[The Jewish Cunthead]

Yeah, we’re only a couple games into the season but I wanted to jot down some items we might want to consider next offseason. 

• Divisions: Do we want to stick with one division or possibly go to two, with each division winner getting a bye in the first round? I don’t know how the math would work but we have that in baseball and it’s a nice perk for having a great regular season. 

• Keepers: We had eligibility issues arise during the draft. Do we want to include Yahoo/NHL with ESPN for position eligibility? Taking it a step further, do we want to completely eliminate the position requirement for keepers? It would be nice to keep your top 5 eligible players, regardless of position. 

Thoughts?

EDITED by JD - Just to add a list of potential topics to the first post.

1. One Division and 8 playoff teams OR 2 divisions and 6 playoff teams.
2. Keeper Positional Requirements. There was some momentum for adding a sixth keeper slot for a non-goalie, or perhaps moving to 1 goalie and 4 skaters, or 1 goalie + 1 D + 3 Forwards.
3. Home Ice advantage (Ties going to the winner). There was some grumbling over this so we've had a year to see how it works.
4. Transaction Caps
5. Conditional Picks
6. Stat Categories (This hasn't been brought up but should be reviewed annually).
7. League Fees. Stay at $10?

[Road Warrior Shark]

Not sure I'll even be around next season but heres my 2 cents worth

Eligibility: It makes no sense to me to use position listings from another site if your guy cannot be played there at ESPN. IF you are going to have a limit of one per position, the positions at ESPN need to be the rule. I could see changing the rules so LW and RW are interchangeable (if ESPN can handle that)

Now, I would be for allowing you just to keep 5 regardless or irregardless of position.

[DevSop]

I don't care about the divisions. I LOVE the position requirements for keepers. And we should only be able to use ESPN if we keep it. The one compromise I might be willing to make there is you can keep up to 3 forwards regardless of specific position or a 4th after keeping the mandatory 3 positions., 2 defensemen, 1 goalie...still a 5 keeper max. We have a HUGE problem in our keeper baseball league with every team keeping 3-4 SPs and it makes the draft a clusterfuck with regards to rankings and draft positions. I'd hate to see that happen here as well where goalies or D become so overvalues because we're keeping 2-3 goalies, 3-4 D and we're blowing draft values way out of positions.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I’d be ok with 3F, 1D, and 1G.

[Cliffsnotes]

Regarding Playoffs... if we go to a first round bye, the math would work like this: we would need to move to 6 playoffs teams instead of our current setup of 8 playoff teams. The only other path is 4 week playoff with four teams getting a bye in the first round (EDIT: 4 teams with a first round bye, 8 teams playing in the first round, then the four winners play the four bye teams in the second round, those four winners play in the third round, and then the championship in round four).

I prefer the current setup, with having more teams make the playoffs, so that more teams are (in theory) still competing down the stretch.

We do have the home-ice advantage now for the regular season and the playoffs, so that should help add weight to the importance of the regular season in the playoffs.


As for keepers, we allow keepers based on ESPN's position in the prior year, and track this manually. So even if a new year only lists one position for a player, we are relatively flexible in checking out the player history.

I've asked about Keepers each year in the rules, and nobody has really wanted to talk about them. My first thought is that maintaining a limit of 1 goalie is critical, or at the very least, making it very difficult to keep two goalies, such as you can keep two goalies, but only two skaters.

I would be cool with any of these:

3 F, 1 D, and 1 G
4 skaters and 1 G OR 2 skaters and 2 G
5 players (Maximum of 1 G; you could keep five skaters)
3 F, 1 D, 1 utility skater, and 1 G OR 2 skaters and 2 G

[frenemy]

I like the idea of 3F 1D 1G. I do not like the idea of “keep any 5” people will just hoard goalies.

Eligibility: stick to ESPN. Not Yahoo! etc. ESPN is the platform we use for the league.

I do like the idea of splitting into divisions.

My 2¢. (5¢ in Canada)

[otfsquared]

I think the 3Fs, 1D, and 1G is the best option as forwards play outside of their position all the time.

[ALL CAPS]

Oct 7, 2018 11:53:36 GMT -5 The Jewish Cunthead said:

I’d be ok with 3F, 1D, and 1G.

This.

[Mikey]

Yeah, I think we should max it at one goaltender.

1. You have to keep 3 forwards.
2. You have to keep 1 defenseman.
3. The final slot can be any other eligible player on your roster - goalie, forward, or defenceman.

[Road Warrior Shark]

The 3F keeper option seems to be popular. I'd say we make that a roster change as well. Instead of starting 2-2-2, you just start 6F instead.

As for divisions, I think I am against it. As the new/temporary guy looking in, I don't like the idea of reducing the number of playoff teams. And I say that having been the beneficiary of the first round bye in baseball this season. It should just be the top whatever number of teams. This league does 8, it should stay at 8.

[DevSop]

I am absolutely against changing the starting lineups to generic forwards.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Oct 8, 2018 17:44:45 GMT -5 DevSop said:

I am absolutely against changing the starting lineups to generic forwards.

This.

