IBC

What do we do about a GM if they bench star players?

Not sure. Draft lottery? Or maybe we set the draft order based on September 1? Either answer discourages tanking. Any thoughts?

Surprisingly, i think a draft lottery is a great idea.

I don't like the idea of a draft lottery at all. While it burns us all up when someone does something sorry to get a better pick, it makes no sense for some guys to whale and moan about making the league more balanced, then trick up who gets the top picks. You are much more likely to screw up balance that way than rogue GMs tanking games - and easily so.

I think that they need to be called on it and if it's an obvious situation the exco can deal with it, install the player, impose penalty after a warning, whatever.

I don't think a draft lottery is a good idea, I'm just mentioning things I've heard people suggest about the NBA tanking situation after this past year. I think setting the draft order on September 1 is probably the easiest to implement, since it's unlikely that without a major tank job a team is going to move more than a couple of slots in that month and it means that teams in the pennant race in September will get the best of the cupcakes they face (and it lets September be interesting for bottom dweller teams by letting them play spoiler without having to worry about draft position). Also if the draft order is set earlier it means that people can start trading draft picks earlier, which might make up for that lull of activity in September. We could also make some sort of incentive, maybe like a bonus 3rd round draft pick for the team under .500 with the best record in September or something like that. Just some stuff off the top of my head, I don't like the idea of the ExCo setting people's rosters one bit.

OK, but when Luke Scott is the starting SS and you have Helton, Hawpe and Duncan on the bench ExCo needs to do something.

Yes, Z was out of town but still...

I agree. Any GM should have backups for their position players, even if they're not quality backups.

I say we toss the idea out there for the league to discuss, I'd be curious to hear what they have to say on the issue.

I'm against a lottery, but for penalties on this subject. What penalties? I don't know. But obvious tanking is simply unacceptable.

Maybe lose that player for the beginning of next season? Get moved to the bottom of the first round? Lose a 2nd round pick? Just throwing ideas out there.

Good suggestions, though I think the first one is somewhat impractical unless you want to prevent them from trading that player as well.
What about for every week they submit a roster that does that, their draft position gets altered by 5 wins. So if you finish the season 63-99, you'll get ranked in the draft order as if you were 68-94. If they do it twice, 73-89.

If you want to keep track of that be my guest.