Need Ottoneu vet to trade from stacked team to 5 stale unclaimed teams

In the “Auto Noise Alliance” league (FGPTS, $20), there is a stacked team and five stale teams, listed below. I am looking for an Ottoneu vet to objectively distribute good players among the stacked team and the other 5 teams via commissioner-enabled trades, to make the 5 teams more attractive to potential new owners. Once we attract a few new owners, we will set up a draft and kick off the league, albeit late!

Let me know if you’re interested. Thanks in advance.

Auto Noise Alliance (https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/home):

Stacked Team:
Hello, Is Greg Holland Back?: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/team?team=4260

Five Stale Teams:
PED’S DISPENSERS: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/team?team=4220
Hunterpence None The Richer: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/team?team=4234
Eggs Odorizzi: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/team?team=4269
The Cut-Off Men: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/team?team=4272
Formerly Known As B.J. Upton: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/591/team?team=4274

If you are planning to have a (late) live auction draft like most leagues, the easiest recommendation would be to remove players from all unowned teams and just let the auction sort out the ownership. Otherwise, the existing salaries of some of these good players are so low that there’s no real equitable way to divide them

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I think trey is correct. The other option I’ve seen work well is to do a disbursement draft. Find the 6 owners and then allow each team to manually snake draft from the rostered players at current salaries.

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Normally this is correct, but because some of these salaries are so suppressed (Ex: $4 Acuna), I’d recommend a regular auction draft, or otherwise the league is still going to be very skewed in values.

Thanks to both of you for your responses. I’ll follow your advice. Allow me a few clarifying questions:

  1. Trey, you suggested removing (all the) players from all unowned teams. Shouldn’t this also include the stacked team (which unfortunately is owned by me!)?

  2. Because this league started with only 6 teams last year, these teams by nature have better players. By the end of the year, only 2 were fully participating, and those two I would consider ‘stacked.’ One of them is the one from which good players would be auctioned off. Does this change your recommendations?

  3. My assumptions are that potential owners want to see good players on the team they would like to claim, rather than rely upon the results of an upcoming auction draft. And that new owners would usually be new to Ottoneu. Do these assumptions make sense, and if so, do they change your recommendations?

Thanks again for your help.

Yes, based on this information I would restart the league. I would give an incentive to any returning owners (sounds like there will be 2-3) for their loyalty and willingness to support a restart of the league. A full live auction draft is one of the highlights of any league, and because most new owners will be brand new to Ottoneu, they will want to shape their roster as best they can; an auction draft is the best mechanism to do this, so I would restart all rosters. Without restarting, you may find takers for rosters with good contracts, but you’ll struggle to fill out the league with the final owners for rosters with fewer contracts. Normally if a league is replacing 1-2 owners in this way I’d recommend a disbursement draft like @joecatz mentioned but since almost all the members will be brand new, this feels like a brand new league to me, which should be started with a full auction (which is a blast).

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I am in a different league with @Hollenbox and suggested to him in a PM there that I would put it up to a league vote of the six other owners between a redraft or disbursement draft.

They’re the ones that have invested in the service and their teams; going with a complete restart might mean you’re looking for replacements for them as well. There’s always the feature of arbitration to even-out league economics, and generally it’s hard to keep a “core” together for more than 2-3 seasons anyway so it’s not like these established teams are guaranteed to dominate the league long-term (or even this year, given the number of players available in a disbursement draft of this type).

Not sure what other people think of this but (assuming they prefer a disbursement draft of the six other teams), my suggestion was to consider a “value-based” draft, where the team with the next pick would be the one with the least amount of team salary drafted. For example, if Team A drafted an $82 Mike Trout with their first pick, they would need to wait until all other teams have drafted at least $82 or more in team salary before Team A could make another selection. The first round would be decided by a random order, with any tie-breaker picks given to the team that has ‘waited’ the most picks between selections.

It might be a bit more work than a “snake style”, but it would help better disburse the “value” of players among the six “new” teams (including the Commish). I don’t think it’d be too hard to attract new owners if they saw a disbursement draft pool for the rosters of six other teams, too…

And if the replacement owners are more likely to be new to Ottoneu, I think it could be good for them to have their own separate “incoming” draft in case there are any Auction Draft vets already in the league who might school some newbies in a re-draft.

Good thoughts. Thanks. Yes, I agree that putting the question to the league is the right thing to do. Ultimately I’m trying to fill a league and get going. It’s a bit of a challenge filling it now, after the season has started. Going back to square one would be a discouragement to all. If the league doesn’t want a complete redraft, then your disbursement draft sounds like a good idea. Thanks and stay tuned…

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Trey, you mentioned giving returning owners an incentive. What do you recommend as an incentive? What have others leagues done to incentivize restarting their league?

Thanks to all that responded. I took your advice and presented two options to the league:

  1. A total redraft

  2. A “disbursement” draft for the 6 teams that did not fully participate in the 2018 season, prior to the league’s annual auction draft.

As a commissioner new to Ottoneu I appreciate your input. Hopefully we will fully fill out our league (we now have 8 owners, up from 2!) and have a great year.

The standard rule for Ottoneu leagues that use the “vote off” arbitration feature gives each owner a $5 discount on the player they had voted off if they redraft that player in the following auction. I would probably offer a similar $5 reduction of salary on any one player on their team for any other that returns