Comish Dynasty Rules Discussion 2010

[The Comish]

Time for the long overdue "State of the League" address. It's been an interesting year to say the least and more owners got out than I had anticipated, but at this moment, we are only one owner short of our full 30 (the second relegation owner).

There are some discussion points that I want to bring forward. I'll take note of the discussion and see if there is enough support to bring forward for a formal vote. Here are the points I came up with:

1. Unless enough of you strongly disagree, we are going to give Fantrax a go instead of using Yahoo. Chinny and I did a little research late last season and I have done some more work over the last few days and it will alleviate many of the problems we had with seeing which players are available and save me a ton and I mean a ton of work. I can notify Fantrax and they will add a player if I request it, hence no more dummy players! I would have to manually enter our salaries or use their formula (they say it is based on the categories used, but don't give anymore info). Imagine everyone being able to see all three Tiers!? Fantrax separates the scoring by Tier and you can even see what the league would look like if all 30 teams were compared, outstanding! No more using the forum to post a pick up!

2. One of our owners gave me a simple suggestion and I think it warrants some serious consideration. He suggested going to 9 forwards instead of 3 C, 3 RW, 3LW. The rationale being that many (most) of us are only one or two deep at each of these positions (some of you bastards in Tier 1 seem to be exempt!!), making it difficult to trade for a certain position without weakening another. I think consolidating the forwards will potentially lead to more trading opportunities. No more complaining about wacky Yahoo positions or waiting for Yahoo to give obvious position eligibility.

3. Lower Free Agent Pickups (FAP's) from 40 to 25. Last year, only three teams made 20 or more free agent transactions with the top guy (Great Whites) making 24 pick ups. Nine teams made no free agent pick ups (5 in Tier 3). Dropping this number to a more realistic level should also add an element of strategy.

4. Is there any interest in changing the playoffs from points based scoring to roto (like we use in the regular season)? The biggest reason I went with points only vice roto for the playoffs was to keep the scoring simple. Heading into the final game, it would be nice to know that if your guy records two points and you were only one point back, you win. Roto scoring can be complicated in that you don't always know who wins until you run the numbers. That said, I will not stand in the way if the majority want to go with roto for the playoffs. Arguments for or against? Let's hear them.

5. If we use Fantrax, we will need to set a new trading deadline. It should be after the NHL trading deadline, but before the end of the season. Maybe a set period of time after the NHL deadline (one week, two weeks, whatever) or we could set a hard date, say the end of March (is that too close to the end of the season)?

6. Minor change, but I thought maybe lengthening the time dropped players are on waivers from two to three days. Not sure it makes a difference, but with everyone seemingly busier and busier, it might help a little. Unless there are a number of objections or reasons why not, I'll ramrod this one through without a vote.

7. I've often thought of having a farm team option and if we go with Fantrax, they have a "Minor League" set up that we can use for this purpose.

- I would recommend lowering our "Major League" rosters from 25 to 20 (9F or 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1U, 1G and 5 bench/reserve players)
- Implement a five player Minor League team that expands to a maximum of 10 at the five round draft
- At the conclusion of the playoffs, everyone must cut down to 20 roster players and a maximum of 5 Minor League players. That will allow everyone to draft their five players (if they choose) and all the drops will be available at the five round draft

One question is would the players on your Minor League roster count against the salary cap? Also, we would have the option of setting an age limit (I suggest 23 or 25 years old if we use age at all?) and/or a regular season games played limit (up to 200 gp). If this idea is supported, I would suggest that we go with a higher tolerance level (25 years old and/or 100 games?) so that we have more flexibility to send guys to the minors.

8. Lastly and maybe the most controversial is something I'm sure will need much discussion and may get some heated arguments!! With Fantrax, we have a myriad (hey I could have used plethora!) of new categories if we so choose. Currently we have six categories for 14 skaters and three categories for a single goalie, making the goalie an extremely (even that's an understatement) important figure on your fantasy team. I think we could add 1-3 categories for F/D; Time on Ice (TOI), Blocked Shots and Hits are all relevant stats that would also increase the number of useful players. Add none, one, two or all three? Yes I am aware that this would significantly change the dynamic of the pool and I don't suggest this lightly, but I really think it could improve the competitiveness of our league.

I realize that this is a lot to digest. I welcome all comments and if you have any ideas to better the league, now is the time to bring them up. If there is enough support for an idea, I'll put it to a vote. The rules state that we need 16 votes to make changes, but for #8 (adding categories) I would like to see at least 75% (23 votes) support if this is to move forward.

