BORG Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 I am Commissioner of a league that plays a Head to Head schedule for 17 weeks. It is a Keeper League and we have already put in place a penalty for finishing last to prevent teams from throwing games late in the season. This week, one owner decided to bench his entire team to secure the 9th spot and 2nd pick next season and this affected the final standings. He also commited this act to show the league that dumping games is still possible. I now have owners in the league furious about it. What advice would anyone give ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Ditch the penalty for finising last, install a penalty for weekly low scores if you wish to go the penalty route. Also, I would suggest implementing a lottery, ala the NBA, to make it so that coming in last does not guarantee you the first overall pick. Depending on how many player;s each team can keep and the size of the league, you could have this lottery involve just the bottom 3 teams or even the entire league (with weighting for the weaker teams, again ala the NBA). In some leagues I have played in in the past, we had a penalty for each game lost. That particularly league was a $2 fee plus 10 cents per point. pro is that it truly does encourage every team to do their best every week. Con is collecting extra fees at the end of the year. Not much you can do in this situation. We certainly manipulated the rules to his advantage and I think tanking is generally a poor act, but, when tied to strategy (such as playoff seeding, or, in this case,guaranteed draft pick improvement) owners are incentivized to do what benefits them most whether it is for the better of the league. IMO, the best deterrent is to remove the incentive to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 What's the penalty? Use that on the owner since it's in place. But the team that benched their team did so to finish in second to last, thus avoiding any 'penalty" and getting the benfit of improved draft position next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 ah. what a tool. True, but it gets back to the debate that if there is a benefit to losing, as was discussed heavily a few weeks back with teams jockeying for playoff seeding, is an owner's obligation to always put forth the perceived best possible lineup or to always do what is the perceived best course of action for his team, which in some cases may include losing a game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chester Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 In my keeper league, the draft order is lottery for the teams that didn't make the playoffs and then reverse order of finish in the playoffs. We also have weekly winnings so nobody has a reason to tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Beatings Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Get the league to pass a "Don't be a dick" rule. If an owner acts like a dick, remove him from the league. I would suggest starting with the owner that just acted like a dick... you could actually name the new rule after him as a memorial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G.K.Trey Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Not that I would do this but , I don't have as big a problem with it as others do. I think of it as a strategy , not much different from adding a player to your roster to block another owner from getting him. Add to ity that it is not specified in your league rules , there is nothing you CAN do. Put different rules in place to stop this if you feel so strongly that it is wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Not that I would do this but , I don't have as big a problem with it as others do. I think of it as a strategy , not much different from adding a player to your roster to block another owner from getting him. Add to ity that it is not specified in your league rules , there is nothing you CAN do. Put different rules in place to stop this if you feel so strongly that it is wrong. Kind of what I was trying to get at. In this situation, it certainly was a strategical move, thus, my suggestion that in order to prevent it in future, you must make the benefit of doing it lesser and the consequence more severe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jrick35 Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 I am Commissioner of a league that plays a Head to Head schedule for 17 weeks. It is a Keeper League and we have already put in place a penalty for finishing last to prevent teams from throwing games late in the season. This week, one owner decided to bench his entire team to secure the 9th spot and 2nd pick next season and this affected the final standings. He also commited this act to show the league that dumping games is still possible. I now have owners in the league furious about it. What advice would anyone give ? Where in the standings was the team he played? Change your rules for winning draft slots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackass Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Kind of what I was trying to get at. In this situation, it certainly was a strategical move, thus, my suggestion that in order to prevent it in future, you must make the benefit of doing it lesser and the consequence more severe. This is not strategy. Any good league has a 'no tanking' rule. You just can't tank. If you do, there's a penalty. And if you continue to tank and 'be a dick' as mentioned in the above post, you get booted for being a dick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BORG Posted December 30, 2008 Author Share Posted December 30, 2008 I appreciate everyone's comments, it helps tremendously.... I realize he may not have done anything " against the rules "... but the team he was playing was in 4th place. Our league pays out to the top 5 owners and has a penalty for finishing last ( one less Keeper than all others). Teams 5, 6 and 7 all had a chance at coming in 4th which is a higher $ value. The owner that tanked assured Team 4 that he could not finish lower. He has given our standings a feeling of illegitimacy. I would love to be able to tie this into collusion, but doesn't collusion have to involve 2 owners ? Is there any such thing as 1 sided collusion ? I think it shows a complete lack of integrity and sportsmanship. As Commissioner I have the duty to make sure it doesn't happen again. I already informed the offender that he owes the league an apology and if he doesn't come forth with one his penalty may be worse than a " Warning "... he may face loss of his 1st draft pick or forfeit his team. If I don't come down hard on this, I may lose other more valuable owners in the league. He put me in this awkward position.... he knew we put rules in place to avoid this.... yet he did it out of spite in my opinion. Not just for the better draft pick.... he wanted to prove that tanking was still possible and that the rules I put in place were not enough. To Savage Beating -- I already stated to the league we will have a DICK rule named after him.... In fact it is his name - Richard. More comments please..... I want to rule on this by the end of this week. Thanks everyone for input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Beatings Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Just curious, if the tanking team would have played his best possible lineup for the week, would he have won? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BORG Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 Yes, the Dickhead would have won. The team that placed 4th did not have the point total to win tiebreakers, so he would have finished 6th instead since there were three 9-8 teams.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Country Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Yes, the Dickhead would have won. The team that placed 4th did not have the point total to win tiebreakers, so he would have finished 6th instead since there were three 9-8 teams.. Now, had the dickhead won the game, would he have finished higher than 2nd place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grits and Shins Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 I appreciate everyone's comments, it helps tremendously.... I realize he may not have done anything " against the rules "... but the team he was playing was in 4th place. Our league pays out to the top 5 owners and has a penalty for finishing last ( one less Keeper than all others). Teams 5, 6 and 7 all had a chance at coming in 4th which is a higher $ value. The owner that tanked assured Team 4 that he could not finish lower. He has given our standings a feeling of illegitimacy. I would love to be able to tie this into collusion, but doesn't collusion have to involve 2 owners ? Is there any such thing as 1 sided collusion ? I think it shows a complete lack of integrity and sportsmanship. As Commissioner I have the duty to make sure it doesn't happen again. I already informed the offender that he owes the league an apology and if he doesn't come forth with one his penalty may be worse than a " Warning "... he may face loss of his 1st draft pick or forfeit his team. If I don't come down hard on this, I may lose other more valuable owners in the league. He put me in this awkward position.... he knew we put rules in place to avoid this.... yet he did it out of spite in my opinion. Not just for the better draft pick.... he wanted to prove that tanking was still possible and that the rules I put in place were not enough. To Savage Beating -- I already stated to the league we will have a DICK rule named after him.... In fact it is his name - Richard. More comments please..... I want to rule on this by the end of this week. Thanks everyone for input. It amazes me at how many people think I should put "the integrity of the league" over the best interest of my team. Why should he care where other owners finish in the standings? If his position could not be improved and he can do something to improve his position for next year that is within the rules then he is simply acting in the best interest of his team NOT impuning the integrity of the league. If you don't like the strategy being employed then you should tighten the rules next year ... but you shouldn't impune the intergrity of your owner because he is operating within the confines of the existing rules. BC has mentioned several ways you can tighten your rules for next year if you want to eliminate this particular strategy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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