Kicking Rocks: Bringing Out the Dead
I received an email a few days ago with an ethics question regarding the fantasy game and given some of the discussions this column has prompted in the past, I thought bringing it here might help the person out little more. Obviously I have my own opinion on the matter which I happily shared, but also mentioned that I might put it in more of a public forum to garner additional thoughts. After mulling it over for a bit, I thought the FanGraphs/RotoGraphs community would be a good group to provide further insight.
Mark B. is currently sitting in 2nd place of his 17-team, mixed, 5×5 roto league. They use a standard format with two catchers, both a corner and middle infielder, one utility player, five outfielders and nine pitchers. An eight player bench with two DL slots is available. The categories are the usual fare but with OBP instead of batting average. But one of the more interesting aspects is that once the August 15th trade deadline passes there are no waiver claims allowed. The player pool is closed. You’ve got who you’ve got.
Shortly after the trade deadline passed, Mark noticed that three of the teams near the bottom of the standings who were considered dead teams as none of them had made a roster move since mid to late June, suddenly made moves. They had gone more than a month with DL’d or demoted players in their active lineups and hadn’t made a single waiver claim in that span. After doing some investigating, Mark learned that the owner of the team in fourth place had actually contacted each of the dead teams and asked that they set a proper lineup, citing league integrity as the reason for his request. All three owners complied.
But what Mark had also noticed was that by activating players, the three teams could suddenly affect the current standings within a number of categories, particularly ones where his team and the team in first place would be affected negatively — ERA, WHIP, OBP, strikeouts and saves to be specific. He immediately cried collusion, which we all know is the dirtiest word in fantasy sports. He was joined by the other teams in the top five, but met some resistance from other members of the league when he requested that the moves be reversed and the league play out as it had been for the past two months.
The dissenting opinions cited that there was no conspiracy, no money changing hands, no roster moves being paid for by another owner (roster moves are free) and no coercion of any kind. All he did was ask them to field a complete lineup. They were of their own free will to either comply with the request or leave things as is.
So where is the line of collusion drawn and just how grey of an area is it? Is it acceptable behavior to encourage a dead team to rise up again, knowing that the only person who will benefit from it is you? They have already ruled on the validity of the moves, but I now pose the question to all of you with the hope of gathering enough intelligent opinions to help this league amend its constitution accordingly.
Discuss…
Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over 10 years on a variety of websites. In addition to his work here, you can also find him at his site, RotobuzzGuy.com, Fantasy Alarm, RotoWire and Mock Draft Central. Follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or for more direct questions or comments, email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com
To me that’s smart strategy. All owners should field competitive teams, and each owner is within his rights to complain about owners that do not (especially in a case like this where that owner is negatively affected by the dead teams). IMO collusion occurs when you get someone to do something they know they shouldn’t, like trade their best player for a player freshly plucked off the waiver wire.
I think its completely acceptable, for it to be true collusion, there has to be an intent on both sides that make a potential move. I think its perfectly reasonable to simply ask members to field a complete team. That is savvy in my opinion, not collusion.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking them to become active again. Someone should’ve asked them a couple months ago; then maybe this wouldn’t even be an issue.
This
I don’t think it’s collusion. It sucks, but it isn’t collusion. To me collusion is having a team act out of its best interest, to receive an out-of-game benefit. This owner was encouraging a team to act in it’s own benefit, with no promise of compensation.
Really, the commissioner should have been asking them to do this from the beginning anyway.
its*
I agree, the commissioner should have contacted the teams earlier and had them set a proper lineup. Nobody likes being in a league with dead teams (or at least I don’t). With 3 dead teams in his league, that’s 3 teams that you couldn’t trade with, that weren’t picking up free agents, and giving away points to teams that may or may not deserve them. I don’t see anything wrong with what he did and I applaude him for making these teams pay attention and to play out the season.
Two guys from my office FBB league almost got into a fist fight in 2008 when a member sent an email to the whole league reminding them to make their starts limit to maintain the integrity of the league. The person in first had a lot to lose in Ks and Ws so he cussed the other guy out. We discussed as a group and decided the intent was crappy but the principle of having everyone try to be competitive through the whole year was a good thing.
I’m happy it was done, though, because everyone got their starts and I finished tied for first. 🙂
Whoever is the commish of this league should have done something about the inactives long before they had been as such for months.
Indeed, in our league there are penalties for being inactive, and the league as a whole encourages all teams to field appropriate line-ups. Since we are a points league and not a standard league, the problem here is not so much one of rankings in various categories. Usually what happens is a team is so overloaded with prospects and injured players, even trading active players for injured players or prospects, because he is playing for next year rather than fielding a legitimate squad. We are often reluctant to outright veto trades, but if a trade leaves someone without a full line-up it won’t go through.
I’ve taken over and won leagues with dead teams, when managers have invited me in mid-season to take over. Hardly collusion – just more fun for all involved, although I guess not the people who end up losing.
I’ve also failed miserably at taking over teams, for the record.
Not as impressive as a midseason takeover to win, but this past offseason I took over a dead team in a keeper league with absolutely terrible keepers. I now have some of the best keepers and am in first place.
So while it sucks for the guys who are negatively affected by dead teams reactivating, it is better as a whole for the league.
If the owners of a team wont field a team of active players, then it should be up to the league commissioner to contact the owners and if they don’t respond, correct their lineups as best he can (with the best interest of the league in mind in keeper leagues).
