Parity in Dynasty Leagues? (1 Viewer)

[breadtree]

As you can see, I'm not a frequent contributor / reader of the forums, but I plan on changing that. Anyway, it seems that most of the talk is about Dynasty leagues and I'm curious about the dynamics since I've never been in one.

It would seem that in a true Dynasty league in which you're drafting only rookies every year, teams that are bad would stay bad for a long time, and likewise with teams that are good. I can't imagine that's a lot of fun for the teams that are bad.

Can anyone comment on that? I'm interested in joining a Dynasty league, but am a little intimidated by that point.

 

[sports_fan]

Fantasy value falls quickly in rookie drafts. The top few picks are worth a lot. Also, rookie drafts don't snake so teams with high picks have a good chance at gaining ground on the top teams in every round. It's true that with careful planning and good trading certain teams can stay on top for a while, but it's not easy to do so.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Depending on the league, rules can be set up to avoid this.

I particularly like the way our league is set up. To put it simply (because the actual rules are fairly complex), any time a team acquires a player they assign a number of years to their contract (and each team has a limit to the number of years they can give out in total). Each offseason that number decrements by 1. When that number hits 0 the player becomes a restricted free agent. Each team can keep one restricted free agent for free each offseason and give them a new contract, but all other RFAs go into a pool where player's can bid on them using virtual money (it's a one-time fee to acquire them, it's not a salary cap situation where you pay it every year). Virtual money is given to the teams each offseason based on their finish the previous year, so the worse teams have a little more money to spend. That combined with them having a higher rookie pick gives them a fighting chance, and it makes for a really fun offseason as the 3 week period when RFA is open is nuts.

Here's the complete (more complicated) rule set if you're interested.

http://www.clan-loh.com/dynasty/rules.php

 

[Sabertooth]

The NFL changes so much from year to year that there is a lot of turnover. The league champ in our league in 2010 was the worst team in the league in 2011. I've been a powerhouse in the regular season but never won it all.

 

[floods]

What makes bad teams stay bad is, more often than not, bad owners. Some leagues have owners who repeatedly get fleeced in trades to the point where they're left with no value on their team and 1.01. They then trade 1.01 to the best team in the league for a couple over-the-hill-types.

:(

Parity is dynasty leagues is created by having competitive, active owners and good rules. I'm in a contract cap dynasty that has rules that make it possible to build your team by draft, trade, waivers (short-ish bench), and an offseason RFA bidding period. Flipped my team over this offseason and should be competitive in the next season or two, which is faster than the average 30-man dynasty league turnaround.

 

[cstu]

The NFL changes so much from year to year that there is a lot of turnover. The league champ in our league in 2010 was the worst team in the league in 2011. I've been a powerhouse in the regular season but never won it all.

It all comes down to the quality of the owners. I've seen teams I thought might finish with the worst record makes some moves to get into the playoffs and then win it all.

 

[cstu]

What makes bad teams stay bad is, more often than not, bad owners. Some leagues have owners who repeatedly get fleeced in trades to the point where they're left with no value on their team and 1.01. They then trade 1.01 to the best team in the league for a couple over-the-hill-types.

:(

Parity is dynasty leagues is created by having competitive, active owners and good rules. I'm in a contract cap dynasty that has rules that make it possible to build your team by draft, trade, waivers (short-ish bench), and an offseason RFA bidding period. Flipped my team over this offseason and should be competitive in the next season or two, which is faster than the average 30-man dynasty league turnaround.

There are a lot of people who can't accept that they won't be competitive for a year, maybe two. Good owners can deal with that and accept when a team needs to be rebuilt.

 

[Warhogs]

What makes bad teams stay bad is, more often than not, bad owners. Some leagues have owners who repeatedly get fleeced in trades to the point where they're left with no value on their team and 1.01. They then trade 1.01 to the best team in the league for a couple over-the-hill-types. :( Parity is dynasty leagues is created by having competitive, active owners and good rules. I'm in a contract cap dynasty that has rules that make it possible to build your team by draft, trade, waivers (short-ish bench), and an offseason RFA bidding period. Flipped my team over this offseason and should be competitive in the next season or two, which is faster than the average 30-man dynasty league turnaround.

This does seem very true. I think good owners can make bad teams good in just a couple of years. But you also get bad owners that make bad moves year after year and they stay on the bottom.

