Team Dilema

[chargerss24]

First of all, here are the league settings: 12-team, 6x6 (standard stats + OBP/Holds), keeper (limited to active roster and so long as your under the cap) league. I am co-commisioner of the league.

Now, we expelled Owner A for not paying up on what he owes the league. That much is clearly stated in the rules. Now, Owner B wants to take over Owner A's team and leave his team to the new owner, which we have yet found. The thing with Owner B is that he is the laughing stock of our league. He's finished last for four or five straight years now and still going. The guy trades willy-nilly for the sake of trading. I made my thoughts clear that there will be none of this merry-go-round bullshit going on and that it isn't fair to the other owners or the new owner picking up a turd of a team.

So, Owner B decides to take it up on a poll and before I know it, seven of the 11 owners have voted and it goes: 2 Hell Ya, 1 Ya, 2 No, 2 Hell No. I thought about yanking it off and saying once again that there will be none of this moving of owners around. But, I didn't. I don't want to be an authoritarian figure in this league like our previous commish (whole other story, but a current owner) and that we would handle things through a vote. We typically discuss things we want to tweak prior to posting a poll (which I thought was disabled to non-commishes), but he posted without any discussion.

Now, I'm a firm believer that one should lie in the bed he makes and he should continue to lie in his mess. This isn't fair to the new owner, especially if he's never played before. This is a keeper league with minors and he could rebuild his team if he wanted to. But I know him and I know the way he plays his team. I KNOW he will destroy Owner A's team if he got his hands on it within a year and a half, if that long. And a lot of us suspect that Owner B are in collusion with the previous commish with their myriad of questionable trades, but of course, it's hard, if not impossible, to prove.

What should I do? Should I let the power of the vote decide the outcome? Or should I use my common sense and lay down the hammer and tell how it's going to be? Here are the teams in question. Remember, only a maximum number of active roster players can be kept next year, along with minor leaguers. Appreciate any feedback on this matter.

Owner A (Expelled)
ACTIVE ROSTER
C - J. Jaso, K. Suzuki
1B - A. Gonzalez
2B - R. Weeks
SS - H. Ramirez
3B - A. Ramirez
MI - M. Scutaro
CI - A. Huff
OF - C. Headley, J. Werth, R. Ibanez
U - D. Barton, T. Hafner, Y. Escobar
SP - A.J. Burnett, A. Sanchez, C. Carpenter, M. Scherzer, M. Pelfrey
RP - C. Hensley, H-Chih Kuo, M. Capps, T. Clippard
BENCHED ROSTER
G. Sizemore, J. Ellsbury, R. Dempster, F. Rodriguez, J.J. Putz, C. Santana (IR), J. Nathan (IR)
ROOKIE C.V. Carter

Owner B (laughing stock)
ACTIVE ROSTER
C - J. Buck, R. Martin
1B - J. Loney
2B - J. Lopez
SS - D. Jeter
3B - J. Lopez
MI J. Uribe
CI - D. Lee
OF - M. Byrd, M. Cuddyer, N. Swisher
U - B. Wallace, D. Ortiz, K. Blanks
SP - C. Lewis, J. Peavy, J. Santana, J. Beckett, P. Hughes.
RP - B. Fuentes, J. Venters, S. Marshall, S. Romo
BENCHED ROSTER
O. Infante, R. Theriot, A. Pagan, N. Morgan, S. Smith, R. Kalish, J. Shields, R. Porcello, K. Gregg, B. Webb (IR)

[converge241]

Open team should be open to a newcomer first. If that were to fall through and you couldnt find someone to take that team I would say then it would be okay for owner B to take over Team A. To me it seems better to have that better team continue to exist with a new owner than break it up to all teams.

Its a tough situation though especially because basedon voting results, you have varying opinions and contributing factors behind the process it seems.

