Ian Allan's Mailbag
Posted Jul. 08 at 05:45 AM
Publisher Ian Allan fields your questions on strategy, how to run your league, player ratings -- and whatever else you think of. Updated every Friday during the season; Tuesdays and Fridays during the last two months of the preseason. You must be registered and signed-in to submit a mailbag question. After you sign in at the top of the page, the link to submit a mailbag question will become visible.
Question 1:
I am in a 12 man ppr league. We are allowed to keep one player from last year's team. (1pt per 10yds). I am keeping Reggie Bush over Laurence Maroney. I will also have the #1 pick this year because of finishing with the worst record last year. The best available are Maroney, Frank Gore, Joseph Addai, and Travis Henry. I am leading toward selecting Addai. Your opinion or any suggestions ? Thank you.
Sebastian C. Falsone Jr. [Philadelphia]
A:
In most people’s eyes, I think Gore is the pick. But I also would go with Addai. He’s going to catch a lot of passes, and he’s in a high-powered offense. I also see Addai as more likely to potentially be used as your keeper player next year. The Colts are going to have a great offense for years and years. Gore, meanwhile, takes an awful lot of punishment with his physical running style. I can’t see him staying healthy for long.
Question 2:
Would you please make the case for an auction so I can show my fellow owners something in print on the subject? If I can't convince them of that, what do you think of the idea of only the first round going 1-12 and all other rounds going 12-1 in the interest of creating more balance?
Billy Leroy [Yuma, Ariz.]
A:
Because of LaDainian Tomlinson’s record season, it’s a good year to make the case that an auction beats a draft. With the draft, Tomlinson goes to whichever team finished with the worst record or happened to have its name drawn out of a hat. How lame is that? (Kind of like the NBA, where the Spurs happened to finish with a poor record at the right time, allowing them to pick up Tim Duncan). Much better to go with an auction. That way, Tomlinson goes to the only one of the teams that felt he was worth $60 (or whatever). If you can’t get your league to try an auction, then I agree that changing the draft order to 12-1 for every round beginning with the second is a good way to go. Mathematically, it’s clear that simply reversing the order in even-numbered rounds isn’t quite fair. Every even-numbered round is preceeded by an odd-numbered round, which by definition is more valuable (every player in the seventh round, for example, is selected before every player in the eighth round).
Question 3:
I am in quite a pickle. I cannot, for the life of me, decide which player I want to keep along side S-Jax. Should I keep Ocho Cinco, R. Wayne, or W. Parker? I am the defending champion and have the 12th pick in the 3rd round. (keeping two players forfeits my 1st and 2nd round pick) Also, I have two 4th round draft picks after trading M. Vick at the perfect time last year. I read over and over about drafting two RBs first, but I am leary of Parker to carry the load this year like he did last year. Ocho Cinco was way too inconsistent last year for my taste, but this year Cincy will be without C. Henry for half of the season which will open up more scoring opportunities for Golden Mouth. Reggie Wayne really shined last year for my team and I hate to let him go. Manning and him are really starting to come together and Wayne just keeps getting better and better despite the defensive attention. See, I told you I was in quite a pickle.
Jackson Longan [Stillwater, Okla.]
A:
Maybe you don’t keep any of them. Then, you’d still have a second-round draft pick. But the answer would be based in part on league rules. In my opinion, Parker is about the No. 13 player on the board in most scoring systems. He’s the guy I would keep. I have Johnson and Wayne outside my top 20. But they climb up (and Parker moves down) if your league includes 1 point per reception or starts more wide receivers than running backs.
Question 4:
We are 12 serious fantasy players and are making the belated move to auction style this year. I had an idea that may or may not be a commonly used tactic for auction styles. For waivers, there would be a waiver order just like in any league. For example, the team in last place following week 5 would be first up on the waiver order. Let's say Maurice Morris is picked up by Team A (the last place team and first to pick). He would be Team A's player for free in week 6 - not counted against his salary cap. But the Wednesday between weeks 6-7 each of the other 11 teams would submit silent bids. Team B is the highest bidding team at $10. If Team A (who originally picked Morris up) wants to match that $10, they can and retain Morris. Morris would then be a $10 player for Team A and count towards his caproom from week 7 on. I think that is what we are going to do for waivers/free agents/etc, but was curious if you could HELP us with trade situations. Can you give a few different examples of trades thta can take place because the dynamics with auction styles are a bit more thick. Thanks for the article that persuaded us to do Auction Style this year!
Nate Martin [Internet]
A:
I think that will work OK for you, but I don’t think I would vote for that rule. Why make things more complicated? And why give a reward to teams that are doing poorly? I’m not into the welfare programs.
I see two ways to do this thing. The first is to restrict each team to a $100 payroll. If you want to pick up a free agent in the weekly auction, you must then release players to stay under that $100 salary cap. There is a little welfare action worked into that plan. If, for example, you buy Peyton Manning for $35 and he blows out his knee, you then have a big block of money to work with, allowing you to control the waiver auctions for a few weeks.
The other option, which gives no reward to teams that suffer injuries or happen to wind up with underperforming or overpriced players, is to simply give each team $1,000 to spend on free agents throughout the season. Once that money is gone, teams can no longer buy free agents.
Question 5:
I play in a 12 team league (6 pts all TD's, -3 INT, 1 pt = 10 rush/rec yards = 20 pass yards). We start 2 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR & 1 Flex. Because we start 2 QB's in a 12-team league I feel compelled to keep a QB, but I am so strong at the other positions I'm not sure who to keep. I have to pick 4 from Stephen Jackson, Frank Gore, Willie Parker, Steve Smith, Reggie Wayne, Terrell Owens, Tony Romo & Jon Kitna. I think I have to keep the 3 RB's, but not sure who to use the last spot on.
