Waivers

[Achon44]

Commish,

Would you please check into something for me? First let me explain what happened. I set my waiver picks for this week as followed...

1st round
Add Foster, De'shaun SFO RB and drop Burress, Plaxico NYG WR
Add Orlovsky, Dan DET QB and drop Burress, Plaxico NYG WR

2nd round
Add Orlovsky, Dan DET QB and drop Fitzpatrick, Ryan CIN QB
Add Vinatieri, Adam IND PK and drop Fitzpatrick, Ryan CIN QB
Add Bryant, Matt TBB PK and drop Fitzpatrick, Ryan CIN QB

3rd round
Add Vinatieri, Adam IND PK and drop None
Add Bryant, Matt TBB PK and drop None

4th round
Add Bryant, Matt TBB PK and drop None

I started with $30,000 of cap room
Got back $2,612,500 for Burress
Got back $500,000 for Fitzpatrick
For a total of $3,142,500

I bid $2,600,000 on Foster
$525,000 on Orlovsky
$450,000 on Vinatieri
and $425,000 on Bryant

I'm confused on why I wasn't awarded Foster and Orlovsky instead of Orlovsky and Vinatieri. The money matched up and nobody else picked up Foster, so I just can't figure it out. Would you please check why it worked out the way it did? Thanks!

[braven112]

Honestly I would be lying if I said I fully understand the blind bidding waiver rules. I've been screwed out of players a couple times this year that I thought for sure I would get based on the way I set up my bids.

Here is the MFL help center regarding blind bidding

http://football13.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... %20Bidding

Perhaps bonscott or someone else would be able to explain a little better.

[Achon44]

Can you check the Previously Processed Waivers report and see what it says?

http://football13.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... rs?L=28463

[bonscott]

Can you check the Previously Processed Waivers report and see what it says?

http://football13.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... rs?L=28463

I was about to suggest that. Unfortuntaly it looks like owners can't view the report. Commish, you can turn on that ability for us in the abilities setup.

Anyway, that report should explain why waiver was processed or not. We'll then see if it makes sense to us.
My first guess must be something funky due to being so close to the cap number.

[bonscott]

Honestly I would be lying if I said I fully understand the blind bidding waiver rules. I've been screwed out of players a couple times this year that I thought for sure I would get based on the way I set up my bids.

Here is the MFL help center regarding blind bidding

http://football13.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... %20Bidding

Perhaps bonscott or someone else would be able to explain a little better.

Yea, it confuses me too.

My understanding, because we use *conditional* blind bidding is that that rounds don't actually mean anything. The system should evaluate all players at the same time, highest bidder gets the player. So if I bid on 4 players, using 4 "rounds" it will evaluate all 4 players, it doesn't only evaluate all our first round picks and ignores the rest. The conditional part is simply to allow us to get a different player if we got out bid. Again, this is my understanding but still confusing. The processed waiver report might help us figure it out.

[braven112]

Can you check the Previously Processed Waivers report and see what it says?

http://football13.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... rs?L=28463

I was about to suggest that. Unfortuntaly it looks like owners can't view the report. Commish, you can turn on that ability for us in the abilities setup.

Anyway, that report should explain why waiver was processed or not. We'll then see if it makes sense to us.
My first guess must be something funky due to being so close to the cap number.

I unlocked that report so everyone can take a peek...

[yugimoto]

I think the problem was the bid you submitted for DeShaun Foster. According the report your bid for Foster was $26MM

- Add Foster, De'shaun SFO RB for $26000000.00 and drop Burress, Plaxico NYG WR

Based on your Salary Cap available the system would not have been able to process this bid therefore it went to your conditional bid for Orlovsky as part of you Round 1 Bid.

Then since you got Orlovsky, the first bid in Round 2 was no longer valid so it executed the conditional bid you had for Vinatieri.

Hope that helps.

DMOC

[Achon44]

I think the problem was the bid you submitted for DeShaun Foster. According the report your bid for Foster was $26MM

- Add Foster, De'shaun SFO RB for $26000000.00 and drop Burress, Plaxico NYG WR

Based on your Salary Cap available the system would not have been able to process this bid therefore it went to your conditional bid for Orlovsky as part of you Round 1 Bid.

Then since you got Orlovsky, the first bid in Round 2 was no longer valid so it executed the conditional bid you had for Vinatieri.

Hope that helps.

DMOC

That's correct....I fat fingered it!

Okay, with that cleared up I still don't understand why I wasn't awarded Matt Bryant for $425,000 when it's plain to see I have both the cap room and an open roster spot.

[yugimoto]

Commish,

Since this was an obvious "fat finger" error (easily done since we cannot see the commas when we submit the bids - an MFL issue which drives me nuts) and since the only one potentially impacted by this would be me facing Todd in the Championship game and since no one else had put in a bid for Foster nor for any of the other players that Todd submitted a bid for - I would be fine if you wanted to correct this to the way it was intended to be.

