Latest / Dynasty Sports Life / Dynasty Sports Life Ep 217 Marcus on Dynasty Ethical Dilemmas

Transcript

Dynasty Sports Life Ep 217 Marcus on Dynasty Ethical Dilemmas · Dynasty Sports Life

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The In This League Podcast Network.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: This is Dynasty Sports Life, a podcast about playing fantasy baseball, basketball, football,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: and hockey.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: 365 days a year. Here's your host, Jesse Sevier. Welcome
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to the Dynasty Sports Life. Jesse Sevier here to talk
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: to you about the wonderful world of Dynasty Fantasy Sports.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: What are we talking about these days, kids? It is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: baseball postseason, otherwise known as, let's just hope nobody ends
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: up with Tommy John. As a Brewers fan, I have
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a little more than the normal interest in what's going
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on right now, but from a fantasy perspective, not much. Basketball,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just about to start. Hockey, just started. Football, boy, it's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: been a rough football year, kids. It was a pretty
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: good baseball year, and I have some unexpected success in football,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: but I have some unexpected failure, and I've got to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: get into that. I don't think I can stand in
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: front of you as a football expert this week. That's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: all right. I never plan to stand ahead as an expert.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I am a Dynasty player, and Dynasty playing, folks, is
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: about a lot of things. But one thing it's about,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and one of the reasons I love it, is it's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about philosophy behind playing the game, behind the ethics of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: playing the game. It's just a whole different situation. And today,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: my good friend Marcus is coming back, and that's just
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about now. Back once again,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: we got my guy Marcus here, ready to talk a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of blender action. How are you doing today, Marcus?
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I'm doing great, Jesse. It's been a minute. Thanks for
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: having me back, man.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man. Frankly, I would do this within minutes of
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the last time recording with you because we have such
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a good time doing this. And I love that we
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: can really talk dynasty philosophy as we keep going through this.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: You and I play together in, I think, all the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: different sports at this point and in many leagues where
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: we're in the different sports. But yeah, we have some
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: perspectives on different things. But today we're going to start
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: out with a couple of ethical issues. I know that's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: one of our favorite topics, just the philosophy of what's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: going on with Dynasty. And it applies to people playing
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: all the sports. I don't know. Are you ready? Can
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we sit you on a small throne with a Socrates
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: robe on or Solomon's crown or something like that so
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that we're ready to talk the ethics and make some
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: rulings here? Marcus, are you ready for that?
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I'm ready. Bring me my cape.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Instead of a crown, he's actually wearing a cowboy's hat.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Everybody should know listening to this. So that's the opposite
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of wisdom. And I shouldn't insult my guest at the
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: beginning of the show. All right. Anyway, talk about a
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: scenario that happened in the four sport league. And it
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: was noticed by a couple of people. Last episode that
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: came out was the Detroit Sonics episode. That is the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: episode where we crowned our first or our second four
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: sport overall champion. Craig, Kevin had won the first two
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: years and this year, it was Anthony and Danny. And
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: there was a very interesting scenario that came up in that,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that I want to discuss from an ethical perspective. We're
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: all very familiar with the idea of tanking, the idea
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of I'm losing so that one day I can win.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Even the idea of I'm going to Maybe ease up
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: on the gas in the last week of the regular
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: season to get a favorable matchup. Maybe somebody had an
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: injury and they're not nearly as good as they are
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: on paper. These are the same kind of dilemmas that
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: pro sports teams deal with. But we had a scenario
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that I had never contemplated before. Now, I know, Marcus,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you and I, as we're getting into the last couple
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of weeks of fantasy season in our dynasty leagues, where
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: an overall title is on the line. where our placement
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: in all four different sports matters for whether we end
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: up in the cash for the top spots. I know
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: you and I, we both are like planning out the scenarios,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: figuring out how high would I have to get exactly.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Is fifth place good enough? Is it got to be
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: fourth place? All these types of things. And our guy
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Foggy faced, I don't think he even realized it at
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the time, but he faced a very interesting moral quandary.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: As we came to the last week of the season
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and it involves that Detroit Sonics win. I'm going to
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: try to set this up without being incredibly confusing and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: bogging you down too late. But here's the deal. Okay. Foggy,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: AKA Lachlanach, which I looked up and it turns out
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: that's a word for like Viking Raiders from the middle ages.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: It might be Welsh.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I will tell you, I am an expert on this
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: because I skimmed a Wikipedia article for at least 30
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: seconds on this. Marcus. But anyway, Lachlanot, aka Foggy, our
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Norwegian friend, is in the last week of the regular
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: season in the fourth of our four sports. So guys
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: are going to have to qualify for the playoffs at
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: this point. He is running, I believe, in second overall
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: at this point. And second is a significant place to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: be because you get cash at that point. And a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: lot more than third, a lot less than First, he's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: comfortably in first place with the buy in the fantasy
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: baseball league, which is what this is. And this is
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the week that he wins a matchup seven, one, and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: two over lovable losers, AKA Troy, who is in the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: last playoff spot at this point. And meanwhile, Detroit Sonics
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: is beating me seven to three, and they are going
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to jump lovable losers for a playoff spot. Now, Lachlan Ock, a.k.a. Foggy,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is already guaranteed no worse than third place in the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: overall because of where he is. He's just a step
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: behind Kevin at this point for the first place. They're
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: neck and neck. And the only other team that could
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: reach them is Detroit Sonics. If Detroit Sonics don't make
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the playoffs, there's no chance that they are ahead of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Lachlan Ock in the finals. But if they make it,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: they theoretically could pass.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Him, right?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So Lachlan Ock had nothing to win in this week.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And while Detroit and what they did was a very
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: unlikely scenario, by ensuring that Detroit did not make the playoffs,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: he would lose nothing by losing his matchup or by
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: not winning it by very much. Because by winning it
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: by a ton, he just barely got Detroit over the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: line to make the playoffs by one game. If anything
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: had gone just a little bit less overwhelming, he would
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: have made it. He had no chance to lose his seeding.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: And so basically, he let the wolf in the chicken house.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Is it the wolves? The foxes. The foxes in the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: hen house. He let the fox into the hen house,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and he could have kept it out and guaranteed himself,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: risking nothing, guaranteed himself second place overall by not starting
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: his most competitive lineup. Now, instead, he let Detroit win.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Detroit wins the first round. Detroit wins the second round
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: over Foggy and the absolute slimmest margin that could have happened.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Detroit wins the finals and beats both him and Kevin
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and leapfrogs them both.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And who knows if it wasn't Detroit who was on
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: just a heater, maybe Foggy even wins that semifinal in
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: which case he would have won the overall by beating Kevin. Basically,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I know this has been a long story, but basically
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: what this breaks down to is we've got.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: A guy who, could have slash should have eased up
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: a little bit on the gas and he would have
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: guaranteed himself hundreds of dollars more in an overall title.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But he didn't. Probably because he wasn't paying attention. Maybe
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: because he felt it wasn't ethical. And subsequently, he lost.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: He dropped all the way down to third. I am
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: of all the taking the gas off as a competitive
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: strategy to do better in the long run. This seems
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: like one of the, even if you're really pro, you
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: should never do anything but do your best to absolutely
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: crush every week, even if you believe that. This is
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the most, you know, borderline case, even for the hardcore
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: on that situation. I don't know. Marcus, what do you
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: think of this situation? And should Foggy have kept the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Sonics out of the playoffs?
