Getting screwed... ** UPDATE **

[lmcjaho]

So last year I joined an existing 12-team, 4 keeper Total Points league. I took the 12th place team from 04 and through trades managed to acquire Torry Holt and Joe Horn as my keepers, and myself and the other 2 new owners had a 2-round mini-draft to bring ourselves up to the 4-keepers to start the draft.

This league is a salary league (had 36 million to start with) and through a combination of luck, skill, and shrewd trades I managed to win 2nd overall and set myself up beautifully for this year. Besides 4 players we are also allowed to carry-over up to 9 million (30% of the 30 million base) in cash for the next season by culling the roster before the end of the season (any player cut = refunded salary) and I managed to put away the whole 9 mil plus a little change for possible trades (allowed to include salary in trades) for this year. My keepers (after a nice 3-RBs-for-1 trade) are Holt, R Moss, Larry Johnson, and Tiki, and after their salary I had 21.39 mil left to work with (about average compared to the rest of the league) so things are looking great.

Or at least they were until tonight. Of the 12 teams we had last year we have had 4 owners drop out. Two have been replaced, but due to the high turnover rate it seems the commish (and to be fair a large chunk of the league) is entertaining the notion of cutting the number of keepers or possibly even doing a complete re-draft this year. The first one to mention this idea specifically singled me out as the one most likely to complain - and why not, I am obviously the one getting hit the most by the idea...

The worst part is that weekly transactions are through auction format for real $$ and I spent over 100$ (about 30% higher than the next closest team) last year to set this team up the way I did, so I feel doubly screwed - money lost last year plus opportunity potentially lost this year...

Anyways, no real point to this post other than to gripe about it...

[GMoney]

Seems to me that decisions like cutting the number of keepers/ doing a complete re-draft require at least a years notice.

The other question you have to ask yourself is why there is such a large turnover of owners in this league. Generally leagues where your spending upwards of a hundred bucks a year have fairly consistent ownership.

But all in all it seems prety unfair.

[pangbones]

I would be furious as well. You can't just change the rules, when people, like yourself, built their team with a set of rules in mind. They should make the changes a year from now, that way everyone can do what they need to do to build their team.

[gablefan]

I would say the high turnover rate has to do with the complex salary cap you have. It sounds like you have mastered it beautifully, but it may be hard for others to pick up on. So if it is, people won't play. FF is supposed to be fun and too complex = no fun.

[lmcjaho]

Well, the high turnover rate can be explained with reasonable ease:

3 of the guys that are leaving are out because of conflicts that arose over the past two seasons where they had been more-or-less bluntly accused of collusion. These 3 guys all worked together at UPS and as a result they talked about the league amongst themselves and made trades that seemed questionable at best, and downright dirty at worst, and the last time it happened they were called on it and as a result they are out (they quit, but had they not they might not have been invited back regardless).

One of the other guys is out because he got extremely pissed off with the "Brown Shenanigans" as he called it and he ended up losing his interest in the league as a result.

Last guy is out because his wife recently had a baby and he was already the weak link in the league anyway...

As for the sudden rule changes, I agree, and normally so does the commish, but in light of the situation with multiple new owners and the league contracting down to 10 teams from 12, and the fact that so far I am (justifiably) the only one to really be complaining about the change, this is a one-shot deal with a complete reset, which hopefully will lead to a more stable league in the future since the core group of owners we are building from seem to be more knowledgable/involved than some of those who have been dropped...

It just sucks for me since I will never be able to get the guys I HAD through a redraft...

[eaglesrule]

well, its tough. Its easy to say "no changes without league vote," and "no changes until a year later," but if anyone wants to play this year, and a block of people want to play but are at an obvious disadvantage, the conflict is simple, yet complex.

You have an obvious and correct point--you played according to certain rules, and now are being penalized for doing so. On the other hand, the newbies have no loyalty to rules that they had no say in.

You need to find out way to have an expansion draft, where say each team can protect three of their final roster, and only team can only lose one guy. Seee how the teams shape up, then let the keeprs decide on who to keep at the new value. Chances are, the teams will be in a position to keep two of the really premium guys. so even if you get screwed by this, you could still keep LJ and tiki if you want or something. Its still a big leg up really, and the other guys feel like they can have some talent.

the dark side of keepers is that there is no incentive to join if you don't have a shot in year two of your involvement.

[Free Bagel]

This sounds pretty bad, and becomes totally unacceptable after mentioning that there was real money involved for waiver pickups.

[lmcjaho]

This sounds pretty bad, and becomes totally unacceptable after mentioning that there was real money involved for waiver pickups.

This is definitely the biggest sticking point for me - I had the highest transaction fees of the whole league last year, at least partially so because I was setting up for this year...

My biggest current gripe (I had a whole day to stew over the original issues and have since more or less moved on) is that with a "reset" like this I am losing out on the salary advantage that I had built up through roster cuts last year - cuts that cost me $$ because I had to shell out for cheap (salary-wise) players to replace the deadweight I was cutting to recoup salary... I'm working on the rest of the league with the intentions of coercing a discount on this year's entry fee to make up for this...

[Pete123444]

Ouch, sorry to hear that man. Especially with the money involved.

[FF Newbie]

I'm working on the rest of the league with the intentions of coercing a discount on this year's entry fee to make up for this...

That's what I was going to suggest. At the very least, your entry fee should be discounted by whatever extra you spent last year to set yourself up for this year, if that can be roughly determined.