[bigmck]

You need to take the poll down immediately. This is something you should decide. Owner B has had a chance to make this team better, but didn't. If you let him take over Team A, it will be very hard to find a new owner to take over the piece of crap that Owner B made. I would never let that happen in my league. Make Owner B keep the team he has had.

[mkultra]

There's no way you should let Manager B do that. Whether or not you take down the poll is immaterial- this is one of those situations where you do need to be a bit more authoritarian. The line I like to take in these things is, "Everyone gets a vote; I get 12."

Think about this- if you really wanted to go through with assigning Team A to another manager, you'd have to have some process for other managers to lay a claim to that team as well. Who wants that headache?

[fast dogs]

Some leagues where 2 or more teams open up the new owners have a mini draft so both get some of the better players, not 1 team get the best team & 1 the lesser. He could pay for his team & the new team then give the new owner a team for free in year 1. thats 2 possibilities, however I'd never allow these options. yes you want to allow some voting, but there are some things that don't go to a vote.I'd put my foot down and say no, maybe you can get your weak link to leave too. I know if I'd already paid and this was allowed to happen I'd ask for my money back; if I hadn't paid I'd just say I'm leaving. The circus has to stop somewhere; show the league theres a new sherrif in town & this is how its going to be

[Bloody Sox]

First of all... keep in mind that Team B is almost certainly one of the people who voted "yes" in the poll, so its really 4-2 against.

Secondly... it makes no sense that Team B should get to take over Team A. What about the other 10 owners? Can they also put in a bid to take over Team A? How would you decide? Its certainly not in your league's constitution (which you should fix as soon as this is resolved), so you can't just make up a rule to handle this case.

Third... it is completely unfair that owner B would be able to destroy one team, leave it to a new team to inherit, AND get to take over a clearly better team. You don't have to pose this as "your team sucks, live with it", you can simply state that the possibility of something like this happening exists, and there is no rule to handle this case, so you can't let it through.

You sound like me when it comes to being a commissioner - I try to let majority rule, but in this case you just can't. You're gonna have to make the call here as commissioner since there isn't a rule to handle it.

[BlueClaws]

New owner should get team A. If the owner of Team B gets in a huff, you can tell him to take a walk too IMHO. Sounds like he's more trouble than he's worth.

[bxroto]

I totally agree with BlueClaws. Then if you get rid if GM B you can find two GMs and have draft off of both team.

PS: I'm sure anyone who voted yes is someone which has gotten the best of GM B in the past and has his eye on doing it again.

[chargerss24]

PS: I'm sure anyone who voted yes is someone which has gotten the best of GM B in the past and has his eye on doing it again.

You're absolutely right. It's always been thought that GM B was the "farm" team of at least one team in particular and we assumed that team voted yes.

Anyway, the matter is resolved and I let the vote go through and it passed with 6 votes (the expelled team is still vacant though a new owner is about to take over) and I made it clear in our constitution that this will no longer be an issue and that there will be no moving around of teams and that any vacant team(s) will go to the prospective owner(s).

Thanks for all your help.

[MTUCache]

Differing opinion here... fantasy leagues are a game amongst friends.

If ultra-competitive behavior, rampant incompetence, possible collusion, and a ton of headaches all come with your fantasy baseball... it's not your league constitution's fault. It's your friends' fault. You don't need to change your rules, you probably need to either decide that you want to play with your friends nicely or not.

This is such a minor issue when you're looking at the big picture. Feelings are going to get hurt and tempers may flare no matter which side of the decision wins, but how much is this really going to impact your enjoyment of fantasy baseball? Probably not. If you're worried that it's going to make your league unfair and you'll lose too much money, you're probably playing for too much money.

All that being said, if these were strangers and you were playing for big money over the internets, I'd be kicking all these guys I suspect of shady-dealings out of my league and getting a bunch of new owners in there.

Really though, in a Dynasty league, the value of franchises assets should reflect the value of the team. If this owner wants to "upgrade" to a new franchise, he probably should figure out how much that's worth to him and pay the difference.