NFBC Cutline Championship Rules

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here's one more cool thought about this format: Imagine the strategy you'll need to use with your FAAB budget. You just can't blow your budget on one player because you absolutely need 15 pickups at minimum to expand your roster during the season. And since you'll have injuries and disappointments along the way, you'll probably have 25+ pickups to budget your $1,000 on. So yes, you see a Jose Fernandez come available in your league and YOU WANT HIM!!! But what can you honestly spend on him and still have enough money for the rest of the season? It gets tricky because just one guy here in this format might not be as valuable as adding 14 other marginal guys who could score more points for you in this "Best Ball" format.

FAAB will be an entire strategy unto itself.

Knowing that, let's say we had this contest in 2013 and you drafted early before Jose Fernandez comes on the radar. It's now the Sunday before Week 1 and you want Fernandez, knowing you need to expand your roster by 5 players that Sunday and 5 more players in two more FAAB periods. What could you honestly bid for Fernandez in this format and win him? And don't say $900 because you can't do it. Think about it and give me a bid for him in the NFBC Cutline Championship.

FAAB will be a lot of fun in this format, that's for sure.

[Gekko]

The more I think about it, the more I think you have a monster on your hands. Although you may hurt the sign ups for the current set your lineup DC format, this has the potential to be even bigger. Good idea and count me in the group that was initially skeptical but currently intrigued. Wish it was a 15 team format, but I understand why it needs to be 10

[Greg Ambrosius]

Another area that I'm extremely excited about for 2014 is the redesign of our online draft room. Like FAAB, we knew that to do changes in the online draft room we had to blow it up and start from scratch. First of all, we had to get off Flash so that folks could use iPads and other Apple products to draft in our online draft rooms. Secondly, we needed a new look and a fresh, clean way to draft online. The online business is growing by leaps and bounds and we needed the best possible draft tool we could build. We think we've done that.

This is still being worked on, but it will be ready by February when our busy online drafting season starts. Owners will get a bit of a look at our new setup when we unveil the NFFC Post-Season Contest. You'll see photos of every player and a very clean layout. This won't be the same layout we'll have in baseball, but you'll understand how things are much, much different and how much better it's going to be.

The NFBC Cutline Championship -- like our Draft Champions drafts now -- would start out with our old online draft rooms, but would eventually move to the new setup in February. I guarantee that the new setup will move drafts along faster and make the experience much, much more enjoyable. I'm excited about this new addition and again I give the IT guys all the credit for working hard to improve so much in the NFBC.

[Greg Ambrosius]

The more I think about it, the more I think you have a monster on your hands. Although you may hurt the sign ups for the current set your lineup DC format, this has the potential to be even bigger. Good idea and count me in the group that was initially skeptical but currently intrigued. Wish it was a 15 team format, but I understand why it needs to be 10

Sure, it has the potential to take some money from the DC's, but honestly anyone who wants a deep knowledge of the player pool and who still wants to set their starting lineup every week and play a normal Roto league would still choose the DC format. The two formats are very unsimilar, from the 10-team draft to the deep 15-team, 50-rounder.

But take a look at the leaderboard in the NFFC Cutline Championship Round. You will find dozens of names there who have never played with us before. We brought in hundreds of first-time players with that format. That's the key. The guy who led the overall in the NFFC Cutline Championship took one team with us TOTAL in 2013. He spent $125 with us and is leading that contest for $50,000. We had several owners who joined us just in the NFFC Cutline Championship and are loving the experience. That's the key here and I think several of our NFBC die-hards didn't see that initially. If we want to bring in new players to our community we need contests outside the normal 15-team, deep player pool formats. The average fantasy baseball player doesn't feel comfortable jumping into that format right away.

This 10-team league format could bring in more players than we've ever done before, including the introduction of the 12-team Online Championship. The potential, as you say, is incredible and hopefully more of our NFBC die-hards embrace it too. We're taking a big risk here, but it's worth it and hopefully it succeeds like the NFFC Cutline Championship did.

[Brock]

Greg and Tom, great job by both of you designing this game and hopefully launching it for 2014. Like Gecko said I was very skeptical at first but now I'm looking forward to playing. I probably have some friends that will give it a try as well. Best of luck and thank you again for providing a fantastic fantasy baseball experience.

[Beans]

One rules tweak: the 1000 inning minimum wouldn't apply to these leagues, right? The computer is picking the lineups, the season ends before the MLB season ends, it's not roto so can't penalize a non-compliant team by giving it a '1' in ERA/WHIP, etc.

[Greg Ambrosius]

One rules tweak: the 1000 inning minimum wouldn't apply to these leagues, right? The computer is picking the lineups, the season ends before the MLB season ends, it's not roto so can't penalize a non-compliant team by giving it a '1' in ERA/WHIP, etc.

