Team Setup

One thing I have notcied about this league is that almost every team goes with a 4 man team from week to week. In fact, two teams ONLY carry 4 guys total on their team. Even the teams that CARRY 5 usually only play 4. On the other hand, only 2 teams carry 6, and even at that NOBODY (with the exception of us) EVER plays 6. (We've played 6 in 3 out of the first 4 weeks) I'm wondering if teams purposely go with 4 and tell the 5th to stay home, or it's just coincidence that every week someone is missing, so they only have 4? I can totally see the advantage of playing with just 4 or even 5 because either your BEST 2 guys get to play all three matches (in the case of 5 guys playing), or EVERYBODY gets all three matches (in the case of 4 guys playing). However, I would think that it would be incredibly risky to go with just 4 guys (or even 5) on your roster. I would think that there would be AT LEAST one circumsatnce during the season where someone couldn't show and now you have to go short (which is HUGE when you only play 8 total games and you would get 3 forfeits towards the 5 games only that you need to win). I feel like my team NEEDS to carry 6 because on ANY single week we can totally lose at LEAST one guy, and there's always a chance we'd lose 2 from time to time. YET, I'd hate to tell someone they only get to play if someone bails last minute. Unfortunately, it seems that in order to compete with the higher teams in this division, you HAVE to play AT LEAST your best 2 guys in all three matches, which means others won't get to play at all, OR play just one single game a night. Is there a lot of forfeits with teams just carrying 4 or 5 guys or do the other teams guys just ALWAYS show and never miss, OR are there makeup games scheduled a lot? Reason I ask is because, the P.D. team that just dismantled us last night only carries 5. They ALREADY know that they will have 2 guys out on Week 6 and will be shorthanded. This is also the week they are scheduled to play the team they are tied for 1st place with (Double Trouble). Week 6 happens to be our BYE week. So, they have asked us to play D.T. on our BYE week when they were supposed to play them, and us to take our BYE week on Week 7 which is when we were supposed to play D.T (which happens to be P.D.'s BYE) which would free up D.T to play P.D, so that P.D. can field a full squad and not have to forfeit any games. We said yes because we didn't want to be unsportsmanlike (and it really doesn't directly effect us), but at the same time, it's kind of their own fault for not having 6 guys on the roster (Which would protect them from being short, but ALSO give everyone else on their team less playing time, assuming that 5 or 6 guys actually WANT to play each week). Is this a normal thing? If rescheduling is a common thing, then I could totally see only having 4 or 5 guys because all you would have to do is reschedule any time you were going to be short. I just can't believe that these teams with just 4 guys can make it through an entire season PLUS playoffs without ONE single person missing a week for SOME sort of reason.

It's risky going with four players, that has lead to a good number of game forfeits.

Showing up with five is typical, four less so, six pretty rare although we played six last night. And yes, five will be 2@3/3@2 with the better player playing more.

Rescheduling is rare, but as we had three captains agree to do so in this case then I'm not going to deny it. (I'm also pretty certain this team couldn't find a sixth player.) Tough spot for you to be in, though...