Here's the thing. The veto is already in place... during the regular season. It was in place for several mid-season trades and worked just fine. There is literally no reason it shouldn't be in place during the offseason where arguably larger trades occur. Trades only have to be approved by the two parties and the commissioner. The owners have an opportunity afterward to decide if they'd like to object. In the Fantrax app I believe it's about 3 days where owners have that opportunity. 

On a personal note, I don't know if I'd even object to either of the trades being talked about. If one owner doesn't understand the value of his players then that's on them. However, if that trade would drastically alter the league landscape by one team's ineptitude, then that would be a case to consider an objection for a more balanced deal. This isn't real life, it's fantasy football and trade review is standard procedure because the standard for quality control is so much less consequential than in real life. If the Jags traded Lawrence for Beasley tomorrow in real life? There would be riots in Jacksonville and every person on that staff would be fired, tarred, and feathered.

In short, the trade veto is already in place but has been poorly operated or communicated when it comes to offseason deals. The procedure will be fixed and we will continue as usual.

QCS wrote:

Given that there's no way the Beasley for Lawrence swap would pass muster if it was subject to a veto, I'm proposing this alternate for the community's review. ThisIsFine and I have agreed to it, but I want to make sure it doesn't cause any more controversy here.

CAR receives: Trevor Lawrence
TOR receives: Cole Beasley, Brandon Cooks, Derrick Brown, CAR's highest main draft pick

I'd like that every trade be subject to a veto or no trade is - having it both ways is wrong. Scratch, the trade I was talking about was the KC-NY swap that we received absolutely no word on before it went into effect, leaving no time for us to even discuss. In my opinion, the fact that New York didn't have to give up their original rookie draft pick and received an extra player from KC in exchange for what could very well be an incredible QB. That wasn't a balanced trade, in my opinion, and should've included NY's original rookie draft pick or shouldn't have included that extra player from KC. So you claiming that you want things to be consistent when you yourself have benefited (although in this case you didn't benefit from it) from things being inconsistent is what I have an issue with. Would that trade have been vetoed by the community? I don't know. But I'm upset that we didn't even get a chance and now you're calling for everything to be subject to review.

But either way, I'd like to just put this behind us as a learning experience. Every trade should be subject to community review, no matter what, or none of them should be. I'm on the side of keeping the veto, personally, but I'm even more on the side of consistency.
 

 The extra player is a consolation. Literally whoever I take last in the draft. Take a vote if you want, I was at work and had 0 time to do anything and I got a RB out of that which was desperately needed. 0 RB on board, 0 TE on board, have a QB and plenty of WR while I purposely stacked my defense. There was 1 position that needed to be filled. It’s not a “claim”, I was fully expecting a review if you don’t remember my post it was very inconclusive, so now you’re making your own conclusion. What you have an issue with at this point is your perception of me. Not once have I said no vote, I actually welcomed it, but for some reason that isn’t being taken into consideration when you’re making sense of it. I know you’re saying you want to “put it behind” but I just can’t if I’m going to be dragged then told “we need to drop it” essentially.
I do stand behind a probation too, though. I’m not saying punish, just a reassurance that an individual team isn’t a bye week for another team just because a lineup wasn’t set during the week. We all have commitments, but football is literally the easiest one to do. Hockey is a different story.

Fans and Owners of the AltFL,  

I wanted to address the conversation that we had this week over the summertime trades and the role of the veto during that time. This conversation exposed a grey and ambiguous area. It is important to remember that the Alt Sports Universe is so ambitious in scope that it puts us in the 1% of fantasy football leagues in the world. The number of teams, owners, and dynasty rules make it the incredibly fun project that it is. With that said, the larger the project the more possibility there is for grey areas to exist. So I do not believe that this will be the last time we find something that we’d like to change. Like every professional league IRL, we will continue to design and iterate as we go. For example the forward pass, free agency, and the scouting combine were all additions to the sport. This process is what makes our universe even more realistic.  That is why, while heated, this conversation is actually a good thing.

As we navigate that grey area our north star is always going to be fairness. it is important that we understand what fairness means. It means that the rules consistently treat everyone the same way. It doesn’t mean that every team is supposed to be equal. In fact, they are not supposed to be. That’s where our owners come in. This is a competitive venture and it is your job to field the best team that you possibly can.  The reality is that it is not Carolina’s responsibility to NOT rip off Toronto. Nor is it Toronto’s to not rip off Carolina. Or the Sawblades or Philly with Arizona. It is the individual owner’s job to make their team the best that they can. So when you agree to be an owner you are agreeing to give it your best shot. Do your homework and decide for yourself what your strategy should be. With that said, we don’t require any minimum fantasy sports aptitude to participate in our community so its understandable that we have a wide spectrum of skills and experience. What we do require is the best effort you can give to be as competitive as possible. 

That brings us to this week… 

We will be instituting the league mandated veto for the offseason. It will follow the same rules as it does during the regular season. That means that owners have two days to PM me your vote to veto. Majority wins. But before we begin voting I want to stress when you should veto and when you shouldn’t. 

 WHAT A VETO ISN’T... 

