Should The Commish Punish This Behavior In A Dynasty League?

[the lone star]

Let's say the commissioner of a dynasty league discovered that someone tanked during a few games at the end of the season (Year 2 of the league) to get a better draft pick in this year's upcoming rookie draft. There aren't any explicit anti-tanking rules and the way the rookie draft order is calculated for the upcoming draft has been posted since the league started (i.e. it has been posted and disclosed to the owners for over two years). The owner that tanked has a screenshot of a text message where he and the commissioner seemed to have an understanding that the fantasy site allows you to start inactive players for that week. The commissioner claims that the owner never explicitly asked about tanking, but the owner understood it as a pro-tanking position. 

The commissioner has already collected dues for the upcoming season (the season for which the rookie draft will take place), but he does not like the fact that somebody tanked. Furthermore, the tanking owner also has a screenshot of where the commissioner says that the order of the draft must be the way that it is posted. However, the commissioner is still seriously thinking about changing the draft order regardless because he is really anti-tanking (a position that was not known to anyone until now).

On the other hand, the tanking owner has played in leagues where tanking has occurred, specifically, leagues where teams were allowed to bench their star players in order to lose a game (to get themselves a better matchup in the first round, a better draft pick, etc.). However, the commissioner has never seen this tactic in 10+ years of playing. The tanking owner also believes that tanking happens in real life, but the commissioner is of the firm opinion that it does not. On top of that, the tanking owner has hard evidence that tanking happened in Year 1 of the league, but the commissioner is unaware of this. 

Again, the games that were tanked are already in the books, and most of this was revealed after the fact. It is worth noting that in the final game of the season, the commissioner did spot the tanking and after an exchange, the tanking owner agreed to set a new lineup because, although he thought it was fair game, he just didn't want to start any drama among the league members.

What should the commissioner do? Should the commissioner implement any "corrective" measures? If so, then how?

Please check the poll for the options that the commissioner has.
 

 

[the lone star]

Sorry for the TLDR, just need some help. Thanks.

[tntitans4life17]

I had a similar problem in the dynasty league that I run in regards to tanking. Guy who was out of the playoffs but not at the bottom of the league in the final week of the regular season was playing someone who needed to win to get into the playoffs. Guy who was out of the playoffs purposefully played a crap lineup (no inactive players, that was listed in the rules prior to the start of the league as unacceptable) but he clearly played guys who no one would have started.

Since we didn't have any anti-tanking rules in place prior to the season, we have left everything the same for the draft this coming year but have changed the rules going forward to prevent tanking in the future. We talked about going to a lotto system, but decided that wasn't fair for the teams that didn't tank so we implemented the following going forward: For a first tanking offense, the player who tanks has their 1st round pick move to the end of the first round. So if you tank and get the #1 overall pick, that pick becomes #10 and everyone moves up a spot. For a second offense, the tanking player loses their 1st round pick entirely and it becomes the last pick in the draft. It seemed like everyone in my league agreed that that was the best way to handle any tanking that occurs.

[JonStark]

Can't punish him if there weren't any rules in place. Put the rules in place now and leave it is. Just have to bite the bullet and shame the owner for the rest of his days.

[sp6488]

5 hours ago, JonStark said:

Can't punish him if there weren't any rules in place. Put the rules in place now and leave it is. Just have to bite the bullet and shame the owner for the rest of his days.

Yea, probably need to just rule on it prospectively and have everyone continuously give him/her **** for being such a squid.

[the lone star]

48 minutes ago, sp6488 said:

Yea, probably need to just rule on it prospectively and have everyone continuously give him/her **** for being such a squid.

Probably gotta do it to the commish too though because if there's a screenshot of a misunderstanding, then the commish probably didn't have a firm stance on the matter until after-the-fact. At least that's how this scenario played out. He kinda caved into the pressure of the league members.

[the lone star]

6 hours ago, JonStark said:

Can't punish him if there weren't any rules in place. Put the rules in place now and leave it is. Just have to bite the bullet and shame the owner for the rest of his days.

Of course the tanking owner could always just elevate himself for having the "wit" and courage to do something like that. 

[the lone star]

8 hours ago, tntitans4life17 said:

I had a similar problem in the dynasty league that I run in regards to tanking. Guy who was out of the playoffs but not at the bottom of the league in the final week of the regular season was playing someone who needed to win to get into the playoffs. Guy who was out of the playoffs purposefully played a crap lineup (no inactive players, that was listed in the rules prior to the start of the league as unacceptable) but he clearly played guys who no one would have started.

Since we didn't have any anti-tanking rules in place prior to the season, we have left everything the same for the draft this coming year but have changed the rules going forward to prevent tanking in the future. We talked about going to a lotto system, but decided that wasn't fair for the teams that didn't tank so we implemented the following going forward: For a first tanking offense, the player who tanks has their 1st round pick move to the end of the first round. So if you tank and get the #1 overall pick, that pick becomes #10 and everyone moves up a spot. For a second offense, the tanking player loses their 1st round pick entirely and it becomes the last pick in the draft. It seemed like everyone in my league agreed that that was the best way to handle any tanking that occurs.

