Entries Tagged 'Resolved Disputes' ↓

Q:   The trade: Team 1:  Matt Ryan;  Team 2:  Willie Parker

Team 2 has “personal reasons” for wanting Matt Ryan.  We have 1 starting QB in our 12-team league.  Team 2 does not currently have a backup QB, though guys such as Jeff Garcia and Trent Edwards are currently free agents.  Team 2’s other RBs are Frank Gore, Lendale White, and Rudi Johnson.  Team 1 has Tomlinson but not much else at RB.  Parker was the 13th overall selection, while Ryan went 144th.

As you can imagine, the trade was immediately vetoed.  But several owners are in favor of letting it go through, so long as the two owners entered into it honestly, which they apparently did.  Should the trade go through?

P.S.  It may be changed to Lendale White.  Should that trade go through either?

 A:  Hi Jordan.  While this trade may have been made ‘honestly’, the owners in your league still have a responsibility to manage their teams in a logical fashion.   Otherwise, they will throw off the balance of the league.   The veto should stand.   If you begin to allow uneven trades in your league for ‘personal reasons’, you’ll never be able to argue collusion on an equally unfair trade down the road that may have more dishonest intentions.

Of course, your league owners should absolutely be allowed to let personal biases influence their roster.   But that needs to be taken care of in the draft, where all other owners can benefit equally from, say, picking Matt Ryan at 20th overall.

Parker could still be a top 10 back, especially if Mendenhall refuses to hold on to the football, while Ryan could easily be replaced by a waiver wire QBs.

There are a lot of concerns about White this season but he’s going on average 60th overall on ESPN drafts, while Ryan isn’t even listed in the top 200 (Parker is 20th by the way).  That trade isn’t fair either.

Hope this helps.  Enjoy opening day!

Q:  So, how would you handle this scenario?  We have someone in our work league who had a death in the family. He has been gone since Thursday 8/21.  Our draft is scheduled for tomorrow(Wed) and obviously the season starts on Thursday.  It is looking more and more like he will not be here tomorrow for our draft.  Here are some of the options that have been brought to the table.

A) Find a replacement (clearly a d*ick move but necessary for the league to move on in a time of crisis).
B) Call off draft and first week of the NFL season (sucks… especially for those without other leagues)
C) Draft after opening day but before Sunday, allow the points played on Thursdays game to stand for whoever drafts these people.  (Seems awfully difficult to do in a fair way)

D) Have another person draft for the member who is out. (very difficult to do when there is money at hand)
E) Have the league draft as a committee for the member who is out. (again very difficult to do when money and personal biases are involved)

A:   Tough situation, it is at times like this that we truly begin to understand how important draft day is.   Here are our thoughts on the proposed solution:

A.  If you choose this option,  you have no soul
B.  Not having a fantasy team to root for in week 1 is not an option either, might as well be you that croaked
C.  As long as you can find a league that would count week 1 stats this appears to be the best option.   Most leagues won’t do so however, if you enter the roster after Thursday
D.  This option is a close second if the kin of the departed can find someone who is not close enough to care about the death, but close enough to invest 4+ hours into drafting a team in which they will have no interest
E.  This option would be very hard to coordinate

Q:  Let me start by stating that there are a couple of things that lead to this problem, that has people already threatening to quit the league.  But let me give you some quick background first.  This is the second year for our 6 team league, it has a 1st place prize of $600 plus free agent money.  Since last year we have changed commissioner and the online service we used.  Through this change over some minor scoring changes occurred.  We all had the ability for 2 weeks prior to look at the league scoring setup and immediately before the draft we were all able to look over the scoring and required to sign off on it.  I for 1 noticed the change from 0 points per reception to 1 point per reception and drafted accordingly.  Now 2 days after the draft others have realized that this minor change means that WR’s  are now potentially much more valuable than RB’s.  So there is now a push to either go back to 0 points per reception or change RB’s from 1 point per 10 yards, to 2 points per 10 yards, or some other such scoring alteration to enable RB’s to get similar point totals to WR’s.  The problem that some of us have with this is that we picked our team based on this point setup, my draft strategy was based on the increased value of WR’s, so I ranked WR’s higher on my draft board.  As a last resort solution we have offered to redraft with the old scoring system in place, but the people on the other side of the issue aren’t interested/able to redraft on the upcoming holiday weekend.  So we are at an impasse and I am looking to you for an impartial opinion.

