Two Teams Did Not Join

[lucabrasi09]

I need some advice on how to take care of extra players. We are a 12 team league, and did a live draft. Four managers were not able to make it, so we did group picks for them with a 3rd party there to veto any that might be considered a poor choice. Now two of these managers are not joining, so we are going to just kick them out and make it a 10 team league. However, we cannot decide what to do with the players. None of us have time to do another draft. We have come up with a few options, but none seem to be completely fair. What do you suggest? Or what has worked in the past.

The suggestions so far are:

1) Take each teams 10 best players, and go from the last original draft pick to the first, allowing each team to choose another player. Drawbacks are that the first four picks are essentially getting 1st and 2nd round draft choices again.
2) Do the same as above but make it a raffle for the order.
3) Find two managers who can come in and manage, and don't make them pay.

What else?

[Cards24]

Option 3 Try to find two owners that will come in and play for free, and still include them in the payouts (that is something all your owners would have to agree on, hell they might even be willing to pay the extra $10-$20 it would cost to cover those spots and "save" your guys fantasy season). It sucks but that is the best way to keep it straight and fair. Any other option will really skew the rosters with two extra first and second rounders floating around.

The other option I would also look into is deciding on the best lineup for those two teams and leaving them untouched all season regardless of injuries or byes. I am just not a fan of redistributing players off teams after a draft. It really devalues everyone's draft efforts and strategy.

[Hags888]

A redraft would be the most fair thing to do, but if the league doesn't have time for that, then I might suggest just leaving the players out there in free agency. Then go with Free Agent Auction Budget system for teams to swap out free agents for any of their players. That way, it's kind of like a mini-auction draft for the remaining free agents. Teams can spend big to reap the remaining players, but then be left with very little money during the regular season for free agents.

Or you could do some kind of hybrid of the above, and maybe do a mini draft (or snake draft) of the remaining free agents. If noone is into that, then making the league available to anyone to pick up the teams for free, would probably be the way to go.

[Banemorth]

A redraft is the way to go in my opinion but if you really can't find the time to squeeze one in I would really try to find two filler players. A mini auction draft really is a great idea too.

[AHF]

You can't do a snake draft or simple waiver wire pickups of the players because the windfall for the teams with the first picks would be far too huge. The only solutions I see are:

(a) Get replacement owners;
(b) Redraft;
(c) Use an outside reference to manage the two teams (i.e., look at the ESPN weekly rankings and start the highest ranked players for those two teams every week);
(d) Do an auction of the remaining players (everyone gets a $100 budget and bids on the players on those rosters); or
(e) Make those players ineligible for other teams to pick up (i.e., drop them and prohibit teams from acquiring them in-season).

If you let some teams get 1st and 2nd round picks added to their rosters while other teams get only 4th and 5th round picks, your league will be ruined before you even start. An auction would be fairer, but still would be tough to balance (and perhaps to administer since multiple teams would probably be willing to dump their entire auction budget for an elite first rounder and then you are stuck trying to sort through how to work that out).

[c0megets0me]

You can't do a snake draft or simple waiver wire pickups of the players because the windfall for the teams with the first picks would be far too huge. The only solutions I see are:

(a) Get replacement owners;
(b) Redraft;
(c) Use an outside reference to manage the two teams (i.e., look at the ESPN weekly rankings and start the highest ranked players for those two teams every week);
(d) Do an auction of the remaining players (everyone gets a $100 budget and bids on the players on those rosters); or
(e) Make those players ineligible for other teams to pick up (i.e., drop them and prohibit teams from acquiring them in-season).

If you let some teams get 1st and 2nd round picks added to their rosters while other teams get only 4th and 5th round picks, your league will be ruined before you even start. An auction would be fairer, but still would be tough to balance (and perhaps to administer since multiple teams would probably be willing to dump their entire auction budget for an elite first rounder and then you are stuck trying to sort through how to work that out).

i agree with this^^^^^^^

[G3_175SE]

Have you considered a long draft? Might take a while but you can get those players to the right teams but the best way is still to find new owners.