Fantasy Hockey - The Reckoning

[notyoueither]

Talk to the hand, Asher. I'm done with you.

[Asher]

We're a couple weeks into the league, it's still very young. We start to see the exploitation of some rules, and I wish to put an end to it.

Your counterarguments are, as follows:
1) We've already discussed this! [No, we haven't -- and you haven't linked to these mysterious discussions, which is telling]
2) We can't change the rules after the season started! [Since when can you not close loopholes very early into a season when they begin to be exploited? This would affect everybody equally.]

Both of which skirt around the real issue, which is how some players -- by giving huge time committments with extensive micromanaging -- gain a real competitive edge by inflating their skater/goalie games compared to people who have other things in life to pay attention to.

The whole idea of the pools is to draft and hold quality players. Constantly rotating players is simply a shotgun-style of "if I have as many players as possible I may get more points!", which is, IMO, an exploit.

It's a pretty clear-cut case, in my opinion.

[notyoueither]

If anyone else wishes to discuss this, I welcome it.

I consider the spat with Asher over, for a variety of reasons.

[Asher]

Here's some more rotating by nye to gain more skater games to try to compete in a close match this round:

Oct 26 11:15pm Mike Ribeiro (Dal - C) Add Free Agents Road Kill
Oct 27 11:25pm Mike Ribeiro (Dal - C) Drop Road Kill Waivers

Looking back in the logs...on the 24th, you dropped Vyborny as Columbus had a few days off. In the meantime you picked up Ouelette for a game, then dropped him. Then you picked up Ribeiro for a game, then dropped him. Finally you re-add Vyborny back tonight.

This isn't somebody who is looking for a new member of his team, it's somebody who is trying to get as many skater games as possible in hopes of gaining points.

[notyoueither]

Here's the long and short of it.

The way the rules were set up last year, by Asher as the Commish, there was no limit to the number of players you could drop or add. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realise that you could use 1 or 2 roster spots to pick up available players so as to have a position playing every single game night. This only peters out on busy nights, like Saturdays when you'd most likely have 8 better players anyway.

It does not take a whole lot of time, either. You identify your 'swing' roster spots. You look at the players. You sort by goals, assists, PP, PiMs, whatever. You see the top ranked players by whatever stat you want very quickly. In one of the columns you see who they play on the next game day, players who do not play are blank. You pick the guy you want, you drop the swing player who played today, and you're set for the next day. It would take a monkey 5 minutes to do this, despite the claims from some quarters.

This was brought up for discussion near the end of last year. I did it a little bit, and I brought it up as something to consider for next (this) year. The only other person to speak up was another manager who had used the same tactic. Nobody complained.

There was no drive to change, and hence there has been no change. I don't see a reason to change now based on the whining of a person who is spoiling to pick a fight with me for personal reasons that go way beyond this issue and this league.

[Asher]

This was brought up for discussion near the end of last year.

1) That was last year, not this year. We're having this discussion now, so stop complaining about last year.
2) End of last year, when I was not here as well as many others in this pool. Why do you keep bringing this up as if it's relevant?

What matters now is this is being exploited far more this year, by ONE INDIVIDUAL IN PARTICULAR, at the expense of everyone else who doesn't have time to micromanage a team like that.

What matters now is it is being called into question if such behaviour permits fair play in the league.

What matters now is if people in the league want to accept this behaviour or prohibit it in the interest of leveling the playingfield.

Please stop bringing up last year's "rules" or last year's "discussions" several of you had on the issue, it's irrelevant. This is a young season and we've got lots of time to do this league right, so stop getting in the way because it benefits YOU and think of the league as a whole.

Get rid of this shotgun-playergame-whoring tactic, it's worthless and provides an advantage to people with more free time than to those who draft well.

This has nothing to do with you personally, you just happen to be the only person doing it on a daily basis. It's simply not a fair tactic in the league, and that's all there is to it -- my issues with you personally aside. Though, the reason I have issues with you personally is because of things like this...but I generally have a short fuse with manipulative hacks in life.

