Best Ball Dynasty Leagues: Forget the Rest?

Nathan Powell

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The NFL season has come to a close, everyone’s favorite dynasty hosting site, Myfantasyleague has rolled over into the 2015 season and now all of us dynasty degenerates are getting the itch to join a startup or two. The problem is, we are also remembering that one time we accidentally left Brandon Weeden in a lineup over Tony Romo the week that Romo came back from injury (or is that just me?) because of a large volume of leagues. Last off-season, I was scouring the DLF Help Wanted forum for a new league. Around this same time, I was knee deep in the MFL10 redraft phenomena, so when I saw the post from Jules, a frequent contributor on the forum, for a new league he was forming called “Slacker Dynasty,” I thought I had found the holy grail.  The league premise was little to no inseason management with all of the fun that a dynasty offseason provided. Below, I’m going to talk about the features that the league provides as well as other features that I think would work well in the best ball format.

League Features

Waivers

[inlinead]Slacker Dynasty has waivers open for only one week during the preseason each year, so you don’t have to run to the waiver wire each time a player is added to the MFL system like what happened with Duron Carter in many leagues when he was put in the system in December or when an unknown player gets buzz from a high profile writer. One day last off-season, Rotoworld’s Evan Silva tweeted about Carolina Panthers Tight End Brandon Williams, which resulted in him being added in most of my leagues within the hour. While the “snooze you lose waiver effect” can be fun, it can also be extremely frustrating. The waiver wire becomes one of the most frustrating parts about being in a large volume of leagues. The Slacker format throws that frustration out the window.

Trades

At the origin of the league, the plan was for trading to only be open during the off-season, but the members of the league voted to allow trading during the season. I think there are pros and cons to both arguments. Inseason trading pros include:

  1. Teams at the bottom of the standings are able to trade perishable assets for players/picks that can help them in the future

  2. Teams in contention can bolster their chances by making win-now trades, trading for some of those perishable assets that the bottom teams would be looking to deal.

In-season trading cons include:

  1. Lacks a sense of urgency in needing to know where your team is at the beginning of the season.

  2. More maintenance. The whole premise of a league like this,for me, is that I don’t have to worry about the team inseason. Allowing trades inseason takes that away to an extent.

Drafts

From a format perspective, the startup drafts are not much different than a normal dynasty league, but there are a few ways to go about doing the free agent/rookie drafting in the best ball format. Due to the fact that there is no in-season waivers, some dynasty assets go from unowned to legitimate dynasty assets throughout the season. Some of the players currently on the Slacker Dynasty waiver wire includes Justin Forsett, Charles Johnson (he was my final cut over Demetrius Harris… oops) and Larry Donnell among others. In Slacker Dynasty, the free agents are included in the five round Rookie/Free agent draft that occurs shortly after the NFL draft.

Another way to go about the acquiring of free agents (one I think is better), is to have either a free agent only draft at the beginning of the off-season or just one round of waivers to open the off-season. This gets the likes of Forsett and Donnell off the waiver wire and makes them tradeable assets throughout the off-season instead of being squandered on the waiver wire. Another element I love about this format is the second stage of the rookie draft. While most leagues are extremely thinned out after the five round rookie/FA draft, a lack of free agency does mean there are players that will emerge between the first draft in May and second one during the Preseason. Some of the players selected in the second draft last year included John Brown (6.01), Alfred Blue (6.08), Albert Wilson (6.11) and Malcom Floyd (7.01), so there are definitely rosterable players available after the five round draft in May, giving those 6th and 7th rounders some value that they otherwise would not have in a normal league with waivers. It also gives even more incentive to pay attention to those end of roster camp battles that create fringe roster guys.

League size

Just like in normal dynasty leagues, there is no right/wrong answers as to how many teams should be in the league. 12-team leagues seem to be the norm today, and that is what Slacker dynasty is. However, some of my favorite dynasty leagues are 14 team leagues, so there isn’t really a wrong answer here.

Roster size

Most Non-Devy dynasty leagues I am a part of have a 23-25 player inseason roster, with off-season expansion. Because there are no in-season waivers, I think it is imperative for rosters to be larger. For me, I think the sweet spot for roster spots in the format is 30, with expanded rosters during the rookie draft.

Lineup size

When it comes to lineup size, more often than not I suggest the bigger the better. Many including myself see it as the bigger lineups require more skill. The concept of bestball rewards depth as-is, because even the best wide receivers aren’t going to finish as WR1’s every week. With larger lineups in normal leagues, it can be very hard to not have  dud or two each week, in best ball, if your team is deep top to bottom, the duds will be few and far between becuase the best scores each week create your “lineup.” For this format, I think the optimal lineup set up is 1 QB/2 RB/3 WR/1 TE/2 Flex. There are tons of variations that can work, but I think that is the best way produce positional parity.

Next week, I will have a strategy-based article covering how the value and strategy is changed for each offensive position with best ball compared to normal lineup leagues.

Do you have experience in best ball formats? What do you believe are the pros and cons?  Let us know in the comments section below.

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