League controversy - is this shady by the commish?

[Mephistopheles]

I'm in a league which is in its 9th year, this is my third or fourth in the league, forgot which.
I put on a great run at the end of the year to finish 2nd in my division including beating the division winner twice.
During that run, I turned down two trades which would have resulted in me "packing it in" for this year - however since the projected playoff seeding report showed me as #6 the last few weeks I turned them down.
Playoffs started week 14, and MFL auto-populated the playoffs with me as the #5 seed. Yay me! The commish's team was out of the playoffs in the auto-populated bracket.

Sunday morning of week 14 at 11:40am CT, the commish goes into the league and overrides the auto-population of the playoffs, takes 2 teams out and puts 2 other teams (including his own) in in their place. He claims that the tiebreaker was calculated inconsistently with the bylaws, it should have been on total points not divisional record.

However, in reviewing the past 8 years of the league, in at least 3 of the past 6 years, divisional record was the tiebreaking formula, including one year where the commish got a higher seed because of it.

I immediately called the commish out on this on Sunday, but he refuses to respond.

Based on the auto-populated matchups, i would have won and been in the semis against the team that won my division, which I have defeated twice, and guaranteed in the money. Instead, the commish ended up in the semis and in the money.

I have told the commish, twice now, that the honorable way to handle this would have been to leave the auto-population as is based on customary practice, then have a vote in the offseason whether to amend the bylaws to reflect the customary practice or to correct the settings to match the bylaws. Correcting this in week 14 when he knows the playoff results were not in his favor, especially when he benefited from it in past years, is very shady in my eyes. He will not respond at all.

Am I off base here that this is incredibly shady on the commish's part?

[Tvols]

Walk away ...

[Mephistopheles]

Walk away ...

Goes without saying.

[roseyknee]

Agree with the others about leaving. Maybe if the move didn't directly help his own position, but he's clearly making changes to benefit himself. Dealing with a commish like this takes out all the fun of fantasy

[Pac_Eddy]

Sounds pretty shady.

Are you confident that you figured out the previous eight years accurately? If so, I'd post those calculations for the rest of the league to see. At a minimum that will show how inconsistent the commish has been.

If they don't settle this issue this offseason, I'd bail on that league. If you intend to stay in (friends or family league), then you may just have to make this a back burner league and don't let these things get to you.

[Bot101]

Point the commish to this thread. Maybe a proper shaming will knock some sense into him.

[Dirty Mike&the Boys]

As a commissioner of a standard league, I don't make any changes like this unless they are already within the bylaws. The league is also notified of such changes when they occur.

In this particular situation, he shouldn't be making any changes, and should put it to vote (or make an executive decision) during the OFFSEASON. If he doesn't revert these changes he has made, I would seriously consider leaving the league.... Little integrity apparently.



Side note: I hope you haven't paid him yet, and if you haven't, don't plan on paying him, and leave the league. Just my .2.......

[sloth8u]

You obviously can't change how you qualify from year to year. Surely your leaguemates have your back on this?

[chopping mall]

hmmm this is tough, technically he IS following the charter. He has not been consistent in following the charter yes, but when it doubt it is the charter that rules. when there is a discrepancy the default should be to follow the charter until a vote to change the charter can happen.

Yes the Charter isn't being consistently followed, but honestly I put that on the whole league, if 3 of the last 6 year it wasn't done correctly that means 3 of the 6 years it was, the entire league has been missing that sometimes the commish catches this and sometimes he doesn't, but the charter was ALWAYS going to require him to re-seed the MFL population and if you had simply said the commish hasn't been following the charter in years past what should I do? Everyone would have said to tell him he needs to follow the charter or change it.

I'm sorry but the fact that the league has not been diligent or consistent in making sure the league follows the charter doesn't change the fact that the charter calls for 1 thing and that's what needs to be done until the charter is updated.

The entire league needs to re-read the charter and ensure the commish abides by it in all things.

[Mephistopheles]

hmmm this is tough, technically he IS following the charter. He has not been consistent in following the charter yes, but when it doubt it is the charter that rules. when there is a discrepancy the default should be to follow the charter until a vote to change the charter can happen.

Yes the Charter isn't being consistently followed, but honestly I put that on the whole league, if 3 of the last 6 year it wasn't done correctly that means 3 of the 6 years it was, the entire league has been missing that sometimes the commish catches this and sometimes he doesn't, but the charter was ALWAYS going to require him to re-seed the MFL population and if you had simply said the commish hasn't been following the charter in years past what should I do? Everyone would have said to tell him he needs to follow the charter or change it.

I'm sorry but the fact that the league has not been diligent or consistent in making sure the league follows the charter doesn't change the fact that the charter calls for 1 thing and that's what needs to be done until the charter is updated.

The entire league needs to re-read the charter and ensure the commish abides by it in all things.