[Ming]

Asher... If you want to "argue" the rules of your league... FINE!

But personal attacks are still forbidden. (plus, it's proabably a bad way to get people to side with you in a lieague vote)

Since this is a league thread, we would expect some mild flaming and chest beating relative to the weekly match ups. Heck, this is a compeitition. But making personal attacks because you disagree on the rules of your league is another thing.

Keep it civil... and DISCUSS the rules... don't make personal attacks. I would prefer not to ban anybody, but keep making it personal, and you really give me no choice.

[Hot Mustard]

This would be funny, if it weren't sad.

I really don't see where/who your supposed support against this is, Asher.

I have said that I can live with a different waiver priority - that's it. I will not support any changes to the rules that are outside the Yahoo system, in part because I feel what you're complaining about is part of the game/fun, but also because it would be a pain in the ass for Kontiki to enforce, and would require a host of special conditions and exceptions.

The system may not be perfect, but this aspect is not nearly as unbalancing as you seem to think. As I mentioned previously, devoting one or more roster spots to rotation can be risky, as the available talent pool quickly diminishes as we get further into the season - all the developing young talent will have been picked up for good, and you are left with streaky performers, if you're lucky. Not to mention that a certain level of hockey IQ and research are involved - there are people with the available time for this who just are not prepared to do the work.

In my other league (which is points, not H2H), two people are over 20 moves already - one is 2nd overall, and the other is 8th (out of 11). The 8th place guy is copying the tactic, but doesn't know the players and how to pick matchups - so it isn't doing him any good, and has actually hurt him because the players he drafted probably will do better over the course of the season than the chumps he's left rotating now. Actually, the same could be true of the 2nd place guy - 1st through 4th is quite tight - and time will tell.

Okay, I've said my 2c.

[Ninot]

if it matters and/or means anything, I agree with Asher's opinion on this matter.
I would favor an agreement to end picking up players for a 1 night helper. In my opinion, it's against the spirit of keeping a fantasy team.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ninot
if it matters and/or means anything, I agree with Asher's opinion on this matter.
I would favor an agreement to end picking up players for a 1 night helper. In my opinion, it's against the spirit of keeping a fantasy team.

Exactly.

Imagine if everybody had enough free time to constantly rotate players. The fact is not everybody can do it, and if everyone did do it it wouldn't be nearly as effective.

The people who are doing this are gaining an advantage not through real strategy or playing the game by building a solid fantasy team, they'/re trying to get as many skater/goalie games in as possible. It's contrary to the spirit of the concept of fantasy teams, and it's an unfair advantage to people with excessive amounts of free time daily to micromanage.

So far we're at 2 for, 2 against this practice. Anyone else?

[mrboo123]

Well, I'm with Asher and Ninot. Whats the point of the draft if all your going to do is just roate players?

On a side note, why haven't the standings been updated? It doesn't show the shutout my Leclaire from lastnight

[Kontiki]

I'm pretty torn on the issue. I do see Asher's side of it, but at the same time it would be nearly impossible to enforce. I'm also wondering if it's really a high priority to handicap active participants, or even feasible at a certain point. The reality is that someone who's even mildly active, like boo, has a huge advantage over someone who isn't, like Pekka.

To me, the greatest concern is people doing alot of flipping are tying up players on waivers. Eliminating the waiver period solves this problem, but, like HM said, will likely lead to much more flipping. At least that way, though, other players are only disadvantaged by not making an effort to pay more attention to their rosters.

[Asher]

I don't see why it should be too difficult to enforce. We all know eachother here, and if we make it a rule in our league hopefully people just abide by it and it's not an issue.

If it becomes an issue, then we'll address it then.

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by mrboo123
On a side note, why haven't the standings been updated? It doesn't show the shutout my Leclaire from lastnight

I noticed the same thing, and it looks like it has now been updated

/me

[Asher]

Sparrow...please vote.