 

[helix]

The key to a successful and healthy dynasty league is to have good owners. It is that simple. If you have active owners, bad teams can improve very quickly through the rookie draft. It is almost impossible to stay competitive in my league drafting in the 10-12 slot every year. It eventually catches up to everyone.

In our 10 seasons, we have had 8 different SB winners (12 team IDP league).

 

[johnadams]

The key to a successful and healthy dynasty league is to have good owners. It is that simple. If you have active owners, bad teams can improve very quickly through the rookie draft. It is almost impossible to stay competitive in my league drafting in the 10-12 slot every year. It eventually catches up to everyone. In our 10 seasons, we have had 8 different SB winners (12 team IDP league).

It's all about owners. The good news is that you are never stuck with the team you have. Waiver wire, trades, and draft picks keeps teams evolving.

 

[Max Power]

This is why you need to keep benches relatively short. 22 roster spots for a 12 man league. A team can get good by just playing the waiver wire and getting lucky on a few.

Over the last several years just based on waiver pickups, someone could have put together a lineup of Vick, Foster, Fred Jackson, Hillis, Miles Austin, Victor Cruz, and Steve Johnson. ALL of these guys have been on the waiver wire at one point in the last several years.

 

[imagroid]

Absolutely agree with 22 roster spots, 25 tops. I see these 40 man rosters and I wonder how a decimated team can recover within 3+ years.

 

[Donsmith753]

It's definitely all about the owners. You need luck too though.

I took over a complete rebuild (the state of this team was beyond belief) three summers ago and in my second season as owner won my Division. Admittedly I had two 1.01 picks to help me out but I still think I made some good moves.

Ive now got a young core of players and with a few more good drafts could start to go further in the playoffs. Suppose I was lucky that I picked Bryant and Green not Spiller and Ingram though.

 

[Eminence]

Parity? Isn't that why we play Dynasty to create... ehrm... Dynasties?

EDIT: Teams come and go. If you were shrewd enough to draft LT; then trade up for Adrian Peterson as a Rookie and ride the gravy train while it's there for multiple years; DO IT. That's the point of the format!

 

[az_prof]

A lot of good posts. The best check to guarantee parity is a league of good owners.

Our league does something that I think helps. We have a separate rookie draft (right after the NFL draft) and then two weeks into the preseason, we have a FA draft. The FA waiver list is locked after our fantasy SB until the start of the regular season the next year. This means that by late August there are a handful of FA players who are quite valuable. The draft order for the FA draft is based on the toilet bowel. That gives the teams outside the playoffs something to compete for down the stretch, and it gives all the bad players another slight edge for improving.

 

[jesseasi]

Our league is going into its 11th season. We have 12 team league setup with 2 conferences and 4 divisions. Each year 4 division winners and 2 wild cards make the playoffs. So 6 of the 12 teams are in the playoffs. Those 6 playoff teams are all in the same division the next year (we call them strong divisions) and the 6 non play off teams are in the "weak" divisions. This means at least 2 new teams will make the playoffs each year.

Here are some of the other ways we help weak teams.

We don't allow weekly waiver moves until after week 3 at which time we have what we call a "re-entry" draft. Teams then draft based on a waiver priority where the worst team after the first 3 weeks gets the first picks. These teams are able to get the players everyone missed - ala Victor Cruz, Fred Davis in 2011, Michael Vick, Peyton Hillis, Mike Tolbert in 2010, Manningham, Garcon, and Wallace in 2009, Lloyd in 2008, and so on.

After week 3 the waiver order resets weekly - so the worst team always has first dibs on players. Good owners parlay these weekly wonders in trades - guys like Ryan Torain last year. After his one week blow up in St Louis he had some tremendous trade value.

Of course the worst teams each season get to pick 1st in the rookie drafts.

And most recently - we started letting the teams in the weak division carry two extra roster spots. Strong teams carry 21 while weak teams carry 23. Last year was the first year we tried this and the difference was amazing as we had 4 teams from our weak divisions make the playoffs.

But overall - I would say teams that are most active on the waiver and in trades tend to be the better teams in our league.

The league has been so much fun that is not runs non-stop throughout the year. We have probably had 5-6 trades in the last month and there is always active dicussions about how we can make our league better with rules changes. Believe it or not - we have made rules changes nearly every year of our 11 year existence. Like the NFL - your league needs to continue to evolve and change - this helps keep the weak teams interested and keeps owners on their toes.