Thanks for the help,  The Silver Foxes

A:  Hi Scott.  This truly is a tough situation.  Changing to a PPR format is a major shift, as evident in the fact that most fantasy football experts/magazines make a point of mentioning how their player rankings vary substantially in PPR leagues.  Here are our thoughts.

First, you can’t redraft, that’s not even an option if you could make it work with your schedules.  It’s a money league and your owners have already showed their hands so to speak in revealing which players they value most.

Second, it is true that any owner could have checked the league rules, but this is not the first year of your league.   A major change, such as adding PPR, needs to be clearly explained to all owners prior to the draft, if not voted on through a democratic process.  If there were no message board posts citing this rule change than the fault of your dilemma rests on the shoulders of the commissioner, regardless of the fact that he/she is new to the role.

Finally, since the rule change obviously affected draft strategy, a common ground must be found.   You can’t go back to 0 points per reception, but increasing RB receptions to two points overvalues RB in this format (and is thus, almost the same thing as going back to 0 points).  We recommend you find a middle ground and give RBs 1.25-1.5 points per reception.   You should be able to assign partial points and if not you can just bump everything up a few decimal points (so 1 pt = 100 pts; and 1.25 pts = 125 pts).

Its not a great solution, but a great solution doesn’t exist in this scenario and we feel this will give you the best shot to appease all parties.

Good luck and obviously next year you need address these issues with all owners prior to the draft.

Q:  Dear ffdisputes,

There was a trade in our league between two teams where Chris Perry and Muhsin Muhammad were traded for Roddy White.  I’m thinking this trade may actually be fair because Chris Perry might be starting with Rudy being on the trading block, and the team that he was traded to already had Rudi Johnson (He is actually the one who inquired about the availability of Chris Perry).  Is this fair?

A:  Hi Eric.  This trade is absolutely fair, a standard 2 for 1 trade in which Team A is receiving the best player involved (Roddy White) while Team B is receiving depth in a passable receiver and a running back with strong upside.

If this trade was Randy Moss for Perry and Muhammad the disparity would be too great, but White, while a solid WR, doesn’t make this an uneven trade.

Thanks for the inquiry!

Q:  The league I’m in has very nice prizes.  It is a little unorthodox – here is a sample of the scoring:Pass TD’s worth 4 points – 250 pass yards worth 5 points, 300 worth 6 points 50 receiving yards worth 4 points, 75 worth 5 point, Rush or Rec. TD worth 6 points,  No TE needed, but TE can be used as WR or Flex – so we have 1 qb, 2 rb, 2 wr (wr/te), 1 flex (rb/wr/te), k , def.   Here’s the trade:

Team A – out of playoff contention – 0-9 record trades Tony Romo and Brandon Marshall (Has brees as a backup)

Team B – second place in the whole league – 7-2 record – trades Hasselbeck and Gates

Basically, Team A moves brees into starting role and “upgrades from marshall to gates” – but he cannot win any prizes at this point.  Team B gets the second highest QB.

Here are the player points to put it in perspective.

Brady – 192

Romo - 139 pts

Big-ben – 130, DA – 120, Peyton – 116, Favre -  105, Palmer – 98, Hasselbeck - 92, Brees – 85  (#1 RB Adrian Peterson 135 points, #2 RB Westbrook -121, #1 Wr - Moss 128, #2 WR - Edwards 102).  Gates has 70 points, Marshall has 50.

Now, I believe this is an slightly unfair trade, but I would be ok with it if the 0-9 team was in contention for any prizes (there’s more that $4G in our league).  Should whether a team is in contention decide whether a trade is acceptable?

A:  Trades between teams out of playoff contention would not matter if your league was a keeper league, but since you did not mention that to be the case we will assume that it is not a keeper league.