We all have different opinions when evaluating the merits of a trade. A veto isn’t your opportunity to voice your displeasure with a trade that you think is imbalanced. We have the AHSylum for that. The reason is because it is your opinion and the owners have the right to run their teams as they see fit. On the surface it seems like the CAR/TOR trade was a bit imbalanced. But Toronto has Justin Herbert already and they could have drafted Lawrence with the full intent to swap him for a starting receiver. It is possible that Lawrence may never play a down in the NFL (unlikely but still) and Beasley while older is a solid slot receiver on one of the league’s best teams. It is not our place to make the decisions for other teams and the way they are constructed. Like I said it is not our job to protect another team. We also can’t veto just because we are upset a division rival or a good team just got better. Theoretically we all could have made that same deal but didn’t.

WHAT A VETO IS... 

Instead the veto should be reserved only when we think something illegal is going on. Meaning it is against the owner code to tank. It is also illegal for two owners to collude. When this happens the veto blocks the trade and then we will take it very seriously and consider whether we penalize owners, possibly by stripping franchises. The veto of a trade should be quite rare. While I thought the CAR/TOR trade was odd at first, I knew that both owners had voiced what they were looking for in the deal. Therefore it isn’t my job to block the trade.  

With that said…

PENDING TRADES: 

#1
To Carolina - Trevor Lawrence
To Toronto - Cole Beasley, Brandin Cooks, Derrick Brown and 1st Round Pick

#2
To Boston - Odell Beckham Jr. 
To Toronto - Stephon Gilmour, 2nd Round Pick

Next I want to address the keepers.

As we get closer to training camp I will be asking for the players who you would like to keep on your roster. Since this a dynasty league you are allowed to keep as many players as you’d like. You simply need to have your roster under the salary cap of $120. Once the keepers are finalized you are able to exceed the cap through trades, free agency and the draft. Ultimately our goal is to strike a balance between consistency for realistic roster construction AND enough turnover that teams will have an opportunity to improve from year to year.  

My suspicion is that most owners will be able to keep the players that they’d like to this year. It will be next year and the year after that when the tough decisions need to be made. Those tough decisions are what makes this dynasty league fun. Those decisions are what separate the good teams from the bad teams. It puts a lot of pressure on the draft to find franchise players at a discount. So don’t sleep on the value of those picks when they show up in trades.  

After listening to a majority of the league owners we have adjusted our keeper values from what it originally says on our site. I reduced the prices of the players to ensure that people could keep more players for year 1.  Here is a basic breakdown of the keeper rules. If you have any questions please PM so I can include them in a follow up post with answers. I’d prefer not to have a hysterical free for all session. Instead I’d like to control how the questions and answers are given so that people do not get confused. With that said it is pretty simple.

The Basics:  

1-Each team has 120 Keeper Dollars each season.

2-The salary of every player increases by $3 (formerly $5) from season to season. This means you can keep a player for as many years as you want but you need to properly budget for the team around them. Example: Russell Wilson gets huge contract…Seahawks cannot pay their defensive stars.

3-The first round (non-rookie) picks from last year (year 1) will be given a salary of $15. 

4-Second round picks $14. -And so on and so forth until the end of the roster. 

5-This means that there will be a number of players selected late in the draft that will have a value of $1. 

6-Free Agents are given a value of $1.

7-If you make a trade. The keeper salary follows that player. So Arizona traded Julio Jones last season…Julio will still retain his original second round value. 

8-The 2020 Rookie class; players drafted in the first round will be given a keeper salary of $4 while the second round picks $2.

 9-The 2021 Rookie class; their values will be attached to your next year’s budget. This year you get them for free. -Now the only wonky element to this system is the values of the players in drafts from here on out. We are going to reduce the value of first round picks this season to $10. This takes into consideration that the value of a first rounder this year is not the same as the year before. Luckily from here on out it will stay at $10. 

10-This system already takes into account the value of the keeper players. Therefore we will not need to forfeit picks in the draft like some keeper leagues do. Each team is already paying the price for their keeper. They don’t need to pay twice.  

Like I have said in the past. My league of 12 years has used a similar format and has been smooth throughout. If you have any question please PM me and I'll do another follow up post to help clear it up for everyone. I will be populating our google sheet with the values of the keepers in the coming weeks. I will then let you know when keepers are due. 

Thank you for your patience and for putting up with this annoying long post. But I hope it will help us move forward. 

BREAKING NEWS

SCORPIONS HQ (ALTSPN) - After a change in ownership following a disappointing 2020 season in which they finished with a 2-11 record, the Arizona Scorpions have fired head coach Dabo Sweeney with immediate effect. Byron Leftwich has been named head coach of the Scorpions in his stead.

When his wisdom was questioned by the local sports media at Leftwich's introductory press conference, owner Combat Baby defended the decision to fire Sweeney, saying that the Scorpions' 2020 performance was "unacceptable" given that they began the season ranked 3rd in the AltFL preseason power rankings, but also took the time to wish Sweeney well in his future endeavours. Mr. Baby also took the time to confirm that his club has no plans to tank at any point in the future and to reaffirm that the club's main goal remains to win the AltBowl.

Last edited by dvdbubba27 (8/17/2021 7:44 pm)

3pointtally wrote:

If anybody who needs to cut salary wants to make a deal, let me know. I'm open to make a deal to help somebody make their salary cap work without having to cut a bunch of their players. 

Already sent my cuts for this season but if you're curious about trades, I'm always open to hear them out!  Gotta think about next year too!  

EDIT: That goes for everyone, not just 3 Point.
 

Last edited by Stickman (8/17/2021 9:45 am)