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: That is, it's crazy to think of now. that you're
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: going back and revisiting it all. But at the time,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: just clarifying, Foggy didn't even know that this was the case,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: did he?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I think he's, he did speak up in the chat
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: at one point. And I don't think, I think it
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: was pointed out to him that he could have avoided
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: this by that last week matchup where he just crushed
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the guy. And again, the guy who would have got
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: in would have had no chance to move up ahead
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of him mathematically. So he would have won. In fact,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: would you have won third? In that case, MGM?
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think so. I think we were just on
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: the outside. We were just out there. We did too
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: bad in football, unfortunately. Our football team was offensive last year.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes. Offensive. They needed to be more defensive, too.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, man. Because I know you're plotting
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: this stuff out. If you and the boys, your two partners,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: had seen this and realized this scenario had come up,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: would you have been tempted? to ensure that you get
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: yourself in that better position? Or would you be like, nah,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: we're too far ahead. I wouldn't even worry about it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to plot it out that methodically. What
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: would you think?
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I love to say like right now, the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: spotlight is on and no one else can tell me
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: that I'm going to be as honest and virtuous as possible.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: But realistically, when you're looking at two week matchups for baseball,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: the championship is six weeks away. You're talking about the
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: last week of baseball. At that point, you're probably not.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: If you're at the very top, you've definitely seen what
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: can happen at the outcomes. But you don't want to
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: ever put yourself at risk. I would love to think
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: that you do things the right way because they're the
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: right way to be done. And everyone's going to see
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: that as you continue to go on. So I believe
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: we would have approached it the same way. you're just
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: looking at that week and you just want to keep winning.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: You want to keep the wins coming. It feels good
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: to win. You're beating them down. You're going to keep
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: beating them down and getting those high scores. And it
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: feels good to win. I mean, that's tough because at
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, when you're in the top
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: and there's only a couple of points, we were there
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: that first season with Kevin, where we tied for the
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: lead and we knew exactly what we needed to do
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: two months away to take the title. And it was
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: whoever placed higher in the sport was going to win
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day. And We didn't do it, unfortunately.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: But you knew at least two months ahead of time
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: exactly what the outcome was going to be. So that's tough, man.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: That's a tough question. But I would have kept going.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: You keep the same steady play. You set your lineups
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: every day. You put yourself in the best position to
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: win that week and move forward. So I think Foggy
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: did the right thing, even though it doesn't feel like
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: it in the end. You never know what's going to
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: happen in the playoffs, too. That's so many weeks away.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: At that point, he had a two-week bye and then
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: two additional weeks to actually perform. He did the right thing. Sorry, Foggy.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no. But if you ran the math, he had
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: nothing to lose and he could have locked in a gain.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And you might be like, that's such a remote possibility.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: But it turned out to come true. He actually could
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: have guaranteed himself the second spot instead of falling down
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to third by just taking it off the gas. Now,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I've looked back at some other things here. I would
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: say in that scenario, what would I feel ethically bound
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to do and ethically not bound to do? I would
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: feel like even though I was in a favored position,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm still responsible for trying to win and play a spoiler,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: even if it's for a guy who's competing with me
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: in the overall, that it is better sportsmanship for me
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to make an effort to win. That is something that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I feel good about. I would say... I probably would
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: have not taken apologies to people in the medical profession,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: heroic measures to overcome. I'm up seven to three on
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the second to last day, and I start streaming guys
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: so that I can win eight to two, or in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: this case, seven, one, and two. I'm not necessarily benching
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: guys the last day thinking I can just barely preserve
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: this ratio. I'm not gaming out To an incredible extent.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I don't need to. I'm already in position. I shouldn't
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: be responsible for scrapping to get somebody else in. But
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I do still, you can't really just start benching a roster.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: That's something that we feel pretty strongly about around here.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: But yeah, certainly calling up a minor league prospect and
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: burning an option at that point wouldn't do it. I
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: would hold on to that. But I don't think he
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: did anything like that. I don't see any waiver moves
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that Foggy made that week. He was just kind of
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: cruising and the other guy was imploding around him. That's
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the way. And that's the other thing is it just didn't,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: it didn't work out for Troy. He was obviously running
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: on some fumes at that point. And it didn't work out.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Too far, right? Because your matchup had a play in
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: it as well. And his didn't, unfortunately, but your matchup
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: had a play in it. And that's something that's completely
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: out of his control is how your matchup went. I
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: think when you look at it from a different lens,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: if he had not done anything to purposely put himself
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: in the best position to win, That one's more okay.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Like you said, he wasn't, he didn't need to go
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: ahead and burn and turn on the waiver wire. He
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: doesn't need to make buyouts. He doesn't need to call
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: up anyone from the minor system. And if he loses
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: because he didn't do any of that, I think that's
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: perfectly okay. You didn't have to go to extremes to
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: win in that moment. But we also look at it
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: from the perspective of our peers, right? So when we
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: look at our peers, are we doing what's in good
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: faith and the practice of good sportsmanship? Are we intentionally
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: not playing players to make sure that Sonics gets knocked out.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Because then when you have that next conversation with Sonics,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: where you two talk to each other about something, it's like, hey,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: remember that time you totally stiffed us because you intentionally
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: benched all those guys and we didn't get to play
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: and we didn't get to have a fair shot at it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: So if you look back on it that way, we
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: like to say that you do the right thing because
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: it's the right thing to do. You hope that doesn't
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: bite you in the butt as it did Foggy this time.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: But if he didn't do anything that was intentionally trying
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: to drive Sonics out. Whereas even if he was just,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: if he knew this and just did the bare minimum
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: and still won, kudos, he has a great team, right?
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: It showed because he was in first place all year
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: and it still needed, it's that last thing when you
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: look at the NFL, like here's your playoff picture. You
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: got to win out and you need lots of help.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: That just was fortunate to be the case for Sonics.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: That improbable situation hurt Foggy in the long run, but
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: you have to really hope that all of these dominoes fall.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: in order for that to happen. And when you look
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: at it from an integrity standpoint, the next time those
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: two have that conversation, it can go the other way, right?
