Injury Substitutions - What does everyone else do?

[IrishDrunk]

This topic has popped it's ugly head from time to time in our league (14 team, H2H, Keeper League - CBS Sportsline), and I wondered what other commissioners do for such things.

The topic is Injury Substitutions.

Key Note: Our lineups are set WEEKLY.

This actually became a problem in our basketball league - to keep it simple, a team lost a player to a broken nose after the FIRST game of the week, and he ended up missing 2 and 1/2 games total.

The complaint was that, in losing those 2 and 1/2 games, that the "better team" didn't win, however, that the team with more player starts won, which cost the team a run for the championship.

This obviously relates to baseball, as you can have the same situation happen (and we've had it and discussed it in the past here as well).

So, the thought was put forth: Why couldn't that owner sub out the injured player for a reserve option?

So, what say you all? Do you have any rules around injury substitutions. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Some things that have already come up from the league:

Would you get all points for the injured player up until the point where you would swap him out? OR, would you negate the injured players score manually for the entire week, and, then that owner only gets the substituted player's points instead [for the whole week]...

I guess the flip side to that is if you have a SP or another Position Player who plays awfully that week, and, at the last moment, gets hurt, allowing you to swap him out for someone who tore it up that week, you could have an unfair advantage [or cheat the system, so to speak]...

[Matthias]

I don't do weekly lineups, but my inclination would be to say dem's de breaks.

If Pujols goes 0-for-25 in a week and you lose by one point of batting average, did the, "better team" really win? Or was the other team just really, really unlucky? What about if a game gets rained out? How about two? An entire series? What if someone gets sent down to the minors? Or has their turn in their rotation skipped? Where do you draw the line? And you'd have to have a hard-and-fast rule: If your player gets injured, they MUST be taken out and they MUST be replaced by a pre-designated player. And then do the stats already accumulated count? Or take all of the new player? It's just messy messy.

The only way to deal with it is to tell people to deal with it. Once you start doing anything else, you'd open up a can of worms that you won't be able to close. And over time, these things even themselves out.

[Grouperman941]

My main league is weekly, 14-team. In our league, if you have an early week unjury, too bad. The risk is the same for every team, so the rule is fair.

To me, even worse than an injury during the week is when a team announces on Sunday that a player i will miss "at least X days" due to injury and he is my starter and I bench him. Then, miraculously, right after lineups lock on Monday, the player is healed and goes on to have a great week.

My league is roto. I could see where it might be more of a problem in h2h, but again, the risk of injury is there for every team.

[dragoon]

Yeah, my league is weekly lineups as well, and if a guy gets injured, he gets injured. Nothing we can do about it.

[Taters]

I agree 100% with Matthias!! You don't want to open this mess up, because you don't know where to draw the line in the sand then. Just leave it as it and tell everyone to deal with it. There is not advange to one team, and hell, thats baseball. Just for an example, I have Cuddy for the Twins starting the other day, and he got hurt in the 4 inning and was taken out, then what. You see how this could go on and on.

[CruiseJD]

I agree with the others. Where do you draw the line? What if a player is never officially put on the DL - he is still available to be put in a game, but we all "know" he is not going to be put in? What about bereavement leave or at the end of the year when teams who have little to play for routinely bench their studs? Injuries are part of the game.

This is why I wouldn't play weekly lineup H2H. The fun of H2H is being able to make lineup changes depending on how the week is going.