Waivers & Free Agency

TLDR: Every team receives $100 FAAB at the start of the season. Each week during the season, from Tuesday through Saturday, managers place blind bids on un-rostered players to pick them up. Unlike last year, there is no "first to react" free agency. If a player's value suddenly skyrockets on a Thursday afternoon due to injury or any other cause, you don't have to race to add him. Instead, you place a bid, and he goes to the highest bidder when waivers run that night. This way, everyone gets a fair shot as we live our busy day-to-day lives. Then on Sunday and Monday, the pool opens to instant free agency so you can react to inactive reports and set a legal lineup for that day's games.

What is FAAB?

We use FAAB (Free Agent Acquisition Budget) with blind bidding. Instead of a waiver-priority list, every manager gets a season-long budget of fake money and bids secretly on the players they want. Highest bid wins. You cannot see anyone else's bids until they process.

Each team starts the season with $100 in FAAB. This is not real money and has nothing to do with the buy-in - it's a bidding currency, used only to claim players. Every dollar that is spent is final: outside of trades, there are no ways to increase your FAAB during the season. Spend deliberately.

Adding Players

At any moment, an un-rostered player is in one of two states:

• On waivers - you can only get him by placing a blind FAAB bid. Bids are awarded at the next nightly processing (see schedule). No one can "beat you to it" by clicking faster; it comes down to the bid.
• Free agent - first-come, first-served. Click "add" and he's yours instantly, no bid. This is open on Sundays and Mondays - and only for players who haven't already played that week (anyone who has appeared in a game stays on waivers until Wednesday - see below).

The weekly schedule. Waivers run Tuesday through Saturday, processing each night at midnight Pacific (about 3 AM Eastern). Sundays and Mondays are instant free-agent days.

Players who already played. Any player who appears in a game stays on waivers until Wednesday at midnight PT, no matter what day he played. So a Thursday-night player you want is awarded the following Wednesday - which is fine, since he's already done for that week and you're really adding him for next week. This is also what keeps the Sunday-Monday free-agent window fair: a player who blew up on Sunday is still locked on waivers, so nobody can grab him for free ahead of the pack - only genuinely unplayed players (bye guys, Monday-nighters) can be added instantly.

Dropped players. A player you drop stays on waivers for 1 day before he can become a free agent. This prevents dropping a player and instantly re-adding him to dodge a bid. He's biddable during that window, then opens up.

Tied Bids. If two teams bid the same amount on a player, the tie goes to the team with the better waiver order that week. Winning any claim sends you to the back of the waiver order, so priority constantly rotates. Sleeper handles this automatically.

$0 bids minimum. You may bid $0. A $0 bid wins if no one else bids on that player (or loses the tiebreaker to another $0 bid with better waiver order). Once a player is a Sunday free agent, no bid is needed at all.

FAAB in trades. FAAB may be included in trades and does not have to be balanced (see the Trades section). You can effectively buy or sell budget FAAB via trades.

The TNF Limitation. Because players who play midweek during Thursday/Friday/Saturday night games are on waivers (not instant free agency), you cannot add and start a player for a Thursday night game if you place your bid the same Thursday. You'll need to plan that add ahead and place your bid on Wednesday so he's added to your team when waivers run the next morning. This is a deliberate tradeoff: we protect valuable midweek pickups from being sniped by whoever's online, at the cost of not being able to stream a player instantly into the Thursday game itself. Plan Thursday-night (or any other mid-week) starters ahead.