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With all the capabilities of the MyFantasyLeague.com waiver/free agent system, setting them up can initially be a confusing task.  Which system do I choose?  How do I use different systems together?  This "How To" page will explain the various options in detail to help make the setup and easy process.

Available Waiver Types

Enabling Waivers For Your League

FCFS Waiver Setup

Waiver Request Setup

Blind Bidding Setup

Conditional Blind Bidding Setup

Open (eBay) Bidding Setup

Separating Waivers From True Free Agents

Season-Long Rotating Waiver Order

Available Waiver Types

The first step is to understand what a 'waiver' really is.  In the MyFantasyLeague.com system, a waiver is commonly (but not always) a general term for all player adds and drops.  There are a variety of waiver types at your disposal (see below).  In some cases, however, leagues prefer to split out waivers (aka, recently dropped players) from true free agents .  In this case the waivers can take on either the Waiver Request or Blind Bidding type while the free agent pickups are done using a FCFS method.  There can only be one type of waiver defined at any point in time so not all waivers need be defined with an ending date/time (since the start of a subsequent waiver event will immediately force the end of the preceding waiver event).  The primary benefit of not using an end date/time in waiver definitions is the increased owner understanding due to a less-congested League Calendar report (and corresponding home page module).

No Waivers Allowed. Use this waiver style to prevent owners from performing any waiver moves for a portion of the waiver week.  If you prefer to not allow owners to make waiver moves at any time, you should instead use the Setup > Abilities Setup screen and uncheck all the boxes in the 'Perform Waivers' column for your owners.  This will have the added effect of removing the For Owners > Waivers menu item.

First Come First Served (FCFS). This is probably the most common waiver style used.  The acquisition of a new, free-agent (FA) player is based entirely on timing.  If team A requests a player before team B, then team A gets the player.

Waiver Request. Unlike the FCFS method above, a waiver request method allows a league to use criteria other than time to determine how waiver will be granted.  This is often used by leagues where at least some of the franchise owners are busy and cannot access the league 24x7.  In the waiver request model, the commissioner defines a time for the waiver request period to end (more about this later).  All franchise owners have until this time to submit their requests.  For example, if a waiver request period ran until Saturday at noon, and franchise A's owner was out of town for the week, he/she would still be able to make requests for a player when he/she returned.  Franchise B might also have made the request for the same players as franchise A only earlier in the week.  In this case, the fact that franchise B made the waiver request BEFORE franchise A has no merit.  Continuing with our example, we assume this league uses the current won-loss record for each team as the basis for awarding the waiver.  If franchise A had a LOWER won-loss record than franchise B (ie, a worse record), then franchise A would be awarded the player.  Note that the system also allows for at least five levels of sort criteria to handle ties.

To continue operating as fairly as possible, the waiver request model only allows each franchise the ability to acquire a single player at a time.  As a result, all teams that request a unique player will receive one player before any franchise receives a second player.  The term 'waiver round' is used to specify the period whereby each franchise gets a single waiver request.  Since it's quite reasonable, however, that a franchise would desire more than one waiver in a given week, the commissioner can define up to eight waiver rounds.  This will limit a franchise from picking up a maximum of eight new players in a given waiver window.

Combined vs. Separated Waivers/FAs. By default, the site treats a waiver request period as an event that allows owner to submit requests for *ALL* players.  That is, it makes no distinction between true waiver (recently dropped players) and true free agents (not recently dropped players).  Most leagues prefer this method so no additional setup change is necessary.  However, some leagues prefer to truly separate the two.  When this occurs, then waiver requests may only be made for players that have been recently dropped.  Even in the most active leagues, this greatly reduces the number of players that may requested during a wavier request event.

In order to enable this option, leagues must go to the Setup > Waivers/Free Agents Setup screen to enable (ie, set to "yes") the setting "Allow owners to submit requests for recently dropped (or "locked") players via the "For Owners > Waivers" option, and all other players may be acquired immediately via the "For Owners > Acquire Free Agents" option?".  Once enabled, waiver requests for recently dropped players are made via the For Owners > Waivers screen whereas free agent pickups are now made using the separate For Owners > Acquire Free Agents screen. 

Once enabled, waivers get a bit more complex overall.  Specifically, no FCFS Waiver moves will appear to be added to the League Calendar.  Instead, a new "No Free Agent Moves Allowed" event appears.  Initially this event is not scheduled which allows owners to always (24x7) pick up free agents.  This is the one time where calendar events may overlap.  Both waiver requests and free agent acquisitions may run independent of one other; they may overlap or run at separate times.

Locked Players. A locked player is unavailable to be picked up or requested in the default 'combined waivers/FAs'.  However, when using a separated waiver/FA system, locked players are requested through the For Owners > Waivers screen.  There are several locked player settings:

The player is not locked - (default) Select this option if you don't want recently dropped players to be locked at all.  Using this option, all players (recently dropped as well as true free agents) are treated in the same way.  They are all subject to your league's waiver rules.  For example, if player A is a free agent and player B has been recently dropped, a league that uses a Waiver Request, Blind Bid Request, or FCFS waiver period will treat these two players in the exact same manner.

The next time waiver are processed - Choose this option to lock the recently dropped players until the next time waivers are processed (this is the most common and easiest option).

X days later - A recently dropped cannot be acquired or requested/bid on by any franchise until the specified number of days (you can also enter in a fraction of a day where 1 hour = 1/24th day = 0.0417 and 3 hours = 1/8th day = 0.0125)

A specific future date & time - A recently dropped cannot be acquired or requested/bid on by any franchise until the specified future date/time has passed.

Using any of these latter three options will allow for enabling the "Allow owners to submit requests for recently dropped players..." setting below.

