Using last year's standings to determine draft order (1 Viewer)

[Godsbrother]

I have been running a 12-team league with friends since 1994. There is a little money involved ($50 entrance + $2 transaction fees) but the league is mainly for fun and bragging rights.

It is a redraft league but we allow up to 3 players to be designated as keepers. However only players drafted in the 4th round or later can be kept and you can't keep more than 1 guy at any position -- so it is fairly restrictive and quite often some teams elect to not keep any players.

Anyway, we always pick cards to determine draft order at our annual summer meeting which is coming up in 2 weeks. This year there is one owner talking to a couple other owners about changing the draft order so that the team that finished last should pick first and the rest of draft order should go by reverse final standings. Needless to say he had the worst team last year.

I have always been against it as I think it rewards owners that had crappy teams and could possibly encourage bad teams to tank at the end of the season. I guess I could see it in dynasty leagues but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in redraft leagues which is pretty much what our league is.

So my question is to redraft leagues: how do you determine draft order?

 

[Uwe Blab]

We only keep one player, but we do the reverse order from that keeper's fantasy points last season. (i.e. the person keeping Chris Johnson picks last, the person keeping Brees picks 2nd to last, etc.) You could do that for the high man kept. If they don't keep anyone, sure they'll pick high, but they don't make up that pick until the last round.

ETA: What I do like about it is that it does enter some strategy into it. You may keep a 'lesser' player from last year to undercut someone, but you don't know for certain who they are keeping. Everyone submits their keeper and then the order and other players' keeper is revealed...

 

[Captain Hook]

How many places does the league pay?

What you should do for draft order is start at 1.01 with first team that missed cashing....so let's say top four make the playoffs and get something back, the draft would start with the team that finished fifth (or whatever measurement you want to use for non-playoff teams....total points make sense too)

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

11th

12th

4th

3rd

2nd

Champ

The advantage to this is that it helps keep all teams competing as hard as possible all year long so they can get the best draft spot for the following year

 

[Godsbrother]

We only keep one player, but we do the reverse order from that keeper's fantasy points last season. (i.e. the person keeping Chris Johnson picks last, the person keeping Brees picks 2nd to last, etc.) You could do that for the high man kept. If they don't keep anyone, sure they'll pick high, but they don't make up that pick until the last round.ETA: What I do like about it is that it does enter some strategy into it. You may keep a 'lesser' player from last year to undercut someone, but you don't know for certain who they are keeping. Everyone submits their keeper and then the order and other players' keeper is revealed...

Interesting. I'll have to think about this....

 

[Godsbrother]

How many places does the league pay?What you should do for draft order is start at 1.01 with first team that missed cashing....so let's say top four make the playoffs and get something back, the draft would start with the team that finished fifth (or whatever measurement you want to use for non-playoff teams....total points make sense too)The advantage to this is that it helps keep all teams competing as hard as possible all year long so they can get the best draft spot for the following year

Our league is a little weird in that teams that do not qualify for the playoffs (or get eliminated during the playoffs) play games with other teams eliminated from the playoffs for $10/win. The idea is to give all teams something to play for in weeks 14-16 so they do want to remain competitive.My problem with basing the draft order on last year's standings is that those standings have little meaning when you are all drafting new teams. I know that a lot of leagues do this though...

 

[g5jamz]

Was he last place prior to entering the playoffs?

We were going to implement a strategy if we hadn't expanded, but here's how it goes.

You take the regular season standings (because most everyone is fighting for a playoff spot) and anyone that does NOT make the playoffs...that's your number...BUT not necessarily your draft position. Hear me out. Let's say you're a 12teamer. Last place would get 12 slips of paper. Now...the playoff making teams determine their finishing order how they played the playoffs out. (side note...we offer to pay the winner of the consolation bracket some money so it stays competitive)

Now...everyone (non playoffs 5-12 positions - if 4 team playoffs AND the 1-4 teams) have slips of paper on how they finished up in a hat.

Last place has 12 slips of paper...1st has 1. Odds are the 12th teams MIGHT get last place...but there's no guarantee. It's a weighted lottery.

 

[TeamSnooki]

There are some interesting ideas already in this thread, but in a sorta-keeper league there is no reason to reward the crappy teams.

And while he may not have been tanking last year, there's much more incentive for a 2-9 team just to give up the last couple games when they know that they'll be getting CJ/AP as a reward.

 

[g5jamz]

It should be up to the commissioner to determine if someone was purposefully tanking...if they are...you don't award their 12 slips of paper. You give them the 6 or 7 (average)

but that's why you still use a lottery system with weighted slips of paper....there's no guarantee they'll get the 1st or 2nd pick. 12 out of 78 slips of paper would be their odds...but it's no guarantee.

 

[fridayfrenzy]

1. Even if a new rule is brought into effect regarding the draft order, it should not be done until next year unless everyone agrees on it. This way it avoids people voting with any bias (i.e. the crappy owner is voting so that he gets first pick this year)

2. We have a keeper league with similar restrictions, and we use a draft lottery whereby the last place team gets 12 ballots, 2nd last gets 11 ballots, 1st place gets one ballot, etc. It removes some of the temptation to tank because it is not set in stone that someone will get an early pick. It also adds some fun in picking the draft order. We do it at the NFL draft before each fantasy season.

 

[Ruffrodys05]

We only keep one player, but we do the reverse order from that keeper's fantasy points last season. (i.e. the person keeping Chris Johnson picks last, the person keeping Brees picks 2nd to last, etc.) You could do that for the high man kept. If they don't keep anyone, sure they'll pick high, but they don't make up that pick until the last round.ETA: What I do like about it is that it does enter some strategy into it. You may keep a 'lesser' player from last year to undercut someone, but you don't know for certain who they are keeping. Everyone submits their keeper and then the order and other players' keeper is revealed...

I really like this idea for the type of league you have. I think this is a good for everyone and the teams that keep no one should be slotted reverse order of their finish last season. fridayfrenzy's point about making it official for the following year is a smart play also.