EDIT1 - Deleted possibility of using Fantrax generated salary. We will continue to use Chinny's $

[pensfan]

1. OK with changing sites. As long as changing salary calculation doesnt have any crazy consequences that is fine too. Anything to simplify the management of this league is OK by me

2. OK switching to 9F

3. OK lowering to 25 moves

4. No change to playoffs. I like that the playoffs have something different than the regular season. Going to Roto is also bad in that not every team will have a playoff goalie. Points only can give teams with different roster makeups a fighting chance

5. Any deadline is fine

6. Prefer 3 day waiver time

7. I would be OK with adding a minor league roster but I don't like the proposal which essentially forces me to carry 5 minor leaguers instead of allowing me to do whatever I want with those 5 spots. I would say no to the rule as proposed for that reason

8. No to changing the scoring. I don't want to add any of these categories

Additionally, I have another rule change I would like to propose. I would propose that the playoff winner get the 1st overall pick. Maybe give the regular season champ the 2nd overall pick and then the new teams get #3 and 4. I look at this like the NHL expansion rules. An expansion team never gets the top pick. Lets reward the "champs" with the top picks.

[Chinny]

Just a few quick feeling, sorry still on a high from my big Hawks win last night!

I have played with the Fantrax salaries and i hate them, if i have to manually input all players salaries i will, i did everything i could to play with salaries and the system that Russ came up with (the 3 year progressive) is by far the best system that i have seen. No matter what settings i had i didn't agree with what players salaries were working out to. Yes i am bias as i took Russ's idea into a reality but i think it is one of the best out there.

Use Roto for playoffs, we do it all year we should do it in the playoffs, i am scared to look at the results from this past playoffs but i will do that in the next few days to give everyone of an idea of the difference. I did like knowing the points i needed to get in the last game to grab 2nd, but in the same breath knowing i need either a goal or 4 PIM would be just as fun and exciting!


As Russ knows i will express my feelings toward opinions later but for know this is all i really have currently, we have great GM's and i am sure we can't direct this league in a wrong direction, it is a great league that is getting better every year!


(so much for a quick reply but i did only touch on a few topics!)

[Rad64]

1. Fantrax - Yes
2. Switching to 9F - No, I really like this setup, with 30 teams, it's like running your own NHL team. The wingers are available...guys just need to recognize that plentiful centers are no longer worth a ton. Fantrax/Comish does allow for positional changes, as well. Centers now playing wing could be switched to LW or RW.

3. OK lowering to 25 moves

4. Either way

5. Any deadline is fine

6. Either if fine.

7. What about an NHL size roster with 5 farm?

8. I wouldn't mind adding a cat or two.

[The Comish]

I would be OK with adding a minor league roster but I don't like the proposal which essentially forces me to carry 5 minor leaguers instead of allowing me to do whatever I want with those 5 spots. I would say no to the rule as proposed for that reason

I like your suggestion - it should be your choice on how many NHL vs Prospects you carry. All I had to do in Fantrax was make Max Reserve 10 instead of five while keeping the max players at 30. That should do the trick. Carry over 25 players max.

Additionally, I have another rule change I would like to propose. I would propose that the playoff winner get the 1st overall pick. Maybe give the regular season champ the 2nd overall pick and then the new teams get #3 and 4. I look at this like the NHL expansion rules. An expansion team never gets the top pick. Lets reward the "champs" with the top picks.

The rationale for giving the two newbies the top two picks is that they are already inheriting the two worst teams in the league and getting the top two picks (or what they get in trade for those picks) definitely helps in recruiting new owners.

I'm curious as to what the majority think on this. This was discussed at length last year and we ended up going with our current draft structure. It was definitely not unanimous, but we will have 9 new owners since the last discussion.

[The Comish]

I have played with the Fantrax salaries and i hate them, if i have to manually input all players salaries i will, i did everything i could to play with salaries and the system that Russ came up with (the 3 year progressive) is by far the best system that i have seen. No matter what settings i had i didn't agree with what players salaries were working out to. Yes i am bias as i took Russ's idea into a reality but i think it is one of the best out there.

That's enough for me. Forget using Fantrax salaries. Either Chinny or myself will enter our salaries manually, unless Fantrax can come up with a way to upload them. I'm taking this option out - we'll stick with Chinny's salary formulas.

[Rad64]

Chinny's salaries are great!

I like the last place teams getting the top 2 draft picks. In a league as deep as this it would hurt more than help giving the top two teams the top two picks. The worst teams have a dire need for those picks to keep them out of the cellar do they don't last only one season...

