Poolies - any thoughts?

[Dobber]

What can be done to spice up a keeper league after the trade deadline for teams that are not in the running for the title, and do not have a playoff team (and so cannot really look forward to the post season)?

Any ideas? Interested to hear any suggestions.

[veronesepk]

Set up the teams out of the playoffs with a separate \"playoffs\" bracket that will determine their draft order in the next years draft.
This would be a one round playoff, wherein the 7th place team would play the 8th place team, the 9th would play the 10th,and the 11th would play the 12th, with the WINNER of each round getting the better of the two possible draft pick positions.

So, if its a 12 team league, and 7th place team beat the 8th, the 10th beat 9th, and the 11th place team beat the 12th, the draft order would be:

1st pick - 11th place team
2nd pick - 12th place team
3rd pick - 10th place team
4th pick - 9th place team
5th pick - 7th place team
6th pick - 8th place team

This would then discourage teams from tanking the season, while not providing a means by which a team could fall greatly in draft position (i.e., if its a 12 team league and 6 teams don\'yt make the playoffs, with this set-up, the worst you could fall in draft pick position is one spot).

This isn\'t a perfect system, but at least its something.

[Steffen]

In our 16-team weekly-change deep roto keeper (split into 2 divisions of 8) we allocate a share of the prize money to the best Mover and Shaker. To win this, the team must have the largest roto-points increase from Jan 4 to season-end, but teams that finish in the top 3 in their division are ineligible (they get their own prize money for 1st thru 3rd in the division).

[Thieving Giraffe]

For roto-style leagues, you could switch to head-to-head format for the bottom x teams. Or perhaps better, maintain your roto-style while adding head-to-head matchups and standings for the lower places. That would add a little competition between the bottom ranked teams, in addition to the competition between those vying the championship.

[hoopej2]

What we do to try and avoid teams tanking the season is we implemented a fee of 50% of the entrance fee to the team that comes in last. The league decided to do this after I decided two years in a row to put guys that were hurt into my lineup so I could be sure to get the first pick in the next draft. This money is given to the 4th and 5th place teams.

It\'s a great idea for our 10 team league because it means that 50% of the league gets money back so guys in 6th and 7th are trying to get up to 4th or 5th and the 8, 9 and 10th place teams are actively managing their rosters to avoid paying the fine.

It\'s worked well for us.

[gdon]

We do something along the lines of veronespek. It\'s a 16 team league with the top 8 playing for the big dough. The bottom 8 then play for the first overall rookie pick. It\'s a bracket with quarter finals then semis then finals. You lose you move to a C bracket and then a D bracket. You lose all your games you would get the 8th pick in the rookie draft, the winner of the tourney gets 1st rookie pick. In our league its possible to keep a rookie for 6-8 years(although rarely happens), so getting a rookie young can be huge.

[DobberManiac]

as i can see the logic in most of these formats, still see how the REAL weakest team in the league deos not have much of a chance of improving his team through the draft since they don\'t have a good chance of winning these \'round robins\' or \'draft tournaments\' since the middle of the pack teams obviously have the best chance generally speaking.

we want to make sure the worst team indeeds improves by getting that first pick, but they have to do it without tanking and since we have guys with pride in our league it has not been a problem, but your right when you say that it is boring for the bottom half of he teams and i like the \"mover and shaker\" idea.

[hoopej2]

It really bothers me when people say, \"our guys have pride\" when discussing whether a GM makes the decision to try and make his team better for the future. Doesn\'t pride include knowing when you are beat and being man enough to evaluate yourself and make some changes? When a boxer keeps signing up for fights well beyond when he should be even getting in the ring, do you think, \"Man, that guy has a lot of pride\"? No, you think, \"that guy is an idiot for getting in the ring again.\" Same goes for hockey pools. In our pool the top 3 get paid and the draft the next year is reverse order, non snaking so I think the 4th place team is the biggest loser out there because he doesn\'t win any money and he has the 4th worst pick in each round. Maybe he should get some pride and tank the season so he finishes worse...

[Dobber]

These are some great ideas. I\'ll float that head to head idea, very cool.

As for the pride thing - I think he was trying to mean that those particular GM\'s are blinded by their pride, which leads to stupidity. As in - they would rather finish sixth than try and ensure future success with a better pick. Myself - if I have NO shot at first place, then I would like to be last. My goal is to be first as often as I can. I would rather be first three times and last seven times...than be second 10 times. B)

\"Second place is just the first-place loser\"
:evil:

[lockedge]

We get penalties for tanking in my league. If it\'s obvious that someone is tanking, they either lose their waiver spot and move to the end of the line for every round, or they aren\'t allowed to enter the draft, depending on how badly they attempt to tank.

[Screaming Jawa]

In my Football pool, we had a Toilet Bowl. The \"winner\" had to buy the beer and snacks for the following year\'s draft. To \"win\", you had to lose every matchup until the end of the year. It didn\'t keep teams interested who won their first matchup, but they\'re the mediocre teams anyways. It\'s the bad ones, the ones that consider tanking, that you\'re trying to keep interested... and competitive.

This could work for hockey pools that have head-to-head matchups (like my pools).

[superluke]

In our league, we are having the same kind of problems concerning people who are trying to finish last to have a better pick next year. Since the last two years, we introduced a draw. (same thing they did after the lockout for the first choice) each team received number of ballot according to their ranking (finish first, got one ballot, finish 10 th, got 10 ballot) we got also a rules in place to make sure that any concession can be delayed from more than two round from there original pick. ( In the worst case the last position concession (was suppose to pick first) can not pick later than the third round)….which is keeping GM out of a race to the first pick. But we will like to find something else…great thread DOBBER…!

[gdon]

DobberManiac wrote:

as i can see the logic in most of these formats, still see how the REAL weakest team in the league deos not have much of a chance of improving his team through the draft since they don\'t have a good chance of winning these \'round robins\' or \'draft tournaments\' since the middle of the pack teams obviously have the best chance generally speaking.

we want to make sure the worst team indeeds improves by getting that first pick, but they have to do it without tanking and since we have guys with pride in our league it has not been a problem, but your right when you say that it is boring for the bottom half of he teams and i like the \"mover and shaker\" idea.

I should clarify our tourney only counts for placings in the rookie draft. The regular free agent draft of proven, current players is based on worst is first. So the worst teams still have the chance to get a good free agent.

But if there isn\'t enough teams or its a roto style, I think the mover shaker idea would keep me interested if I blew it early on.

[hoopej2]

No offense Superluke,

I\'m not normally a stickler for this stuff but please either get your Mom or Dad to proof read your work or go back to high school. It\'s painful to read something that makes absolutely no sense.

[superluke]

you know what, I\'m really sorry to not be able to write down correctly in a second language. I just try to improve my self... And you are right about it...I should have a secretary or a translator at least.

Sorry for the poor quality of my english, However I really thought that I was bringing something usefull....and at least understandable


Finally,thanks for the notification I will try to do better next time