We do not believe that the prize involved in a league should sway the evaluation of whether a trade is legit or not.  Vetoing trades are meant to A. prevent collusion and B. to make sure that both teams will benefit from the trade in order that one team isn’t being taken advantage of due to ignorance.  The team that is already statistically out of the playoff hunt can not benefit from any trade.  Thus it violates B that all trades must benefit both teams involved so we would recommend that you veto this trade.

Q: I’m a commissioner in a keeper league where you can keep players for up to three years. Recently, one of the managers dropped Ronnie Brown because he is on IR. Ronnie Brown was one of his keepers and this was his second year being kept. Additionally, our league does not allow an IR spot.

Several days ago, another manager picked up Ronnie Brown. Now the league is up in arms about how the new manager should account for Ronnie Brown. What should his status be, in terms of whether he will be counted as an free agent pickup or should he still be considered a second year keeper??? This past draft Brown was kept at the 5th round pick, so the new manager will have to definitely give up his 5th round pick at next year’s draft. In trading situations, Brown’s keeper status and attributes would have transferred to the new team, but he wasn’t traded.

A: One of our leagues had a similar situation, but the owner that dropped Ronnie Brown didn’t realize that he needed to be kept on the active roster in order to be eligible to be kept next season. Since this was the first issue of its kind, we decided to give the owner a one-time pardon on his mistake and re-acquire Brown. Then we clearly established the rule going forward that if a player is dropped he is no longer available as a keeper.

If your owner has no interest in keeping Brown (after he dropped him) then the only dispute to resolve is whether or not the second owner that grabbed Brown off the waiver wire can keep him next year. Well if you league has ever allowed any owner to keep a player the following year that they claimed off waivers, then this second owner should absolutely be allowed to keep Brown and kudos to them for a savvy pickup.

If no owner in your league has ever kept a player claimed off waivers and thus the issue has never been addressed then you unfortunately are in uncharted waters. We recommend to bring it to a league vote. If the majority feels that players claimed off waivers should be eligible to be kept, then Brown should be eligible as well and now you have an established rule going forward. If the majority votes against this keeper policy, then Brown should not be kept but neither should any other player ever claimed off waivers going forward.

Sorry but that seems like the only fair solution. Remember your fantasy league is an ever-evolving entity so get a rule in writing so you can avoid similar disputes in the future!

Q: Team A dropped Andre Johnson at 4:20 PM October 29th. Team B requested a Waiver pickup October 29th.

Our league has a two day waiver wire making Andre Johnson available November 1st.

Team C had a higher waiver wire position than Team B and pickup Andre Johnson at 5 AM November 1st.

When does Andre Johnson Officially become a Free Agent? Midnight November 1st or Midnight November 2nd? Which team should have Andre Johnson?

A: Hi Chris. In these types of situations, we think you have to defer to your league - whether it be Yahoo, Sportsline or a different system. If your league assigned Johnson to one of those teams you’ll need to honor that decision.

If you have to assign free agents manually then you are using a flawed system since which team receives a free agent is based not on a specific timef rame but on the arbitrary moment your commissioner decides to complete the transactions. If this is the case then we think you’ll need to award Johnson to Team B since the actually time when a player officially becomes a free agent had not been previously established - and Team B did technically have higher priority and submit a request before Johnson was assigned.

Make sure you learn from this and set a specific free agent clearance time so you can avoid these types of disputes in the future.

Q:  Our commish put a halt to the two team trade.

Bears, DST DST CHI - Traded from BUCKS
Echemandu, Adimchinobe RB HOU - Traded from BUCKS
Johnson, Chad WR CIN - Traded from BUCKS
Marshall, Brandon WR DEN - Traded from BUCKS

for

Curtis, Kevin WR PHI - Traded from Purple Hayes
Heap, Todd TE BAL - Traded from Purple Hayes
Lewis, Jamal RB CLE - Traded from Purple Hayes
Titans, DST DST TEN - Traded from Purple Hayes

In our scoring system it’s 246pts for 246pts.

