How would you handle this obvious collusion?
 

I'm in a fantasy baseball league. I'm the commish.

Anyway, it's a h2h league. I'm 2.5 games up on the 2nd place team. The 2nd place team is 5.5 games up on the 3rd place team. This is the last day of the regular season and the regular season payouts are significant for 1st and 2nd. There's nothing for 3rd.

I'm losing this week 14-6, and the 2nd place team is currently losing 16-3. The 3rd place team is winning 10-7. So that would mean the 2nd place team is likely out of winning money and getting a playoff first round bye.

Everything seems like it's going perfectly for me to win. However, the opponent of the 2nd place team has decided to basically cheat. He has locked up 8 of the 10 pitching categories already by not throwing another arm. The 2nd place manager was unable to add players to catch him because he was out of pickups. So what does the other manager do? He picks up 2 arms to throw today, and puts them in his lineup. This would mean that now the 2nd place team can make up about 5 pitching categories if these 2 starters don't perform well. There's absolutely nothing to gain for the opponent by doing this. He can't move in the standings.

I'm friendly with the owner of the other team, but the 2nd place owner and him are real close. I've sent him texts, emails, posted on his facebook wall about giving me a reason to throw those arms when he didn't need to, and no response.

It's a Yahoo league, so I can't edit his lineup myself for today, it wouldn't take effect until tomorrow.

How would you handle this? It's obvious cheating.

Kill both of them in their sleep.

have butt sex with a fat chick

Post a "rate my team thread" to decide league winner.

I understand your logic, but let me play devil's advocate

What pitchers did he pick up and who are they pitching against? Unless he is picking up Kyle Davies type pitchers against the Red Sox, I honestly think you should let it go.

It's not your job to manage other teams. It's possible that the third place team wasn't even aware of everything that you've mentioned and was simply trying to throw out some decent arms not knowing what the other mangers were doing. If I were this manager, I might find your message condescending (even though true).

If I were the second place team, I'd be pissed. Manger your own team. You're winning this league because you are a good manger. That doesn't give you the right to contact other managers and provide strategy. The team in third place was likely making managing errors all season. You shouldn't be able to fix his roster just because it's the last week of the season and it serves your own purposes.

In short, unless you were providing such advice all season long when people made foolish moves I think that you need to let this one go...

Fat enough that her ass checks keep you from penetrating the hole?

He picked up Corey Coleman of the Cubs. Currently has a 2 whip and a 7.5 era. Other starter is Zach Britton, who has been awful.

I could see all these points if he had anything to gain. He doesn't. To go out and pick up a guy with a 7.5 era when you can't gain anything proves the point that he's doing it just to put 750 in the pocket of the 2nd place team. This manager every week is nuts about just throwing hte league minimum. This week, he's way over that. I don't think it's a coincidence.

Plus, if it was on the up and up, why not respond to my texts or my private facebook message?

I'm not trying to tell people how to run their team. But if you are going to have a trade processing time to prevent guys from making ridiculous trades, this falls into the same spectrum.

I also was providing trade advice to both of those teams that asked me.

Has the third place team, the one affected, said anything to you? If not I think I would leave it alone.

Yes, they initially brought it up.

Because they are basically a half game difference, they thought it was very strange.

The 2nd owner is all in a huff, much like Infidel Goat said he would be. Funny thing is, that owner tries to veto everyone's trades.

I think after this year, I'm done being a commish and will just join public leagues with people I don't know.

This is not cheating. Its a strategy. If you have a max add/drop per week and a minimum innings pitched than thats all you can do. We had problems with a guy streaming pitchers so we had to put in a max of 5 add/drops per week. We had the same issue with him benching all his pitchers when he was up in era.whip and k/9... Now, at the time we had no min innings pitch. It is now 25 innings per week.

After you put in those rules(which it seems you have), its all stategy from there on. You may not like it and think its cheap but its a stategy and you should NOT interfere.

The owner is saying he's not even paying attention to fantasy. It's bizarre. If you aren't paying attention this week, why do you even add someone like Coleman? I never heard of him before in my life.

Oh well, it's a dead issue to me now. Whatever happens, happens, but I'm done with this.

But what if he already hit the innings? I fail to see what strategy he's imploring. Maybe if I could see the logic, I would be more understanding.

ok.. I just re-read it. Thats shitty and I'd kick his ass!

fantasy sports is serious shit

When there's 750 at stake, you're damn right.