The Fy Gambit and How We Deal With Injuries

In the NHL and fantasy hockey alike, injuries to big stars are part of the game. How our rules permit GMs to mitigate the effect of injuries has implications for competition, player movement, and general fun level. 

Many GMs are uncomfortable with what has become known as the "Fy Gambit" (named after fictional X-men character Gambit, whose "mutant power" was dealing cards). This tricky manoeuvre involves dropping an injured star player and then adding him back to the non-scoring roster. It requires GMs to have two free agent swaps at their disposal. As GMs only have two free agent swaps per year, retaining the ability to perform the FY Gambit means passing on tempting free agents early in the season. It's a bit of strategy that I like. However, because we have treated free agent swaps as a tradable commodity, GMs know they can obtain additional swaps when needed, and the price is relatively low because there are typically more sellers than buyers. Having seen this for two years now, some GMs are clamouring to ban the trading of free agent swaps. 

Other GMs have called for an outright ban of the Fy Gambit, which is an easy enough amendment to the rules, although I'm not sure it's in the best interests of the League. This led to me to consider the questions of to what extent, and with which tools, we want to enable GMs to address injuries. 

I think there are at least two schools of thought on this. One camp, let's call them the non-interventionists, believe injuries are part of the game. Mitigation should largely occur before the season begins: you take injury history into consideration in retaining and drafting players; you covet ironman streaks; you draft a decent backup goalie; you avoid Peter Mueller. And then you take your chances in the injury lottery, which otherwise treats all GMs the same.

Injuries, according to the non-interventionists, should also create opportunities. If one team's roster is significantly better than others' from the outset (ahem, GP), a critical injury or two becomes the only hope of the teams below. If bitten by the injury bug, the GM on top has to either ride out the injury, creating opportunity for lesser teams to move up in the standings, or trade the player, creating opportunity for lesser teams to acquire big names. (Note this point is disputed by at least one GM, who says that GMs will not trade an injured superstar. Others say it at least opens the trade door a crack, and we have seen trades of some stars and one superstar (Malkin) driven by injury). 

The underlying assumption is that player movement is a good thing, which I think most GMs would agree with, to a point - trades are interesting, and movement has the potential to make the league more competitive. On the other hand, it is open to question whether trades motivated by injury are of the same "value" as more traditional trades - i.e., trades driven by pure speculation, by trying to buy low or sell high, by trying to improve a weakness in one area by dealing strength in another, or by just exploiting another GM's homerism or irrational love for Adam Henrique. 

The other camp, let's call them the interventionists for symmetry's sake, believe that fantasy hockey is too important to be decided by random chance. Injuries are unpredictable. In our league, with the slot system, GMs are hamstrung when a star player goes down, because often the depth players are too far back to make the scoring roster. When a player in a high slot is injured, it's like playing short-handed. This is not what happens in NHL hockey, where depth players fill in. 

From this camp has emerged an idea that embraces intra-roster movement (let's call it the intra-roster swap). It would entitle each team, once per season, to swap any two roster players of the same position. Neither of the players would actually have to be injured, so on a hunch you could swap out a cold player on your scoring roster for a hot one on your bench. Outside of this one move per year, the Fy Gambit would be prohibidado, although each GM would still have two free agent pickups, to be used for actual free agents. The intra-roster swap would be untradable; free agent pickups would still be tradable. This idea intrigues me because it adds a layer of strategy: how to time your intra-roster swap for maximum value; what level of risk is acceptable, etc. It also makes more interesting the keeping/drafting of injured players that will be returning part-way through the season. 

I haven't heard from everyone in the league and there are bound to be some things I haven't considered. But in general I'm curious as to which camp people fall in, or whether there are other camps, considerations or ideas. 

To summarize, I see at least four options for the league to consider:

a) leave the rules as they are (Fy Gambit unlimited);

b) Prohibit trading of free agent swaps (Fy Gambit once per team per year);

c) Prohibit Fy Gambit, allow one intra-roster swap;

d) Prohibit Fy Gambit entirely; no intra-roster swap.