A team who clinched the playoffs last week purposely tries to throw his final game so he can avoid having to face a certain team during the first week of playoffs. The opponent who would beat him this week would earn the final playoff spot, essentilaly eliminating any other team who might have been playing for that spot.

Our league is old-school in the fact that we still submit our starters to the commissioner who will manually calculate the players scores on Excel. There is no automation of scoring/submitting starters beyond that.

Instead of submitting complete a list of second-stringers, he simply emails the commissioner a list of two players (the email was sent at all just to avoid any late fees).

Is this an ethical issue? I mean, it's understandable of his reasons for WANTING to lose his game.... but to purposely throw the game? If he simply submitted his back-ups, I wouldn't feel compelled to raise the issue.

Our rules do say "Each owner must submit a complete lineup..."

Honestly, he should be kicked out. It's screwing over all the teams who could earn their way into that final spot.

I would say that should be the case even without the rule you mentioned; that just cements it.

The complete lineup rule is key here IMO.

With it in place, he should have presented a full lineup, however (intentionally) crappy a lineup it might be.

Problem is, you can't forfeit the game since that accomplishes what he wanted in the first place. And, unless there's previous offenses, I'm not sure this is grounds for expulsion from a league either.

Probably the most obvious solution is to fill in the lineup with his backups at each position & let the result of that stand, whatever it may be. Another, more poetic perhaps, solution is simply to re-seed the playoffs so that he draws the team he was trying to avoid.

If the rules say he has to submit a complete lineup, he's out. Period.

The complete lineup rule is key here IMO.

With it in place, he should have presented a full lineup, however (intentionally) crappy a lineup it might be.

Problem is, you can't forfeit the game since that accomplishes what he wanted in the first place. And, unless there's previous offenses, I'm not sure this is grounds for expulsion from a league either.

Probably the most obvious solution is to fill in the lineup with his backups at each position & let the result of that stand, whatever it may be. Another, more poetic perhaps, solution is simply to re-seed the playoffs so that he draws the team he was trying to avoid.

fill the lineup with his starters so he has very little chance of losing

fill the lineup with his starters so he has very little chance of losing

But then you're penalizing the guy who was playing him (presumably he wasn't in on the first guy's decision. If so then it's collusion & probably would be grounds for dismissal from the league).

Seems to me that the (legal) intention was to not put the starters on the field, so to speak, which is reasonable if he's already clinched & can't improve his position.

If you're not going to kick him out, I think you have to put in all backups.

I agree with those who say kick him out. We had this happen in one of my money league's a few years ago and we voted unanimously to kick the guy out immediately. It violates the spirit of competition and it violates your written rule of all teams submitting a "complete lineup."

Depends on how you're league is setup. When I would run old school leagues, wwe have a rule that stipulated that if a taem failed to turn in a complete lineup by the deadline, they were forced to use the lst lineup they submitted.

This is certainly gray area. Notwithstanding how your league rules are written, if I were commish I would go with his last completed lineup for this week.

In the league's I ran, we had a rule that the commish had the authority to act at his discretion in the best interest of the league, with the the caveat that any commish rule could be overturned by a petition of 2/3 of the league owner. That allows the commish to make a ruling in a case like this, but if the commish acts improperly there is a way to check it.

If they guy doesn't like the ruling, I wouldn't kick him out at this point. This isn't an automatic banning like a collusion case. It's a strategy decision that the rules doesn't expressly forbid, apparently. They should. If he had turned in a complete lineup with scrubs and didn't try to be a douche, I would have let the scrub lineup stand.

Assuming that you're 100% sure it was intentional.... Let the loss stand, but he gets a post season suspension and is ineligible for the playoffs. That's the fairest way IMO. If you let the loss stand and he and the team he threw the game to make the playoffs a third team is screwed. If you fill out his lineup for him, the team he beat is screwed. Since a team will be screwed either way, it should be his.

eliminating his team for the 2 teams in the playoff hunt would be the fairest and strongest way to send a message that this kinda shit will not be tolerated..

also, i'd suggest refunding the dudes entry fee for the year if this is an option, to avoid possible hard feelings

Boot him and return his entry fee. He could have just made some questionable decisions if he was trying to lose. But to only make 2 players active is stupid. Seems as if he really leaves you with no other options. I think that you could probably just reuse his lineup from the week before to settle who wins this week.

I would suppose another siloution would be to deem his team ineligible for the playoffs this year.

In our other leagues (and even some online leagues), if you don't submit a starting lineup, it is assumed that you made no roster changes and you use the one from the last week.

Did the commish email him back right away? (If not then this has just been made worse)

This league is on its eleventh year now and its participants are a bunch of close friends who can at times be asshats (words of endearment).

Of all the leagues we participate in, this is the one we treasure most because of the comraderie, and the history we've created. A lot of the off-beat things we do are fun and good-natured. But sometimes we lose sight of the rules we put together to keep things fair.

Sometimes it seams I'm the only level-headed person around.

Anyways, I brought this issue up with the commissioners. I'll let you all know what we decided on. I'm sure it'll be like this (and it follows the rule to a 'T'): Charge him the $5 for no submission of complete lineup and use the prior week's starters.

The way we would handle this in our league is to alter his previous weeks lineup with the 2 players he submitted if they were different from those he submitted the previous week. We also have a clause in our league where not submitting a lineup will carry over your previous lineup (but not submitting counts towards a league expulsion, think it's 2 or 3 warnings prior to a booting).

Anyways, I brought this issue up with the commissioners. I'll let you all know what we decided on. I'm sure it'll be like this (and it follows the rule to a 'T'): Charge him the $5 for no submission of complete lineup and use the prior week's starters.
That's what I would do in this case, FWIW. If he was colluding with another team, that would be a bannable offense for me -- such as throwing a game so someone he likes better would win, not trying to setup a better playoff matchup. If all he's is doing is trying the manipulate the rules to his benefit, it may be asshatery but if the rules don't prevent it what's to stop him?

I don't see this as being that much different than if you're in a league that allows for minus points and after Sunday's games you have a slim lead with one player to go and your opponent is finished, and you end up benching your remaining player so you don't run the risk of losing in the event of negative points. I see that happen in online leagues frequently where it's allowed.

I don't think this kind of behavior should be encouraged or allowed to continue, but I don't see why breaking up an otherwise good leagues and friendships is worth it -- just deal with it and expressly prohibit it next year.