I've been in a league with the same group for about five years now. It's a 12-teamer, non-keeper. The league is active, everyone frequently uses the waiver wire and free agent list. Lots of smack talk back and forth. However, trades are a rarity. Maybe about five times a year there are trades conducted. Managers seem content going down with the ship instead of trying to build something better, or even something different. You float offers and nobody bites, not even counter-offers are made, just rejections...even on offers that favor their team heavily and not your own. It's not just me that has noticed this, but also several of the other managers I've talked to.
What's your opinions on a league like this? 'Have any of you ever participated in a league like this? Is it a bad thing? Should I just be content on building my teams through WW and FA? I'm not the commish, but the one we have is a good one and he has made an effort in the past to adjust league settings to bring about more interaction and activity between the teams. So far it's not working. Should I not worry about this?
I'm in two leagues like this. There are only occasional trades, usually at the beginning of the season due to auto-draft overweighting of positions. I think it is also a sign of cautious managers. We all know the other guy is trying to exploit value with the trade offer which makes it hard to find the middle ground.
It doesn't bother me. As long as there is not a "trading conglomerate" everyone is on the same footing. Now if there were a group of managers who were only trading within the group, I would be worried.
I'm in a league was very little trading after the first week of the season and its a little annoying. I love to move pieces around until my team is just right. This league everyone seems to think you're trying to rip them off with some hidden unknown fact. So I dont know what I can do... invite me to your league next year. I'll be more fun
Poke wrote:You float offers and nobody bites, not even counter-offers are made, just rejections...even on offers that favor their team heavily and not your own. It's not just me that has noticed this, but also several of the other managers I've talked to.
How could several managers all agree to this? If so, trade with each other...
How big is your roster size? It's a 12 team MLB league. Research has shown that greater penetration of the player pool increases the amount of trading.
For example, in a 12 team MLB league with 22 man rosters, you're only using 35% of rostered major league players. That means there are plenty of free players available on the wire. If you add two teams, you're taking 44 guys off the wire. Or if you add 2 outfielders to each team roster, you take 24 off.
Anything that decreases the quality of the wire increases the likelihood of trades. Nothing else helps. People need to be forced to take risks. Why pay for a top 10 2B when I can get a 2B that's only slightly worse and has upside for free? It's simple logic. A smart owner SHOULD be wary of trading in a shallow league.
Well, I don't want to print the whole article if they'd like you to pay to see it, but in summary, player pool penetration should be one of the primary settings you need to consider when creating a league. Almost no one thinks about it, but its impact on league characteristics is enormous.
Shandler recommends penetration of 75%. This is extreme compared to most common league settings, but any movement towards 75% from 30% helps. There's no right or wrong answer for the proper setup, but knowing what type of league you will have based on your penetration can help you understand why certain behaviors happen in your league and how to address them.
Here's a chart from the article showing the two extremes of 30 and 75%: Penetration% Variables 30% 75% ====================================== ==== ==== Knowledge of player population needed LOW HI Importance of draft LOW HI Length of draft LOW HI Incentive to trade LOW HI
Availability of free agents HI LOW Role of luck HI LOW Volatility of standings HI LOW
I'm pretty sure he he has some free ones so let me dig...
Good points. I never thought about how penetration affected trading, but it makes sense. I will point out though that most friendly leagues need a good dose of luck or people will eventually bail. You've got to give enough rope to the newbies and casual players to keep them interested. It's not a right or wrong question, it is simply a matter of what kind of league you want.
Right now we are using 21-man rosters. I believe in the past we have used 22 and 23-man rosters.
So you're at 33.6%. It's always tough to get more owners, so if that's not an option, add two more outfield positions, a corner infield and middle infield position, a second catcher. Whatever you want. And maybe one more bench spot.
Even if you added all of that, you'd still be only at 43.2%, but I bet you guys would look at the wire a lot differently and think, "Hmm. I better pick up the phone."
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by Poke » Wed May 14, 2008 12:33 pm 
