Michiana Fantasy Football League

The 2008 preseason is here, and it's time to get things up and running again.

The draft will be Sunday August 17, with the time to be announced.

Please see the Rules page for changes made to our rules for the 2008 season. Note that the changes are extensive, and represent the biggest fundamental changes to the league's scoring system since the league was created in 1996.

Two members, Chris Calhoun and Pete Sampson will not be returning, efforts are underway to find new owners to take their spots.

Some records:
Highest score, single game: 86 (Burners/John Bowman, 2004 Week 12)
Highest score in loss: 53 (Dogcows/Todd Draper, 1997 Week 15)
Highest combined score: 125 (Burners/John Bowman 86, Double Ended Barbara/Adam Lingerfelt 39, 2004 Week 12)
Highest margin of victory: 56 (Mulletproof Vests/Adam Lingerfelt 66, Myopic Moose/Jay Love 10)
Highest score, season: 562 (Undertakers, 2000)

Pwnage:
Adam is 10-2 all time versus Jack. Todd is 13-3 all time versus Jay. (Regular season)

The 1000th MFFL regular season game will take place in week three of the upcoming season.

Despite missing the playoffs the last three years Todd still holds the record for most playoff appearances with 9. Mike is next with 8. Appropriately Todd and Mike are also 1-2 in all time wins, with 100 and 94 respectively.

The following new rules have been approved:

Section 3. Article 1. g.
Teams may not start players who are on bye. If a player that does not have a game is started and another player on the owner's roster scores less than zero (0) points, the player with negative points will be inserted into the lineup.

Section 6. Article 1.d.
When a rule change is formally proposed by the commissioner a voting deadline of not less than one (1) week will be attached to the notice. At the expiration of the deadline, or when votes from every owner are received, votes will be tallied and the measure will pass or fail based on those results.

With the changes to the scoring system I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know what differences they can expect in the upcoming season.

I ran extensive tests to determine the effects of the new approach. Last year our scoring average was 30.44, well within the expected variance for the league average since we expanded to twelve teams. Under the new system, using last year's starting lineups, the scoring average would have been 37.48.

As far as season scoring, 500 is the new 400, and 600 is the new 500. Two teams would have scored over 600 points last year, and six more would have scored 500. So realign your thinking for what constitutes a great year, the milestone is no longer 500.

I've been playing around with the divisional alignments for the upcoming year, with the goal of starting to even out some of the inequalities of how often teams have played each other. The numbers in the spreadsheet below represent how many times teams have played each other per year. The alignment I've devised is the best solution to match up teams that have played each other the least.

This solution does, however, break with the traditional way I realign the league, so I wanted to present it here for discussion before making it official.

Edit: A second version, this one keeps the concept of matching up teams that have not played each other as often as others in the same division, but also keeps much closer to the traditional way I realign things.

You can browse the data below to see the records for all active teams against all other MFFL teams.

Update: Proposal withdrawn due to vehement opposition. We might revisit this next year.

One of the current trends in fantasy football is altering the order of the draft to better equalize the value of each draft slot. The leading method to do this is called Banzai.

The method involves taking the standard serpentine order we have always used and reversing the third round.

Round 1: 1-12
Round 2: 12-1
Round 3: 12-1
Round 4: 12-1
Round 5: 1-12

From there, things continue as we have always done them.

The advantage to this method is how much it equalizes the value of each draft slot. Using the standard serpentine method the best position, 1st, is 5.8% better than the worst position, 12th.

Using the Banzai method the best position is only 1.4% better than the worst position. With the traditional serpentine method only the 2nd slot is within 1.5% of the best slot.

I'm proposing a formal vote as to whether we should adopt this method for the upcoming season. Deadline for this vote is Tuesday August 4 at midnight.

Edited to add:
A simple way to approach the issue: If I asked every owner to email me immediately to guarantee a top three pick, I would expect an email from every owner paying attention.

If I asked the same question regarding a bottom three pick I doubt I would get any email.

Everyone knows, even without quantification that the higher picks represent an advantage. What I want to do is remove as much of that as possible, so that the better drafters, and better managers have the advantage, not whoever was lucky in the random drawing.

Vote deadline Wednesday August 6, midnight.

1. From Kevin:

A proposal to eliminate trades involving future draft picks:

ARTICLE 1. a. If two or more franchise owners wish to trade players, draft picks, or league dollars, they may do so.
[Strike "draft picks" from ARTICLE 1.a.]

ARTICLE 1. d. Draft picks may be traded for a period of three (3) years into the future
[Strike entire ARTICLE 1. d.]