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Remember that time I did all the right things for
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: you guys and you ended up winning that title? You
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: can throw a bone this way instead of having that
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: other conversation of, hey, remember that time you stiffed us
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: on purpose? We're going to hold that one against us.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: So it's integrity. It goes more than just the box score,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: the standings.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And looking at it, I think actually if you
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: look at that matchup too, It really wasn't even as
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: close as 7-1-2. What it came down to is they
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: tied in home runs, they tied in wins, and Troy
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: won strikeouts by one, like 48-47 or something. So it
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't even that close. None of the other categories were close.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So seven of the categories were just locked down, and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: it was a matter of just a little bit. So
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: it would have had both those ties. The home runs
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and the wins would have had to flip Detroit's column
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and then he would have tied Detroit Sonics. I don't
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: know whether he had that tiebreaker at this time. I'm
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: only going to go so far into this, but we
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: have the ethical. Yeah. So we're really we're ethical absolutists
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: on this one. Then Marcus is like you always play
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to win the game, even when it might not advantage
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you in the long term. And that's the opposite of tanking.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: That's the opposite of strategic type stuff. I think it's
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: okay in a rotisserie type league. It's okay to trade
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a stat to somebody else to help them win or
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: pass one of your opponents. Say we're in a roto
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: league together, Marcus, and we're both competing and we're neck
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and neck. and I've got an excess of stolen bases,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and there's somebody who's a slot behind you in stolen bases,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I could trade him a speedster so that he could
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: pass you and take a point away from you. I
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: think that's perfectly fine. You're doing something indirect to try
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to beat your opponent, but it's still pretty clearly you're
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: trying to win, and you're presumably risking less than you're gaining.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: by doing that. There are indirect things that you can do,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: but I agree with you that I don't think I
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: would want to take my foot off the gas at
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that point.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I agree with you with the Roto one too,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: for that example, because that is also, you have a
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: different perspective in the Roto league. It's not as personal
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: in that sense, because you're not matched up against someone
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: one-on-one and you don't feel that. When they played me,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: they started everybody and I didn't make it because I
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: was just on the fringe too. But this week, how
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: unfortunate that I got pedal to the metal but then
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: this one they let up you don't really get that
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: personal fan that maybe you do if you're in depth
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: about it in roto but you don't have that personal
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: feeling of someone who intentionally played tight against you not
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: for someone else that's all rivalries are born to though
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: right but yeah i think making the competitive effort every
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: week is the right thing to do in the end
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: and that regardless of if you're going for the title
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: or you're You're not, and you're going for that completely
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: other side of the standings. It's the right way to
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: do it. We got to be competitive. There's countless examples,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: both in every league that we've ever been on, those
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: guys that just tank absolutely or put up some not
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: ideal behavioral practices when setting lineups. But it also shows
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: in real NFL too. Just because you're putting yourself in
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: a great position, there's a great one which the Jets
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: made that who knows if the Jets will ever recover.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: But in 2020... They were primed to have the number
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: one pick, and that year it was Trevor Lawrence coming out,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: who was the generational quarterback at the time, right? And
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: then Adam Gase won weeks 15 and 16, which they
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: shouldn't win ever, right? Especially Adam Gase winning. He was
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: improbable at best. But they won both of those weeks,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: and then they knocked out, and they got, oh, my God,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: the BYU kid, Zach Wilson, who changed the franchise forever
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: in the positive, right? So even in the NFL where
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: things are so high at stake and you are presumably–
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: guaranteed to get the number one overall pick. Players are
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: still out there trying their very hardest to win. And
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: you kind of want to try to replicate that as
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: best as we can, even within fantasy.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I always think of the Texans too. I forget
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the coach. Gosh, it wasn't D'Amico Ryan's because that's who
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: they have now. But it was a coach that was
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: just about to be fired. One of those longtime defensive coaches.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And they won the last week just to stick it
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in the eye of the owner because they The coach, frankly,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: football is the team where I worry the least about tanking,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: because in all the other sports, it seems like there
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: is more tanking. There's more tinkering with the roster because
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: there are fewer guys who make an impact in football.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You don't you could. Would you? bench a quarterback the last,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like a star quarterback the last week? First of all,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: would you have a star quarterback if you're all the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: way that far back in the draft? Probably not, but
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: it really, it really, yeah, it really can come back
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: to bite you. Okay.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: It was the year that actually in the end is
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: probably fine. They, D'Amico, it was D'Amico Ryan's.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: No, it was Lovey Smith. Lovey Smith.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Lovey Smith.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Okay. But it was, they ended up taking CJ Stroud
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: over Bryce Young. I think in that draft, because they
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: dropped down a couple of spots, which probably was fine
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to be honest with you. By the time it was
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: all said and done, even though Stroud has regressed considerably since.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And the truth is we talked to Danny and Tony.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: It would have been a not, I don't think they
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: would have even caught this. They were four games behind
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: at this point. They thought they were eliminated. They were
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: surprised as anybody when they got in that last week.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And I think they would have blamed themselves. They would not,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: nobody would have caught Foggy. And so the ultimate ethical test,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: what would you do if you wouldn't get caught doing
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: something like that?
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: They're always going to get caught for what it's worth.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Someone knows. I'll tell you, Glenn usually keeps a really
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: good track of all that, being one of the commissioners
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: as well. He gave it to us, I think, a
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: few months into baseball season. He told us exactly what
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: needed to happen for us to have a chance. And
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: we were in the playoffs. We were close, right? But
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: just too much stuff happened from other sports to give
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: us the opportunity to place in the top three this year.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: But we were right on the outside. But he said,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: if these people win baseball, they win the four sport.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: And it was not guaranteed to be a Kevin year.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: And that was a few months before. And then once
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: he told me that we couldn't win, I didn't care anymore.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm out. We're just going to try
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: to win baseball. So that way we can win something. Yeah.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: Someone would have saw it. Someone would have saw it,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: even if they didn't.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: It really was fortuitous in the end that the top
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: three overall finishing teams were the top three teams in baseball.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: they got the top three finishes. So there was no
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: real chance for anybody else to catch up and make
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a miracle run. You guys probably figured that out early
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is that, yeah, if one of those teams had been bad,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: maybe you'd have a chance, but unfortunately they were all
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: pretty good. just as they had been in other sports
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: on average. Yeah, anyway, I think we beat that one
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: to death. But one more tip of the hat to Foggy,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: who could have gotten away with something, and the thought
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: didn't even occur to him. Much nicer than the Viking
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Raiders on which he based his name. And as a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: half Norwegian man myself, I assume that half of my
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: ancestors were those Viking Raiders, and the other half were probably...
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I'm descended from the people who they rated and carried
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: away with them when they went back. But Marcus, what
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was your other point here?
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I just wanted to say, first of all, absolutely foggy.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Great job, man. It was a great season. And then
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: shout out to the Sonics. You guys crushed it. Way
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: to finish off. Way to finish off with two dubs, right?
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Win baseball. Actually, three dubs. Win baseball. Win the three sport.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And then dethrone Kevin. Always a great one. But it
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: happened before, right? He just kept winning. So I was happy.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: He's going to keep catching strays. I don't care.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like there should be like a jingle or
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a theme song every week. Kevin catches a stray. A
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: little jingle that I could play every time it comes up. Yeah,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: poor Kevin, man. Finally, he's trying it.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: He lost it on purpose because he just wants to
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: be able to win trades again. So he's faking us
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: out by just taking a little rope-a-dope step back. That's
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: probably what happened.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: You sure didn't help him with that hockey trade. We'll
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: see in a couple of years how that plays out, right? Yeah.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I did have one more thing though, because I know
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: we talked about the ethics of when you're trying to
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: win and like, how well do you take those wins?
