Apologies if there is a thread that addresses this already, but a few league mates doubt the issue with joining an in-progress draft late to grab a few $1 players.
The inherent benefit (of nominating later in the draft) seems obvious, and the cost to implement such a strategy should be to attend the draft and nominate at your turn. The rules suggest this (nominating in turn), but it would be nice to have a thread to refer people to easily.
Are you asking for someone to write a pargraph that you can refer to for why it is an unfair advantage to skip nominating for a while and then be able to continue drafting after other teams have used up all their money?
Iāve said as much via our league message board, but it seems like they believe this to be my opinion, not a generally held consensus in the community. I said they could look up the topic in the Community Threads, but it would be nice if there were a single thread that pulled the major pieces together.
For example, most seem to discuss handling missed nominations, but none discuss how to handle an owner joining the draft late.
In general, I believe leagues should discuss and handle these issues on their own, but I didnāt expect to get so much push back on the idea that being the last to draft has its advantages.
Well, just to set expectations for anyone else who wants to chime in: you are right! There is a massive advantage to coming in late on purpose or on not nominating players while there is money available for them to be bid on from other teams. It is a clear attempt to circumvent the market nature of the auction draft, and I have close to zero tolerance for players who try to manipulate the market in order to get players for less.
Iāll leave this thread here for others to chime in, but it is pretty clear-cut to me and Iām surprised anyone could honestly see it any other way.
Joining late is a little different, of course, because that manager didnāt get to bid on other players so they have lost the advantage of bidding on other players, but it doesnāt mean they still do not gain an advantage by trying to add players without any competition.
If someone purposefully does not show up for the start or middle of a draft or purposefully does not nominate players, they are, without any hesitation, marked as done with the draft and should not be allowed to subsequently bid on or nominate players.
Agreed, there is less benefit to missing the early portion of the draft than to being present and missing nominations, but the benefit is still there.
I donāt think there is much advantage to missing the auction or nominations EARLY but early means like 2-3 rounds at most.
After that itās definitely a significant advantage to not nominate but still bid. The advantage comes from being able to wait out other people nominating players you donāt want and filling up their roster/budget so that when you DO nominate you win everyone for $1. When you nominate you have to determine if youāre putting up a player you like and risking getting outbid or if youāre putting up a player you DONāT want and risking getting stuck with that player. Itās absolutely the ābest strategyā to just let others nominate, bid if you want, and let other people fill up while you just wait.
The problem of course is then no one would nominate so you have to require teams to nominate if they plan to participate at all.
I went through that today. One owner came in one hour lateā¦ The commissioner let him do it. At one point late in the draft .I had $15 left and he had $200 left an we were bidding on the same player. . Before the draft, another owner wrote that he couldnāt make the start but wanted to join the draft later for a couple of rounds. I wrote the commissioner and he reminded everyone that you are not supposed to miss nominations. At one point we only had 8 owners participating in a 12 team league. I understand that this is just a game an people have busy lives but if you sign up you should want to do your best for the good of the league.
Showing up on time is just the right thing to do,
Skipping nominations is annoying/rude and provides a competitive advantage later in the auction. Not sure the technical feasibility of such a feature, but I wish Ottoneu had a āthree strikes and your outā option rather than the āone and doneā or unlimited chances. You can of course enforce three chances manually (or whatever threshold), but itās a pain for the commisioner to keep track and enforce.
Fortunately, out of three auctions so far, I can count on one hand the number of total missed nominations combined (have a fourth one tonight). Iām pretty fortunate in the quality of leaguemates. None of the leagues play with the one-and-done rule.
Niv would it be possible to have āauto-nominationsā? If you miss your nomination someone from your queue or the highest rostered free agent is nominated for you? Not sure if that solves it but may help and would be similar to snake drafts
If Draft Bots are battle-tested and found reliable, commissioners will be able to add Draft Bot proxies for human managers next season.
I think there is one situation where it doesnāt matter. If the manager in question only has $1 per open spot then it doesnāt matter too much (except to them) if they come in at the end or not. They will automatically have to take what whatever is left over by other players. It really only hurts them since they couldnāt try to be the first bidder on their preferred $1 players.
Not necessarily, they still donāt have to nominate any players and risk 1.using a roster spot on someone they arenāt interested in or 2. Losing a player they are interested in to a team who can bid $2. Teams should not be allowed to skip nominations no matter the situation. Thatās how I manage the drafts I commission for.
Yeah I agree that itās still an advantage. And it also wastes other peopleās time. If you want to fill your roster with $1 players, then log out of the draft and choose from who is left via 48 hr auctions. But sticking around and intentionally missing nominations is just rude.
I really like the concept of a bot bid to keep people honest and on task.
1- hit pause at a couple seconds left on the nomination clock. 75% of the time they are working on getting the nomination in with the clock ticking down. 25% of the time they just lost track of the order and are ready as soon as they see the pause.
2- if a manager is popping in and out, quickly turn of their draft, if they log in and explain the connectivity issues, turn them back on. They canāt bid so that takes away part of the strategy to miss nominations.
A nomination bot would kill the random nature of Ottoneu. At the end of the draft basically the same player pool would be owned everywhere. It would be like ESPN, everything the same everywhere, yuck.
This thread is about how managers gain an advantage by skipping parts of the draft and joining later or skipping nominations. If you want to talk about the draft bots, you can leave your thoughts on the relevant thread:
Ok. Really more of a related thought than any sort of a thesis.
Just trying to respect what @legendaryan wanted, which is some general consensus that they can point to next time someone in their league tries to claim its ok to just nominate some guys in a draft after everyone else is gone. Think weāve met that criteria!
If the manager in question only has $1 per open spot then it doesnāt matter too much (except to them) if they come in at the end or not.
This is the concept I want to push back on with this thread.
As Niv said earlier:
Joining late is a little different, of course, because that manager didnāt get to bid on other players so they have lost the advantage of bidding on other players, but it doesnāt mean they still do not gain an advantage by trying to add players without any competition.
The point many seem to miss is that most owners are (and should be) operating under the assumption that owners cannot show up late (or skip nominations) and draft.
Just because a player is not nominated earlier does not necessarily mean the other owners value them at $1 or less. Strategies are many but just one might include leaving open spots and money on your roster despite there being players you deem āvaluableā still in the FA pool. Open spots give flexibility and the chance to learn more information before committing money or spots.
Many have already realized the benefit of being the last one standing in their draft if there were players remaining they wanted. This is a viable strategy but the cost of being able to implement this strategy is to attend and nominate at each turn.
@chy924 summed this ācostā up well:
When you nominate you have to determine if youāre putting up a player you like and risking getting outbid or if youāre putting up a player you DONāT want and risking getting stuck with that player.