This is the most important one for this off-season because it centers around our increase formula. It is a long post so I broke it up as well as I could into sections...
I. Background (skip this and the next two paragraphs if you’ve been paying attention to why we now increase numbers via the points format):
In the beginning…we had a keeper system where two players per roster were retained, unconditionally, each new season. This worked well for exactly seventeen minutes before Bunker (Thompson? Thompson.) purchased Willis McGahee for the smooth sum of forty-four dollars (soon to be forty-four MILLION dollars!). Artificial price inflation was no fun for anyone, so we scrapped the system, played a year straight-up with the winner getting the #1 pick in the first edition of the rookie draft (Brett, meet AP, several Superbowls), and reformatted a price increase system to allow an unlimited but more realistic number and price for keepers.
The first version was pure usage- play a game, buck. Problems included rookies getting screwed (Thompson overpaid for Stewart in year two, for example, by pure usage formula), an incentive to tank, and tight ends being virtually un-keepable, but the system was an improvement. With rivalry week not counting and a six-team playoff format, the maximum number of dollars (soon to be MILLIONS of dollars) a player could increase by was $12 (keep this in mind for later).
In the next round of tweaking, we added buffers to make rookies more affordable and tied increases to fantasy points scored, regardless of playing time, to discourage tanking. Seeing as how we had always done $12, we shaped the new glove to fit the old hand, so to speak, and made that the maximum one could increase by. Without much reasoning, I separated the positions and gave each group of players a different increase formula. Again, the tweak was an improvement, but the same problem with tight ends remained.
II. The Idea
So, here we are in 2011 and Lee brings this issue to my attention with some well-organized graphs and a compelling argument. After taking a look, I see no reason why we should keep these positions segregated going forward and propose using one all-inclusive formula to calculate price increases.
This essentially means that all players will now be priced like quarterbacks and running backs (by luck of the formula, these positions are priced equally at this moment). The immediate impact of this move will be to make tight ends a potential source of cheap investment for future keeping while in the medium term the value of wide receivers will slightly rise. I love the rule change because it cuts my work down to one-fourth of what I would otherwise do in calculating the formula and think we should implement the change immediately. However, as this is a keeper issue the usual standards of maintaining fairness do exist so I think the question for me is not if we make this change, but when.
III. Options
A- No changes (stick to current formula)
B- Implement for next season and use current formula for this year's keepers
C- 'Grandfather Clause' for current keepers, using the new formula next season with players bought or drafted this year. By far the most complicated idea but perhaps the most fair
D- Implement the rule change immediately
A- No changes (stick to current formula)
B- Implement for next season and use current formula for this year's keepers
C- 'Grandfather Clause' for current keepers, using the new formula next season with players bought or drafted this year. By far the most complicated idea but perhaps the most fair
D- Implement the rule change immediately
Please give this one serious thought- it is the most important rule change I currently have in the works. I’m not sure we are ready to vote yet so if we can get a good discussion going here I would love to hear your thoughts. I'll set up the vote once I feel I've heard enough arguments/counter-arguments.
Thanks,
Tim
IV. Appendix
A refresher on how we currently price keepers:
-The five-year average of the top player at all positions is divided by twelve.
-Take this number and divide the total fantasy points scored by each player by this number.
-Add that number to the salary from the prior season for the new keeper number.
Off the top of my head, QB and RB are about 30 points per (MILLION!!!!) dollar(s) and WR are about 20. TE is down around the 15 range. Please all keep in mind that there is no maximum number of keepers and that the three-year rule (no player can be kept three straight summers) is not applicable to players whose salaries are $0 (including those who have used some portion of the buffer to remain at $0).
timmy, i completely agree that its more of a matter of "when" instead of "if". if i understand the change correctly, i agree that it will be an improvement for the league in my opinion by finally making TEs semi-relevant and, mainly, by increasing the value of WRs.
ReplyDeletelee probably showed pretty much the same thing, but i went back and compared two 2008 draftees who had immediate success (desean jackson and chris johnson) and compared their keeper prices over their first 3 years. i ignore the fact that we used the "games played" system and pretending we had our current system for all three years, with a buffer. the numbers may be a tad inflated as im not going off of our point system, but chris johnsons looked something like 2, 14, 24.....each representing some good value considering the highest paid RBs in our league tend to go in the low 30s. under the old system jacksons looked something like 1, 11, 19. the first two years represent value, however considering the ceiling for WR in our auction is around 20, there is no value in the third year. under the new system, jacksons numbers would have roughly looked like 0, 7, 13.....all representing good value. this would give WRs more value in general, and specifically in the rookie draft, which i like.
normally i think i would vote option C, but seeing as an immediate change would lessen your workload significantly and you wouldnt have to calculate all different kinds of numbers for players depending on when they are drafted, i feel like implementing it immediately makes the most sense.
Good stuff from the Deputy Commish and a very strong middle paragraph. My only disagreement is on my workload- if it helps the league, so be it. An additional benefit might be to tip the scales away from the QBs a bit in this draft that is loaded there. We'll need some more debate before voting but we have all summer...
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