Need advice on how to correct a major screw up

[keggerz]

Well, it wasn't quite that cut and dry. He was on his way home to join via online method (and conference call to a common number that was being used) and found out he won the 1st selection. He said, when the draft starts I'll take LT.

 

We didn't start the draft and then decide to vote

 

WIth the other guys on the line (4 other teams) we voted and got a quick majority. We were also having a helluva time getting CBS online draft to work properly (go figure). Amidst the issues we simply forgot when his turn came back up. Stupid human error is all.

fair enough but at some point wouldnt you expect him to say why the hell are you drafting Donald F'n Lee?

[Puddy]

So I guess you can't read.

 

Vote occured AFTER THE OWNER IN QUESTION MADE THE FIRST PICK IN THE DRAFT.

 

So the owner in question could have poked around the website all he wanted the RULES WERE NOT CHANGED UNTIL AFTER HIS FIRST PICK.

 

You don't think it is reasonable for him to assume the rules in effect when he makes his first pick will be the same rules in effect when he makes his second pick and all subsequent picks? When he made his first pick the rules DID NOT REQUIRE A TE. When he made his second pick the rules had been changed and he had not been told.

 

As noted earlier, not the way it went down. And we did put a poll on the site several weeks in advance. 10 of the 14 teams responded. I have no idea if he was one of them, but you'd think he may have asked about the resolution also (not absolving me from blame but that is one context clue he could have caught on to, along with the additional round of drafting along with tight ends flying off the board at break neck speed). It was an honest mistake and I am actually not comfortable with the solution he chose. I will try to offer him a trade again (my backup is Olsen, the other commishes is Daniels).

 

This is a 20 year league or so (15 for me) and to be honest half the original guys are still in it and they haven't really 'evolved' with the hobby. They still draft from magazines. I'd have a hard time trying to pull off the 'average' tight end score for the week with this crew.

Edited September 6, 2008 by Puddy

[Puddy]

This is the fault of Commissioners... (this isn't breaking news as I admitted that in the original post)

 

1. You scheduled a strategy changing vote just prior to the draft... giving little to no time for the owners to plan. This being a long standing local league it could not be hard to contact the owners during the first voting period via another form of communication (phone, in person), instead of waiting until it was draft day. (meh, I guess so, but simply adding a TE to the starting lineup is a 'minor' strategy change IMO. We do not score their performance differently than wide receivers so Witten, Gates et al. may go a round or two before they normally would. I am also not going to try and contact 14 people individually when we have a league site that has the poll and emails folks when one is added.)

 

2. You prevented all the owners from casting a vote. (Well, I'm not sure if I prevented him from voting. I didn't even know he wasn't showing up until I arrived and the other commish said Tom is going to call in. The dude could have shown up - it was held in a conference room at his frickin' office for crying out loud). Regardless of the foregone majority, they did not have a chance to voice their choice. In doing so the owners would have been involved in the process and would thus take it upon themselves to learn it's outcome.

 

3. You obviously did not take your responcibilities of fairness and clarity to heart and ensure that all the owners knew of any rule changes. One reason a habit of many leagues is to have a period of time where the commissioner goes over the rules, as well as the draft order, roster limitations and needs, and drink orders before the draft starts. Mostly this is done to refresh everyone memory about the particularities of the league, after the long summer football drought. (Please don't preach to me about fairness and clarity. I've commished this league for a long time and have implicit trust of ALL the owners in the league. Fairness and clarity are not an issue. There wasn't any rule changes other than the vote that he had a month to participate in. It was a simple error. And I'm certainly not going to bore everyone in the room by spending 15 minutes reading the f'n rules every year when they hardly ever change)

 

Therefore, I believe that in all fairness the owner who missed out should be able to grab a TE from one of the Commissioner's roster... for which the Commissioner than replaces the lost player (TE) from the waiver wire. (Considering that there are two Commissioners and neither of them caught this blunder... perhaps the owner gets a TE from each of them. It would make sure something like this doesn't happen again) (even though I didn't agree with your argument, I do agree with your solution.)

 

Just my two cent as a commish...

 

Von

Edited September 5, 2008 by Puddy

[satelliteoflovegm]

Not that he cares, but I think I like this Puddy darb.

