Field note 05 / Waivers
How Knute works the waiver wire on ESPN
The claim gets made, the drop gets checked, and the limits are enforced before anything reaches ESPN.
The short answer
Does Knute make the waiver claims itself?
Yes. Knute places the FAAB bid or the priority claim on your ESPN team, then explains it. It values each free agent against your roster for your league's scoring and slots, sizes the bid to your remaining budget, and refuses any bid or add that breaks your league's limits. At Advisor level it proposes; at Co-pilot and Autopilot it files the claim.
I built Knute to do the part of the waiver wire that a tip sheet cannot: decide, bid, and submit on the actual team, inside rules that are enforced in code rather than in a prompt.
01 / Valuing the wire
How does Knute decide waiver pickups?
It starts from your league, not from a generic list. Before it looks at a free agent, Knute reads the league rules: scoring, starting slots, injured-reserve capacity, and the roster it is managing, including who is locked, who is hurt, and which slots each player can fill.
Then it compares players with position-adjusted value rather than raw projected points. A free agent is measured by how much he improves on the replacement you already have at the positions he can fill, in your scoring. The same player can be a strong claim in one league and irrelevant in another because the slots and the scoring change what scarcity means.
If you have uploaded your own rankings, they are part of that read, so the wire is worked the way you would rank it, not the way a consensus board would.
02 / Add and drop
Will Knute drop my players?
Only when the add needs the roster spot, and only a player it is allowed to drop. Every acquisition is a single add with at most one drop, validated as one plan. If your roster has an open spot, the claim is filed as a straight add. If it does not, Knute chooses the drop from your lowest-ranked rostered players in your league's scoring, and that choice is checked before anything is sent.
You can protect players. A protected player is a hard block on any drop, regardless of value. That rule is enforced at the write gate itself, so it holds on the daily pass, in chat, and on any manual run. There is no autonomy setting that overrides it.
Every claim arrives with the reasoning, the data behind it, and the projected gain.
03 / Limits
What limits does Knute respect?
These are checks in the transaction path, not suggestions to the model. A claim that fails one is blocked before it reaches ESPN, with the reason recorded.
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01
Your FAAB budget
Knute reads your remaining budget and the league minimum bid. A bid larger than your remaining FAAB is rejected before it reaches the platform. In priority leagues, where the waiver order is the currency, it spends priority the same way it would spend dollars: only on a claim worth the cost.
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02
The league's acquisition limit
If your league caps season acquisitions, Knute tracks your usage against that cap and refuses an add that would exceed it. Missing rules cannot authorize an add; the limit has to be read before a claim can pass.
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03
Protected players
A drop of a player on your protected list is blocked outright, in every path that can write to ESPN.
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04
The league's waiver mechanics
Knute reads whether your league runs FAAB or priority and how claims process, and it files the claim in the form the league expects. It will not re-submit a claim that is already pending for the same player, and it can cancel a claim it already submitted.
04 / Autonomy
Which level makes the claim on its own?
You set one of three levels per league, and you can change it at any time. On Advisor, Knute proposes every claim and nothing happens until you approve it. On Co-pilot, routine waivers fire automatically and the bigger calls are flagged for you. On Autopilot, it runs the team inside the limits you define, including the players it is not allowed to drop.
The claims happen on the daily autonomous pass, once a day, ahead of the slate. There is no continuous intraday watch; a noon scratch waits for the next morning unless you open the chat and tell Knute to make the move now.
Every move is logged with its reasoning. A pending claim can be cancelled, by Knute or by you in the ESPN app. A completed add or drop is an ordinary ESPN transaction and reverses the way any ESPN move does. And the whole thing switches off in one tap.
05 / A hypothetical example
What does one claim look like?
This example is invented to show the mechanics. The players, league and numbers are not real. Take a 12-team half-PPR league with a $100 FAAB budget, a $1 minimum bid, and a 25-acquisition season cap. Your team has $38 left and has used 19 acquisitions. Your third running back is a backup who does not touch the ball, and two of your players are protected.
A starting running back on another NFL team goes down on Sunday, and his backup, call him Player A, is on the wire. Knute values Player A against your roster in your scoring: he would start in your flex most weeks, and the gap between him and your current flex is large. It picks the drop from the bottom of your values, your backup running back, who is not protected. It sizes the bid against the $38 you have left and files a claim with a drop attached because your roster is full.
On Advisor, that claim waits for your approval. On Co-pilot or Autopilot, it is submitted, and the log shows the bid, the drop, the projected gain and the acquisition count at 20. If the same claim had named a protected player as the drop, or bid $40, it would have been blocked with the reason recorded, and nothing would have reached ESPN.
06 / Boundaries
What Knute does not do
It never trades. Multi-team transactions are refused at the same gate that permits lineups, adds, drops and waiver claims, so there is no configuration in which Knute sends, accepts or proposes a trade on your behalf.
It never drops a protected player, at any autonomy level.
It works only on ESPN. There is exactly one fantasy-platform integration today, ESPN fantasy football and fantasy baseball. Other platforms are not built.
It does not watch the wire all day. One pass a day, plus whatever you ask for in chat.
07 / Questions
Common questions about Knute and waivers
Does Knute make automatic waiver claims on ESPN?
Yes. On the Co-pilot and Autopilot levels, Knute files FAAB bids and priority claims on your ESPN team itself during its daily pass. On the Advisor level it proposes each claim and waits for your approval. Every claim is logged with its reasoning.
How does Knute decide which free agent to claim?
It reads your league scoring, starting slots and roster, then compares free agents by position-adjusted value over the replacement you already have, not by raw projected points. Your own uploaded rankings are used when they are relevant.
Will Knute drop my players?
Only when an add needs the roster spot, and never a player on your protected list. Each acquisition is one add with at most one drop, and a drop of a protected player is blocked in code at every level, including Autopilot.
Can Knute overspend my FAAB budget?
No. A bid larger than your remaining FAAB is rejected before it reaches ESPN. Knute also tracks your season acquisition limit when your league has one and refuses an add that would exceed it.
Can Knute make trades?
No. Trades are refused at the same gate that permits lineups, adds, drops and waiver claims, so there is no setting that lets Knute send or accept a trade.
Put Knute on your waiver wire.
Get Knute on iPhone, connect your ESPN team, set the autonomy level and the protected list, and let it work the wire inside your rules. Download on the App Store.