DMOC

[braven112]

I understand what your saying but I think we've all "fat fingered" a thing or two including myself and we all had to plan and work around it. Fixing waiver problems like this is next to impossible in most weeks, even if this one time it would be easy. It wouldn't be fair to give one person a break when I haven't given the same thing to anyone else this year and wouldn't be able to in the future.

[Achon44]

Yeah, with the Foster bid it's my mistake, so I'll live an learn. I do apreciate the thought though Dan, thanks.

I would like to know why I wasn't awarded Bryant though. Is there any way we can find out? I'm not familiar with opening tickets with support or if that is even an option in this case.

[braven112]

Yeah, with the Foster bid it's my mistake, so I'll live an learn. I do apreciate the thought though Dan, thanks.

I would like to know why I wasn't awarded Bryant though. Is there any way we can find out? I'm not familiar with opening tickets with support or if that is even an option in this case.

Go to this link:

http://football13.myfantasyleague.com/2 ... %20Bidding

then towards the bottom the "submit a question" link is bolded and would be where I would start. If you don't mind, post their response to this thread so maybe the rest of us can get a better understanding of what happened.

[Achon44]

If you don't mind, post their response to this thread so maybe the rest of us can get a better understanding of what happened.

Okay, here's the reply I got. It doesn't really clear it up.

Todd:

According to our system log, you weren't awarded that player because you didn't have enough room under your salary cap. My guess is that player salaries might have changed between then and now, causing your cap to be exceeded then.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Thanks,
Kevin

[bonscott]

If you don't mind, post their response to this thread so maybe the rest of us can get a better understanding of what happened.

Okay, here's the reply I got. It doesn't really clear it up.

Todd:

According to our system log, you weren't awarded that player because you didn't have enough room under your salary cap. My guess is that player salaries might have changed between then and now, causing your cap to be exceeded then.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Thanks,
Kevin

My guess is this: Since it evaluates all the requests at the same time (it's not in order per "round" the rounds are only there as placeholders), because the request for Bryant had a drop of None, there would not have been enough cap space if that was the only move that would have been accepted (you lost all the others). If you would have dropped Plax before waivers were run then you would have had plenty of cap space in the case the only move that gets done is Bryant and drop none.

EDIT: I submitted a ticket as well to get clarification on this but I'm pretty sure it's because the rounds are just placeholders for the requests but they are all processed at the same time and not in rounds like regular waivers.

[Achon44]

If you don't mind, post their response to this thread so maybe the rest of us can get a better understanding of what happened.

Okay, here's the reply I got. It doesn't really clear it up.

Todd:

According to our system log, you weren't awarded that player because you didn't have enough room under your salary cap. My guess is that player salaries might have changed between then and now, causing your cap to be exceeded then.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Thanks,
Kevin

My guess is this: Since it evaluates all the requests at the same time (it's not in order per "round" the rounds are only there as placeholders), because the request for Bryant had a drop of None, there would not have been enough cap space if that was the only move that would have been accepted (you lost all the others). If you would have dropped Plax before waivers were run then you would have had plenty of cap space in the case the only move that gets done is Bryant and drop none.

EDIT: I submitted a ticket as well to get clarification on this but I'm pretty sure it's because the rounds are just placeholders for the requests but they are all processed at the same time and not in rounds like regular waivers.

I thought about dropping Plax before waivers ran, but didn't want to run into a situation where not everyone would see he's available to pick up before waivers ran. I wonder if everything would have worked if I would have just set up one round that looked like this...

Add Foster, De'shaun SFO RB and drop Burress, Plaxico NYG WR
Add Orlovsky, Dan DET QB and drop Fitzpatrick, Ryan CIN QB
Add Vinatieri, Adam IND PK and drop None
Add Bryant, Matt TBB PK and drop None

[bonscott]

You're right on Burress, someone else could have bid him up, I think. I'm not sure if we lock dropped players until the following week....Commish?
If we don't it's something we really should do. Any player dropped should be locked until the following week (say locked until Tuesday). That way all players dropped in a week will be available in the next week's blind bidding. This will close up a loophole similar to what we ran into at the end of the off-season auction where a player can get dropped and then bid back up at minimum. If we don't lock players until the following week there would be nothing stopping me from say dropping Gore a couple minutes before the blind bidding deadline and then bid him back up for much less. We should use this setting in season only though, off-season we wouldn't want to do that.

I wonder if everything would have worked if I would have just set up one round that looked like this...

Add Foster, De'shaun SFO RB and drop Burress, Plaxico NYG WR
Add Orlovsky, Dan DET QB and drop Fitzpatrick, Ryan CIN QB
Add Vinatieri, Adam IND PK and drop None
Add Bryant, Matt TBB PK and drop None

You would have only gotten one player then by doing it in just one "round" or I like to refer to it as a "bid slot". Conditional blind bidding is so if you put those 4 players in order it would award you the first one it could and then it would ignore the rest. So you did it properly by doing 4 rounds, assuming you wanted to pick up 4 players.

