Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Catastrophic Free Agent Discussion

Justin proposed a "catastrophic free agent pick" concept. Since his proposal is conceptual without the details fleshed out, I'll just repost his message here:

Okay, I really like the 1 Free Agent rule because it does give us all a chance to pick up a player to improve our team

However, the rule was there to help if a team was devastated by injury. Is there a way we could have a catastrophic "injury" rule.

For instance lets say I draft 3 QBs and all 3 get hurt and are going to miss week 1 then the QB I take with my FA pick I take a QB who then gets hurt also and is going to miss week 1.

Could we have some sort of catastrophic rule (that more than likely would not ever need to be used...sort of like a "nuclear option") or do we say no and say that would have to be addressed via trade with another team?

Just wondering.

9 comments:

  1. I oppose this. To protect yourself from injury, you can draft backups. If that plan doesn't work out, we allow for the one preseason free agent pick. If even that doesn't work out, then either you've planned poorly, or you've had really bad luck (both things impact fantasy football), but you still have the opportunity to trade with another manager: not just for a needed player, but for another manager's preseason free agent pick (remember, those are tradeable commodities).

    Given there are so many options available to protect yourself from such catastrophe, I just don't see a need for another one.

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  2. I oppose this rule change.

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  3. Just a note: as rules get passed, I update the rulebook that is linked on the side. I didn't do this originally, but I may go in and put 2011 rule changes in bold, since they are the rules that will most likely be of interest (though the only fundamental change so far is preseason free agent pick, something simple and easy to understand, and we'll reiterate these changes at draft time).

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  4. I'm also voting against this. Joe did a good job of outlining the reasons for opposition.

    Additionally, I like the simplicity of the single preseason pick. There is no more waiting on injury reports to determine if a player is or is not going to miss the first game. More contingencies only complicates the matter.

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  5. I also oppose this rule. Shit happens.

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  6. Do know that I didn't propose a rule but was inquiring what others might think.

    I wasn't sold on this myself, but wanted to bring this up...the fact is we could have said the same thing previously about "tough luck..injuries happen" and forced trades with no FA pick-ups but we wanted to have a good competition and didn't want injuries before the season.

    The reason this is labeled "catastrophic" is it works under the assumption that you had back-ups and that should be worked into the equation.

    With our flexible roster it still should be easy to maintain the ability to put forth a starting roster, but thought it might be nice to have the nuclear option if someone just straight out has the crappies luck.

    Of course it would assume some things

    (1) The owner drafted backups (that would mean they drafted at least 4 RB, 6 WR, 2 QB, and 2 TE)
    (2) The owner used the FA pick to address the need and that player got hurt also
    (3) That there is no possible way the owner could field a lineup

    *#3 is why it would be catastrophic, that would mean 3 QBs hurt or 3 TE's hurt but in order for it to effect like RB that would mean 3 RB hurt plus 3 WR hurt plus 1 TE hurt) or for WR that would mean 4 WR hurt plus 1 TE hurt

    Does that make sense....it would mean that if I want to stockpile up on RBs in the draft I do it also knowing that injuries will screw me but if I want a little protection against a total devastation to my team I can draft 2 QB, 4 RB, 6 WR, 2 TE, K, and D and have the possibility if injuries totally screwed me of at least fielding a full team week 1

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  7. How many times are starting QBs knocked out for the regular season? My guess is not very often because they are heavily babied. If losing a QB (or whatever) for the start of week 1 is a real concern a manager doesn't have to make a FA pick until minutes before the first game.

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  8. That is the point Kiah...the stupid rule won't be used but it is there in case it does...I am fine not having it...just wanted to throw it out there...and when/if it happens I suppose whoever it happens to could lobby for a quick change and we all could have compassion

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  9. There's clearly no support for this right now, so I'm not going to pull out an extensive argument, but again, IF a situation occurred where a QB was hurt, then the backup QB was hurt, then the FA QB was hurt, the manager STILL has the opportunity to trade for a QB or another manager's FA pick. There are still options, that don't require a complicated catastrophe rule.

    There's a lot of strategizing risk in fantasy football, including with our one preseason FA pick. Each manager needs to decide which positions need backups (and how many), and then whether to use that preseason FA pick on an early potential breakout, or save it until its needed. You strategize for risk, and there is risk involved. In this case, there are no less than three options if a starting QB goes down, and it would just be up to the manager to make replacing him work.

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