[DevSop]

Waivers: 4 days is insane for a player to be on waivers during the season. I know there was some weird issue during the playoffs a year or two back and we capped transactions on those weeks for some reason, but waivers need to be 2 days at most.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Oct 22, 2018 21:13:32 GMT -5 DevSop said:

Waivers: 4 days is insane for a player to be on waivers during the season. I know there was some weird issue during the playoffs a year or two back and we capped transactions on those weeks for some reason, but waivers need to be 2 days at most.

Especially with Dallas and his horseshit.

[DevSop]

1. Eliminate the rule about conditional draft pick trades.
2. Eliminate the add/drop cap during the playoffs.

[Cliffsnotes]

I'll address #1 here.

Dev texted me about this a few days ago, and I didn't remember anything about this. In retrospect, I have a vague memory about adding this rule five years ago for simplicity sake in tracking draft picks. If you've seen the NHL or NBA or NFL conditional draft boards, it can get ugly and confusing in a hurry.

If one or two trades have a simple condition attached, it might not be too complicated. But we have had 23-33 draft pick trades in each of the past four years that I have tracked (2016 disappeared for some reason). So, as part-time commish and tracker of the draft board, I don't have any interest in making this part of it too difficult.

[DevSop]

I would say in the history of C&B Baseball and C&B Football where we've allowed conditional trades, there's been no more than 2-3 a season and in those leagues we have nothing like the trade tracker so it could be even tougher to keep track. With the spreadsheet, I think it'd be relatively easy to track.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Feb 17, 2019 13:52:12 GMT -5 DevSop said:

2. Eliminate the add/drop cap during the playoffs.

Instead of this, what about applying the cap to the regular season? 

[DevSop]

Mar 24, 2019 19:28:49 GMT -5 The Jewish Cunthead said:

Feb 17, 2019 13:52:12 GMT -5 DevSop said:

2. Eliminate the add/drop cap during the playoffs.

Instead of this, what about applying the cap to the regular season? 

I'm fine with that if the cap is raised to a relatively higher number. I'm thinking somewhere between 14-21 at least.

[otfsquared]

Feb 17, 2019 13:52:12 GMT -5 DevSop said:

1. Eliminate the rule about conditional draft pick trades.

If we add conditional picks I say the teams involved have to whether or not the condition was met. If they don't track it we just go with the highest pick.

[The Canadian Content]

Apr 2, 2019 20:17:31 GMT -5 otfsquared said:

Feb 17, 2019 13:52:12 GMT -5 DevSop said:

1. Eliminate the rule about conditional draft pick trades.

If we add conditional picks I say the teams involved have to whether or not the condition was met. If they don't track it we just go with the highest pick.

I'd like someone to make an argument for conditional trades that outweighs the pain in the ass they'd create.

[The Canadian Content]

Feb 17, 2019 13:52:12 GMT -5 DevSop said:

2. Eliminate the add/drop cap during the playoffs.

I'd be fine eliminating the add/drop cap entirely.

[DevSop]

Apr 3, 2019 6:37:28 GMT -5 The Canadian Content said:

Apr 2, 2019 20:17:31 GMT -5 otfsquared said:

If we add conditional picks I say the teams involved have to whether or not the condition was met. If they don't track it we just go with the highest pick.

I'd like someone to make an argument for conditional trades that outweighs the pain in the ass they'd create.

They don't create the pain in the ass you think. Like I said, in over a decade plus in both of the other C&B leagues, combined we've had maybe 10-12 and all have been relatively simple.

[Road Warrior Shark]

I wasn't around, so I don't know the reasoning behind it, but the "Home Ice" to break ties is a terrible thing IMO. If you have a tie, you have a tie. Going 5-4-4 is better than that becoming 5-8 just because you happened to be the "Visitor" Ties aren't that hard to deal with standings wise.

Maybe it's because I had shitty goaltending, but it seemed like most weeks, you'd be lucky to have 1 Shutout in a matchup. That led to a lot of 0-0 ties. Seems like that category could be replaced with a better one. (I don't know enough about the hockeys yet to suggest one.)

It also blew my mind when I realized you won a category for having MORE penalty minutes. That seems unnecessary, like it is a category just to have another category. Seems like that one could be replaced too.

[DevSop]

Apr 22, 2019 13:04:28 GMT -5 Road Warrior Shark said:

I wasn't around, so I don't know the reasoning behind it, but the "Home Ice" to break ties is a terrible thing IMO. If you have a tie, you have a tie. Going 5-4-4 is better than that becoming 5-8 just because you happened to be the "Visitor" Ties aren't that hard to deal with standings wise.

Maybe it's because I had shitty goaltending, but it seemed like most weeks, you'd be lucky to have 1 Shutout in a matchup. That led to a lot of 0-0 ties. Seems like that category could be replaced with a better one. (I don't know enough about the hockeys yet to suggest one.)

It also blew my mind when I realized you won a category for having MORE penalty minutes. That seems unnecessary, like it is a category just to have another category. Seems like that one could be replaced too.

The home ice was put in more for the post season as it was one of the few options for breaking ties. I think it was done for the full season so we could see how it worked since there aren't great options for post season tiebreakers.

With regards to categories, taking away PIM from Hockey would be like taking away SB from baseball or Assists from basketball, it's a tradition of the sport. And shutouts are absolutely necessary as goalies are already on the low end of scoringng yet on the high end of drafting. I believe we've used other goalie categories and none are great.