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: And I know tanking is talked to exhaustion on all podcasts,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: but just a quick, maybe a couple of minutes on
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the ethical standpoints, in your opinion, when it comes to
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: tanking intentionally within fantasy or dynasty fantasy.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: That would never happen in the four sport. Not that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: some people haven't been talked to and it's so hard.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It is so hard to police, I can tell you
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: as a commish, to catch these things. But you do
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: notice that some people are really– the way our format works,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: if you finish in the bottom six, then you have
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: to win a tournament of those bottom six teams to
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: get the number one overall pick. So you start to
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: notice who does that because that means you have to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: have a good enough team to win three games in
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a row at the end while being a bad enough
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: team that you finished in the bottom third. And the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: real tanking break in our league is the difference between
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the 12th and the 13th spot. So I'm always watching
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: who finishes 13th because there's a real incentive to get
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: down to the bottom six at that point. You're only
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: going to lose one point in the overall standings, but
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you have the opportunity to get that generational talent. And
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: we've had a couple instances that I did not notice
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: at the time, and then were brought to my attention
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: later where people were a little bit More on that side.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And I don't feel it's responsible to do that. I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: do think it is totally within bounds to trade the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: heck out of the valuable players on your team and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: make yourself into a team that can rebuild by getting
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: a high draft pick, by selling off old guys. I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: totally think that is a valid strategy. But as far
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: as not setting a lineup, We've talked about this before.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I think I brought this up from Dynasty Nerds, Bryce
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: from Dynasty Nerds, that they have a system in some
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: leagues where once you're eliminated the last few weeks, you
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: basically get a best ball on your team in some
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of the leagues just to prevent people from not setting
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a lineup. You get a best ball or somebody sets
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: your lineup and that's all it is because otherwise teams
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: would just start zero. That's one of the very few
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: areas where I think you can't You can't build it
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: into the settings because there's so much discretion involved in this.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to nitpick somebody starting a lineup
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: until they start a third string running back in front
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of Jonathan Taylor the last week of the season just
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to get a higher pick. Yeah, I don't know. What
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: do you think about this? You brought it up. What's
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: your sense here?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question because we just pointed out
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: the fact with the Texans and the Jets that it
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: does happen even in the real world. And you see
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: the bad hockey teams at the end of the season.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: They're still trying to win every game now. whether or
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: not someone gets put on IR is not for us
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: to make a decision about, right? We don't know how
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: exactly how it works on this side. But when it
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: comes to fantasy, it's usually pretty apparent, right? You can,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: if someone's doing it intentionally, you can put the pieces
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: together after a while, just as you noticed, there are trends, right?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: But when it comes to tanking, there's absolutely right ways
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: and wrong ways to do it. There's ethical ways and unethical,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: excuse me, based on what the rules are. So like
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: you said, trading away your vets or If you have
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: a really bad team and you're locked in at that
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: bottom third and then purposely buying some players at the
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: deadline to give yourself the advantage come the tournament. I
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: love that. Keeping players in the minors because they're minor
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: eligible all season long and then calling them up. Kudos
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: to you, right? That's the way to do it. Purposefully
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: not playing players because they're going to do too well
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: for you, right? That's the wrong way to do it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: And it's harder to see in some sports, especially category sports,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: because what if I'm actively trying to win this category?
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: but then not playing your best three players all year
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: because they're not good at free throws, right? It doesn't really,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: it's hard to make the same argument, right? So it's
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: definitely complicated. It's a much easier to see in the
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: points categories than the category, yeah, cats. Much easier to
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: see in points leagues than category leagues, but it comes
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: down to the same thing, right? As long as you're
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: then everyone's going to be better overall. And it'll really help.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: continue to build. The whole thing about fantasy is continuing
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: to building camaraderie with your peers and building that fantasy
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: family where y'all get to do things like this and
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: chat it up all the time, trade talks. Those talks
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: are a lot less exciting when you're dealing with someone
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: who you don't really appreciate from an ethical standpoint. So
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: do the right thing, folks.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: And we'll, I think we've talked about this a little before,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: but some of the places where this really hits the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: road is I totally agree with you. If there's a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: cost to calling up somebody from the minors and it
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: is going to hurt you for the long term, I
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: don't feel you should have to take, like you said,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: heroic measures. Now, there can be scenarios that get borderline
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: on this. Like, for example, you have two quarterbacks on
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: your roster and they both get hurt. You don't have
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a quarterback. And without a quarterback in most fantasy football formats,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you have no chance. And there's a fantasy football quarterback
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: on the wire and you have an open spot on
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: your roster. Should you pick him up? I kind of
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: feel you should, but I can never really punish somebody
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: for not making a waiver move. Now, I've been in
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a league, the three-sport league once, where a team lacked
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: a quarterback, just did not have one, and somebody else
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: had four quarterbacks and was trying to trade it to
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: them and felt that it was unethical that person would
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: not accept a trade for the quarterback and trade something
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: valuable away. That person's argument was, look, these guys are injured.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to win this year. I've got another
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: one in college on the way. I'm not going to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: pay draft capital. I'm not going to pay player capital
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to set this up to win. Now, I think if
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: there's somebody freely available who fills an amazing gap on
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: your roster and you have lots of roster spots, then
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it's probably responsible to do that. But it's really hard
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to hold. that against somebody. Have you run into that
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: situation before?
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we have. I actually had some great ones that
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: we ran into before, especially with football, because that happens
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: quite frequently in football. And since we don't typically play
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: contracts in football that often, there's not a lot of
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: repercussions for this. But I'm with you. If someone doesn't
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: have someone You can't make it a requirement for them
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: to pick people off the waivers. You can't hold them
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: responsible for you are not actively engaging in the wire. Technically,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: if they don't have a quarterback and they don't play one,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: they just don't have one. Even if they had someone
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: in the minors that they could play, if it burned
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: a minor option, I'm still going to say, okay, they're
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: in the minors. Rules say you have minors. I understand
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: we're not required to call people up for the minors.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Some of the fun ones I've seen are that someone
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: will pick someone up and then drop them immediately. So
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: they go on waivers and can't be picked up again
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: until after the week is over. And that prevents someone
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: from getting it. Or we had one where it was
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: a championship game and the tiebreaker was most points scored
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: on the bench or something. And they ended up tying.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: And it was a Monday. They were tied going into
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Monday night and neither of them had any players left.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: So they picked up Ben Roethlisberger, who played on a
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Monday night game and got bench points for them. And
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: they ended up winning because of the bench points. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: they were like, no way. You shouldn't have been able
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: to do that. That was the most interesting and fun
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: tiebreakers that happened. But both players have the opportunity to
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: do it. You're not required to use the waiver if
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: you don't want to use it. And you're not required
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: to call people up for minors if you don't want to.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: So those ones I'm fine with. But ethically starting... To
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: what your best opinion would be the most competitive lineup
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: each week is the right play.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And by the way, in fan tracks, there is a
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: setting to prevent people from picking up a guy, dropping
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: him back and putting him on waivers. Set that, but
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: in Yahoo, you're screwed.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about these ethical issues. We have
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: some other ones that we'll get to right after the break. Marcus,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: this has been the episode of borderline calling people out.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to become a controversial figure, but I had
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: some thoughts on a scenario that came up this week.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I'm trying very hard not to turn this into a subtweet.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And because frankly, the scenario I'm describing, there could be
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: lots of extenuating circumstances. And you should always consider that
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: when you think you're ready to accuse somebody. I'll tell
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: you from 20 years of being a manager and having
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to look into situations with somebody, one of the things
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that I learned early on and was always reinforced to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: me is there's almost always a second side to the story.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Never jump to a conclusion on somebody having bad behavior
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: after you only hear one side of it, because there
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: usually is a second side of the story. But Here's
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the scenario. Brand new dynasty league that started up and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: we've just finished year two. In year one, the manager
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: wins the league, wins the big prize, takes all the money.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Second year, barely sets a lineup, finishes 14 out of
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: 15 in Roto, didn't have enough innings pitched to even
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: qualify for the pitching category. So took a zero in
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: all those categories and And had about two-thirds the number
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of hitter games played as the first place team. So
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't starting to line up. Was not actively managing this.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: And then quit the league at the end of the year.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: So obviously was not paying attention to it a whole
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: lot during the year. Quit it after the year. So
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just this situation. But I know there have
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: been other situations, let's say, in some of the other
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: leagues that I commissioned. where somebody goes for a win
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: now build. And then after they take the money in
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: year one, or after their team has hit their peak,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: they're out. I'm not a poker player. I'm not somebody
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: who has a group of buddies that he plays poker with.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: But to my understanding, if you were to show up
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: at a poker game with friends and on the first hand,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: win all of their money and then say, sorry, guys,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I'm out. I'm going home for the night. That probably
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: would not be looked upon very kindly by the rest
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: of the guys in the room or gals. So I
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: throw it to you, Marcus. I have a problem with this,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: not knowing the other side of it, but the idea
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of somebody winning a league and then walking away from
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: it one year later. What do you think?
