A Better (different) way? (1 Viewer)

[HookAndSliceSince1991]

I guess there would not be massive sharks without sufficient guppies....

There is a tremendous amount of discussion in this forum about "I have the 1.10 pick", "Are QBs overvalued in the first round". That discussion can be interesting, but I find it to be very self-serving. There is a growing group that values the auction over the snake / banzai / etc draft. My question is not to debate the ultimate merits between "picking at a predefined spot" and "getting anyone you want". My question is this: Does anyone have an format that uses auction for the established players and draft for the rookies.

I'm imagining some keepers and an auction for everyone in the NFL for 1 year, and a draft (with a rookie pay scale) based on prior year standings for those that are newer entrants to the NFL.

Does this work for you? Is it fun? I would love to see a combination of the approaches where we have a body of NFL work to evaluate the vets, but use the rooks to even out the history. I've been running a league for 22 years, so I've heard a number of perspectives on the subject. Do you have anything to add?

Peace.

 

[GregR]

Yes, I have a salary cap, contract, dynasty league that is entering year 8. And my league is based in large part on rules from a league of Bob Henry's which IIRC he'd had running for at least 10 years before he pointed me to his setup. I don't recall if he does rookie draft and vet auction too, but I think he probably does.

In any event, I think it works great. For rookie prices, we sort each position by salary, and average the bottom half of fantasy starters and that is the price of a 1st round rookie at the position. So we start 2 RB * 12 teams = 24. So the average of the bottom half, 13th to 24th highest paid RBs is the price of a 1st round RB. 2nd round prices are 2/3 of 1st round prices. 3rd round are 1/3. 4th round and beyond are $1. There's a minimum of $3 for 1st round players, for positions like PK and IDP where their salary would be $1 otherwise.

Rookie draft picks help you to make trades, evening things out. And having to consider not just if a player is good, but if he's worth the salary you're paying him is a nice factor too.

We have 3 year contracts, but then all you to give a 1 or 2 year extension between year 2 and 3 at the cost of a raise, 40%/$10 for 2 years, or 20%/$5 for 1 year. We also have 1 franchise and 2 transition tags that can be used to give you right-to-match in a special tagged player auction before the rookie draft, and if you let the player go you get 2 firsts for a franchise player or a 2nd for a transition player. The tag stays on the player for 3 years though, you don't get to franchise a new player every year.

 

[msommer]

I've participated in such a league for the past 9 years or so.

The league year starts with nominating one offensive and one defensive Franchise players and up to two Restricted Free Agents from each side of the ball.

The Franchise players are free. The RFAs go in an auction. If you lose your RFA you are compensated from the winning team in either cap dollars or a pick and less cap dollars in accordance with how the RFA scored the previous year (standard list).

After the RFA auction we have the UFA auction and then the rookie draft (team order the reverse of last year's finish in the standings).

Minimum is that you have x players after the draft and can field a legal team

Plenty of trading before the RFAs are nominated, the trade is locked down during the UFA and starts up again briskly before and during the rookie auction.

the cap stays hard only until the end of the rookie draft to avoid lopsided trades involving those who cannot do simple adding and subtracting...

Takes time but really enhances the experience

 

[JFT Ben]

We've done one (I think we're in Year 6) similar to the others discussed. Year 1 was an auction for all players including rookies. Year 2 on was an auction for free agents, two round rookie serpentine draft set up like the NFL (worst team picks first both rounds). Other key points:

- Contracts length - set total contract length (40 years) for all players, up to each team to establish length per player.

- Contracts are based on auction value (or set assigned rookie value) and go up 5% per year

- Rookie contracts are 3 years with an option to extend 2 years (1st round pick) or 1 year (2nd round pick) with big bump in value (160% of previous year)

- Salary cap to fit everyone under (based on auction/rookie assigned values)

- Cap penalty if you cut players early

- Free agent waiver pickups mid-year are only assigned through the end of the season, same with Kickers and Defense (1 year contract length)

We're about to have our auction this week, best time of the year! I can pass on our league rules if you want. It really gets interesting as values are all over the board. If you draft a sleeper for a $1 bid, assign him to a longer contract it opens the door for a steal. But then the top players are really overvalued compared to other leagues and some overpaid middling guys. Most contracts are 2-4 years in length so there's pretty good free agents each year and some strategy involved in drafting and assigning contract length so you have the cap room the following year to go after new big name free agents.

ETA: the rules have more or less stayed in tact the full time. We used to have an IR system that got taken out this off season with the addition of two more roster spots and cap space. Everyone in our league really, really likes the format. While some teams are more consistent than others, there's turnover at the top. One of the worst teams in our league looks like they have a solid team this year since they're top rookies have matured into studs, and teams like mine who was drafting near the bottom each of the first few years took last last year due to lack of good rookies (and lack of depth and injuries). Lots of different approaches to building a team in this format.