What's the best FA pickup process, and why? League is struggling (1 Viewer)

[Judge Smails]

We have a league with many of the same guys for 15+ years. Fairly big money league, as we allow unlimited FA bidding wars. Everybody puts in their FA pickups by 8pm on Tuesday night. If not other owners go for that player, you get him for $10. If multiple owners, then you have a bidding war. Only detriment to outrageous spending is we have a 2 for 1 luxury tax once you have spent $300 in FA money (real money) for the year. So that guy that goes for $25 is going to cost you $50. Proven to be a deterrent for most of the league, but not all.

It's getting too rich for some owners and they don't want the perception that the biggest spenders have a big advantage (the top spender has never won the SB, while guys who have spent $100 all year have won it multiple times). So, we have to address it.

I hate the worst team gets first pick each week scenario. Just because a guy sucked at his draft doesn't mean he should get the premier FA of the year. We're toying with a blind bidding system, maximum bid takes it, you have $300 max to spend all year. But some aren't sold on it.

Anybody feel they have a great FA pickup/waiver system? If so, please share your rules. Thx

 

[ChainsawU]

• Blind bidding waivers may be placed until Wednesday at 9PM ET when the website automatically processes waivers.

Players may be picked up first-come, first-serve after blind bids process.
Players who were cut during blind bids or in the FCFS period are not eligible to be picked up until the following week’s blind bidding.
Players that play Thursday or Saturday may not be picked up in FCFS waivers after their game begins.
During the season: In the event that two or more teams submit the same high bid for a player, the commissioner will award the free agent to the team with the worst record followed by the team that has scored the fewest points.
During the off-season: In the event that two or more teams submit the same high bid for a player, the free agent will be awarded to the team with the worst record the previous year, followed by total points.
Each team will be awarded 100 Bid Dollars in the initial year.
Each team will be awarded 75 Bid Dollars on April 1st each season thereafter.

 

[Mistabishi]

We started blind bidding with $300 to spend last year and it was a blast. I had a ton of positive comments about how this made you have to be on your game weekly rather than a who knows waiver priority process which is annoying and unfair.

 

[cstu]

You need to use fake bidding money or limit people to a max they can spend a year.

 

[J Giles Band]

We have a league with many of the same guys for 15+ years. Fairly big money league, as we allow unlimited FA bidding wars. Everybody puts in their FA pickups by 8pm on Tuesday night. If not other owners go for that player, you get him for $10. If multiple owners, then you have a bidding war. Only detriment to outrageous spending is we have a 2 for 1 luxury tax once you have spent $300 in FA money (real money) for the year. So that guy that goes for $25 is going to cost you $50. Proven to be a deterrent for most of the league, but not all.

It's getting too rich for some owners and they don't want the perception that the biggest spenders have a big advantage (the top spender has never won the SB, while guys who have spent $100 all year have won it multiple times). So, we have to address it.

I hate the worst team gets first pick each week scenario. Just because a guy sucked at his draft doesn't mean he should get the premier FA of the year. We're toying with a blind bidding system, maximum bid takes it, you have $300 max to spend all year. But some aren't sold on it.

Anybody feel they have a great FA pickup/waiver system? If so, please share your rules. Thx

$100 auction keeper/contract league. We use blind bidding each week for FA pickups ($50 budget for the season). Highest bid amount gets the player. However, teams have to consider that whatever amount they bid becomes the player's salary. So not only does overbidding deplete your remaining FAAB budget, it also makes it less likely you can keep the player the following season if his salary is too high.

It's almost like an auction each week and certainly a game within the game. Our guys get a kick out of the strategy and competitive nature of it.

 

[Horses Mouth]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

 

[Leonidas]

FAAB. IOW, BB. FCFS on FA after the BB processes. Players lock 5 mins prior to their kickoff.

Got acronyms?

 

[ODannyBoy]

We have a league with many of the same guys for 15+ years. Fairly big money league, as we allow unlimited FA bidding wars. Everybody puts in their FA pickups by 8pm on Tuesday night. If not other owners go for that player, you get him for $10. If multiple owners, then you have a bidding war. Only detriment to outrageous spending is we have a 2 for 1 luxury tax once you have spent $300 in FA money (real money) for the year. So that guy that goes for $25 is going to cost you $50. Proven to be a deterrent for most of the league, but not all.

It's getting too rich for some owners and they don't want the perception that the biggest spenders have a big advantage (the top spender has never won the SB, while guys who have spent $100 all year have won it multiple times). So, we have to address it.

I hate the worst team gets first pick each week scenario. Just because a guy sucked at his draft doesn't mean he should get the premier FA of the year. We're toying with a blind bidding system, maximum bid takes it, you have $300 max to spend all year. But some aren't sold on it.

Anybody feel they have a great FA pickup/waiver system? If so, please share your rules. Thx

I've been in last-first priority and blind bidding systems.

If your league is dead-set against the last-first setup, I think blind bid is the only way to go. It's more efficient in terms of time and administration since most websites can automatically run it.

That being said, last-first is a parity building tool. I think your league has to decide on its free agency philosophy first. Once you decide that, and I suspect your league doesn't like it much since you went to such an extreme bidding system in the first place, the matter it kinda settled from there.

