There is no truth to the rumour that ESPN2 will be carrying the draft live.

Just a reminder to everyone -- please, please pre-rank your five keepers at the top of your draft list. In the unfortunate event that you are late, or your ISP has a hiccup, or your PC freezes, they will be automatically selected for you. If anyone accidentally selects a free agent in the first five rounds, that would ruin the whole draft.

Oh, and for those of you without a 1B, don't worry about how thin the FA pool is -- the Walrus will consider all trade offers immediately after the draft.

http://economics.about.com
Hey everyone!

A couple of league issues:

I'll have an e-mail out about league payment in the next week or so.. I'm just trying to resolve some issues with my credit card company.

If you're in Barfield, PLEASE subscribe to the BBFL mailing list if you haven't already. You can do so by sending an e-mail to:

bbfl-subscribe@battersbox.ca

I'll also send out the Excel sheet with the team owner info on it in a few days. I only heard from 12 or 13 of the 20 Barfield owners, and I never got around to hounding the other ones.

Cheers,

Mike

RE pre-rankings: if Team A accidentally selects one of Team B's keepers, an easy solution would be for Team B to select one of Team A's, then trade them after the draft.

If someone selects a non-keeper too early, that's a whole other kettle o' fish. The punitive solution would be that the owner has forfeited one of his keepers by selecting a non-keeper; that is, whichever keeper he didn't select in the first five rounds becomes draftable by anyone.

I hope such an event doesn't happen, but hope is not a plan. We need to figure out what to do if disaster occurs.

http://economics.about.com
Anyone who drafts an ineligible player has to pay $20 to the Commissioner's discretionary fund.

Hey, if MLB can do it, why not the BBFL? :)

I agree, though. We need to come up with a plan. I think if you take someone else's player in the first 5 rounds, that team gets to snatch any player it wants off of your roster after the draft (including the player who was accidentally drafted). Seems fair.

Cheers,

Mike

How does it work with both drafts going at once? Are there no owners in both leagues?

Now is a good time to announce my -- ahem -- excuse if I have a poor draft: I'll be driving 12 hours from California to Seattle on April 1. But I should arrive in time to select Ted Lilly in Round 1.

http://economics.about.com
How does it work with both drafts going at once? Are there no owners in both leagues?

The two leagues are mutually exclusive. You can't own a team in the AL and NL, just like you can't own a team in both Alomar and Barfield.

The drafts are off-set by a half hour, so they only somewhat overlap. :)

Cheers,

Mike

I like Lucas' suggestion for for mis-picked keepers, I don't think punishment is necessary. I think we can be confident that nobody in this league is going to intentionally screw up the draft, so simply swapping the keepers back after the draft should be satisfactory to everyone.

In the case of mis-picked free agents, though, I think the repercussions have to be more severe, because it genuinely screws things up, honest mistake or no, and there's no easy way to correct it. For example, Keith Foulke is a free agent and is better than some of my keepers. If I were to pick him in round 5, intentionally or otherwise, the other teams in the league suffer because the guy I consequently send to the FA pool is not as good as Foulke.

My suggestion is that if someone picks a FA in the keeper rounds they are obligated to release him immediately following the draft. This is a very harsh penalty, and a huge bonus to the guy with the top waiver priority if the FA was a good player, but it's the most fair solution I can think of without getting real complicated.

Yahoo has a new feature that allows owners to exclude players from their draft lists. For owners doing any pre-ranking, excluding other team's keepers would eliminate the risk of drafting someone not belonging to them.

And yes, Gitz, the leagues have no common owners by design. You knew the Alomar Division was the "No Gizzi's League," didn't you?

There is no truth to the rumour that ESPN2 will be carrying the draft live.

Yeah a screen split between 20 people sitting at a computer should only be reserved for ESPN.

Suggestion - Would it make sense to have separate mailing groups for Alomar and Barfield?

If something needed to be sent to both it'd be pretty easy to combine the 2.

This is a very harsh penalty

It should be. There's no excuse for not pre-ranking your keepers one through five. I think it's a simple and effective solution, and I second the proposal. If I "forget" to pre-rank, then the power goes out in my neighbourhood and I end up with Foulke, Edmonds, Moyer, Piniero and Berroa (not to give away my FA rankings or anything) instead of my keepers, I should lose them all.

In that unlikely event, my announced keepers aren't eligible to be drafted by anyone else, and would have to be released if someone inadvertently selected them. The "exclude" feature Scott mentioned should prevent that, but in my example, I'd have to waive the five guys I picked out of turn, and would at least get my keepers back off the waiver wire.

I'm in favour of separate league mailing lists; I have many friends in the Barfield division but my Inbox is pretty crowded already.

Dang it, I'm ready to draft right now. I've done my best to mock the 5th round so I can get an idea of who's going to be left, but it's near impossible to know what lurks in the hearts BBFL owners. It will be interesting to see who goes where; maybe I'll compare my estimates with the results after the draft. Unless they are really far off, of course.

I'm also in favour of separate mailing lists for the Barfield and Alomar divisions. While it would be nice to keep an eye on the strategies and tactics of "A" division owners with a view to scouting my most serious competition for next season ;), my inbox does jam up pretty quickly these days.

http://economics.about.com
Dang it, I'm ready to draft right now. I've done my best to mock the 5th round so I can get an idea of who's going to be left, but it's near impossible to know what lurks in the hearts BBFL owners. It will be interesting to see who goes where; maybe I'll compare my estimates with the results after the draft. Unless they are really far off, of course.