I did hear back from MFL on why you didn't get Bryant but I was confused by the answer so I asked for more clarification. They did agree with my suggestion that they need to redo the blind bidding interface and dump this rounds stuff since it's so confusing.

[braven112]

You're right on Burress, someone else could have bid him up, I think. I'm not sure if we lock dropped players until the following week....Commish?
If we don't it's something we really should do. Any player dropped should be locked until the following week (say locked until Tuesday). That way all players dropped in a week will be available in the next week's blind bidding. This will close up a loophole similar to what we ran into at the end of the off-season auction where a player can get dropped and then bid back up at minimum. If we don't lock players until the following week there would be nothing stopping me from say dropping Gore a couple minutes before the blind bidding deadline and then bid him back up for much less. We should use this setting in season only though, off-season we wouldn't want to do that.

We currently don't lock players, which I agree we really need to do. In my other league we lock players until the kickoff of the following week. So a player dropped on Friday would be locked until Sunday at kickoff. Teams can bid on him from kickoff Sunday all the way up until the next open waiver period, in our case Saturday morning.

[bonscott]

Ok, still working this issue with support. Here is the responses so far:

From Kevin (MFL)

Scott:

Technically, no, the system does not evaluate all bids at the same time - it sorts first by bid amount, so it only looks at any individual owner's highest bid amount.

But in any case, I definitely agree that we should re-vamp conditional blind bidding rounds to make them less confusing, as I know we definitely get our fair share of questions about them!

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Thanks,
Kevin

My reply

Kevin,

Thanks for the update. So the system would look at only all the highest bid amounts first, no matter what "round" they were in and then does the waiver. Then moves on and evaluates the next highest bid players for each team and so on I think I'm more confused now. LOL.

If that's the case then why didn't Bring the Pain get Bryant? If it processes those highest bids first then when it gets down to Bryant he has plenty of cap space and he is 1 player under our roster limit of 20 so he should get Bryant. Is there a reason why he didn't? Note that he did *not* have enough cap space before waivers ran to add any player, but by the 2 drops ahead of Bryant that freed up plenty of cap space.

Thanks!

Scott

Kevin

Scott:

Yes, your understanding is correct.

Is there a chance that any players salaries have changed since these bids were processed?

Thanks,
Kevin

To which my last reply

Kevin,

Nope, no transactions are allowed other then dropping players or taxi squad moves outside of the blind bidding. And salaries are whatever the bids are. Nothing has changed with his roster in terms of salary.

Our salary cap is 45 million. He was right up against the cap, like only 30,000 free. But after the first waiver which dropped Burress and his large salary he had plenty of cap room.

Scott

And that is where we are at. Personally I think there might be a bug that if you are so close to the cap like Bring the Pain was that it wasn't allowing the waiver with no drop. I'll post any further response.

Commish: Everything I see he should get Bryant. But I suggest don't adjust anything until we work thru this with support. I'd hate to mask the bug by something we do.

[bonscott]

Ok, I think I got it figured out what happened. Basically all waivers are looked at as legal or illegal against the hard cap at the time waivers run. It does not re-evaluate the cap as each waiver is processed. Thus add Bryant and drop None was illegal because at the time waivers were run there would have not been enough cap space to add Bryant. It doesn't take into account that after Burress was dropped that there would be enough space at that time. Basically it acts like if none of the other requests went thru then Bryant for none would indeed have been illegal due to going over the cap.

Hopefully they can make a change so that as each waiver is processed the next waiver looks at the updated cap number.
---------------------------------------------

The last couple replies:

Kevin

Scott:

Gotcha - thanks for the additional details. One additional thing we're hoping to add this off-season is better reporting of details regarding exactly why a given transaction didn't go through on the "previously processed waivers" report! In any case, the system is reporting that it didn't put that move through because it would have violated your league's hard salary cap, but if you feel that move should have gone through, you're free to manually force it through as you see fit.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Thanks,
Kevin

And my final reply

Ok, I'll let the commish know. It definitely wouldn't have violated the salary cap *after* it processed the other 2 waivers first (which it would have according to the statement above that the higher bids are evaluated first). However, if none of the higher bidded players would have been accepted then it is true that the request for Bryant would have put him over his cap.

My guess is that even though the system will evaluate the higher bidded players first, it evaluates things like the hard salary cap for all bids and doesn't take into account the cap as other bids are processed. So in other words it should re-evaluate the salary cap after each waiver is processed, thus making waivers later on legal when if all waivers take into account the cap before any waivers are run then it would be illegal. At least that makes sense to me.

Scott