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

We have a league with many of the same guys for 15+ years. Fairly big money league, as we allow unlimited FA bidding wars. Everybody puts in their FA pickups by 8pm on Tuesday night. If not other owners go for that player, you get him for $10. If multiple owners, then you have a bidding war. Only detriment to outrageous spending is we have a 2 for 1 luxury tax once you have spent $300 in FA money (real money) for the year. So that guy that goes for $25 is going to cost you $50. Proven to be a deterrent for most of the league, but not all.

It's getting too rich for some owners and they don't want the perception that the biggest spenders have a big advantage (the top spender has never won the SB, while guys who have spent $100 all year have won it multiple times). So, we have to address it.

I hate the worst team gets first pick each week scenario. Just because a guy sucked at his draft doesn't mean he should get the premier FA of the year. We're toying with a blind bidding system, maximum bid takes it, you have $300 max to spend all year. But some aren't sold on it.

Anybody feel they have a great FA pickup/waiver system? If so, please share your rules. Thx

I have a similar system in my league.

screw them cheap bastards I say. they whine every year but we aint changing

 

[GregR]

I think blind bidding where everyone has the same cap (including possibly being a hard cap based on salaries already on your roster) is probably the best method.

If not a bidding type of waiver, I like a rolling waiver priority where gaining a player via queued up waivers drops you to the end of the list. FCFS after the queued waivers are done does not affect your waiver priority. Then it turns into a strategic thing where you have to make some decisions when you want to spend your high priority.

 

[JHuber77]

Why not just do waivers on a rolling basis? As soon as you make a selection, you go right to the bottom of the list. Order never resets. Takes some strategy to know when to use your pick if your at the top or close to it. That way you never have people with the most $$ getting all of the selections.

ETA- didn't see the post right above.

 

[We Tigers]

Yep, rolling waivers beats last-first for me, too. Blind bid is the most fun, and I imagine your league would be all about it since they're already hemorrhaging real cash to beat each other out.

 

[Leonidas]

Why not just do waivers on a rolling basis? As soon as you make a selection, you go right to the bottom of the list. Order never resets. Takes some strategy to know when to use your pick if your at the top or close to it. That way you never have people with the most $$ getting all of the selections.

ETA- didn't see the post right above.

Yes.

This beats the #### out of last-first.

I strongly prefer the free agent acquisition budget, aka blind bidding, as it puts everybody on equal footing (though you can toy with the tie breaker).

After that, the rolling list that starts out as the inverse of the draft order. This is especially good for standard snake drafts with no reversal as it gives the late pick guys something.

The worse of the bunch is putting the worse record team first every week. IMO

 

[Shutout]

BBID works well for our dynasty also. THe only drawback to it I think is it kinda sucks to see guy severely overbid a player and run out of money because, in a dynasty, those things have long lasting impacts.

 

[Captain Hook]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

FAAB waivers (blind bidding)

but do NOT allow ANY FCFS - that just defeats the purpose and strategy of your blind bidding

 

[We Tigers]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

FAAB waivers (blind bidding)

but do NOT allow ANY FCFS - that just defeats the purpose and strategy of your blind bidding

Really? That seems unnecessarily restrictive. If everyone passed on the chance to pay for a certain player, why shouldn't he be available for free?

 

[Captain Hook]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

FAAB waivers (blind bidding)

but do NOT allow ANY FCFS - that just defeats the purpose and strategy of your blind bidding

Really? That seems unnecessarily restrictive. If everyone passed on the chance to pay for a certain player, why shouldn't he be available for free?

Well for one thing there is a LOT of information between say Thurs or Wed and then Fri/Sat

And you are allowing teams to take advantage of that or their incompetence in the FAAB run to acquire a player for Nothing

btw NONE of the high stakes FF contests use FCFS waivers at any point - most have two FAAB runs, one on Wednesday and then one Friday or Saturday although I strongly prefer one on either Fri/Sat - if people weren't prepared for a Thursday game they KNEW was on the schedule for the following week, c'est la vie

 

[Captain Hook]

We have a league with many of the same guys for 15+ years. Fairly big money league, as we allow unlimited FA bidding wars. Everybody puts in their FA pickups by 8pm on Tuesday night. If not other owners go for that player, you get him for $10. If multiple owners, then you have a bidding war. Only detriment to outrageous spending is we have a 2 for 1 luxury tax once you have spent $300 in FA money (real money) for the year. So that guy that goes for $25 is going to cost you $50. Proven to be a deterrent for most of the league, but not all.

It's getting too rich for some owners and they don't want the perception that the biggest spenders have a big advantage (the top spender has never won the SB, while guys who have spent $100 all year have won it multiple times). So, we have to address it.

I hate the worst team gets first pick each week scenario. Just because a guy sucked at his draft doesn't mean he should get the premier FA of the year. We're toying with a blind bidding system, maximum bid takes it, you have $300 max to spend all year. But some aren't sold on it.

