Sorry, I know this is an old thread, but there is actually a best way IMO to set the draft order for non-playoff teams in dynasty and thatâs separately calculating and ranking based on âpotential points.â Best is completely an opinion, sure, but this method is at least probably the most fair. If your league isnât necessarily interested in fair, I completely understand. A draft lottery, for instance, could be a lot of fun, but would likely result in some very unfair outcomes. As does a consolation bracket to play for the 1.1 as you mention above.
At any rate, Potential Points ranking still allows for tanking if an owner wants to shed talent via dropping older players not in their future plans or trading guys away before the deadline, but it completely disincentivizes intentionally sitting your best roster as your highest potential point total for each week is calculated and used to rank the non-playoff teams. The 1st pick goes to the person with the lowest potential point total, which is also a pretty good indicator of being the weakest team. For playoff teams, it should be ranked on how they finish.
Intentionally sitting your best roster, which can dramatically affect the playoff race of the teams still in contention, is lame as hell. Under this system, there is zero incentive to do that, but as mentioned above there are still ways for owners to tank if they are so inclined so it does not prevent owners who are crafty from doing so. For instance, trading away a productive healthy older player for a younger guy on IR this season or a future draft pick would be a smart tanking move for a team out of contention if done before the trade deadline.
Also, in the leagues I play in, there are additional rules to prevent someone from not carrying anyone at a particular position in an effort to lower their point output. For instance, someone might think of dropping their kicker(s) and/or defense(s) so as to not accrue any points there to help improve their draft position. The additional rules I play under assign at least 10 potential points for each starting position that does not have someone on the roster capable of starting at a given position which covers IR, Bye weeks or just not rostering a legitimate player for the week (assigned potential points in these scenarios is 20 for QBs and 15 for RB/WR/Flex), so that this type of behavior is disincentivized. In other words, youâre better off rostering crappy players at certain positions than no players at all if you are primarily concerned about potential points and draft position.
In these leagues, Iâve never felt like the top picks went to the best teams from the year prior unless they happened to trade for the pick ahead of time (but thatâs the mark of a smart or perhaps lucky owner) or in the scenario where someone gets decimated by injury but still has a solid long term roster, but thatâs just luck of the draw IMO and there shouldnât be rules to penalize them in the following yearâs draft because of it. Iâve been able to manipulate my potential point total on teams in an effort to try to affect my draft position while still having pretty good projected rosters for the next year by using some of the moves mentioned above about trading for guys on IR or shedding older guys to teams in contention for draft picks. I donât see really any downside to this system other than making sure you are hosting your league on a site that will auto calculate potential points like MFL will. I see a lot of downside to allowing teams out of contention to sit their best roster or consolation brackets with the 1.1 up for grabs though. And if you want to have a consolation bracket thatâs playing for something, make it for half of next yearâs league entry fee or even the whole fee if you donât mind taking some of the league winnerâs pot away from them.