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't like it. That's one of the hard
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: parts about dynasty is that, what do they say? Most
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: dynasties fail within the first couple, two, three years anyways.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: And that's a big reason why. I've been a part
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: of several fantasy leagues, not several, but a couple already
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: where it's just one season and then it's done, or
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: we're just beginning in the second reason. And then people
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: didn't like rules and then it all starts to fall apart. Right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: It happens to everybody. And for as long as you've
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: been playing, I'm sure you've seen this quite a few times,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: but those are the behaviors that don't help leagues last
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: at all. Right. Those are the reasons why leagues don't
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: last for people that do these kinds of things. Good
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: as that person for winning the first year, but, I
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: would love to know why they didn't want to play
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: the second year, why they didn't just, we're all adults
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: for the most part, we have some youngins here, but
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: everyone that plays for more or less is an adult
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: who can communicate like an adult. And if there was
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: something going on, why not just say that, right? Why
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: not explain, I have a situation, I'm going to be
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: pretty inactive and I'll do my best. Usually when that happens,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: I know commissioners don't like to take on all the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: heavy lifting, right? But if there's an extenuating circumstance, I'm
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: sure there's settings in fan tracks where commissioners can help
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: someone out. Or, hey, maybe you need a buddy to
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: help co-manage this year, right? They have a good team, clearly, right?
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Good enough to win the whole thing one year. They
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: might not win it again, but I'm sure there's a
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: competitive roster there. But there's always things that can be
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: done to support each other whenever we're going through something.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: So why not, at the bare minimum, why don't we
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: have the conversation? At the bare minimum. Yeah.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And that is something that I always want to do
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: with people. I try to, when I'm the commissioner, I'm
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: not the commissioner of this league. When I'm the commissioner,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I do have that conversation with the person when I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: start to see the inactivity. And I, frankly, there are
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: some managers who probably feel like I shouldn't say anything.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: That's none of my business. That's something somebody else does.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: If I'm the commissioner, I want you to narc because
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I need, I've got so many leagues. I cannot pay
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: attention to everybody's lineup and I will have the conversations.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: That's what I get to be there for is I
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: get to be the one to have that conversation, but
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I need, frankly, people to pay attention to this. I
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's a
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: matter of somebody needs to be paying attention to what's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: going on around them in the league because that's what
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: makes a fun league. There are two major reasons. And again,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know this person's side of the story. I
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: don't know it at all. So I'm not going to
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: say that I understand exactly what happened here, but there
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: are two major scenarios that I usually see going on here.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: One of them is the person... There's so many people,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and you hear experts say this on their shows, or
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: you hear talking heads say this on fantasy shows. I
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: should call us all talking heads. Most dynasty leagues collapse
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: within one or two years, and then it becomes a
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: self-fulfilling prophecy because they say you should always draft a
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: win-now team because that's not going to be there in
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a couple of years. If that's the philosophy you go
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: into it with, I've always felt like If you go
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: into it thinking this league is going to collapse in
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: a couple of years, I need to draft a win
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: now team. You're not going to be there to build
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: an effective league because you've already gone into it with
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the commitment that you're only going to have to worry
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: about this for one year. I always have the parakeet
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: theory of being in new dynasty leagues, adopting new dynasty leagues.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: A parakeet is going to live for, I don't know,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: 70 years sometimes. If you're not ready to do that,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: go get yourself a goldfish because you don't need to,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: somebody's going to have to take care of that parakeet someday.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Don't just get the parakeet. That's a stupid idea. Seems
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: cool at the time, but get yourself a goldfish. If
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: you think you can handle 15 years, get yourself a
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: dog or a cat. But that's, so there's a sort
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of cavalier theory of why people do it in terms of,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to show up and lose. And then
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I should say that's two different things. One of them
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: is the The league's not going to last anyways. Who cares?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to draft a win now. I'm going to win.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: And then it doesn't really matter what happens after that.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: And the other is the parakeet theory of I've taken
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: on this league, but now it's too much for me.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't focus on how much that is. And I
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: just casually join new leagues and leave leagues that are
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: dynasty leagues for whatever reason, just because I've changed my
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: mind over the course of a couple of months. And
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I just don't want to pay attention to it anymore.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think both of those are problems.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: The best thing you can do to cure this, first
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: of all, are those the problems that you see when
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: people do this or are there other sort of archetypes
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: of things like this that you would identify?
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: I think that's definitely a common ground. We see that.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: We also talked about that last year, I believe, where
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: we talked going into your draft strategy. Are you going
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: in tanking or are you going in assuming that we're
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: going to be competitive right out the gate? And part
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: of that is everyone should always have that little feeling
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: of I'm always going to draft competitively because I don't
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: know how long this league's actually going to last. going
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: to last for. Right. So you want you have to
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: keep that in the back of your mind when you
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: have great people. It makes it a lot easier to
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: make those decisions. And when we were going into the
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: fourth part, we were just like, you know what, we're
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: going to go for it because we want to win.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: But also you'd Never know. But here these guys are
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: pulling people that actually play a lot of fantasy and
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: want to do this. So you felt like it was
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: going to be around for a long time. But even then,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: we've seen a lot of turnover already, right? So there
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: is always going to be turnover for so many different reasons.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: We just don't know. But yeah, man, it is definitely
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: the dilemma. You're not wrong. And from the ones that
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: we've seen, I've joined a handful. Once I started getting
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: into Dynasty, we made one that disbanded in the second
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: right after the fantasy draft. There was a baseball one
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: that didn't even make it the whole first season. Four
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: or five people just stopped playing altogether. And it was
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: just everyone trying to trade with the three people that
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: weren't going to make the playoffs to figure out what happened.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: And then you have to worry about, now is there collusion?
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Did someone offer someone because that trade didn't look great?
