There has been some talk this year in the community about various Ottoneu incentive structures, including relegation systems, so I am breaking this out into it’s own discussion topic.
Some good thread information here: Pyramid-style Tiered Leagues
I recently wrote about how effective relegation is in the @Champions league here: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/relegation-will-fix-your-broken-fantasy-league/
For those leagues looking into some type of incentive (or penalty) next year, one idea recently discussed that is less punitive than outright relegation is reducing/limiting the number of keepers owners can carry over into the following season if they finish low in the standings, below a certain points threshold, or below a certain GP/IP threshold. The general idea is that if lower performing teams know ahead of time that they can keep fewer players in a rebuild, they will be more actively engaged in “buying” players later into the current season, which may also slow down the typical league-wide sell off activity that can occur too early in a winner-takes-all season.
Interested in hearing what some leagues are trying here.
I could get behind a low-end minimum GP/IP requirement (something like an average 145 GP across all positions and say 1300 IP). Setting a point minimum would do more harm than good, though. For example, I was active all year in one league for a team that I took over as a rebuild late last year. I’m going to finish with less than 1500 points (one proposed requirement that was mentioned on Slack, I believe), but it’s not from lack of trying. Rather, I had the misfortune of having a bunch of players go down with injury (e.g., Kluber) plus Keuchel and Kimbrel were both out for half the year.
If I were faced with a minimum point threshold to stay in the league, then I’d probably have disengaged sometime in May or June when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to make it rather than stay involved in an attempt to better my team. Or I wouldn’t have joined an existing league with such a weak team. A point requirement would create disincentives to recruitment of replacement owners in existing leagues, which is the last thing that should happen.
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The last place team in 530 also scored 1,000 more points than any other 12th place team in FGPTS in 2019.