I stated my case that

CJ/Curtis are a difference of 98 pts to 89.
Both d’s are a wash 79 to 78
and finally
B. Marshall/A.E for J. Lewis/Heap both whom are recently healthy and could pay dividends down the stretch.

We were advised this trade is a no go b/c the purple hayes new line up would have Palmer, LJ, Parker, Colston, CJ, Marshall, Gates, Chi D

My line up would be
McNabb, Portis, L.Jordan/or Lewis (adds depth for me), Harrison, Jennings, Curtis, Heap, Dawson,Titans.

This is a 14 teams league.

A:   As your point system indicates, this trade is absolutely fair.  When evaluating a fantasy trade, it is important to consider a team’s current roster in the sense that they could be in desperate need of say a WR, which should mean that it is acceptable for them to slightly overpay for a WR.  What should not be a factor is how a team’s roster will look as a whole after the potential trade is completed.

That the Purple Hayes already have LJ, Palmer, Gates, etc is unrelated to the trade at hand and should have absolutely no bearing on the validity of this trade.

The trade should be allowed.

Q:   My question is a scoring issue.  Our league scoring awards 6 points for a defensive touchdown, and 2 points for a blocked field goal.  In the case of the San Diego Chargers returning the missed field goal for a touchdown this past Sunday the coach with the Chargers defense playing was not awarded points for this play as a touchdown.  It should also be noted that defenses are not awarded points for special teams’ returns/touchdowns.  Would you award the points based on the philosophy that the defense is awarded points for blocking the field goal, and therefore this is technically a defensive play, or not award the points based on this being considered a special teams play?

A:  Tough one.  As you stated, your particular league clearly does not award points for special teams touchdowns (as opposed to leagues that let you play a DST instead of just a defense).

While both sides of this argument have merit we feel a field goal return TD is much more like a punt return TD (points not counted) than an interception return TD (points counted) so the points should not be awarded.

Its definitely a situation not specifically addressed by your league rules so the easiest solution is to honor the way your league awarded (or in this case didn’t award) points.  Going forward your league should definitely vote on how such situations are handled in the future.  If the majority believes that it should be considered a touchdown (we’d probably vote this way based on your logic below), then there you have it.  For this particular situation, with no previously established rules, we don’t think its fair to overrule your league websites decision.

Q:  Our ESPN league recently had a trade made in which I feel as a 3rd party (Team C) I was wronged. I’m seeking damages. Here is the scenario:

Team A traded Nate Burleson, Sea WR to Team B
Team B traded Chris Chambers, SD WR to Team A
Team B traded Warrick Dunn, Atl RB to Team A
Team B traded Matt Schaub, Hou QB to Team A
This trade was highly scrutinized by the league members partly because Team A is undefeated and it seemed insane to make a trade that makes Team A better and partly because many felt it was lopsided.  In the middle of all the scrutiny Team C put together an offer to Team B.

Team C trade Antwaan Randle El, Was WR to Team B
Team B trade Chris Chambers, SD WR to Team C
Team B responded over email “Let’s do it”.  Team A set up the trade proposal on ESPN.  The trade was not accepted by Team B and after several emails and a voicemail the trade expired and the original trade was completed between Team A and Team B.

I feel a reasonable offer was made and the offer legally accepted in writing.  Please make a ruling on this matter including damages if any. I thank you in advance for your help in this difficult time.

A:  Hi Ross.  If this was a legal matter, you’d have sufficient proof that your trade (Chambers for Randle El) was accepted and that should be binding.

Unfortunately, in matters of fantasy football its a better philosophy to not consider a trade final until its been officially offered, accepted and approved through your league website.  By those standards, the first trade should be that one that is honored.  However, the first trade is clearly unfair with Chamber (38 recs, 509 yds, 1 TD) and Burleson (24 recs, 307 yds, 3 TDs) more or less of equal value.  Throw in Schaub and Dunn and this trade should be vetoed on the grounds of it being incredible lopsided.

We recommend vetoing the original trade but not forcing through the second trade.  It should be a clean slate and if team B decides to accept your offer or another legitimate offer going forward so be it.