Question For Dynasty Commissioners (1 Viewer)

[FantaC1]

I am starting a new dynasty league. It will likely be 12 teams, PPR, IDP with salary caps and contracts. I have been in multiple dynasty leagues like this, but I have never been in one from the beginning. I have been league commish of several redraft leagues, but I have never run a dynasty league.

I am wondering about how to handle the initial draft. It will probably be a snake draft. I get the arguments for an auction at startup, but I just strongly prefer snake drafts. I can't give you a good reason, just a strong personal preference. After the draft, FA's will be handled through an auction bid system. 

My initial inclination is to just have one draft the first year, and include rookies. Is there an advantage to doing a rookie draft separate the first year? What are your thoughts on when to do the draft. Should I wait until right before the season like a redraft, or would it be good to get things started right after the NFL draft? Does it matter?

 

[kutta]

Have you done auctions before? I do more redrafts, but there is nothing more fun than an auction draft.

I think if you hold the draft after the NFL draft you can just do one draft this year. I think the closer to the regular season begins the better. 

 

[JohnW1970]

I don't see how you would use a salary cap and not use an auction. How would you set player salaries?

 

[Zyphros]

You can spread the season out by having the start up now, and the rookie draft in 4 months.  Keep people engaged if some owners are questionable dynasty players.  And that way if people are new to dynasty they get more blurbs and such closer to the actual season to make those picks be better than what isn't as defined early on.

 

[Borden]

The snake drafts are fun if because of trades. I'd include PICKS in the draft. Not actual rookies and do a separate rookie draft. I find that it's the most fun. I'd do the start up as soon as I could and do the rookie draft some time after the NFL and before the preseason starts. Most people have redraft leagues that they will be starting to gear up for around then.

As for contracts I guess you'd just have to assign values for picks/rounds. I don't play in contract leagues but that would be my guess at the solution. 

 

[Arodin]

Separate rookie draft is more fun for a lot of reasons, among them:

1) Rook picks become trade currency during the vet draft for movement, facilitating a lot more trades.  Its hard to trade up or down much within a single draft (redrafts dont see it much at all) but with different owners valuing rook vs vet differently, there's room for a lot more haggling.  I like that.  You can get similar play in the rook draft if you allow 2017 picks to be dealt during it, if not from the beginning.

2) You can balance some of the inherrent inequity in a snake draft by having the rook draft go in reverse order of the vet draft.  

 

[Captain Cranks]

I don't see how you would use a salary cap and not use an auction. How would you set player salaries?

I don't get this either.  

 

[gobrowns33]

For our dynasty we did an initial veteran draft and a separate rookie draft.  We randomly drew draft slots for the regular draft and then you got the opposite for the rookie draft...so 1.1 regular draft had the 1.12 rookie draft and so on.  This did allow for a lot of trades in both with regular and rookie draft slots.  An auction is probably ideal, but this worked well for us almost 10 years ago when we started.

For initial salaries, we just used a website that listed auction values for all players and that was used for the salaries,

 

[steelers1080]

If you're going to do salary cap you have to do auction.  You could instead base it off what round they're chosen I suppose, but that would be lame (1st round = 50$, 2nd round 30$, etc.).

I just started our dynasty league 2 years ago but it's not salary, IDP, or PPR.  We did the first year with Rookies included in the main draft, then the next year and all years following it's a Rookie/FA draft.  Also, we did a snake draft and it worked out great.  It's definitely interesting including rookies with the main draft because you see people weighing potential vs proven commodities.  I think the first Rookie drafted in our startup was Mike Evans in the 4th round.  Now he'd be much higher but do you really want to pick Treadwell over the top 10 proven WRs?  I liked it that way, but I could see people wanting to separate the two and extend offseason activities.

 

[bonscott]

Very much agreed that if you're doing a salary cap the only way to go is an auction.  Why would you not?  I assume you'd be doing blind bidding for waivers, whatever people's free cap space is, that's their "budget" so that changes as trades happens and so forth.  And then each year you'd do a veteran auction as with contracts and escalating salaries you'll usually have a decent pool of free agents each year not kept (may take a couple years to get there though).

As for rookies you have a couple options:

1) Wait and hold the initial draft until after the NFL draft and so rookies are included in the initial draft.
2) Have the initial draft now and a separate rookie draft later, can auction off the rookie pick slots now

Seeing as the NFL draft is less then a month away I'd choose #1 since with IDPs you may be hard pressed to even finish your auction by the NFL draft if you even started today and you're not close to starting yet it sounds like.  So hold your startup draft after the NFL draft and include rookies when you're ready.

Going forward my salary cap leagues have a veteran auction for players not kept in March (we start the day March Madness starts) and then a 3-4 round rookie draft a week after the NFL draft with a salary scale.

 

[FantaC1]

Thanks for all the input. I know a lot of people find auctions more fun. I'm just not one of those people. I'm a seasoned vet who has done a lot of both and I just prefer snake draft to auction. I know all the arguments for auction, and I am not going to try and counter them, it's just preference. We will have FA's done by auction bid, after the initial draft. We will have a rookie draft every year.

As far as the salary cap working with a draft, it isn't really a problem. I am in several salary cap leagues and we already do this with rookies. We just use a sliding scale for the initial salary based on draft slot. It's a non-issue for me. 

The main question I have is not auction vs. snake. It's whether or not to do the rookies separate the first year and the timeline. I am leaning towards doing the initial draft as soon as possible, and then hold a separate rookie draft. I honestly think just including the rookies in the startup draft makes the most sense, but I like the idea of spreading it out so that we have more off-season activity. 

Thanks again for the input. You have given me a few things to think about. 

 

[steelers1080]

Thanks for all the input. I know a lot of people find auctions more fun. I'm just not one of those people. I'm a seasoned vet who has done a lot of both and I just prefer snake draft to auction. I know all the arguments for auction, and I am not going to try and counter them, it's just preference. We will have FA's done by auction bid, after the initial draft. We will have a rookie draft every year.

As far as the salary cap working with a draft, it isn't really a problem. I am in several salary cap leagues and we already do this with rookies. We just use a sliding scale for the initial salary based on draft slot. It's a non-issue for me. 

The main question I have is not auction vs. snake. It's whether or not to do the rookies separate the first year and the timeline. I am leaning towards doing the initial draft as soon as possible, and then hold a separate rookie draft. I honestly think just including the rookies in the startup draft makes the most sense, but I like the idea of spreading it out so that we have more off-season activity. 

Thanks again for the input. You have given me a few things to think about. 

I'd put the two together so that people have to make hard decisions about proven talent vs potential.  And the idea that Odell will cost the same salary as AJ Green is nuts to me, unless every pick will be valued differently.  I assumed you'd do it on a round by round basis.