August Update

Yes, indeed there is a lot to talk about in the second week of August. I’ll try and list everything here. Some adjustments have changed from the previous update due to updates from myfantasyleague.com and some are just a result of me re-thinking how we should approach the season. Many items are interrelated but I’ll try to keep it organized. Here goes:

The Draft/Keepers

The date has been set as Friday, August 28. The time will be 7 pm Central. I hope that doesn’t need to change. We will be entirely online. We will use the regular league site draft room. I may have a Zoom meeting room set up which would be fun. It’s optional but I hope as many of you that can participate will do so.
We will go 17 rounds. The first 15 are being treated as a ‘normal’ draft with some skipped picks due to teams acquiring earlier picks. Then we will go two more rounds. Those have had a separate draft order generated. If the draft runs too late for you it’s no issue for me to skip your pick and you can add players later. just let me know that night.
You have in your hands the Draft Grid and Draft Value list. The Grid will be updated and re-issued after keepers are declared. See the calendar on the league site.
Keepers can be sent at any time via email, text. or phone. I’ve opened it up early but won’t do anything until the deadline on April 25th. Up till then, you can change your mind as much as you want. Please don’t use the site to ‘Select Keepers’.
Rosters, Waivers and more
We will have an 18 player roster this season. There will be an expanded IR. I’ve set it at six but I may lower it to five or four. I’m still thinking that over. MFL has added a couple of new player designations for 2020.
A player out for COVID-related reasons will be marked with a ‘C’ where you are used to seeing injury status. ‘H’ will be applied to players who have (or will, I guess) opted-out for the 2020 season. Both of those will be allowed to be put on our IR. That means you can IR players with the following designations: ‘IR’, ‘O’ for ‘Out’, ‘C’ for ‘COVID’, and ‘H’ which MFL is using for ‘Holdout/Opt-out’. Suspended players will still not be allowed on our IR if acquired with that status. There is no minimum or maximum IR stay.
There may be a player who opts out who you might want as a keeper. Not likely but possible. In that case, you would keep him and then IR him later.
Waiver limits and available cash have been expanded. See previous news posting here for details. We will again have a first-come, first-served that will open the Monday after the draft. Again, see the calendar.
The Season
I will adjust the schedule if I need to based on the NFL. My guess is that the games may shift. We’ve seen the mess baseball made of this. I am expecting football to be the same. I think that at least ten fantasy weeks will be needed for this to be a valid year for us, eight regular-season games, and a two-week playoff process. We could just seed and then play off the division winners to get to a champion. We’ve done it before. Gonna play it by ear. Nothing else we can do.
New Draft Value Regulation for 2021 Draft

This does not apply to the current Value List or this year’s keepers. Going forward, beginning with next season’s draft, we will assign a Round Ten value to any player drafted in Rounds 13 or later. There are exactly seven players currently on rosters who, if kept, would be effected next season. These players are listed now with a value of 13 or 14. These players will be ‘grandfathered’ if the current owner decided to keep them this year. In other words, a player with a ’14’ this season and used as a keeper will still have a 12 value next year, all things being equal. None of the other regulations, i.e. the placing of players with equal value, the Dalvin Cook rule, round ‘boost’ for a traded player, etc will change.
The Website
The homepage is ready. Setting the draft order correctly became a headache due to how MFL handles traded slots and removing slots. Took some work but I think it’s fine. I plan to check it against the printed draft grid which I know to be correct.
The rules page needs a refresh. I updated it months ago with some of our ‘permanent’ changes, the lineup deadline change, postseason waivers, and a few other items. The 2020 temporary changes like the number of waiver claims, waiver funds, and all the rest of this silly nonsense, has not been added in. I may just allow these news postings to serve that purpose. Consider this to be a disclaimer…”2020 IS DIFFERENT. THE RULES PAGE MAY NOT ALWAYS APPLY.”
If you’ve forgotten some of the new regulations go back through the past few posts. That will help. Only some of the numbers (roster limit, waiver cash, etc) are not valid for this season but should be for the next one. I also communicate via email and the front page message at the league site.  Hopefully, I won’t need to do a lot of that.
‘See’ ya at the draft. Until then Stay Safe. Fire away with any questions.
-Commish