Rick O'Shea [St Louis, Mich.]
A:
Requiring two quarterbacks to be starters is a great rule. It makes that position as valuable as tailback. So I would definitely keep Jackson (and shame on you for spelling his name “Steven” after all the yards and touchdowns he gave you last year), Gore and Romo. For the fourth keeper, it’s close between Kitna and Smith. The raw numbers suggest that Kitna, by the slightest of margins, should be your guy. He’ll put up a ton of passing yards. But I’m worried about the number of hits he’ll take, as well as that rule deducting 3 points for interceptions. So I’d go with Smith, who’s the top receiver on the board in my opinion.
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Question 2: Would you please make the...
Posted by Craig Rinne | Jul. 06 at 09:36 AM
If a league were to go to the 12-1 for the second round and later format, and teams could choose their positions, at what point does one choose 12 after 1-2-3-etc. to ensure the first pick in every round after the first? I assume LT at #1 would be too good to pass up, but are even Jackson or LJ at #2 or #3 worth it versus having the top pick every round for the rest of the draft?
Question 2: Would you please make the...
Posted by Bob Davies | Jul. 06 at 01:11 PM
My league switched from draft to auction two years ago, and to a man, nobody wants to go back. They enjoy the extra level of strategy for drafting. One owner has actually never gotten a player he nominated. Auctions take luck of the draw, and having a player sniped in front of you away, and puts more into draft prep, and money management. If the other owners can't agree to go with the auction, try this. In round one, you draft normally. Each round afterwards, each owner rotates up five spots. Second round would start with number six and end with number five. So on and so forth. At the end of the 12th round, each owner will have drafted in each spot one time.
Question 2: Would you please make the...
Posted by Michael Scibetta | Jul. 08 at 05:21 PM
Well, you need to convince your league to switch to Auction. What you can do is try a "trial year". Convince everyone to give it the ol' college try! If they try it, they will see how much more better it is. Perhaps you can try a "mock" auction, this could give everyone a taste of what it would be like. In my league, we have $250 to draft with. We do have a "calling" order (last place team gets to select or nominate first player). He or she can select which ever player they choose to. This is how it works: team1 nominates Peyton Manning for $20! You need an auctioneer of some sorts. Usually a player who is not bidding can step up and play auctioneer (that a fun part) "$20 going once... twice.. Team 2 shouts $21! and on it goes until no one out bids the highest bid. Going once, twice, SOLD! when SOLD is said, that ends the bidding for that player and he goes to the highest bidder. This continues through the entire draft! It's can get wild, entertaining and is ALWAYS a blast of fun! Additionaly, we are a keeper league. The guys wanted to try an keep it as much like the NFL as possible. So what we came up with is using contracts. Each team was given 4 1year and 1 2year contract. On Aug 1st (our voted on deadline) every team announces his keepers. But can only keep if he has a contract avail. Also, to keep him, you also inherit his salary or the price he was bid at. Then to keep him, you must pay $5 or 15%, whichever is greater. Then that price get deducted from next years $250. So for example, Team Bandits decides to keep Travis Henry from last year. Last year he paid $10 to draft him. He puts him on a one year contract. He now has to add $5 to his salary which was $10. So to keep him this year, it will cost him $15. Now deduct that $15 from the $250 you start with, he now has $235 to spend at the draft. Less money yes, but he has Travis Henry already on his Roster for only $15, that is a very good deal. I hope this makes sense? We also don't use waiver positions. We use a auaction style waiver. We are allotted $20 to use on waivers for the year. So if you use it all up by week 4, you're stuck with you roster for the rest of the year. Any unused money from the draft, goes towards the $20. So if Team Piggy had $8 he didn't use durring the Auction draft, that $8 rolls over to his Waiver Wire bank. He would then have $28 to use all season. Our Commish, has an extra email acount. We email our waiver selections to that address. All waivers are due like 5:00pm every wed night (or what ever you choose). You look over the waiver wire, and you see a back up RB that you really want. But, you have no clue if other players want him as bad as you. You submit: "I want Ladell Betts RB Skins for $6. You can change your mind and resubmit, the commish will take your last entree only, it will always supercede your other entrees. Now, Team A bid $5 and Team B bid $2 - So on Wed at 5:00pm, Ladell Betts is now yours! Instead of $20 WW money, you now have $14 - and Ladell Betts!. Get into an AUCTION LEAGUE!! It is so much more better. Draft stratagies are awesome. Sometimes it's in your favore to bring up a specific players name early, sometimes it better to be patient and bring it up later. It's hard to be patient when you are so excited! I hope this helps to convince your leage, good luck in getting them to change.
Question 4: We are 12 serious fantasy...
Posted by Bob Davies | Jul. 06 at 01:13 PM
Here's how my auction league does it. All free agents carry a cap charge of two dollars. Free agents are signed in reverse order of standing. Only exception to the two dollar rule is this: If you drop player A who cost you X dollars in the auction, then resigning him will still cost you X dollars.
Question 4: We are 12 serious fantasy...
Posted by BARRY BROWN | Jul. 09 at 10:35 AM
At the end of this reader's question, he says, "Thanks for the article that persuaded us to do Auction Style this year!" What article is he referring to??? Where can we find it?? Thanks.