Over at FanGraphs, I put together an article with 10 best practices for Ottoneu leagues and commissioners. I think it is pretty useful but I am also positive it is not totally complete. I think it’s a worthwhile read, but also feel free to add more items in a thread here. We can use this as a clearinghouse for all best practices.
Couple of semi-organized thoughts:
The policy regarding how to handle “zombie teams” really requires some candid discussion on the league message board before any league starts, particularly H2H but it can also be quite problematic in 5x5. Also, the commissioner needs to enforce whatever league policies are set.
The first time I was the commissioner of an Ottoneu league, there was a team that very clearly wasn’t engaged from even before the season started (we had a supplemental 10 MiLB roster and he neglected to make his last two picks). It was a $100 league, so I felt like it wasn’t appropriate to bounce him even though a couple people privately requested that I replace him. Because it was a $100 Ottoneu league with a 10 MiLB, I guess that I had always assumed that only committed people would join; I hadn’t prepared for the scenario where we’d have someone disengaged before the season started. I spoke to him one-to-one and he sort of engaged but nowhere near 100%, and then left the league at the end of the season. It was sort of hard to find a replacement owner, because his team had been neglected from before the season had even started (e.g., not filling out his 10 man MiLB) and he had a very poor draft (overspent on stars so not a lot of surplus value on his roster). Anyway, if I had to do it over again, I would have more explicitly laid out what would happen to zombie teams in our constitution and then enforced it if communication to re-engage didn’t work.
As an aside, on the subject of a 5 or 10 MiLB supplemental roster, having done a couple of different ones with this, my advice now is to avoid it entirely. I’ve come full circle on it, but basically the downsides in the form of the disruption to the league economy (and other things) are far greater than the marginal extra enjoyment of rostering extra prospects. But I digress…
Anyway, if I could suggest another best practice: maintain a Google sheet of team name changes (as well as owner changes) and ask everyone to announce on the message board whenever they change their team name. This is something that the Ottoneu platform really doesn’t track anywhere and it can be confusing to do any retrospective analysis if teams have changed multiple times. I use the team notes field to keep track, but if you want to create a resource for the league, a Google sheet is easier for disseminating information.
Relatedly, set some norms/expectations in terms of change team names. In my basketball draft earlier this week, there was a team that changed its name a couple of times during the draft, which kind of threw me because I track other teams’ picks (it was a categories league). Going forward, I am going to suggest before the draft that teams don’t change their name until after the draft has concluded. Not a big deal, but I think holding as many things constant during a draft is to everyone’s collective benefit.
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Great stuff, and a fantastic read. Thanks for writing.
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