It took a couple days but it appears that the Technology Committee is close to determining that Fantrax will provide the smoothest transition in terms of fewest rule changes required to adapt to a new host site. The QFL has a trial League going now and there are several points of improvement already observed including trading draft picks and allowing starting of players before 4 oclock games.
From Scott.
1. This software actually has real IR and Minor League spots that we can use.
2. There is a live auction option, but I doubt it work for us.
3. It has functionality to allow the trading of draft picks, but we’ll
have to see if it actually works for us because it doesn’t allow for a
separate rookie draft. However, I think it might work because I can
manually set all the players taken in the auction and then just use
the actual draft functionality for the rookie draft.4. I think I was able to configure the scoring the same with the
exception of field goals where the difference will be the cut-offs are
29/30 and 44/45 instead of 30/31 and 45/46.5. We can fully customize the contracts. I made the same as in A.S.S.
for now so that it would be familiar, but we can change them to be
more intuitive if we want to.6. There is a lot more info given to you regarding roster rules,
including warning messages when you submit changes.7. This software allows us to allow roster changes up until each
player’s game starts as opposed to doing it when the first game on
Sunday starts. I set it up this way because I think it makes sense
and that the only reason we didn’t do it this way before is because
A.S.S. wouldn’t allow it. We should probably take a vote on this
though, since it is a significant change.
The downside is of course the hassle of entering everyones rosters with contracts and salaries, but the big question of how Fantrax handles free agency and waivers seems moot. All indications are their premium service provides for this. Which is huge, but we’ll see. Things are looking good tho.
Shades
Also, the software has schedule generation functionality, but there is currently no way to force it to do 2 match ups with each divisional rival. The two options are “Ignore divisions” and “All match ups within division.” However, it lists “More divisional play” as an option that is “Coming Soon.” The text says “Have the system generate a pro-league-like schedule where your team plays a configurable number of games against division rivals.” I think this will work for us whenever it is ready. I sent them an email asking for an ETA.
I just discovered one other important difference between A.S.S. and Fantrax.
The Fantrax IR works similar to how it does on other more professional sites (e.g. Yahoo) in that it will not let you transfer a player to IR unless he is actually injured. We can configure to only allow player who are actually on IR to be transferred to IR or we can allow any player that is injured, even day-to-day, to be transferred to IR. We cannot, however, configure it to allow a non-injured played to be transferred to IR.
If you’ve used any of the Yahoo-caliber sites, then you’ll know that injured player are usually marked in some way even when their not on IR.
This will prevent the common QFL practice of stashing perfectly
healthy players on IR just so that other teams can’t get them in free agency and will have to trade for them. I am as guilty of this as anyone (Gerhart is on my IR in A.S.S. right now — in theory).
Anyway, I am actually in favor of this, but this is another one that should be put to a vote before we decide to go with this software.
Also, another improvement over A.S.S. is that it allows you to rank a lower bid over a higher bid within a group. For example, I just placed a bid group with Rodgers at $6 and Brees at $8. A.S.S. would have given me Brees at $8, but Fantrax gave me Rodgers at $6 since I ranked it higher.
I believe this software will not let you accumulate points in any given week if your roster is invalid. I don’t believe there is a way to configure it otherwise.
It also has functionality to prevent invalid rosters, thereby eliminating any complications associated with the above functionality.
However, in order to use it, we would have to reverse the policy we put in place regarding not submitting cuts with free agent / waiver wire claims.
I think this is okay because the only reason we put this into practice in the first place is because A.S.S. could not handle our tiebreakers early in the season and we didn’t want to have to manually fix things if the were awarded incorrectly.
I think the Fantrax tiebreaker functionality will work well for us. As I mentioned yesterday, the tie-breaker functionality has four levels, which are currently set for:
1. Most wins
2. Head-to-head
3. Division record
4. Most fantasy points
This matches what we did with A.S.S.
I propose that for the first two weeks of the season we configure the fourth option to be “random” (an option that A.S.S. didn’t have).
This way we can require that owners submit cuts with their claims and implement the functionality to prevent invalid rosters. This will mean that rosters will always be valid. The only issue, which I actually consider to be a benefit, is that if you submit a claim that will result in your roster becoming invalid, that claim will be automatically declined.n we configure the fourth option to be “random” (an option that A.S.S. didn’t have).
This way we can require that owners submit cuts with their claims and implement the functionality to prevent invalid rosters. This will mean that rosters will always be valid. The only issue, which I actually consider to be a benefit, is that if you submit a claim that will result in your roster becoming invalid, that claim will be automatically declined.