[Chinny]

That's enough for me. Forget using Fantrax salaries. Either Chinny or myself will enter our salaries manually, unless Fantrax can come up with a way to upload them. I'm taking this option out - we'll stick with Chinny's salary formulas.

I have spoken with fantrax and they are working on an upload option, it just isn't available yet so hopefully in the future it won't be a lot of work

[Chinny]

I like your suggestion - it should be your choice on how many NHL vs Prospects you carry. All I had to do in Fantrax was make Max Reserve 10 instead of five while keeping the max players at 30. That should do the trick. Carry over 25 players max.





The rationale for giving the two newbies the top two picks is that they are already inheriting the two worst teams in the league and getting the top two picks (or what they get in trade for those picks) definitely helps in recruiting new owners.

I'm curious as to what the majority think on this. This was discussed at length last year and we ended up going with our current draft structure. It was definitely not unanimous, but we will have 9 new owners since the last discussion.

I may be biased again but i think the regular season overall champ should get a little more love than 7th, sure winning the playoffs is great and what we all play for but that is only beating half the league and the 2 finalist get to pick 3-4 and the regular season champ isn't until 7th.
I don't have a recommendation i just think being the regular season champ should count for a bit more.

[doulos]

1. Never used Fantrax, but if it's easier on everyone else to run the league there then it makes sense to me.

2. Fine with 9F, or splitting them up into positions.

3. Lowering Free Agents makes sense, and it sounds like it's not really going to hurt anyone.

4. Changing from points based to roto in the playoffs seems like it might have some pitfalls. For example, what if a goaltender plays absolutely lights out but still loses a series? That GM could end up still winning - or being right near the top - in SV%, even though their goalie didn't make it past the first round. Chances of this are somewhat slim, but points just seems much more safe and clear cut.

5. Whatever trade deadline is used is fine with me.

6. Time on waiver increase is fine.

7. I'll have to take a pass on voting for or against the farm team idea. I just don't have enough experience here to know how it might effect the league dynamics.

8. Changing stat categories is a big one for sure. Selfishly, I'm comfortable with the current categories and it would represent a much bigger learning curve to learn the new values of players with things like blocked shots and Hits. Time on Ice is not one that interests me all that much.

However, if stats are going to be changed then I'd suggest an even bigger change by introducing a Fights stat category (does Fantrax support that, I thought they might?), and making PIM a negative category.

Now, I say all of this as the new guy coming in who is going to need to learn this system from scratch anyways so it's not a big deal, but I could see how this would be a bit difficult for those of you who have built your teams in certain ways based on current stat categories.

[Chinny]

Now i really wish i didn't look at what the standings would of been if we played it with our regular season roto stat cats!

Those who have discussed this with me before know i was pushing for this all year, not just because i have seen the final result!

[Chinny]

1. Never used Fantrax, but if it's easier on everyone else to run the league there then it makes sense to me.

2. Fine with 9F, or splitting them up into positions.

3. Lowering Free Agents makes sense, and it sounds like it's not really going to hurt anyone.

4. Changing from points based to roto in the playoffs seems like it might have some pitfalls. For example, what if a goaltender plays absolutely lights out but still loses a series? That GM could end up still winning - or being right near the top - in SV%, even though their goalie didn't make it past the first round. Chances of this are somewhat slim, but points just seems much more safe and clear cut.

5. Whatever trade deadline is used is fine with me.

6. Time on waiver increase is fine.

7. I'll have to take a pass on voting for or against the farm team idea. I just don't have enough experience here to know how it might effect the league dynamics.

8. Changing stat categories is a big one for sure. Selfishly, I'm comfortable with the current categories and it would represent a much bigger learning curve to learn the new values of players with things like blocked shots and Hits. Time on Ice is not one that interests me all that much.

However, if stats are going to be changed then I'd suggest an even bigger change by introducing a Fights stat category (does Fantrax support that, I thought they might?), and making PIM a negative category.

Now, I say all of this as the new guy coming in who is going to need to learn this system from scratch anyways so it's not a big deal, but I could see how this would be a bit difficult for those of you who have built your teams in certain ways based on current stat categories.

What do you know, you are just a newbie!

jk doulos!

just 1 comment about the playoff roto comment you made, we use W,GAA and SVS not SV% for goalies so your issue won't affect us as much and for the GAA i made it in my sample results be that a goalie needed to play 60 or more mins to get a real GAA (this was due to Backlund playing 1 min and having a 0.00 GAA, that 60 mins can be changed but that was just for an example.

[doulos]

Well there ya go, so maybe it wouldn't be as much of an issue.