How do you all police it though?

[tntitans4life17]

2 hours ago, the lone star said:

How do you all police it though?

We haven’t had an issue with it yet, but we basically said that if you make a move that the other members of the league have issue with and you can’t give a legitimate reason, it will be a strike. May be hard to police in some instance and if we run into it, it could turn into a league vote decision with needing 1 more than majority to rule it a strike. Hoping we don’t ever have to use it lol 

[the lone star]

11 hours ago, tntitans4life17 said:

We haven’t had an issue with it yet, but we basically said that if you make a move that the other members of the league have issue with and you can’t give a legitimate reason, it will be a strike. May be hard to police in some instance and if we run into it, it could turn into a league vote decision with needing 1 more than majority to rule it a strike. Hoping we don’t ever have to use it lol 

I gotcha. That's good. Thanks.

[JaguarCrazy2832]

On 3/23/2018 at 11:41 AM, JonStark said:

Can't punish him if there weren't any rules in place. Put the rules in place now and leave it is. Just have to bite the bullet and shame the owner for the rest of his days.

Pretty much this but for the rest of his days plus the rest of his children's days

Seriously though, no disrespect if you are the commish but if you didnt think the whole starting inactive players was a "feeling out process" to see how the whole tanking thing played out in Commish's head then he sort of played the commish. I feel like basically he was asking if it was problematic and got the okay to do it.

You cant reprimand him after the fact. Plus you collected dues and while they can be returned it, to me, sort of makes for a binding agreement that the rules in place are as follows. Rules 3-7 are WAY too harsh if a rule wasn't in place. I feel for you if you are in fact the commish because I deal with grown-arse men with full-time jobs and crap and yet they act like babies if they feel like their 20-50 investment is being compromised by some shady nonsense. I think option 1 is best. If you eliminate tanking you dont have to change the draft order. But there isn't a great way to 100% prevent it and changing the draft order or how it is calculated isn't easy either

[the lone star]

Thanks for your help everyone!

[the lone star]

15 hours ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

Pretty much this but for the rest of his days plus the rest of his children's days

Seriously though, no disrespect if you are the commish but if you didnt think the whole starting inactive players was a "feeling out process" to see how the whole tanking thing played out in Commish's head then he sort of played the commish. I feel like basically he was asking if it was problematic and got the okay to do it.

You cant reprimand him after the fact. Plus you collected dues and while they can be returned it, to me, sort of makes for a binding agreement that the rules in place are as follows. Rules 3-7 are WAY too harsh if a rule wasn't in place. I feel for you if you are in fact the commish because I deal with grown-arse men with full-time jobs and crap and yet they act like babies if they feel like their 20-50 investment is being compromised by some shady nonsense. I think option 1 is best. If you eliminate tanking you dont have to change the draft order. But there isn't a great way to 100% prevent it and changing the draft order or how it is calculated isn't easy either

Is there a scenario where Option 2 is the best?

[JaguarCrazy2832]

8 hours ago, the lone star said:

Is there a scenario where Option 2 is the best?

You cant change it after the fact like whoever picks 1st in 2018 still does but changing how the draft order is calculated is still an option but the problem is how do you do that? If i have the worst team and put forth an honest effort, in my mind i deserve the #1 pick. If last year i drafted: D Johnson, Demarco, Rodgers, Jameis Dez etc and my team either got hurt or sucked it is my fault for drafting them but i feel like finding a new way is tough. Even a lottery wont stop it just because people want to have the highest % and will still find a way to lose

An interesting wrinkle could be expanding the playoffs. A 2-5 team in a 12 team league with 4 playoff spots is likely done and might tank but if there are 6 spots and the pot is large enough they might push for the 6th spot still but that would water down the regular season 

There is no good answer, sorry. I’m just spit ballin

[the lone star]

9 hours ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

You cant change it after the fact like whoever picks 1st in 2018 still does but changing how the draft order is calculated is still an option but the problem is how do you do that? If i have the worst team and put forth an honest effort, in my mind i deserve the #1 pick. If last year i drafted: D Johnson, Demarco, Rodgers, Jameis Dez etc and my team either got hurt or sucked it is my fault for drafting them but i feel like finding a new way is tough. Even a lottery wont stop it just because people want to have the highest % and will still find a way to lose

An interesting wrinkle could be expanding the playoffs. A 2-5 team in a 12 team league with 4 playoff spots is likely done and might tank but if there are 6 spots and the pot is large enough they might push for the 6th spot still but that would water down the regular season 

There is no good answer, sorry. I’m just spit ballin

So no changes to 2018, but 2019 is still fair game? Is that correct?

If so, then I agree.