What's the best way to keep a bad team's manager active? (1 Viewer)

[sgcolin]

I'm the commissioner of a pretty casual league and every year one or two managers just stop rotating their lineup when they start off something like 2-6. It's redraft, so the punishment (or incentive) has to apply to current year. I don't want to go the route of making the loser pay more, and since it's a group of friends I don't really want to try to exclude someone from the league the following year. Anyone ever been in a similar situation or have any ideas?

 

[jeremyx13]

The best way I have found to keep owners active when they start out bad is give $10-20 for high score each week for 10 weeks beginning about week 5 or 6. If money doesn't motivate them, then nothing you do will. If it's a friendly no money league, then it really doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. Good luck.

 

[Captain Hook]

I'm the commissioner of a pretty casual league and every year one or two managers just stop rotating their lineup when they start off something like 2-6. It's redraft, so the punishment (or incentive) has to apply to current year. I don't want to go the route of making the loser pay more, and since it's a group of friends I don't really want to try to exclude someone from the league the following year. Anyone ever been in a similar situation or have any ideas?

Electronic monitor on their ankle - when you see a lineup with players on bye then just turn on the juice

 

[Freedonia]

In our league instead of using a draft randomizer to set the draft order we use it to select the order in which the players get to select where they draft. exp. the person who draws the ace can select any of the 12 draft slots. the person who gets the second spot can select any of the remaining 11 draft slots and so on. If you started to do this you could assess a penalty for people who failed to set thier lineup of having to fill out the last remaining draft slots. Not such a huge penalty that people wont come back, but steep enough that it may make people pay attention.

 

[Mister CIA]

In our league instead of using a draft randomizer to set the draft order we use it to select the order in which the players get to select where they draft. exp. the person who draws the ace can select any of the 12 draft slots. the person who gets the second spot can select any of the remaining 11 draft slots and so on. If you started to do this you could assess a penalty for people who failed to set thier lineup of having to fill out the last remaining draft slots. Not such a huge penalty that people wont come back, but steep enough that it may make people pay attention.

I don't feel drunk.

 

[daveR]

Each week a team goes inactive costs them one position in the following year's draft. Make it clear up front that going dormant sux for everyone & "don't get in if you're gonna punk us".

 

[bicycle_seat_sniffer]

I'm the commissioner of a pretty casual league and every year one or two managers just stop rotating their lineup when they start off something like 2-6. It's redraft, so the punishment (or incentive) has to apply to current year. I don't want to go the route of making the loser pay more, and since it's a group of friends I don't really want to try to exclude someone from the league the following year. Anyone ever been in a similar situation or have any ideas?

kick em out, get someone that wants to play

 

[Sweet Love]

Each week a team goes inactive costs them one position in the following year's draft. Make it clear up front that going dormant sux for everyone & "don't get in if you're gonna punk us".

While I get where you are coming from, they will likely leave the league...maybe that is fine (and needed) in a competitive league, but in a casual league, it may be hard to find new owners that are as or more committed than one you just booted.

 

[Eminence]

I'm the commissioner of a pretty casual league and every year one or two managers just stop rotating their lineup when they start off something like 2-6. It's redraft, so the punishment (or incentive) has to apply to current year. I don't want to go the route of making the loser pay more, and since it's a group of friends I don't really want to try to exclude someone from the league the following year. Anyone ever been in a similar situation or have any ideas?

kick em out, get someone that wants to play

Yeah, give their team to me.

 

[Matt Bitonti]

in one of my leagues we have 4 playoff spots. 3 go to the teams that are good and the 4th is decided by a winner take all 1 week battle royal comprising of all the non playoff teams. That way even the bad teams have incentive to pay attention, cause you are never really out of the playoffs.

 

[daveR]

How about this... Everybody puts up $160. $10 / week returned to active owners.

 

[Cosby Sweater]

In one of my leagues, the division winners are in based on head-to-head records, but playoff seeds 3-6 are decided by overall record against the league, not by weekly record. So, if you are in a 12 team league, and you outscore 8 teams, you go 8-3 for the week. At the end of the regular season you could have a losing head to head record, but have a .500+ overall record and make the playoffs. This method tends to keep people involved, as one strong week gets you right back into the thick of things unless your team is brutal. We rarely have more than one team eliminated from playoff contention going into the last week.

 

[[icon]]

IF you have owners who have checked out, then set lineups based upon a pre-agreed upon set of projections (ie yahoo if you're on a yahoo site... CBS if you're on CBS...etc. I think most of them do this).

 

[sgcolin]

in one of my leagues we have 4 playoff spots. 3 go to the teams that are good and the 4th is decided by a winner take all 1 week battle royal comprising of all the non playoff teams. That way even the bad teams have incentive to pay attention, cause you are never really out of the playoffs.

This is a really cool idea and I think I'll try to go forward with it because you would want to stay active the whole year to set yourself up for the last week. How would you apply that to a yahoo league though?

IF you have owners who have checked out, then set lineups based upon a pre-agreed upon set of projections (ie yahoo if you're on a yahoo site... CBS if you're on CBS...etc. I think most of them do this).

I want avoid this because it takes away the individuality of the managers and benefits the teams that play the casual manager. Also, there was the situation last year where someone that had idled for a month got a call 30 minutes before kickoff from a different manager telling him to field a roster so the other manager could get into the playoffs. The idler ended up winning by 2 or 3, which was hilarious.

 

[[icon]]

IF you have owners who have checked out, then set lineups based upon a pre-agreed upon set of projections (ie yahoo if you're on a yahoo site... CBS if you're on CBS...etc. I think most of them do this).

I want avoid this because it takes away the individuality of the managers and benefits the teams that play the casual manager. Also, there was the situation last year where someone that had idled for a month got a call 30 minutes before kickoff from a different manager telling him to field a roster so the other manager could get into the playoffs. The idler ended up winning by 2 or 3, which was hilarious.

The problem is that it's also NOT fair for people who face an idler in week 10 to run into players on BYE and such. It gives a pretty big advantage. We have something in our constitution about it... I think there is a $50 non-valid lineup fee where we go back and retroactively set his lineup to the last viable lineup that was used by that player. A second offense results in banning from the league and a commish controlled team using site projections for the rest of the season. I think the autopilot team is also ineligible for playoffs as well (though a team that's in the hunt has never actually been in the playoff race).