[Grits and Shins]

As noted earlier, not the way it went down. And we did put a poll on the site several weeks in advance. 10 of the 14 teams responded. I have no idea if he was one of them, but you'd think he may have asked about the resolution also (not absolving me from blame but that is one context clue he could have caught on to, along with the additional round of drafting along with tight ends flying off the board at break neck speed). It was an honest mistake and I am actually not comfortable with the solution he chose. I will try to offer him a trade again (my backup is Olsen, the other commishes is Daniels).

 

This is a 20 year league or so (15 for me) and to be honest half the original guys are still in it and they haven't really 'evolved' with the hobby. They still draft from magazines. I'd have a hard time trying to pull off the 'average' tight end score for the week with this crew.

 

Explain how "it isn't the way it went down".

 

He said "when the draft starts pick LT for me" ... the next time he called in his pick of LT had occurred as well as 26 other picks. So while you may not have actually entered his pick of LT until after the vote he had effectively made his first round selection and the vote occurred afterward.

 

Bottom line ... the commissioners messed up. Sure the owner should have been aware of the issues up on the website but it is the commissioners job to make sure all owners are aware of rule changes. However, it sounds like the owner is okay with the way things went down and the resolution and I guess that is all that matters.

[Chief Dick]

So what does HE want to do? C'mon, I'm hanging on here.

[Grits and Shins]

So what does HE want to do? C'mon, I'm hanging on here.

 

It sounds to me like he picked up a scrub TE from the waiver wire.

 

 

Oh .. and I think it is a BIG mistake to implement a change of this nature on draft day. This type of change alters the way a draft occurs and the owners should have had a chance to analyze how they wanted to alter their draft stategies. So unless there was a unanimous vote I don't think you should pass a rules change like this on draft day.

[Puddy]

Oh .. and I think it is a BIG mistake to implement a change of this nature on draft day. This type of change alters the way a draft occurs and the owners should have had a chance to analyze how they wanted to alter their draft stategies. So unless there was a unanimous vote I don't think you should pass a rules change like this on draft day.

(meh, I guess so, but simply adding a TE to the starting lineup is a 'minor' strategy change IMO. We do not score their performance differently than wide receivers so Witten, Gates et al. may go a round or two before they normally would.

[Ziachild007]

League average for the TE spot is the only way to go here. It is very fair to everyone.

 

That was my first thought.

 

I agree with blitz's reasoning but not necessarily his solution. Averaging TE scoring does a disservice to him and the league.

 

What about offering him the opportunity to play a non TE mandatory roster each week. Punishes you for not properly publishing the rules and allows him to play his roster as drafted. Besides, will his 3rd or 4th RB/WR be that far superior or inferior to a #1 TE's scoring?

 

That was my second.

[Chief]

It sounds to me like he picked up a scrub TE from the waiver wire.

 

 

Oh .. and I think it is a BIG mistake to implement a change of this nature on draft day. This type of change alters the way a draft occurs and the owners should have had a chance to analyze how they wanted to alter their draft stategies. So unless there was a unanimous vote I don't think you should pass a rules change like this on draft day.

 

 

Bottom line, it was put to a vote weeks prior. IF the guy was at all into his league, he'd ask what the outcome was,anything. Sounds like he could have easily made the draft, didn't want to. If you put the least of amount of time, effort into your league, don't expect everyone else to make up for your effort. I've commished for 10 years , some guys won't answer e-mails, phone calls, pay attention to the site... THIER FAULT

 

$200 plus, you would think someone would care about whats going on. I do not put most the blame on Puddy, but where it belongs, the owner. I could picture this guy buying tickets to a baseball/football/basketball game, drive to the stadium/arena, and only then does he realize he bought away game tickets.

[onbrake]

What TE did he pick up ?.

[Chavez]

(meh, I guess so, but simply adding a TE to the starting lineup is a 'minor' strategy change IMO. We do not score their performance differently than wide receivers so Witten, Gates et al. may go a round or two before they normally would.

Your opinion is wrong.

[Puddy]

Your opinion is wrong.