Good point there. Correct, there would be no benefit to going with all closers here, I don't think. I will change that. Good catch.

[Atlas]

So I'm still rolling this around in my head...bear with me...

Suppose a player goes the week and ends up with a negative score (1 for 5, 0 for 4, etc..)
Ends the week with a minus 1 or 2 or something.

Will the computer instead select someone who didn't play that week..either injured or in the minors...for the zero in lieu of the negative?

[Greg Ambrosius]

So I'm still rolling this around in my head...bear with me...

Suppose a player goes the week and ends up with a negative score (1 for 5, 0 for 4, etc..)
Ends the week with a minus 1 or 2 or something.

Will the computer instead select someone who didn't play that week..either injured or in the minors...for the zero in lieu of the negative?

If you have another player on your roster at that same position, yes, 0 is better than -4, right? So the computer will give you a 0 for the week. Hopefully you have positive numbers though at every position every week, especially when we get to 45 players per team.

Keep thinking of all scenarios because I'm sure we haven't thought of everything, but we're trying.

[BK METS]

You can remove this line from the rules: "If no Week One lineup is submitted, the NFBC will determine your starting lineup. After Week One, if no starting lineup is submitted, your starting lineup will be that of the previous week."
No lineup will ever be submitted, since it is best ball, correct?

Also, question about ADP - Will you be posting a separate ADP for cutline points based scoring vs standard roto scoring?

[Deadheadz]

Keep thinking of all scenarios because I'm sure we haven't thought of everything, but we're trying.

Will the Best Ball scoring also go through every possible combination of lineups when we're using multiple players who are eligible at more than one position?

Eg. Prado may be best ball as an OF one week and as 3B in another week?

[Rainiers]

I like the Wild Card Round because what we found in football is that teams who didn't initially make the Championship Round can still be among the best overall and worthy of the top prize. The third through fifth place teams in each league go into the NFFC Wild Card Round and a small number of teams move back up to the Championship Round each week and others continue to fight for Consolation prizes. I believe KJ's team is now 4th overall in the NFFC Cutline Championship after dominating the Wild Card Round in Weeks 10-12. Plus it keeps more teams in line longer for that possible $50,000 grand prize. Half of the teams always have hope of winning the grand prize.

Again, I want to think that part through before adding it here and at this point it's not part of the rules. Thanks for catching it as I started to write it in before posting the rules and forgot to take that part out. Maybe if demand exceeds expectations in future years we'll add that part to the equation.

I'm very glad you are considering adding the wild card round because it makes the Cutline so much fun to play, as well as to draft. I dabbled a little over in football this year, and it kept most players in my leagues active until the playoffs. Myself, I was mostly a middle-of-the-pack player, only one of my teams made the playoffs and I still had a hoot playing the game...because all my teams had a chance until late. This is why I'm already looking forward to next year. If you had only a top-two scenario over there, my experience would have been a lot different and I would have been disinterested very early on and unenthusiastic about next year.

In any case, I think you have a winner with football Cutline for THREE reasons, the draft is fun, the prize is large, AND it is a lot of fun to play with the Wild Card Round. Remember playing in those softball or basketball tournaments with double elimination format? They were way more fun than a One and Done format. Same thing here...the genius of the Cutline format is that it has found a way to have double elimination in a national tournament and, consequently, it makes the tournament a lot more enjoyable for most everyone for a longer time.

Also, with the way you have it currently set up in baseball with the top two only moving on, I think you could have a large number of teams becoming inactive by the eight week mark...

And please, whatever you do, leave the Wild Card Round in over there on the dark side. Thanks.

[Atlas]

Keep thinking of all scenarios because I'm sure we haven't thought of everything, but we're trying.

Will the Best Ball scoring also go through every possible combination of lineups when we're using multiple players who are eligible at more than one position?

Eg. Prado may be best ball as an OF one week and as 3B in another week?

I thought about this as well.
A team with a lot of multi-position eligibility players will need a computer to go through all the possible combinations to come up with the most statistically beneficial.

Could be a guy with a monster week is not counted because it comes out better to move 4 guys around him in.

Gotta see this in action. I'm sure there will be loopholes in baseball that football doesn't experience due to position singularity.

[mbendar16]

Since there is no head to head records in baseball, there is no need for a Wild Card round. With this said, the question is whether 2 teams are enough to make the Championship weeks for a half season of play. I would say 3 is probably better and 5 is too much.

[Rainiers]

With this said, the question is whether 2 teams are enough to make the Championship weeks for a half season of play. I would say 3 is probably better and 5 is too much.

I couldn't agree more.

