never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

I do not support an auction

For reasons I can barely fathom, I am dead set against an auction system. I just seems needlessly complex.

FIRST, I worry that it will stulify the league, especially during the season. Last year, we basically had several teams go through the motions for several months. If in-season transactions become even more complex, won't the ACTUAL SEASON become even more boring. An auction may be more fun than a draft in March, but at what cost? Moacir's post from March 23, 2007 states: "Hopefully with a 40-man roster, there won't be tons of mid-season acquisition..." Why is that something for which we should express hope? I think it would be a travesty if we turned this league into the NFL of fantasy baseball. In order to win me over to an auction system, someone needs to develop a workable plan for in-season transactions.

SECOND, I am rather satisfied with the current system. The draft is fun. The pre-draft Winter Meeting, at which a number of trades were made last year, was even better. Trades are relatively easy to complete during the season. Rookies and suprise performers are equally available to all. The only real outstanding issue would seem to be the mechanics of the keeper system--How many and at what cost? Those are relatively minor questions that could be easily dealt with after we decide whether to retain the current system or not. Unless others find the current system problematic for reasons not apparent to me, a transition to an auction system simply to make the initial distribution of players "more enjoyable" does not seem worth it.

THIRD, as I noted at the outset, I am strongly opposed to an auction. I am going to need to see a complete, well-reasoned plan before I support one. I hope that those who favor an auction will work together to create a single auction plan that the league as a whole can discuss, rather than several proposals that will simply lead to confusion. Finally, I hope that, unlike last season, whatever the league decides can be made relatively permanent. Player decisions often hinge on future rules; continuing uncertainty will only worsen the league.

2 comments:

Omar said...

I know one of the plans from the previous debate involved just using the auction for the draft and then keeping the rest of the season as normal. Thats an idea that clearly needs to be fleshed out.

I'm in favor of the auction and have no issues listening to all plans. My team was mediocre enough that im fine blowing this up or keeping them as they were last year or some hybrid.

Since the Illini could likely miss the NCAA tournament all together, as long as we have the draft before the start of the season i'm good for any time.

Omar said...

also this post

http://tinyurl.com/2kebxe

about petes league seemed pretty good to me. it solves the problem of free agent pickups and how they should be treated in following years (in this case they shouldn't).