Categories
Minor League Fantasy

Roster Churning

With the MiLF (Minor League Fantasy) League’s expansion from a 12 team league to a 14 team league for the 2021 season, we are making some significant changes to the league’s roster compositions. The roster composition we had been using through the 2020 season was as follows:

Legacy Roster Composition

Quarterback – 1
Running Back – 2
Wide Receiver – 2
Tight End – 1
FLEX (WRT) – 3
Bench – 7

Using this old roster setup, each team was rostering a total of 16 players (including bench). This meant that across the 12 teams in the league, a total of 192 players were rostered at any given point.

As we transition into the 14 team league, we wanted to adjust the roster composition in a way that would accomplish a few key things:

  1. Ideally, decrease the total number of players rostered to make the waiver and free agent pool more impactful. At the least, do not increase the total number of players rostered. Free agency was already kind of a nightmare, particularly with the deep benches.
  2. Reduce bench sizes. We wanted to do this to force team managers into more active or thoughtful management of their teams, and also hopefully generate some more movement of players through waivers and free agency.
  3. Structure the active roster composition for starters in a way that allows for flexibility. Making the composition for a team manager’s active lineup more flexible allows for a wider array of management strategies from the draft onward. It also allows for adjustments to be made more easily as one team manager reacts to the moves of the other managers.

With those ideas in mind, a new roster composition was designed that we will be using moving forward.

New Roster Composition – 2021 Season

Quarterback – 1
Running Back – 1
Wide Receiver – 1
Tight End – 1
FLEX (WRT) – 3
SUPERFLEX (QWRT) – 1
Bench – 5

Using this roster setup, each team manager will be rostering a total of 13 players (including bench). This means that across the 14 teams in the league, a total of 182 players will be rostered at any given point. This is 10 fewer players than were rostered across the league with 12 teams using the previous roster composition.

I’m very excited for us to play with this roster composition this season, take it for a spin, kick the tires a bit, and see where we land on it at the end of the season.

The addition of the SUPERFLEX spot will drastically change the prioritization of quarterbacks across the front end of the draft. Dropping the requirements for running back and wide receiver slots from 2 to 1 each should allow for a much broader approach to the draft and team management. Dropping the bench size a couple of spots should slightly increase the importance of scheduling around your players’ bye weeks, etc.

I’m excited to see all of the interesting and terrifying ways you maniacs approach this season with the new roster composition.

Troll tide, fellers. Troll tide.