ARTICLE 4. a. Each owner controls a fantasy franchise within the league. In the event an owner leaving the league the replacement owner takes over that franchise, including the completion of all trades and remaining MFFL dollars balance.
[Strike "the completion of all trades and" from ARTICLE 4. a.]

Narrative:

As each team exists for only one season, owners should not have the ability to trade away draft picks for a team that does not yet exist. Neither should a team owner enter in to a trade involving future team dollars, which we already do not allow.

If MFFL was a keeper league, trades involving future draft picks would make sense.

Further complicating matters is the increasingly common situation where an owner leaves the league with draft pick transactions still pending which are then imposed on new team owner(s). Such owner(s) then bear the benefit or penalty of a trade element without having participated in the original trade.

As an amendment to this proposal, I would also ask for the cancellation of any outstanding draft pick adjustments pending from previous season's trades. I also move to recuse team owners from said vote who have such outstanding adjustments.

For these reasons I would also support a proposal to start each new team owner with a full league dollar balance, and to eliminate "rollover" league dollars but this proposal does not address such issues.

Submitted for your consideration,

Kevin Nadai
Owner, as-yet-unnamed-team

The MFFL Rules Council has ruled that this portion of Kevin's proposal:

As an amendment to this proposal, I would also ask for the cancellation of any outstanding draft pick adjustments pending from previous season's trades. I also move to recuse team owners from said vote who have such outstanding adjustments.

Additionally, the Council feels the wording of Kevin's proposal is ambiguous regarding the trading of draft picks from the current year during the draft, and could create confusion in that regard.

2. To take effect only if the above measure does not pass:

Section 4. ARTICLE 1.d. Draft picks may be traded for a period of three (3) years into the future. Any teams trading future draft picks must pay the entry fee for each future year in which a pick is being traded. This advance payment is non-refundable, and will be added to the prize pool if the owner does not return for the season in question. Agreeing to such a trade constitutes a binding contract to make said payment. In the event the entry fee for any given year changes, the owner must pay the difference prior to or on the day of the draft.

Note: This change is intended to address what the Rules Council sees as the most legitimate issue raised in Kevin's proposal. While there has never been a case of a team leaving the league before the completion of a trade involving draft picks, this would, in the council's estimation, virtually eliminate the possibility. At the worst, it would provide a nice bonus to the league's prize pool.

I'm sorry there has been so much voting this offseason. I hope we're close to done at this point.

The resolution to ban the trading of future draft picks has been voted down.

We have one rule vote still open:

M.R.1

Section 4. ARTICLE 1.d. Draft picks may be traded for a period of three (3) years into the future. Any teams trading future draft picks must pay the entry fee for each future year in which a pick is being traded. This advance payment is non-refundable, and will be added to the prize pool if the owner does not return for the season in question. Agreeing to such a trade constitutes a binding contract to make said payment. In the event the entry fee for any given year changes, the owner must pay any difference prior to or on the day of the draft. [1]

[1] Changes in italics.

We also ever have a new issue to vote on:

M.R.2

Section 6. Article 1. d. Rules may only be changed retroactively by a unanimous vote of all franchise owners, and then under only the most extraordinary circumstances.

e. Any owner can write a proposal for changing or adding rules, however an official call for votes on rule changes may only be issued by the Commissioner via email, blog post or telephone notification. This call for votes may contain more than one proposal. Each proposal will be tagged with a resolution number (i.e. M.R.5). Proposals may be linked, so that a vote for one only takes effect if the other passes or fails.

f. Any rule change proposal that does not originate from the MFFL Rules Council must be submitted for vetting against current league rules prior to being opened up to a vote. This vetting process will cover the new proposal as it relates to current rules only. After completion of this process to the satisfaction of the MFFL Rules Council and the owner submitting the proposal, the Commissioner will distribute the resolution. [1]

g. When a rule change is formally proposed by the commissioner a voting deadline of not less than one (1) week will be attached to the notice. At the expiration of the deadline, or when votes from every owner are received, votes will be tallied and the measure will pass or fail based on those results.

ARTICLE 3. a. The primary duties of the Rules Council are to interpret the MFFL Rules and to protect the best interests of the league. [1]

b. In the event of a situation that is not explicitly covered by these rules the MFFL Rules Council will take action as it sees fit to preserve the best interests of the league.

[1] Changes in italics.

The vote deadline for M.R.1 is Wednesday August 6, midnight
The vote deadline for M.R.2 is Thursday August 7, midnight

Please get your votes in as soon as possible if you have not already done so.

Please welcome new owner Josh Duell to the league.

Josh helps fill our critical shortage of names starting with J, which was down to three from an all time high of six.

Ok Josh, the pressure is on to come up with a good team name.

As a reminder, I can create MFFL.net email addresses for any owner who wants one.