Fantasy Keeper League (Football)

Are we going to start this up? I'd like to begin the process ASAP, but I don't know who's running it, or who the Commish would be etc. We have established we're using DNL's rules, and that there was interest, but is someone (that knows how) willing to pick up the buck, so to speak, and start it?

Intro

Hey folks.

No, we won't be having the draft tonight, so you wont miss it.

I'd like to start by putting together a list of interested folks, and lets go on ahead and get your time zone so we can start figuring on the best time to have a live draft. We can have it anytime before the opening day kickoff.

As we've been having lockerrooms about this league from time to time already, I assume we have several people that are still interested. As Dan has been stating, we likely have enough people for two leagues where he, I, and whoever else would volunteer, could fill in any gaps with a team in the second league.

The next issue is how to conduct the live draft when we decide to have it. There are two options:

1. An automated live auction, like fantasyauctioneer.com, which handles everything for us. That example may actually not be the best, so in addition to whatever it would cost us, we would have to incur the time to research the best available service. The benefit would of course be the automated tracking of bids, players taken, and that it would happen as fast as we wanted it to.
2. Hold it here on the AGM wiki. This would be simple and no cost to us. The drawback would be that we have to track the bids and players taken, and it's harder to enforce a time-limit on bids via a wiki.

Discuss your opinions on how to conduct the draft and when we should hold it in the comments. Sign up below stating your timezone. Let anybody you know from the previous lockerrooms (here and here, and any others I've missed) to sign up here, and that this is finally the real one. Thanks!

--Estebistec 02:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

New Location

I've moved the content that used to be here to a new league home-page:

UFFL:Home

Those pages will have comments too. I just figure that we need a space to sprawl out and start organizing comments about specific league topics as we get it together. Thanks!

--Estebistec 02:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

JoshkrossDraft Pick

861 days ago

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I'd be interested, assuming I could be present at the draft (I"m outta dodge between the 4th and 21st of august)

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DNLLegend

861 days ago

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Estebistec should be on tonight to coordinate.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

861 days ago

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Excellent - although, if that's tonight your time, that won't help... And like Mr Joshkross I'd like a live draft too so I can be at it (so that makes it about 2PM in the afternoon).

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TylersaltAll-Star

861 days ago

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We're not doing the draft tonight are we? That would be... bad.

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EstebistecVarsity

861 days ago

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A posted an update above. I've also been itching to get it going, as I really liked the set of rules that DNL wrote up. Now we're ready to get it going. Actually, now that I think about it, I'll add links to the original rule writeups above.

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CoreyisarealboyMajor Leaguer

861 days ago

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The rules may be a little tough for me to learn, but I'll do my best. I'm in.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

861 days ago

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Yep - I'm also in. I'll get a lawyer on the rules though!

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EstebistecVarsity

860 days ago

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They're actually not that bad. That's actually why I linked the original articles from last year, they explain it from top to bottom. The final article is more of a summary.

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I am a cpcpMajor Leaguer

859 days ago

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I'm in for anything free. I'm in the good ol' eastern time zone.

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InsanMajor Leaguer

859 days ago

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I'm in.

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InsanMajor Leaguer

858 days ago

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...as long as I don't have to spend any money on anything. (Just thought I'd throw that in there, in case there was confusion)

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DemonboyDraft Pick

858 days ago

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I'm in...

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InsanMajor Leaguer

858 days ago

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I don't like the "cutting player" rule. I understand that it still has to use dead money and I'm not saying change that. But there has to be one advantage of cutting a player. Maybe assigning a mimit to how many players can be on each team. That way, if your roster is full and you want someone else, you cut a player, to get him. It has an advantage and disadvantage. Otherwise, what's the purpose of cutting a player?

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InsanMajor Leaguer

858 days ago

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*assign a limit

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

858 days ago

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At least you can form an opinion - I don't understand a lot of the rules!

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EstebistecVarsity

858 days ago

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The point of cutting a player is still to free up money. Granted if you put too much stake in the player originally, it's going to hurt more. Only 50% of the player's salary is dead money towards the salary cap.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

858 days ago

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If I sign someone up to an LTC, am I able to negotiate another contract further down the line? In Madden 05, a huge loophole let you sign everyone to 7 year deals, and then in Year 2, resign them to another Year 7 deal. It was often cheaper than letting them take Year 2 of their contract. Also, who moderates the league? Where do we conduct the draft - does Yahoo fulfill these criteria? And there are 160 players up for auction. Who chooses those?

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EstebistecVarsity

858 days ago

Score 1

The last questions first: Some combination of Dan and I will moderate I suppose. It's more of a practicality issue than ownership, so whoever is able and willing to help is welcome. Where we will hold the draft or even the league itself is all up for discussion in this thread. Most of the fantasy systems out there are very limited, so we may have to do some things here on AGM. Every player will be up for auction in our charter year. I don't see any specific rules about extending players, so that would be something we can discuss here and consult with DNL about. Obviously we don't want to create cheaty loop-holes of any kind. Also, simply extending a player to lock him up could be an unfair advantage to the original owner. Fantasy players can't negotiate with you for their own interests, and the original auction determines fair-market value. So how do you determine what prices is fair to simply keep a player locked up?