Incorrect, he has been 100% consistent for eight years in that divisional record has been set and used as the #1 tiebreaker in the playoffs.
Three of the 6 years there were no ties to be broken or, if there were, the divisional record (set every year in MFL as the primary tiebreaker) followed the total points. The MFL auto-setting from what I can see has been set that way from the day one. It was never changed, still hasn't been, and the commish never has, in previous years, manually seeded the brackets like this.

The playoffs auto-populated on Monday night and the playoff brackets were posted. He waited until Sunday 15 minutes before week 14 kickoff to change it...when the league is at its least active.

All I'm saying is, this should have been put to a vote and been handled more transparently. He has not responded to anything on this.

I've actually had this happen two other times, in other leagues. One, that I took over as commish where the previous commish had the MFL playoff settings wrong. I caught it in week 12 by auditing the "projected playoff seedings", and I immediately brought it to the league's attention for a vote, gave the league the option to amend the bylaws to reflect what they had done for the prior 4 years, or to amend the settings. The league voted to amend the bylaws and leave the settings as they were. The other, the commish set the parameters for "victory points" inconsistently with the bylaws and it was discovered in week one. Again, he put it to a vote rather than unilaterally deciding to leave it.

That is what I think should have been done here.

[Mephistopheles]

You obviously can't change how you qualify from year to year. Surely your leaguemates have your back on this?

Have 2 people backing me on it, one opposed (the 2nd guy who got in due to the change).
Rest of the league is rather inactive or hasn't been in the league since the end of the season to see it (he changed the playoffs 15 minutes before Sunday kickoff).

[Mephistopheles]

As a commissioner of a standard league, I don't make any changes like this unless they are already within the bylaws. The league is also notified of such changes when they occur.

In this particular situation, he shouldn't be making any changes, and should put it to vote (or make an executive decision) during the OFFSEASON. If he doesn't revert these changes he has made, I would seriously consider leaving the league.... Little integrity apparently.



Side note: I hope you haven't paid him yet, and if you haven't, don't plan on paying him, and leave the league. Just my .2.......

Exactly what I am saying. Not in week 14 on Sunday 15 minutes before kickoff.

[chopping mall]

hmmm this is tough, technically he IS following the charter. He has not been consistent in following the charter yes, but when it doubt it is the charter that rules. when there is a discrepancy the default should be to follow the charter until a vote to change the charter can happen.

Yes the Charter isn't being consistently followed, but honestly I put that on the whole league, if 3 of the last 6 year it wasn't done correctly that means 3 of the 6 years it was, the entire league has been missing that sometimes the commish catches this and sometimes he doesn't, but the charter was ALWAYS going to require him to re-seed the MFL population and if you had simply said the commish hasn't been following the charter in years past what should I do? Everyone would have said to tell him he needs to follow the charter or change it.

I'm sorry but the fact that the league has not been diligent or consistent in making sure the league follows the charter doesn't change the fact that the charter calls for 1 thing and that's what needs to be done until the charter is updated.

The entire league needs to re-read the charter and ensure the commish abides by it in all things.

Incorrect, he has been 100% consistent for eight years in that divisional record has been set and used as the #1 tiebreaker in the playoffs.
Three of the 6 years there were no ties to be broken or, if there were, the divisional record (set every year in MFL as the primary tiebreaker) followed the total points. The MFL auto-setting from what I can see has been set that way from the day one. It was never changed, still hasn't been, and the commish never has, in previous years, manually seeded the brackets like this.

The playoffs auto-populated on Monday night and the playoff brackets were posted. He waited until Sunday 15 minutes before week 14 kickoff to change it...when the league is at its least active.

All I'm saying is, this should have been put to a vote and been handled more transparently. He has not responded to anything on this.

I've actually had this happen two other times, in other leagues. One, that I took over as commish where the previous commish had the MFL playoff settings wrong. I caught it in week 12 by auditing the "projected playoff seedings", and I immediately brought it to the league's attention for a vote, gave the league the option to amend the bylaws to reflect what they had done for the prior 4 years, or to amend the settings. The league voted to amend the bylaws and leave the settings as they were. The other, the commish set the parameters for "victory points" inconsistently with the bylaws and it was discovered in week one. Again, he put it to a vote rather than unilaterally deciding to leave it.

That is what I think should have been done here.

Ah ok, there were no ties to be broken, that was my only issue, if sometimes the charter was being followed that would have been different, but if it's consistently been this way I agree with everyone else, he can't NOW switch and follow the charter especially when it benefits him.

Nope, I'm in full agreement with them, those of you who think likewise need to just leave the league, staying in leagues like this empower the commish, if he knows that doing stuff like this will cost him leaguemates and force him to go through the trouble of replacing them, he'll be more likely to think twice in the future.

[lukkynumber13]

If everything you said is true, leave that league.

[Dr.Graffin]

Very shady.