I am sure this topic has been discussed before, but I am wondering how to handle this specific example. My friends and I are in the inaugral year of a points only keeper. We dress 13F 5D and 2G weekly. We determined that the bottom three teams would have a lottery for first overall next year. We keep 15 yearly.

One guy who was in the middle of the pack but not competing decided today to drop robidas, prospal, a kostitsyn and gomez and replaced them with guys like mcgrattan and boogard, pims mean nothing.
Since we didn't make a rule on tanking he is not breaking any rules, but should this be tolerated? It seems unfair to the guys below him and now what is stopping them from dropping even more reliable players? It is just giving better players to the guys competing and ruining the integrity. How can this be remedied?
I really appreciate any advice on how this can be handled. I am having trouble using the search options on my black berry.
Thank you for any help!

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12 Team H2H Keeper
Keep 15
12 F, 6 D, 2 G, 6 Bench
G A P PPP PIM +/- W SV% GAA

F: Malkin, Perry, H Sedin, D Sedin, St. Louis, Kesler, Fleischmann, Lecavalier, Selanne, Dupuis, Sullivan, C Smith, Malone
D: Chara, Streit, Boyle, Visnovsky, Bieksa, Robidas
G: Lundqvist, Luongo, Neuvirth, Reimer

Prospects: Lack, S Elliott, Dalpe, Atkinson, Vatanen, Bouwman, Gerbe, Petrov, Eakin, Savard, Marincin, Shore, Galiev, Barberio, McNeill

Would definitely love to hear some examples of "rules/guidlines" others have implemented. Had a player in the middle of the pack just drop Brassard and Demitra for Burrish and Bolduc. Makes more of an impact now because there's a 9 pt gap between 2nd and 5th and Brassard just got picked up.

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16 Team H2H Keeper - G/A, W/SO. Dress 6 F, 4D, 1G. Farm 4.

F - Crosby, Tavares, M. Richards, Little, Laich, Peverley
D - Suter, Subban, Byfuglien, Timonen, McDonagh, Corvo
G - Rinne, Backstrom
F - Markstrom, Lack, De Haan, Zibanejad

I read a pretty novel approach to dealing with this on these boards not too long ago. I don't remember who's league it was.

Basically they set up a system where the 1st draft pick and draft order was determined by a "most improved" race from a given date.

As of a given date, the trade deadline for example, the teams who could improve their points output the most by the end of the season got the first draft pick, and so on. This type of system is designed to prevent tanking and gives every team a fair shot.

In the end I believe GM's need to do what is best for their team, while always putting their best foot forward. Your league needs a tanking rule, or more appropriately, an understanding of what "fair" means for your league (I say your league because not all will be created equally, and fair can be a very loose term). GM's also need to understand the impact of what they do, beyond their own teams. In a H2H league for example, their tanking could give other teams free wins.

Some things need to be made clear up front. This is one of them.

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12 Team Keeper league point only (Rebuild mode)
F - Tavares, Kovalchuck, M.Richards, Horton, Ju.Williams, Roy, Tanguay, Gerbe
D - Weber, Goligoski, Souray, Salo,
G - Rask, Crawford
Farm - Elliot, Read, Hodgson, Kuznetsov, Huberdeau, Granlund, Zibanejad, Burmistrov, Ennis, McBain, Schwartz

lottery system for the next draft?

To prevent tanking in my league (consisting of 10 teams), only the top 7 make playoffs (winner of playoffs takes 20% of pot). In addition to this, I made it so 8th place finish gets 1st overall pick (limited keeper), 9th = 2nd pick, 10th = 3rd pick. This has worked very well for the first 6 years and no one has yet to purposely tank. Further to this, I am considering implementing a rule that will have anyone who does not make playoffs for 3 consecutive years pay twice the dues at the start of the season. This rule would be to more ween out some of the less serious managers that consistently finish at or near the bottom. I'd have to pass that through the league and I'm not sure how it would go over tho. Be interested to hear what others do as well.

Jer Bu, that's a fantastic idea!

I'm of the opinion that if it isn't against the rules, it's OK. This makes it harder to be a commish (and I am one)! If there's nothing in the rules that says you can't do what this GM is doing, you need to let it slide. That doesn't mean that you need to be passive though:

Propose that a rule be added in the offseason that prevents this sort of thing. If the rest of the league unanimously agrees to implementing the rule immediately, go for it! I think it's just as important to make sure that the GM who was simply following the rules to give himself a better shot at next year doesn't feel like the league (or commish) is out to get him as it is to protect the integrity of the league - they are the same issue.