With Greg's current draft rules, 20% make the playoffs, then 50% of them make the next two cuts to to allow 5% to the final round.

If you went top three and allowed 40% to go on in each of the first two playoffs, you end up with 4.8% in the finals.

If you go top four and allow 35% to advance in each of the two first two playoff rounds, you end up with 4.9% in the finals.

The more the merrier IMO. But top two getting to the first playoff Chamionship Round is too few.

[BK METS]

The wild card round in baseball can simply be 3rd-5th in points in each league or at the very least 3rd and 4th. Or add a certain percentage of the remaining overall with the most points. This was one of the great parts about the football cutline and it puzzles me why you wouldnt add it to baseball. The entire idea of the cutline is all about the playoffs. Wouldn't it be a benefit, if you are trying to attract outside interest, to have an extensive playoff format with more teams?

[Deadheadz]

The wild card round in baseball can simply be 3rd-5th in points in each league or at the very least 3rd and 4th. Or add a certain percentage of the remaining overall with the most points. This was one of the great parts about the football cutline and it puzzles me why you wouldnt add it to baseball. The entire idea of the cutline is all about the playoffs. Wouldn't it be a benefit, if you are trying to attract outside interest, to have an extensive playoff format with more teams?

I agree.

One thing that occurred to me when reading this was the term "Wild Card".
Being a points based game, wouldn't "wild card" imply taking the teams with the best records overall, not the next 3 teams in every league?

I could see some anticipation in not being assured that 5th in your league would get to to the next stage.


Cheers!

[Quahogs]

Keep thinking of all scenarios because I'm sure we haven't thought of everything, but we're trying.

Will the Best Ball scoring also go through every possible combination of lineups when we're using multiple players who are eligible at more than one position?

Eg. Prado may be best ball as an OF one week and as 3B in another week?

I thought about this as well.
A team with a lot of multi-position eligibility players will need a computer to go through all the possible combinations to come up with the most statistically beneficial.

Could be a guy with a monster week is not counted because it comes out better to move 4 guys around him in.

Gotta see this in action. I'm sure there will be loopholes in baseball that football doesn't experience due to position singularity.

Good points. I can see this being a programming bear. You also don't want this 1500entry deep and then realize something's not working correctly.

Greg, make this easy on yourself. Draft your 30 to fill positions as per every NFBC contest. After that let it be best ball but let's just use the top 14 scorers for offense regardless of position. The FA's you add? Best offense potential regardless of position.

Let me counter the same tired arguments.
1. "Jupinka's idea It will throw the 15 team NFBC season long draft similarity out the window" So what. We were talking 10 team drafts here. What kind of relevance were you looking for? This is a new contest, stop trying to drive a square peg into a round hole.

2. "This won't be good training ground for new players to be groomed for the Main Event contests" So what. We've been around 11 years and offer $125 satellite leagues. If they aren't banging down the door to a Main Event now then they never will.

[ALL-IN JD]

The other option would be to do away with multi-position eligibility. Whatever position was played the most in the 2013 season is the position he is assigned to for the Cutline Championship. No more programming nightmare.

[Deadheadz]

The other option would be to do away with multi-position eligibility. Whatever position was played the most in the 2013 season is the position he is assigned to for the Cutline Championship. No more programming nightmare.

I would prefer this option over "regardless of position" since I don't want to see drafters wind up with teams having 30 outfielders and 15 other players because positions don't matter. Extreme example to make a point.

Another question, in best ball if all of your 2B are injured for example...you should get a Zero at 2B not slot in your 14th best player regardless of position, right?

[ToddZ]

I'm not sure it's a nightmare - but if it is (and I know this goes against the spirit of minimal work), what if we could set the eligibility we want for each player BEFORE each transaction period?

This way if all the primary SS were hurt, you could still designate a guy with 2BSS eligibility to be SS if his primary was 2B.

[the icon]

You would think with the utility spots you'd get the best players in anyway.

[ToddZ]

You would think with the utility spots you'd get the best players in anyway.

Nope -- utility won't guarantee a multi-position guy gets in.

Let's say I have Dustin Ackley and the rule is he's an OF because he played more OF.

If Ackley outscores all my 2B/MI but is my 7th best OF, he wouldn't get put in.

[KJ Duke]

I think it just needs to be programmed properly for the legit best lineup counts, anything else and it loses some appeal.

Likewise, given the length of the baseball season, I'm not sure letting in a bunch of wildcard teams is that appealing. I suppose it could be argued either way, but for me less teams should be in than for football.

[ToddZ]

From what I understand about this type of programming (I'm working with some people on it with daily games) it can be done (duh) but I don't think we should be expecting real-time updates. Maybe I'm wrong.