In my case, I've been playing with the same knowledgeable people for years. We've already weeded out the people who end up as dead teams. Now I want everyone to think for themself. Clicking the suggest button is as exciting as playing pong against the computer on a first generation Atari. Draft preparation should be at least as important as transactions and luck. If the Yahoo expert does 90% of the draft preparation for you, you and your league mates are playing based on 10% of your input, a few transactions, and hoping your players don't get hurt ... congrats your league winner ... FantasyGuru.com!
DraftDodger wrote:I think the complaint here is forced parity.
Yes! Exactly my point/complaint. I want Yahoo to facilitate the record keeping ... not the decision making.
DraftDodger wrote:The question is, what's the alternative? Would you rather that Yahoo made really stupid picks for anyone who didn't set their own pre-rankings?
Yes! Those who play/try win, those who don't, don't get invited back. By season two, each league is fine.
Imagine if a real NFL team didn't bother to scout, and had ESPN draft for them ... some would be better, some would be worse, but in neither case would the team have it's own identity. I want to play 100%, not have someone play 90% for me.
Prior stats only tell you half the story, usually the better half. The expert takes on the matter look at trends, player movements, and other tangables that could effect the players performance.
Let me just preface with the fact that I think the Yahoo! pre-rankings aren't very good. But I, as an amature fantasy football player, am at least grateful that they are there. I've done some research, read a lot of articles, but I don't have the time to draw up statistical graphs on every player to project what they're going to do this year. So maybe after I play ff for a few years, I'll feel the same way. But, I think, people who are into ff and/or want to get into it, are in the same boat as me. We've done as much as we can do and know for the most part who we want. But until we get a feel for it and are 'experts' at ff that can totally disregard the pre-rankings, having them there is a blessing.
I'll end by saying that if you don't care about your draft and let Yahoo just pick all your players, then you shouldn't be playing in the first place.
What's your fat ass doing here?
He's my only means of conveyance. Buuut I guess I do spoil him.
First off even if you are a casual player you'd be a fool to let any fantasy service pre-rank for you. Editing and making your own picks is what makes it fun, not to mention you'll get screwed over when everyone is taking a backup RB/WR and Yahoo is drafting Mike Vanderjagt for you.
Secondly about the forced parity thing, I'm for it, just for the fact that I run leagues that are 14-16 teams and sometimes managers miss drafts and forget to pre-rank. Now is that manager still likely to play if he has an ok team to work with? Probably, but if the preranking defaults weren't there and the guy somehow had David Boston, Anquan Boldin, and Ricky Williams on his team, he may just say "screw it, I quit".
Also I can't speak for other services but if you rely on Yahoo's rankings in a league with IDP you can kiss your title hopes good bye. Its plainly obvious that Yahoo doesn't rank for IDP whatsoever, so relying on those rankings will leave you with garbage on D.
And lastly, you always have to consider your roster and scoring setup. Do you have 2 QB slots? Do receptions count? Did you commish decide it'd be "cool" to make return yards be worth 1 point per 5 yards? If your league's settings vary any from the standard Yahoo defaults then those rankings are gonna be even worse than they already were.
ironman wrote:Secondly about the forced parity thing, I'm for it, just for the fact that I run leagues that are 14-16 teams and sometimes managers miss drafts and forget to pre-rank. Now is that manager still likely to play if he has an ok team to work with? Probably, but if the preranking defaults weren't there and the guy somehow had David Boston, Anquan Boldin, and Ricky Williams on his team, he may just say "screw it, I quit".
People shouldn't play if they can't make the draft and don't bother to pre-rank their players ... they may as well change their name to "manager" and team name to "Yahoo default".
With Yahoo making decisions, they bump rookies like Kellen Winslow up to where they would be drafted in the 5th or 6th round by a team who doesn't touch the pre-rankings (assuming nobody takes him sooner). I view him as a "well known sleeper" but in this format, a manager who has never even heard of him could end up getting him! They then may see him on their roster with no stats (being a rookie) and waive him in favor of the highest available free agent TE.
Too many times I've seen players who I know are worthy because I do reasearch, getting drafted by a a team who knows nothing about them ... only to have the player waived, and I miss out due to waiver priority.
Yahoos rankings dont take into account different scoring systems, so if you have even a little bit of difference they are off. I dont know of anyone that follows Yahoos rankings straight to the book, so I dont really see any merit to your complaint. And anyone who even follows football casually knows who Kellen Winslow is, he was a top draft pick and was in the paper due to his monster contract and hold out. And to solve your problem, dont play public leagues. Play in leagues with dedicated Cafe members, because most of us know what we are doing.
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by rickscogland » Tue Aug 17, 2004 10:19 am 
