especially one that doesn't have a live draft.
posted by NoMich at 09:37 PM on February 05, 2004
Would like to say I want in on this action. Just to muddy the waters, personally I think 16 teams would be the MINIMUM for a All-MLB league. Hate those ten team universal leagues where everyone has all-stars on their roster top to bottom. Picking up the flyers, young phenoms in hiding, mid season call-ups is where the fun is. 9-10 teams is good number for a NL/AL only league (again makes it interesting on the waiver wire and draft). YMMV
posted by pivo at 11:35 PM on February 07, 2004
I agree, FWIW. That's why I like playing in AL-only leagues.
posted by jeffmshaw at 12:35 PM on February 08, 2004
i dont want to break it up into al/nl.
posted by jerseygirl at 01:02 PM on February 08, 2004
I don't either. I'm just saying that, from my perspective, more teams = more fun. I like it when you have to take chances on non-stars. Hence, the more owners for an ML league, the better. Just my two newbie cents, do whatever y'all like.
posted by jeffmshaw at 02:19 PM on February 08, 2004
Nor was I advocating a split into league specific, just the more the merrier thing.
posted by pivo at 04:54 PM on February 08, 2004
Counting both threads, we have 18 people interested in playing, we could cap the league at that, or even 20. The talent would be spread thin, but it would make for a interesting league. jerseygirl corpse jasonspaceman dusted 86 grum@work jeffmshaw bcb2k2 wfrazerjr mbd1 trox rocketman jbou lilnemo NoMich pivo qbert72 djacobs
posted by corpse at 08:53 AM on February 10, 2004
I understand the reasoning by capping the league, but I would love to see and take part in a league with the same amount of teams MLB has.
posted by jasonspaceman at 09:25 AM on February 10, 2004
Cap it at 20 and let's get rolling.
posted by wfrazerjr at 08:25 PM on February 10, 2004
one league or two?
posted by jerseygirl at 08:27 PM on February 10, 2004
Since I pretty much gave up on baseball in '94, if there's a live draft, please count me out. I can't imagine sitting around all day picking guys that I'm not really all that familiar with and I don't have the time to put in some research. I say, cap the "advance" league and let us stoopid n00bs have a novice league.
posted by NoMich at 08:41 PM on February 10, 2004
one league 20 teams, let's roll, and bring it on, jersey.
posted by jbou at 09:56 PM on February 10, 2004
oh, and I vote for a live draft, you folks who don't want that, just set your rankings ahead of time, and you'll be all set.
posted by jbou at 09:57 PM on February 10, 2004
Huh...problem solved. Please never you mind my previous rant; I'm in. Thanks jbou.
posted by NoMich at 10:59 PM on February 10, 2004
I agree, one league. Cap it at 18 or 20 or don't cap it, whatever's easiest.
posted by jeffmshaw at 11:03 PM on February 10, 2004
I agree, one league. Let's just hope I do not have the first draft pick jinx this year.
posted by jasonspaceman at 04:32 AM on February 11, 2004
So who is commish?
posted by wfrazerjr at 12:38 PM on February 12, 2004
you are ;)
posted by jasonspaceman at 01:15 PM on February 12, 2004
One league. Drafting in late March would be a good thing for me.
posted by grum@work at 01:34 PM on February 12, 2004
I second the nomination of wfrazerjr, if he's willing to do it.
posted by dusted at 02:02 PM on February 12, 2004
old discussion. let's decide on a commish and a service (yahoo, smallworld, whatever). yahoo was pretty good, and it was free. unless i have to, i prefer not to be commish.