In my leagues, our commissioner is pretty good about this, he tends to not like to set lineups and perform add/drops to a team, but has done so in the past if a team is fielding a lot of recovered players just sitting on the DL. Our leagues has a rather loosely enforced rule that requires all active positions to be filled with active players from a MLB team’s 25 man roster.
The only thing I could even THINK about arguing against in this case is that it was the 4th place team, rather than the commissioner, making contact with the other teams. It’s not really his place, but results are results, and league competitiveness is important. The only way this could have been collusion was if it was a H2H (it was roto though) and the 4th place team wasn’t going to be facing them any more.
I’ve gone to my commissioner on multiple occasions during a H2H match and asked about my opposing manager’s activity level and pointed out that his lineup is incomplete and asked him to fix it. Dead teams are going to happen, but it’s the commissioner’s job to ensure league integrity. If the commissioner is sitting on his ass doing nothing and another manager can talk the other four teams into making appropriate moves then more power to him.
Also, in a 17 team league, are the bottom four even talented enough to prove a worthy threat to the league’s top teams? If so then that’s an insanely balanced league!
Active owners are the lifeblood of good leagues.
I concur. If I were at the top I would be annoyed but then I’d be forced to admit that my ranking was not due to my own abilities.
In addition to my comments above, I play in a keeper league and we have fired 2 owners in the past for doing what those 3 dead teams did (not setting their lineups, DL players in active spots and ignoring their team). Good owners love to play and will play out the season win or lose. Unfortunately not everyone feels that way and could care less about ruining the integrity of the league, and this is especially true in public leagues. And a good commissioner would or should have been on top of things as part of his job is to keep the integrity of the league. If someone has a problem with what Mark did, they are only about winning and don’t care if they won fairly. That’s the other half of my two cents.
P.S. I don’t remember if you did the kicking rocks column last year or not, but I’ve really enjoyed it this year and look forward to it every week. Great Job and keep up the good work.
^This. I enjoy the comments discussions that stem from these a lot and am often glad I’m not the only obsessive fantasy owner who considers the things that come up in this column.
Thanks guys. Very much appreciated.
“Great Job and keep up the good work.”
Agreed! Except for the reactionary and ill-conceived “Hey, let’s penalize teams who benefited from players on PED’s!” piece, of course… =)
Not even close to collusion
Looks like we’re all on the same page here. I agree with each and every sentiment expressed from active owners being the lifeblood of a good league (very well said) to the commissioner being at fault to this not being the definition of collusion.
For the record, this was all said by me in an email to Mark who eventually realized his overreaction and understood the counterpoints. He withdrew his protest to the league and the moves stand.
Mark — I wish you nothing but the best of luck and hopefully this incident can be learned from by your commissioner and the rest of the owners in your league.
I would be far more annoyed if I lost to a team that was only in a position to win because of the dead teams in the league. If an owner is mad that a formerly dead team has deposed him from the top spot, that owner needs to work on his team.
You all started the season assuming that it would be a 17-team league. It seems disingenuous for any owner to be mad that 3 of those teams failed to lie down and award him the championship.
I really find this question kind of ridiculous. Last year I played in three leagues. Two I won, but stopped being competitive about halfway through the year. The last I came in third, but was extremely competitive and active up until the final day. I ended up having much more fun, and was happiest with my result in the third league.
Competitiveness and activity is the lifeblood of fantasy baseball. Without it, where’s the fun?
For keeper leagues, is there still a strong dislike of not fielding active lineups each week? I have no chance this year in a 12-tm AL only with 7 bench spots (no separate DL or minors)), and currently have 6 or 7 spots filled with minor leaguers since those are the best options I have for next year. I should make the AB limit but probably not the IP limit, although am near the bottom of the pack in ERA and WHIP anyway. Is there an ethical obligation for out-of-the-running owners to try hard this season when that is detrimental to future success?
Also this is clearly not collusion. It is mildly annoying but well within the 4th place owner’s rights to talk to those other owners. It is similar to making trades with out-of-the-running owners in non-keeper leagues – if you take the initiative to do it, you should be rewarded subject to league veto regulations.
qatman says
If this is a keeper league you play with the same people every year, so your reputation as an owner is on the line here. Do you want them to see you as someone who plays hard and tries even though you have no chance, or do you want them to see you as someone that only plays when you have a chance to win.
The other owners will see your place in the standings and understand why you have those rookies in your open slots, but I’m sure some of them will not be happy if you don’t have enough players to field an active lineup. Playing for next year is good, but you can’t ignore the fact that there is still baseball to play this year. That’s just my opinion.
Obviously the top 5 owners gained by the persons not setting their lineups. Nobody wined then. Bet the commish was one of them. This is exactly why committees to decide these issuses and rule on trades suck. People vote how it affects them in the standings and not with commen sense. A fair commishioner elected by the members that does the right thing and rules w common sense is needed in ALL leagues. regarding trades, the only question that’s needs to be asked is ” would this happen in real baseball?” if so the trade should stand.
As far as our example, there is nothing wrong with what was done.
It’s sour grapes for an owner benefiting from a deadbeat’s apathy to cry foul when the deadbeat merely does what he should have been doing all along. Seems like a sense of entitlement to me…
Another example is when a Rip Van Winkle finally wakes up and exchanges his dead weight for the 6-7 most solid guys left on the wire. Some owners may have a hissy because their watch list just got hacked to death but that’s only because of the complacency of relying on those dead teams not competing in the pool. The game is supposed to be competitive — not easy peasy.
not collusion. not even unethical.