I think I still prefer points, but either way would be fine.

[Chicleteur]

First of all, I want to thank you Russ for all the time you put in this league and especially in these suggestions.

Here are my comments on each points:

1 – Definitely have no issues going to Fantrax if it helps the league management for both you guys and us. Sharing the same players pool and being able to look at every other rosters is priceless. As for the salary, definitely keep Chinny’s salaries.

2 – I’m with Rad on this one, I’d like to keep the 3C/3LW/3RW setting. Sure it could be harder to fill them all, but I know that a lot of us drafted and/or planned accordingly. Like Rad also said, it looks like it’s easy to make any position switch within FanTrax.

3 – No problem with the FAP’s reduction.

4 – While I’m not against having our playoffs in a “roto” format, I do like the “pts only” format. Like Russ said, it keeps everything simple.

5 – No problem with the trading deadline. Isn’t it what we did already this year?

6 – No problem with the waiver length time either.

7 – I like the “Minor League” idea, but Pensfan is also right in a sense that we should be able to do whatever we want with these free spots. So, any setup is fine to me as long as we get these 5 additional players depth during the season and then cutting down to 25 players before the 5 rounds draft. I think all 30 guys should count against your cap even if that means increasing the cap to 1025$ (allowing you to keep 5 prospects). Also, assuming we had a few other categories (I’ll talk about this later), Rad’s idea about having a “real” NHL lineup and a 5 players farm.

8 – I’m definitely not against adding categories. Blocked Shots, Hits and probably FOW would be the ones to look at. This would also have the effect to lower the percentage of the goalies categories to 25% compared to 33%.

Finally, regarding the draft order, I really like the current one. It gives some help to the 2 new teams while still rewarding the best managed teams.

[ultrawhiteness]

some of this i'm ok with: move to fantrax, fewer FA transactions, waiver wire.

i would stick with points only for playoffs; roto makes my head hurt enough.
edit: just looked at chinny's stats. seems like less of an issue now. count me as totally indifferent here.

trade deadline a week after NHL deadline sounds fine to me.

now, for the stuff i feel really, REALLY strongly about:

2. going to 9F - HELL NO. i'm sorry, but this would remove a lot of the fun and strategy for me. i don't want to go over the top here, but i might lose interest. i haven't played in a F/D/G pool in years and i'm quite happy about that. also - it seems to me that a lot of the motivation for trades has been using a strong position to fill a weak one. combining 3 positions into 1 would seem to strip that motivation away.

example: i have 4 decent, active centers but only 2 1/2 RWs right now. this summer i need to address that by trying to move a C or LW for a RW. if it was all F, i would be content to just sit on my ass and let my young guys develop.

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7. minor league - i probably carry 5 "minor leaguers" most times anyway, but i find this kind of unnecessary. the only change i would want would be a slow increase of roster size, say 1 spot every year or two, and even that I don't care that strongly for. 25 is a good size, and it should be up to the owner to decide how he wants to allocate those spots. also - any farm system adds complexity.

edit: having a 25-man roster over summer and then expanding to 30 over the season as Chic (and someone else before him?) suggests is interesting.

all should count against cap. i don't see the salary cap having much of an effect, anyway. we have, what, 1 guy (Chinny domination!!) above the cap in the latest update? i bet 25 of us don't even think about salaries most of the year.

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8. adding/changing categories - i'm pretty strongly against this too. i and many others have made many moves based on what we have that we wouldn't have made otherwise. i don't like PIMs being a positive stat, but i have adjusted to it. Hits is too inconsistently measured in different NHL rinks. Blocked Shots i am less against... would be interesting to give defensive warrior types some value. TOI - bleh.

one thing about our stats setup is how ridiculously valuable a good goaltender is. i love this. the trades involving goalies are some of the most entertaining to see. also - making goalies less valuable really screws those of us who have paid heavily in trades to acquire one.

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all in all, i would caution against too much change here, Russ. i introduced a few changes in my pool last summer, thinking it would make things better, but it has resulted in more confusion and dissatisfaction than anything. this pool is great as is: incredibly challenging and deep enough. in my own opinion, the only evolution we need to work on is to continue to acquire dedicated participants.

one note about manually changing positions in Fantrax - i did this last season and i found it very annoying. setting a good threshold for when a guy gets new eligibility was tricky. having some of the more attentive (read: anal) owners contact me every two weeks because one of their LWs was listed on dailyfaceoff.com as a C and on fantasyhockey911.com as a RW was just a pain in the ass. next season we're going back to just letting Fantrax handle the positions.