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: We know that three people aren't even active anymore. Are
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: people doing things on the side to try to just
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: win this one year since everyone's already paid? Kind of
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: thinking that happened, unfortunately.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: you hate to see it, but everyone's experienced these at
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: one point or another. Yeah, it's thanks, man. It does.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: The most important thing to a long-term survival of the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: league is the ability to have the ability to recruit
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: replacement managers, frankly. And that's a depressing thing to say,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: but the in this league ones that I've managed, generally speaking,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: when a position is opened up, it's been, I've had
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: to draw names to figure out who gets in it.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: The fact that there's a line of people who really
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: helps in a couple of ways. First of all, I
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: never want a team to give up in the middle
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of the season and then just sit there. They're getting replaced.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: If you can't set your lineup, if you're not engaged
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: in this at all, I'm going to replace you now.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: And some new manager is going to take over and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to make them pay in that year.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: And frankly, if you've dropped out of it, you're not.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: going to get paid out of that. That's a sunk
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: cost anyway for the entry fee or whatever. But I'm
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: putting somebody else in charge right now if you're not
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: taking care of it. And then that makes the league
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: more attractive to everybody else who stays. If you know
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: there's three dead teams and you feel like this whole
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: league is about ready to collapse, the league is going
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to be less fun for everybody. If you get a
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: full set of committed managers, that raises the morale of
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: everybody in the league. So- It's important to take care
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of those situations as quickly as you can. But the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: other side of that point is the most important thing
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: to a successful league, in addition to the ability to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: recruit replacement managers, is to have a group of cool
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: people who like being with each other. If nobody ever
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: talks in a league, some people are like, oh, there's
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: never trades going on. Some of the time, the person
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: who's saying that is sending out some real bad bogus
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: trade offers and that's why there's no trades going on
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: but it is true that like in our league there's
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of trading and it partly because four sport
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: dynasty lends itself to that the way we do draft
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: picks lends itself to that but partly just because we
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: got a lot of guys who are ready to talk
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: trash guys and gals who are ready to talk trash
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis and be involved and be a
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: group of friends i will share one other detail about
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: this league that the person left There are two other
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: teams that are on the outs. But this is a
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: league where there are talking heads involved, folks. And this
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: is one of those examples of never meet your heroes.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Because if you ever get recruited to be a part
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: of a league and you find out, oh my gosh,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I listened to four of these people's podcasts. This is
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: going to be so amazing playing with them. Sometimes that's good.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that's bad.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: Because.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: What you find out is that people who create a
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: lot of content sometimes aren't quite as involved in micromanaging
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: every team that they have. And sometimes they're folks that
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you hear have 15 teams and are actively trying to
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: get out of half their leagues on a regular basis.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: It raises the question, why did you start another league anyway?
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Usually they get talked into it. You never want to
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: be in a league that most of the people had
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: to get talked into joining.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: You want a league where everybody was fired up to
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: do this. Oh, this is so cool. We're with the
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: right people. We all have the bandwidth. We're all ready
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: for the parakeets. And we're going to get ourselves in there. Sometimes,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I hate to say it, the talking heads can be
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: some of the least engaged people in a league. For
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: those listening to the Keeping Carlson podcast, by the way,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the fantasy hockey podcast that I still consider to be
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: one of the flagships, they are the exact opposite of this.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: You can't play in a league with Elon and Brian
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: from keeping Carlson and expect to beat them. They will
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: beat your butt every time you're in a league with them.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that I really respect
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: is that if they join leagues, they are freaking good
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in those leagues. And they are actively engaged. And you
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: want to play against people like that. Sometimes not every
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: person whose opinion you should respect because they know a
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: lot about baseball is that way when they play a league.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Victor is in almost last place in the Diesel Hockey League.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Just messing with you, Victor. Now, I'm glad you said
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: that too. There's a couple of things that you can
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: do too to try to dissuade players or managers from
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: doing some of those practices. The one thing I will show,
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: I give Liz and Scott just joined the Diesel League,
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: the Caniacs, and I'm in a hockey league with Liz
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: where she's the commissioner and I give her a lot
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: of crap. Most of it's just for fun because that's
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: just the kind of person that I am. So if
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: you're hearing this, Liz, just know it's all for fun
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: for me. But at the end of the day, she
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: has a couple of practices in there that I really
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: liked and we've adopted into some of my own leagues
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: where I manage. So the first one is you pay
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: for your first in advance, right? So if you're going
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: to go ahead and trade all of your picks, you're
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: going to pay for those picks like you would pay
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: for your full league dues each year that you pay first.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: And in a 32-team league, that's a pretty significant pick, right?
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: Right out the gate because you might end up picking
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: for 60-something picks at that point. So that's a good one.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: We've seen a lot less turnover once they started implementing
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: that or it was easier to fill those teams because
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: they still had all their draft picks or a majority
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: of their draft picks or the exciting ones. So that
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: was a good implementation. And then she implemented, if you
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: have so many illegal lineups throughout the season, you will
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: just lose your pick or it gets moved to the
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: end of the draft cycle. So you don't lose it,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: but you will lose where it's at as part of
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: a punishment for not being active. And what we've seen
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: from that is people communicate better. right? Those teams that
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: aren't sending their lineups, we found out reasons why they weren't.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: And that's how you get supported, right? So they weren't
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: trying to not be there. They just were dealing with
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: some extenuating circumstances and they were able to communicate that.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: They didn't need to share with the league per se,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: but they did. So we all had an ideal and
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: it just helps bring everybody a little bit closer together.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: So we started implementing that. I know when we started
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: our contract football league, we did, you pay half of
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: your dues upfront every time you trade a first round pick.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: And we knew that was going to weed out some
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: of those rough trades when you start a new dynasty
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: league from everyone who's thinking, I just need one more
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: player to be the team. And then they realize they
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: stink and then they have no picks and they're not good.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And then they leave. We did have some turnover those
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: first couple of years as expected from anyone. But anyone
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: who traded those picks, we already had half their dues.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: And we're just like, hey, you know what? You only
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: owe this much for the new person joining in. The
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: rules that we set were in a place where you
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be tanking for long. We have a nice free
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: agent rule in there. And then after this is the
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: fifth year now, we were able to get rid of that.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: We had a couple of years with no turnover and
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: now we know everyone knows what they're doing and we're
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: in a good spot of how to manage everything. So
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: we just got rid of it. We don't need to
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: pay in advance anymore. And that was something that really
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: held the league together for a few years while we
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: were working out all the kinks of a newly established contract.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: I won't say the name of the platform since it
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: It doesn't start with an F, but I guess.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: You don't sponsor this show, Marcus.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'm a partisan.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: You don't sponsor this show. Say what you got to say, man.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: I got you. So there are some other ones that
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: offer some really unique insights for contracts. Like League Tycoon
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: does it for fantasy football. And it's been really fun
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: to mess around. Nobody knew what they were doing because
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: it was brand new for everybody when we started. So
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: there was some failures. And then people that succeeded early
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: are failing hard now because those didn't work and people
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: learned how to deal with it. Yeah. Implementing some of
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: those rules really helped alleviate the stresses of having to
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: replace players every year, which like you said, is the
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: hardest part about being the commissioner.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up Liz and Scott because yeah,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: they have been excellent replacement managers and kudos to you
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: and the boys from your team finding them for us
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: because they are rock stars. They took over a team
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: that was bereft, that had never made the playoffs in
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: any sport in three years of existence, partway through this year.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: So it was a downtrodden team. They're in first place
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: in hockey right now. I know it's extremely early, but shoot,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: they have figured some stuff out. And she's an incredibly
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: good manager. I like some of those practices she brings up.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: It's probably too late to bring them into some of
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the leagues that I manage because it's been a while. Now,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the whole idea of paying ahead your dues has always
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: been a dilemma for me. As far as quitting leagues, Marcus,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: we should bring up that we first met in a
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: league where I recruit. you as a replacement and you
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: bowed out after one year. But folks, I want to
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: tell you, Marcus did it the right way. He gave
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: me plenty of notice. First of all, he took over
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: an orphan, which is a favor to me anyway. That's
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: not like starting the league and then just trading all
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: your stuff and disappearing. That's frankly doing a public service
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: for kind of a bad team for a year. And
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: then I got another replacement. But finding out you just
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: didn't like the format.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: And that's a very legitimate reason to come and join
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and leave a league. First of all, before I go
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: on with my point, Marcus, do you want to defend
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: yourself for the accusations of crimes that I just made?
