Waivers, Roster Decisions and Trades

WAIVERS

Waivers will open up at 1107 PM ET each Wednesday.  Teams may use their waiver claim for priority over teams below them to acquire players.   Teams who wish to use waivers must get their bids in before the Wednesday 1107 PM ET deadline.

Waiver wire order will not reset each week - so if you choose to defer on waivers, you will keep your roster priority, or move up when teams ahead of you use their WW priority.  WW priority will be set by last year's standings to start the season.

After 1107 PM ET, players or Team D's may be acquired by open waivers (i.e. it does not use up a WW priority to pick up a player) until before the 1st game of the week starts.

After the 1st game of the week starts, waivers are locked until Wednesday the following week.

EDIT NOV. 2013:   Realized this needs updating - the WW time got changed to 900 PM ET each Tuesday, since Thursday games are now a weekly reality....

EDIT NOV. 2014:   With the change to Fantrax, the WW runs 2x a week this season, each Saturday night @ 9 PM ET - to enable all waived players to clear the WW before the weekend's games - this also means that ThNF players clear at that time.   We will discuss a daily WW run instead of 2x / week in offseason.


ROSTER DECISIONS

Roster decisions can be made right up until 5 minutes before each game.  That means if you have a Monday night game, you can still move players in and out of the lineup until then.  Once a player has started playing, they are locked into their active/bench spot.

Please note that while there is no requirement on how your roster is filled, teams must fill an active roster each week (i.e. no bye week / inactive players).   With the increase to 22 roster spots, there is no reason not to have a full active lineup each week in football.

EDIT 2013:  Please note that as of 2013, roster decisions can be made 1 minute prior to gametime.   Also, please refer to the 2013 clarification on tanking - no inactive players/D's can be used in starting spots, given we have 22 roster spots for each team.


TRADES

Trades that take place in-season are effective IMMEDIATELY - so please ensure that a trade made through MyFantasyLeague.com's site is only entered after games are completed if you don't want it to affect that week's lineups.

Please note that there is no veto system in place - if you are trading away picks for future years, you are also committing to returning for those years, unless the league disbands.  It simply isn't fair to trade away picks for years where you won't be around.  

EDIT 2013:  In the above vein, all offseason trades are subject to league approval after confirmation from participating owners is received that they are returning for the upcoming season.   Offseason trades involving owners that cannot confirm their return for the upcoming year will not be accepted.

FANTRAX MOVE

One note about roster deadline moves - with the move to Fantrax, FA adds can happen before each player's game starts.  That means that you can add someone after Thursday's game.   Especially since there is a weekly Thursday game, this allows freedom to replace late-injuries, or benchings, etc. - crucial in thin positions (like K's).   This was requested before on MFL, but not possible on that platform, but is possible on Fantrax.

What it also means - if you add a player who's yet to play on FA, but waive someone who's already played, the add/drop is effective only for the FOLLOWING week (because the dropped player has already played that week).  It should be pretty self-explanatory, but it doesn't hurt to remind everyone for the record (email reminder sent earlier this season).  

With the move to Fantrax, the league can track draft pick trades for future years.  To ensure that team futures are not sacrificed excessively by owners who then leave the league, a limit of 1 draft years ahead of the current season, with rollover after the fantasy year ends.  In other words, in the offseason, for the 2014 draft, you can trade 2014 or 2015 picks in the offseason.   Once the 2014 draft is done, and the 2014 regular season begins, teams will only still be able to trade 2015 draft picks away (or acquire them), until the season is complete - and then in the 2014-15 offseason, both 2015 & 2016 draft picks are eligible for trade.

This decision was arrived at with Nick after discussion of owners who leave, but have traded away future draft picks before they left. In football, this happened with Ray & Kyle, and attempts by Marc in his last year before leaving.    The original 2010 ruleset above on trades pointed out that if you were trading away picks for future years, you were committing to return for those years - this was developed after Ray traded away 3 years of 1st round picks, but didn't return.   However, that rule has proven ineffective, as the league has no way of enforcing teams to stay for the years in which they commit to trading away draft picks, so the only fair measure is to limit the # future years where draft picks can be traded away. As this decision was not arrived until familiarity with the Fantrax abilities were confirmed, this restriction is in effect for the 2013-14 offseason.


NEW FOR DEC. 2013:   To protect the league from leaving owners gutting teams, please note that any offseason trade which is made by a team owner who does not return will be voided.  For all trades that have occurred in-season (I.E. Prior to the reg. season trading deadline), they are not subject to reversal for leaving owners, unless intent of leaving is declared prior to trades (i.e. Tony in TBD Baseball).  We do not expect this will be a regular occurrence, but with the # owners leaving from TBD Football & baseball in the last 3 years, both Nick & I agree the above measure makes sense to protect the owners that are staying, and to ensure teams that are given up are not gutted excessively by owners who aren't returning.