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

858 days ago

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Okay, I think a lot of it should be done here on the Chair. I like the bidding option, because you don't have to all be online at once.

I would happily give up my playing role to be a sort of commish of it and ensure the rules are stuck to. That's not an option at the moment, as I don't fully understand the rules, but I wouldn't mind sitting out if needs be. I quite like the idea of being an NFL commish or something like that. :P

As for the two leagues, I'd only do one. People will inevitably come and go, and after a period of inactivity, I think you should assign "reserves" in order they signed up if a user is inactive in the League for time period x. That way, you guarantee a high quality league.

Also, what is a "franchise" player? I see that he gets payed top 3 salary... That's all well and good, but what does the owner get in return? Is he unable to be traded, or something like that?

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EstebistecVarsity

858 days ago

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I would rather not you give up your playing spot (unless you actually don't want to play). We can share in the responsibilities. As for getting quality players, I'm hoping we'll get a good idea of how into this people are by their involvement here. Especially when they need to get to the point of knowing the rules well enough to have input on the league site/draft decisions and running their own draft strategy.

A "franchise" player is the way you can extend one player on your team who is not under contract in the next year. It is at a guaranteed high cost and can only be used on one player. Restricted players are a way to keep players for one year (I assume that's what non-long-term means), and also at an extra cost. They *cannot* be given LTC. This means that for those expiring players that you cannot get to franchising from year to year, you can only put off their FA a year at a time.

Dan, correct me if I'm wrong on any points.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

858 days ago

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I meant I'll give up my playing spot if I have to... Say if 9 people want to play, then I'll gladly give up my spot for a commish role - I play loads of the others anyway. I want to play, but I'll happily give up my place if demand > supply. If 9 want to play, I'll do the organising once I learn the rules. But don't get me wrong, I want to play! Okay, what's the advantage of a franchise player? Why would you volunteer to pay a player a high wage for a year, rather than sign him to a 1 year contract (which may be at a lower price)? Or do you only use it when it is going to be a higher price?

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EstebistecVarsity

858 days ago

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The advantage of franchising a player is locking him up for a LTC. You don't have the option of a LTC with restricted players. Using restricted status for just one year is pretty expensive, as it imposes $25 of dead money each year you want to do it, and that's in addition to the player's salary. For most lower-cost players, that's pretty expensive. But, for your players in that salary range (where it's worth it), you only get to franchise one, and you can restrict the rest (or not).

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InsanMajor Leaguer

858 days ago

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What's the point of giving a guy a 7 year deal? Is this league going to survive more than 3 years?

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

858 days ago

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My fear is that whilst the League may well survive more than 3 years, it may not have the same people in charge of each team. But that's fine - you may get a rubbish team one year, but it'll be your responsibility to build it up again. I think it can work well.

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EstebistecVarsity

857 days ago

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Let's wait and see. I'm not going to be blindly optimistic, but we're obviously not going to do this thinking we can't possibly get a decent set good owners. When this was first described last summer there were a lot of interested people. I'm hoping they return to AGM sooner than later to find this again. I left talk messages with a lot of people who had expressed interest in the past, but I almost surely missed somebody. So if you regularly talk with anyone who was is would be truly interested, send them this way.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

857 days ago

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Will do.

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DNLLegend

857 days ago

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Franchise player and restricted player rules are there to allow you to extend player contracts past their natural contract status. Basic idea is this: you have a guy in their last contract year (be it the end of a LTC, a one-year season, or an in-season FA pick up), and you want to keep him. In order to make it fair, you have to use one of those two mechanisms.

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EstebistecVarsity

858 days ago

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Also, would all of you like to hold the draft closer to the season itself, or sooner (based on your schedule)? Giving all of us time to soak in the rules and agree on how and where they will be implemented is pretty important, so we definitely won't be jumping the gun as soon as our one or two leagues are filled. Ideally everybody should feel comfortable enough with the rules so they can plan their auction/draft strategy.

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Alex HolowczakHall of Famer

858 days ago

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I think we need a preseason schedule, so that there is a definite time period for each thing. I think the draft should be auctioned in the penultimate week of the preseason.

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EstebistecVarsity

858 days ago

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I've create a rough schedule above in the page. It's still negotiable, but we have some major targets on there that we can recognize and ensure get done along the way.

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MegECass110AAA-er

857 days ago

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I'm in. Eastern Time Zone.

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EstebistecVarsity

857 days ago

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We have a homepage for the league. See the update above.

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InsanMajor Leaguer

856 days ago

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Where's the list of people in the league?

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InsanMajor Leaguer

856 days ago

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Oh nevermind I see it.

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EstebistecVarsity

850 days ago

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For those of you who haven't had a chance to say much in all of this discussion, how many of you understand the rules and are interested in forming this league because of how they differ from conventional fantasy rules? We need to figure out how much genuine interest is there and how many people don't get the rules and simply want to join another league.

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