Anybody feel they have a great FA pickup/waiver system? If so, please share your rules. Thx

BTW I am curious about the one easy fix - just use the $300 real money as a cap for free agent acquisitions - Nobody can spend more than $300 so everyone is on an equal playing field (works fine in the high stakes version of this although they use $1000 but many don't use half that over the year while some guys spend it all - since it's real money they spend what they prefer but ARE capped)

 

[steveski]

Just like real football, you need a cap. Whether you use real money or fake money, everyone needs to have the same spending power or else the Yankees of your league have a distinct advantage every year.

 

[J Giles Band]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

FAAB waivers (blind bidding)

but do NOT allow ANY FCFS - that just defeats the purpose and strategy of your blind bidding

Our league does the same...

In our salary/contract league FCFS would cause the additional headache of how to determine the player's salary. Currently the FAAB bid is the player's salary. Not comfortable with FCFS players being assigned a standard $ amount with all of the strategy that goes into managing your FAAB budget.

Captain, I'm intrigued by your preference on the Friday FAAB run vs doing it on Wednesday. Reluctantly, we currently do ours on Wednesday with Thursday night games every week. We used to do it on Friday in previous seasons. We moved it to Wednesday so that it would always precede the first game of the week. But you have me weighing the pros & cons of which is better Wednesday or Friday if we stick to one FAAB run per week (my preference). I can see an argument for either day. Interested in hearing your thoughts... thanks.

 

[massraider]

My guess is, if you change it dramatically like you are thinking about, your leaguemates will hate it, and you will wind up changing it back. If anything, put a cap on what everyone can spend. But bidding wars with real money is awesome, don't think I would wanna lose that.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Bidding is definitely my favorite way to go, but if I'm reading it right you guys are using real money? Seems like a rich get richer kind of scenario.

Why not use fake league money that teams get every year. Assuming this is dynasty, we give out league cash (for bidding) at the end of every season. The worst team gets slightly more than the second worst team, and so on. League cash can also be traded. It adds a whole other layer to the league as some teams like to acquire cash (via trades, saving up for a splurge on a big player, etc) while some go the opposite direction.

 

[GregR]

BBID works well for our dynasty also. THe only drawback to it I think is it kinda sucks to see guy severely overbid a player and run out of money because, in a dynasty, those things have long lasting impacts.

This is one of the things that make me prefer actual salary/contract leagues where you can have a hard cap. Then your blind bidding money is your normal salary cap. Want more money for waivers? Then cut someone.

It also means that we do see some worthwhile players hit waivers in the season. A player might not be playing up to his salary, and since we don't have cap penalties for players being cut, you can cut them and then bid against everyone else to reacquire them at a more appropriate salary. Or a player might go on NFL IR but be at the end of his fantasy contract, so he gets dropped so the money can immediately be spent on someone for that year. Leaving the player to be bid on in waivers by teams willing to pay him the rest of the season to sit on IR (which has unlimited spots but does count against your cap).

 

[Leonidas]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

FAAB waivers (blind bidding)

but do NOT allow ANY FCFS - that just defeats the purpose and strategy of your blind bidding

Really? That seems unnecessarily restrictive. If everyone passed on the chance to pay for a certain player, why shouldn't he be available for free?

I agree.

Hell, on Yahoo, you can blind "bid" $0 and if nobody else bids actual money, you get them.

If you aren't able to get on the computer and put bids in in time (you know, real life happens) why shouldn't you be able to jump on Friday or Saturday and grab guys at the last minute that everybody else has passed on?

(but I just realized some are talking about real $. No thanks to that, entry fee should cover it)

 

[Captain Hook]

do you guys all use FCFS on FA after the blind bidding or lock down the rosters after the bidding?

FAAB waivers (blind bidding)

but do NOT allow ANY FCFS - that just defeats the purpose and strategy of your blind bidding

Our league does the same...

In our salary/contract league FCFS would cause the additional headache of how to determine the player's salary. Currently the FAAB bid is the player's salary. Not comfortable with FCFS players being assigned a standard $ amount with all of the strategy that goes into managing your FAAB budget.

Captain, I'm intrigued by your preference on the Friday FAAB run vs doing it on Wednesday. Reluctantly, we currently do ours on Wednesday with Thursday night games every week. We used to do it on Friday in previous seasons. We moved it to Wednesday so that it would always precede the first game of the week. But you have me weighing the pros & cons of which is better Wednesday or Friday if we stick to one FAAB run per week (my preference). I can see an argument for either day. Interested in hearing your thoughts... thanks.

Don't have a lot of time right now but I will be glad to kick it around later if you wish - In short the FAAB runs were always on Friday nights which was fine - even if some were jobhamstrung (something I gave up years ago) Friday late afternoon or early evening made sure everyone had a chance to get their bids in and had plenty of time to get their lineups done that night or Saturday IF they had Sunday obligations. Then the Thursday night football game got multiplies (which I hate btw - increases injuries; short week is not good for many teams and created this FF headache - artificially in my mind. Did we have extra waivers on Monday because there was MNF? NO - so why should we have it for ONE game on Thursdays. But the game operators caved to the screams of the minority. IMO there should just be one day - Friday or Saturday for the FAAB run - if people can't look at their roster a week in advance it is time for an easier game for them

PVH