14-team redraft

[abishagenaden]

I've never been in a 14-team league, but we might have to expand to one this year. What is a good roster configuration which avoids a thin waiver wire, and also playoff setup for a head-to-head redraft league?

 

I'm thinking --

 

1QB

2RB

2WR

1TE

1K

1Def

5 Reserves

 

Should we have a flex position?

 

For playoffs I guess 6 would qualify, with the top 2 getting bye weeks...

[Big Country]

In USDA, which is a 14-team dynasty league (which I am no longer a part of), we went with a near total flex option. It is 1 QB, 5 RB/WR with a min of 1 each, 1 K and 1 D. A nice unique approach.

 

We carried deeper rostres (21 players I believe) as it is a dynasty league but there was always good waiver activity every week.

 

Really with a jump from 12 to 14 teams there is not a major need to tweak much from the standard 12 team set up. If you want to let owners off easy, go with 1 RB, 3 WRs and a flex, otherwise the 2/2/flex works.

 

5 reserves will leave all rosters very thin. I'd say jump that up to maybe 7 reserves, so, 14 team, 15-deep roster is 210 players. A 12 team, 16 man roster is 192 players, not a major difference, but, if you are really that concerned about the waiver wire, go with a 14-man roster and you are only at 196 players on rosters

[Bronco Billy]

Here's my opinion, for what it is worth:

 

14 team leagues are fun because almost every team, if not every team, has a weakness. There just aren't enough top players to fill all positions. Where the fun comes is where owners choose to sacrifice on their teams in order to maintain strength in other areas, and how they compensate for their deficencies.

 

That said, to only start 1/2/2/1 for QB/RB/WR/TE negates some of the fun of jockeying a roster to be competitive, and it also puts a huge premium on any team able to assemble 2 good RBs. I personally don't like 1 position controlling a league in such a dominant way, so I like to find ways to provide balance to other positions. The 2 ways to create value in players is to either adjust the scoring or to increase the starters at that position. The more players that owners have to start, the deeper they have to go into that position's pool of players, making the players more valuable.

 

That said, if I were you, I'd increase the number of starting WRs and allow for flex O players. An ideal starting scenario in my mind is this:

 

1 QB

1 RB

3 WR

1 TE

2 Flex - with no more than 1 flex RB.

1 K

1 D/ST

 

That allows for the following starting lineups:

 

1 RB, 5 WR, 1 TE

1 RB, 4 WR, 2 TE

1 RB, 3 WR, 3 TE

2 RB, 4 WR, 1 TE

2 RB, 3 WR, 2 TE

 

It de-emphasizes RBs somewhat because a team doesn't have to have 2 bonafide starters, and it increases the value of WRs while increasing the value of TEs somewhat. The real bonus is that there are a lot more WRs who can score decently in FF than there are RBs - and it allows (actually you could say it almost forces) owners to be creative to dip into that resource. That can create great balance in the league because of the diverse way that owners can slant their team toward a particular starting lineup.

 

As far as reserve positions, I feel the ideal roster size is to take 2 times the number of starters and subtract 1, no matter what the starting requirements are. So in the league lineup requirements that I posted above, there are 10 starters, so ideally teams would carry a 19 player roster. 2 times the starters minus two is getting thin for any league regardless of starting requirements - it doesn't allow for many if any handcuffing of studs, which means an injury to a stud can change the balance of power within the league dramatically - which I don't like personally. Twice the numbers of starters or more makes the waiver wire get a bit thin as owners can start hoarding.

Edited June 8, 2007 by Bronco Billy