Blind Bidding. This waiver type allows for each owner to place a hidden bid for players.  Typically a fixed amount is given to each franchise with which to use for all bids during the season.  Franchises may only spend these bidding dollars on free agents.  Once the waiver period has ended, the franchise with the highest bid will be awarded the player for the amount bid.  In addition to this 'standard/unconditional' blind bidding, leagues can also use a conditional blind bidding scheme whereby owners can setup multiple, prioritized blind bids.

Conditional Blind Bidding. Conditional blind bids are a lot like waiver request waiver moves, in that owners can enter multiple rounds of waiver moves, and prioritize their picks in each round. Each round's worth of requests is looked at, top to bottom, and the first bid that is considered valid is the one that the system will accept, ignoring future bids in that round. Here's a concrete example of how conditional blind bidding works, assuming franchises 1 and 2, and players A through Z, with a season-long blind bidding limit of $10, and no owners having any money spent on blind bidding.

Read as English, these bids mean:

-Franchise 1, in round 1, wants to acquire player A for a bid of $5, and drop player Z. If that bid cannot be done, he wants to acquire player B for a bid of $8, and drop player Z. Note that even though the bid for player B is higher than the bid for player A, the bid for player A is listed first, and therefore given higher priority.

-Franchise 1, in round 2, wants to acquired player C for a bid of $6, and drop player Y. If that bid cannot be done, he wants to acquire player D for a bid of $2, and drop player Y.

-Franchise 2, in round 1, wants to acquire player A for a bid of $4, and drop player X. Note that this bid does not have a second-ranked bid, so if this bid does not go through, player X will remain on franchise 2's roster.

-Franchise 2, in round 2, wants to acquire player C for a bid of $5, and drop player W. If that bid cannot go through, then he wants to acquire player D for a bid of $1, and drop player W.

On the process waivers page, the system will look at the bids, starting with the highest dollar amount top priority bid, and continue looking at bids until all are processed (either successfully, by doing the add/drop, or unsuccessfully, because the bid is considered invalid), and by default select the bid that it thinks should go through (or "None", if it considers all bids invalid).

Please also see this conditional blind bidding announcement for more detailed information.

  NOTE: Do not change this setting if you have any pending blind bids.  First go to the Process Waivers screen to process the pending bids and then change this setting as needed.

  MyFantasyLeague.com was not designed for "Open/EBay bidding" for free agents, and as such, we do not support or suggest that you attempt this style of waivers.  Only the most dedicated commissioners will want to attempt to implement this style of waivers.  If you'd like tips/tricks on how to set up Open/EBay bidding, please see our Community Forums for suggestions from other MyFantasyLeague.com customers who have experience with the potential "gotchas" associated with Open/EBay bidding.

Enabling Waivers For Your League

FCFS Waivers Setup

This example creates a FCFS waiver event starting on noon Wed, Sept. 14, and ends on Sun, Sept. 18 at kickoff (therefore FCFS waivers from noon Wed. through kickoff Sun).  In addition, this event type has been repeated for 16 weeks in the season (ending with week 17's kickoff).  The resulting event type displays:

NOTE: 12:00 PM is noon and 12:00 AM is midnight.

Waiver Request Setup

In this example the Waiver Request event type has been defined to start at kickoff of each week and continue through Wednesday at Noon ET.  Franchises may submit requests for free agents until this time.  Once Wednesday at noon occurs, the system can auto-process or the commissioner can manually process the pending waiver requests.  In this following screenshot, this Waiver Request has been added to the above FCFS event type:

Blind Bidding Setup

In this example Blind Bidding waivers will start at kickoff and continue through Wednesday at Noon ET.  Franchises may submit hidden bids for free agents until this time.  Once Wednesday at noon occurs, the site by default will auto-process all pending bids.  Alternately, the commissioner may manually process the pending bids via the For Commissioners > Process Waivers screen (auto-processing should be enabled in the Blind Bidding Waivers Setup screen).  In this following screenshot, this Blind Bidding Waiver type has been joined with the above FCFS event type:

Conditional Blind Bidding Setup

For the most part, the setup for conditional blind bidding is the same as for blind bidding (above).  The one exception being that the commissioner must enable the "Are Conditional Blind Bids Allowed?" setting on the Blind Bidding Waivers Setup screen. 

Separating Waivers from True Free Agents

While most league prefer to treat all non-roster players as free agents, some leagues would rather have recently dropped players defined as "waivers" and all other non-roster players termed "free agents".  For these leagues, the site offers the ability to separate the two.

       Unlike the default combined waivers/free agents where the league has but one waiver period (waiver request, blind bid, FCFS, or no waivers allowed), separating the waivers from free agents requires that two separate and overlapping events occur.  For recently dropped players/waivers, leagues must define the "Waiver Request", "Blind Bidding Waivers", and the "No Waivers Allowed" event type.  For true free agents, leagues must define the "No Free Agent Moves Allowed" event type (when not defined, the default is to allow FCFS pickups for all true free agents).

7.	The resulting calendar for the month of September, 2008 looks like this:

Season-Long Rotating Waiver Order

From this point on, any time that an owner successfully adds a player to his roster via a "Waiver Request" (but not FCFS or blind bidding) waiver move (regardless if that waiver request is manually processed by the league commissioner via the For Commissioners > Process Waivers page, or via automatic waiver processing), that owner will move to the bottom of the list, having the lowest priority for the next set of waiver request moves.

NOTE: Use the For Commissioners > Setup > Appearance Setup > Home Page Setup screen to add the "Waiver Wire Order" home page module to have your waiver order displayed on your league's home page for all owners to see.        Also note that deluxe leagues have the displayed wire separated by conference or division as needed.