Well that MAY be so, but the vote was put out a month or so in advance and we had a 5-5 vote on the site. The idea was to finalize before the draft. If someone can't change their strategy after knowing about the vote for a month and finalizing the last day then that's the sign of a weak owner. For the record, not one owner complained of finalizing the vote at that time. Not one.

 

 

Edit: How'd you do in Norris last year

Edited September 7, 2008 by Puddy

[Chavez]

Well that MAY be so, but the vote was put out a month or so in advance and we had a 5-5 vote on the site. The idea was to finalize before the draft. If someone can't change their strategy after knowing about the vote for a month and finalizing the last day then that's the sign of a weak owner. For the record, not one owner complained of finalizing the vote at that time. Not one.

Oh, I agree with you on that - I just think TE mandatory requires a bit of an adjustment. It would be akin to separating D and ST. Not a sea change, but different.

 

Edit: How'd you do in Norris last year

I won the 3rd place game last year after finishing 8-6 (and a game out of the playoffs) in the best division the previous year, so it's workin' out OK for me over there.

[Puddy]

I won the 3rd place game last year after finishing 8-6 (and a game out of the playoffs) in the best division the previous year, so it's workin' out OK for me over there.

Damn. I couldn't remember and only posted on the premise that it wasn't as good as me.

[Big Talker]

My first thought was to also have him select one of our backups and to trade a similar round pick of his to that team. I actually think it should be from one of the commishes roster (my backup is Olsen the other commishes is Daniels).

I think that is actually your best option. Since the commissioners didn't inform the owner of the rule change, let him drop 1-2 players and take one or both of your backups. (1) This shows you're willing to take responsibility for your error; (2) besides this, it's not likely to hurt either of your teams very much; and (3) a TE combo of Daniels & Olsen, while not stellar, ain't half bad for the other owner.

[Gopher]

Well, I almost hate to bump this thread, since there were so many conflicting opinions, and the "conversation" had almost become "heated" at times. But, the positive is that there should be a decent TE or two on your waiver wire. I can't remember a year where so many TE's emerged after week 1, although only time will tell how many of them were one-week wonders.

 

Personally, I would let the guy have first dibs at up to two TE's off your WW, at no charge to him (of course, he has to drop a player for each TE that he picks up). That, in my opinion, would be more than generous.... he may end up with two top-ten TE's by year's end, depending on who he chooses.

 

I know it's too late now, but an even better option would have been to give him first choice of one TE PRIOR TO week 1, and then a second TE after this week's games, which is probably more fair (and a better compromise) than him taking two before week 1 or two after week 1. Of course, that is assuming he wants two TE's... At least he would have the option by having top choice of a free agent going into week 2, assuming he takes a TE.

[Pope Flick]

You know both the above posts make a lot of sense. If he was paying any attention at all during the draft he would have noticed when 13 other teams called out TE's. Especially, Gates, Witten, Gonzales, Shockey, Heap, Kellen Winslow, I mean come on how could you miss most likely 17 plus TE's being drafted and not think to draft one. Doesn't make sense. You can't go through an entire draft and not notice that TE's are being drafted unless your not paying any attention to the draft at all except for when it was his turn to pick, in which case, he probably didn't draft very well anyhow drafting blind to trends and runs. Like I said above Average is my suggestion but taking a hard line and making him draft whats left would not be overly harsh as he should have been paying attention period.

 

 

Um, no they don't make sense.

 

It's unrealistic to expect a ff owner to make a live draft year in and year out. So remote drafts supplementing a live one are not unusual. Further, if he wasn't on the phone when they had the vote how is he supposed to know that it happened? Telepathy? What's wrong with his assuming the TE vote failed as posted on the website? I'm not in a TE league but we still draft them so there's nothing unusual for that either.

 

What is unusual is the weakness of this fishing expedition...

[Pope Flick]

Oh, I agree with you on that - I just think TE mandatory requires a bit of an adjustment. It would be akin to separating D and ST. Not a sea change, but different.

 

 

I would disagree on that. Most people who have played long enough have probably done some type of TE league. I'm in enough right now where some are, some aren't.

 

Grits' girlish hyperbole aside, any FF player worth their snuff should be able to turn the TE switch on and off minutes before a draft. Some drafts pick slots then draft immediately, which is also an 'on your feet' strategy change of HUGH proportions.