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: I did indeed lead the Gary Payton league after one season.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: I communicated with Jesse. I was in it. I tried
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: to make some trades. I think I made a couple
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: of trades when I was knowing I was going to,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm in it. Let's do this. And
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I honestly didn't even realize I've never played Roto before.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: And I was like, Hey, why don't I have a
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: matchup against anyone? They're just like, that's not what Roto is.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: And I was like, wow, for as long as I've
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: been playing fantasy, it had never occurred to me that
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: I don't play against someone else. Even in my old
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: fantasy baseball days in middle school, we still did head
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: to head on Yahoo back in the day. So I'd never,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: ever played Roto. And I went, I don't like this whatsoever.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Where's the excitement of getting to beat someone and then
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: talk crap to them right after you beat them. And
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: that was just something that I found hard to keep
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: up with for the whole length of a season. It
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: was easy to manage the games played and not easy,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: but it's easy to manage your games played and how
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: many games you played at each position slot, et cetera.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: But Really, I just missed the rivalry of being able
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: to talk crap to someone about beating them. So it
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: just wasn't for me. And once I realized that I
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: wasn't going to keep with it, I just let Jesse
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: know I'm not going to make any trades. Just in general,
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to spend picks. I know I've got
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: to set the team up. I'll still make waiver acquisitions,
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: and I'll still try to put myself in a position
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: to be– I knew I wasn't going to win, but
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: to be in around that top three for a payout
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: to the best that I could without compromising any of
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: the future. And then as soon as I was done,
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I just let it go. Just let it go. but
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: it was a good league. And I learned a lot
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: about basketball in the meantime. And that was the goal
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: was to learn about basketball. I didn't have any intent
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: of leaving, but it just wasn't for me. And just,
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: you try to do the right thing because it's the
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: right thing to do, but I'm also not going to
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: do something and just hate it all the time. At
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: the same time, we've all left.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And that is a league boy. Talk about
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: people ghosting a league. This is one that was set
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: up and 20 people were recruited. And then the commissioner
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: goes to the league. And I ended up, He ended
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: up saying, Jesse, could you do this? It's easy. Just
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: enforce the step-in rule and just make sure it's really easy.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I know better than that, but I like this league.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: And it's been so painful to try to keep going.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: It started out with 20 teams. Now it's down to 16.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Last year, I was like, look, people, you all make
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: me do the recruitment of replacements every year because I'm
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the commissioner. That drives me nuts. I'm like, We're all
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: in this thing. Go find somebody, please. Somebody else find
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: somebody because I, you know, I'm going out to message
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: where I found Marcus in a completely unrelated discord server,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I believe. And that's how we met in the first place.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: So thank goodness that happened. What a wonderful thing to
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: come out of it. Now you're, you're, you're my best
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: guest on this show. And so at least I'm sorry.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Eat it, Craig. Craig's not listening. And believe me, Victor
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: is definitely not listening.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: I know. I know. I don't know.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: You want no. So, Yeah, I think that that is
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: a different situation for people who haven't played Roto. Baseball
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: people generally started in Roto. Football people started in head
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: to head. And now people approach Roto in especially in
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: basketball or baseball where it's most amenable to do Roto.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: It's like writing in calligraphy or something. You'd be like, wow,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: this is slow. Why would anybody still do this? Versus
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: texting or something. so it's a just a different type
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: of life to have to do roto and that's the
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: only roto league i think i'm practically in at this
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: point so yeah it's still a it's still a conundrum
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: maybe i have another roto league but not many of
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: them not many of them anymore and that's still the
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: old school baseball guys that's still what they play in
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: that so it's a different type of mindset but Yeah. No,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: recruiting those replacement managers is incredibly painful. I forget where
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: were we going before I made you defend yourself from
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: these accusations.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: You had someone left. Speaking of leaving leagues, speaking of
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: leaving leagues. Yeah. Yeah.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Speaking of leaving leagues.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, people definitely left that league. But, oh, I
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: know what it was about paying dues in advance.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes. Yes.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting dilemma. So there was a guy in
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: this league that I'm talking about. We had to pay
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: a year in advance at the beginning. We had to
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: pay two years. And the host said, the original commissioner
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: is like, okay, one of the rules here, you pay
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: a year in advance at all times. So you pay
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: two years coming in. Next year, you're going to pay
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: one more year. Next year, you're going to pay one
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: more year. And the idea is to prevent people from
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: just doing crazy things. Interesting. Then eventually one manager approached
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: me when I'd been managing it for five years at
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: this point. He's like, think about this. When do we
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: ever get that money back? The year ahead that we
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: have paid. It's like that money is gone anyway. If
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I leave the league, then I don't get it. If
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the league continues, it's just like I constantly have $ 50
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: sitting in escrow that I'm never going to see again.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: The only theoretical way to get that money back is
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: if the league folds and we refund everybody. So he
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: made that argument to me and I knew he was
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: going to eventually lead the league. So he had a
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: self self-righteous reason to do it. But I'm like, this
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: is a good point. Why are it be one thing
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: if we paid one year ahead? And actually, I like
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the idea of paying ahead if you're going to trade
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: a first round pick.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: But.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, it was kind of like, you're never getting that
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: money back. So what are we really doing here? To
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: that extent, I would be like, if I quit and
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I lose next year's fees or it doesn't really matter
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: because I was never getting that money back anyway. So
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: what I ended up doing is telling the league is, listen, guys,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: this doesn't make sense anymore. This year, nobody pays an
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: entry fee and we pay out this balance that we've
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: got sitting in our fan tracks pot that we roll
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: over every year. That's our prize money this year. Nobody pays.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: And people were reluctant, but we did it. And I
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe there's just something psychological about money being
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: out there, about you're going to stay. But it does
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: make a good point. You're never getting that money back
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: ever unless the league collapses. And then you better hope
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: it collapses with somebody responsible enough to pay that money back,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: because otherwise what's going to happen there?
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: And I've seen too many Reddit posts about that person
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: was not the responsible one that you're referring to, unfortunately. Yeah,
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: I agree 100%. I understand why that was a practice
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: because you kind of want to make sure that no
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: matter– you're always able to fill it if you know
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: that year is free, right? You always know someone will
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: come in. You'll get someone who will come in no
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: matter what a team looks like and go, it's for free.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: I will definitely see what I can do for free, right?