One system that I like that dissuades tanking is to have a draft lottery that gives as much chance to win the lottery to the team that finishes just out of the money (or playoffs) as it does the last place team. This makes the #1 pick as much about rewarding playing hard until the end as it is about levelling the playing field for shitty teams.

So, since you have a 16-team H2H, the top 8 teams make the playoffs? I'd give 8 "balls" to both the #9 and #16 finishers, 6 "balls" to the #10 and #15, 4 "balls" to #11 and #14, and 2 to #12 and #13. Instead of making poor performance the thing that's rewarded, make mediocrity the best way to suffer.

EDIT: I love what SirIrish's league does - give the biggest reward to those that try, but fall short... then there's lots of motivation to try!

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This is what we do too...and it works. As for your problem...you could always with some sites make certain players not dropable. But in this situation I'd put my foot down and put a stop to it. take a vote...give his players back etc.

Like pool geek says, best in the offseason however...

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Contract Fantrax 14 teams, 8 keepers. 4 max lifers +/-
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 1F. 5D,2G....5Reserves.
Goal heavy. G=3.5 A=2 Add 0.5pts for D.
Goalies:W=3,SO=4,start=2,Save=.1
Shootout Save=.2
C:CROSBY,STAMKOS,TAVARES,
LW:Sedin,MARCHAND,TLUSTY,ELIAS,Whitney
RW:MALKIN,YAKUPOV,Jagr,Brunner
D: BYFUGLIEN,YANDLE,VOYNOV,Carlson,Visnovsky
G:Lundqvist,lehtonen,Pavelec
Minors: Granlund
Baseball
Votto,Cano,hanley,longoria
McCutchen,Stanton,Bautista.
Verlander,Cain,Felix

Ahh yes, the money rule. A number of leagues have implemented league payouts and fees based on rankings.

The first place team gets a lot of cash, the last place team pays a lot.

Something like this (in a 10 team pool)

1st: +$200
2nd: +$100
3rd: +$50
4th: +$25
5th: +0
6th: -0
7th: -$50
8th: -$75
9th: - $100
10th: - $150

It is a very drastic approach, but hey, it probably worked = )

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12 Team Keeper league point only (Rebuild mode)
F - Tavares, Kovalchuck, M.Richards, Horton, Ju.Williams, Roy, Tanguay, Gerbe
D - Weber, Goligoski, Souray, Salo,
G - Rask, Crawford
Farm - Elliot, Read, Hodgson, Kuznetsov, Huberdeau, Granlund, Zibanejad, Burmistrov, Ennis, McBain, Schwartz

Well, I think the owner dropping those players for nothing doesn't help his team this year or in the future. He has received nothing in return. It doesn't make any sense to do this.

I understand if he decided to trade for draft picks or prospects but to win any league you need depth and he has given away all of his depth.

His team will be a lower end team for a long time.

In our 15 team h2h league part auction/part draft, we pay out the top 3 of our "regular season" that ends March 27th. The top 8 then play a knockout tournament for a winner take all cash prize and the bottom 7 teams play 2 weeks of round robin and then the top 2 teams play against each other with the winner getting 1st pick in next year's draft (the loser getting 2nd) and picks 3-7 are determined based on the rankings in the round robin.

We do a straight draft so having 1st pick gets you the first selection of each round.

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Baseball 11 team mixed Roto Salary cap keeper
$300 cap auction for 2 of each IF,1UT,5OF,3SP,2RP,4P + 10 reserves
Auction 25 player starting rosters + 10 round draft of $1 players
6x5 (add OPS)
C - AJ.Ellis,VMart,Grandal
1b - Hosmer,Konerko,Dunn,Moreland
2b - Kipnis,M.Ellis
3b - Beltre,Seager,Donaldson
SS - Segura,D.Espinosa,N.Franklin
UT - Bautista
OF - N.Cruz,BJ.Upton,Morse,Stubbs,Crisp,McLouth
SP - Lester,Shields,Darvish,Medlen,Lohse,Niese,Pettite, Beachy,Kazmir
RP - Kimbrel,Nathan,League,Valverde