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: But then you got to worry about the next year.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: Are they going to stay after it wasn't for free? Yeah,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: I think even the full payout I thought was a lot.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: That's why we took it down to 50%. Even if
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: it's only $ 25 or $ 50, most people are playing more
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: than one league for the most part. When you're getting
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: into like this community, you get your buddies that you
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: work with. It's like, yeah, I do my fantasy with
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: my high school friends. That's my league I'm in, right?
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: And then you talk to other people. I'm in 27
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: different leagues, right? 25 times 10 is a little different
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: when you're talking about that. So even though it's only $ 25, $ 50,
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: And then even like a hundred dollars at a time,
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: it doesn't always feel like a lot that moment, but
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: we never know what everyone's going through or what percentage
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: of this league is how many, all the leagues that
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: they're in. So it just helps keep people in it.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: You don't want to just waste 50 bucks. Like our
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: football wanted me to fit. We did 50% buy-in for
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: the next league year and ours is a hundred dollars
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: a year. So it was like 50 bucks is still
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: a good, still a lot, man. $ 50 is a lot
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: of money and no one wants to just burn $ 50
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: by leaving, but it happened. Right. And the next year goes, oh,
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: it's a hundred bucks. I'll pay 50% of that, right?
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: It's easier to get that than, or if it's horrible,
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: it's like, we'll waive the fee this year. We're all
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: in agreement. We'll waive the fee for you to come in,
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: but you'll start with next year. It's already been partially
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: paid for. It's easier to eat it as a league
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: than it is to, you know, it's easier to just
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: eat it than it is to find a new person sometimes.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: And you raise a very important point about somebody coming
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: in and just blowing it out, trading all their future picks.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: We're not going to have time to talk about the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Red Rock League that we're in together. but one of
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the features of that in year one, there was one
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: guy who traded six years worth of first round picks.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: In fact, he traded six years worth of all his picks.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: You had picked six years in the future, which I
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: think is the same as the NBA. And he literally
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: had no picks left and he didn't win either, but
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: he just loved to trade and other people wanted those
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: picks and he just kept giving them up. And the
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: thing that I did respect about this Gary Payton league
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: that I took over was it had a step in rule,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: which frankly I should feel I feel should be in
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: almost every league, which is, yeah, we've got a few
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: years out that we go, but you must have a
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: same as the NBA's real step in rule, which is
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: you must own your own first round or you must
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: own a first round pick every other year into the
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: future at all times. And it was named after the
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers who in the eight 80s
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: would just trade away his first round, told his team
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: to trade away the first round pick every year just
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: because he didn't want to play the guys. So he
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't even doing it for competitive reasons. He was just cheap.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: And they eventually had to do that rule, which is
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: why every NBA guy In the first round, they get drafted,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: and they say it's for one team, but it's really
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: for another team. And you're like, why the heck is that?
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Because technically, until the draft's over, that stepping rule's in place.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: If you don't have a first-round pick the following year,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: that guy has to technically be your draft pick until
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: the draft's over. That's why that stupid stuff happens. at
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the draft because everybody keeps trading regardless. But yeah, I
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: like having that. And we have that in the Gary
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Payton league. I wasn't able to convince anybody to do
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: it in the four sport league or the three sport
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: league that I do, but that's why we only have
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: two years of picks in advance that are available for
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: draft trading all the time. Because if somebody does come in,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want them to come in like never another
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: draft pick ever, because you're never going to be able
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: to succeed in that scenario in those types of deep leagues.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: I noticed that when I joined the Red Rock League
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: is that some players have no picks. And I went,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: oh my God, what do they do every year? And
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: then when I was going through the contract stuff, I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: was like, man, I want to trade away all my picks.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: I don't want to have to draft people and require
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: them to be paid. So I actually did that. Luckily,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: I had a bunch of picks left over from the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: previous manager. Thank you for giving me picks. Person who
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: left before and actually really good team. Sometimes taking an
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: orphan is not a horrible thing. Unfortunately, I missed the draft.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: Sorry for your legacy at the same time. But yeah, parenting,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: it's a requirement.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: When you take over a team from somebody who literally
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: went to an NBA front office from our league, it's
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: not the worst thing in the world. But yeah, no,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: we'll get into more of that next week. I think
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: we're probably up on time here, Marcus, but we've got
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: more things to talk about. But I love talking dynasty
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: ethics with you. I hope that people could follow these
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: conversations and they didn't seem too inside baseball. But I
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: think everybody faces these same dilemmas. And I'm sure Have
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: their own opinions. Tweet them at us. Why not? You
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: can't tweet at Marcus because he's smart enough not to
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: be on social media. But you can tweet at me,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: DYN Sports Life, Jesse Sevier on Blue Sky, and tell
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: me about your worst dilemmas. Maybe they'll get covered on
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the show. Or if you want to be in the Discord,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: be in that. Anyway, Marcus, thank you so much for
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: coming on and discussing these. I love these conversations. Do
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: you have any last words that you want to give
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: to the people today?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: No way. Same as always, man. Just remember to have fun,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: enjoy it, get to know your league mates and continue
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: making fantasy a really great place to continue building our community. Jesse,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it. Even
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: if you did make me make a Twitter for the
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Red Rocks leagues, don't tweet me. I will never.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: I got you out of it quickly. I got you
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: out of it quickly. We moved into discord. So you're out.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: I appreciated that. Thank you.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks Marcus for coming on and I'll be
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: right back to close out the show. One important erratum
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to throw out. I hope I'm saying that right. Otherwise,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: it might be dirty. Erratum to specify before we get
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: out of here. I shouldn't call it parakeet. I shouldn't
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: call it a parakeet situation. Parakeets live six years. If
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you go into your dynasty leagues thinking six years, I
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: don't think you're doing it right. I'm going to go
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: ahead and say macaw because macaws last 50 to 80
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: years in captivity. Not that I expect your Dynasty League
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: to last 50 years, but we need to exaggerate to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: make the point. Parakeets are just not going to live
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: very long. So from now on, it will be the
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: macaw theory, not the parakeet theory. You can thank the
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: boys at In This League for hosting and posting this show.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: I always appreciate the work that they do there. You
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: can check out all their stuff. You can follow me.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: On X, I think I mentioned this. Shoot, I mentioned
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: this in the actual interview. I've never, not Matt. DY
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: in Sports Life. You can email me, dynastysportslife at gmail.com.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: You can hit me up on Blue Sky, Jesse Sevier,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: all one word. And you should, if you were into
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: some of the talk today, if you're like, man, I
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: would love to get in a league that was dedicated
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: like this, that I didn't think was just going to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: fold in a little bit. And again, you're maybe into
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: multiple sports. maybe even teaming up with somebody else, like
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the partnership we heard last week, reach out to me.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: I'd love to know about you because I'm always looking
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: to have somebody prepared to step in case something happens
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: with one of our managers because I'm not kicking people out.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've kicked anybody out yet, but people,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: stuff changes. And whether or not Marcus and I think
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: one way or another about it, the point is at
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the end, it's spilt milk. You don't get mad at people.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: You just move on and you need new managers. Thank
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: you for listening. Subscribe, rate, review, do all the cool things.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Until next time, good luck in all your Dynasty Fantasy Leagues.