I've got the 4th overall pick... I just hope nobody takes Pokey Reese before then! :)

Cheers,

Mike

I agree with a stiff penalty for screwing up, but what if I don't make the draft and I follow all the parameters and someone mistakenly drafts my keeper. Now, if I am at the draft I can pick the other managers keeper and trade keepers after the draft, but if I miss the draft, Yahoo is going to go thru my keepers and when my fifth keeper is not there my pre rankings will start picking non keepers(I can't skip my fifth pick). I don't think I should be punished for someone elses mistake. I just hope nobody messes things up or we'll have to send Gizzi on another road trip to rearrange that managers priorities!!:)

I've excluded everyone's keepers and ranked my five at the top. I'm prepared for a blackout. Well not really, my other pre-rankings are made VERY loosely so I'd probably still end up with a funny looking team if it were left on autopilot. Funny but not ha ha funny.

I also just got back from watching Dawn of the Dead which a pretty good survival horror flick starring Miss Road to Avonlea spearing zombies through the eye. Nothing like brutal imagery to put you in the mood for a fantasy draft.

You should see the original Dawn of the Dead if you haven't. Classic seventies zombie flick directed by George Romero as a sequel to his Night of the Living Dead.

Is the draft order of the Barfield league going to be known before the draft?

Will "The Leftovers" league know its draft order beforehand? If I'm drafting 20th, I can probably cross A-Rod off my list.

http://economics.about.com
I believe (but I'm not entirely sure) that Yahoo picks the draft order randomly about a half hour before the draft starts. I'm not 100% sure about this, so does anyone remember?

Cheers,

Mike

I believe (but I'm not entirely sure) that Yahoo picks the draft order randomly about a half hour before the draft starts. I'm not 100% sure about this, so does anyone remember?

There's a few options:

1. You can set the draft order anyway you want manually.

2. You can have Yahoo randomly select the draft order at any time and save it (I think it's in commish tools).

3. If you do nothing Yahoo automatically randomly sets the draft order and you find out 30 minutes prior to the draft.

It's not a big deal, but it'd be helpful knowing where you select prior to the draft.

I recommend the order of joining the league :)

I recommend the order of joining the league

Sounds good to me. If so, since Matsumura Fishworks was the first time, Mike, you'd get first pick. Pokey Reese is yours! :)

Oh yeah. I just remembered -- Mike, there was some confusion in an old thread, way back in February that I thought The Leftovers was going to be the Carter division in 2005. The Carter teams (if there are any) come from the waiting list, right? Am I still on that list?

http://economics.about.com
Oh yeah. I just remembered -- Mike, there was some confusion in an old thread, way back in February that I thought The Leftovers was going to be the Carter division in 2005. The Carter teams (if there are any) come from the waiting list, right? Am I still on that list?

The Leftovers League is not going to be the Carter division next year. If we do add a new division next year (and there's no guarantee either way that we will), the new teams added will be based on the BBFL waiting list, which everyone is still on (unless they asked to be taken off.

Hope that clears that up.

Cheers,

Mike

http://economics.about.com
It's not a big deal, but it'd be helpful knowing where you select prior to the draft.

We'll leave it random. I want to avoid any ugly fights by the people high on the list saying it should be first-come-first-draft, and the people low on the list saying it should be random. Alomar was random last year, so we'll make Barfield random this year.

It shouldn't be too difficult to rank your top 40.. after the 2nd round, it doesn't matter too much where you pick. It's hard to project exactly which players will be around at pick 56 and which won't be. :)

Cheers,

Mike

Pistol - "2. You can have Yahoo randomly select the draft order at any time and save it (I think it's in commish tools)."

Mike M., why don't you randomize the draft order now? It wouldn't hurt knowing when you pick early and will give us just a little excitement to hold us over until draft day ;-). It's sitll just as random as if it's 30 min, prior to the draft, and everyone has already joined.

http://economics.about.com
Mike M., why don't you randomize the draft order now? It wouldn't hurt knowing when you pick early and will give us just a little excitement to hold us over until draft day ;-). It's sitll just as random as if it's 30 min, prior to the draft, and everyone has already joined.

Sure.. I'll see if I can figure out how to do it.

Cheers,

Mike

the new [Carter] teams added will be based on the BBFL waiting list, which everyone is still on (unless they asked to be taken off.

Hope that clears that up.

Almost. I did ask to be taken off the list, because I was mistaken when I thought the Carter division would come from the Leftovers. However, knowing your spam filter, I might still be on. Am I still on the list? However, if I'm not, don't worry about it. I'm fine not being on the list, just want to know what's going on.

If you can understand what I just wrote, you can have my first-round pick. :)

http://economics.about.com
Almost. I did ask to be taken off the list, because I was mistaken when I thought the Carter division would come from the Leftovers. However, knowing your spam filter, I might still be on. Am I still on the list? However, if I'm not, don't worry about it. I'm fine not being on the list, just want to know what's going on.

I'll have to check.. it's on a different computer. I have multiple old copies of the list, so I can put you back on in the right place. You'll be in the Top 4 or 5, IIRC, so if we do expand, you'll have a team.

I haven't really worried about it too much, because we're not even going to consider a Carter until next Feb. :)

Cheers,

Mike

http://economics.about.com
2. You can have Yahoo randomly select the draft order at any time and save it (I think it's in commish tools).

I can't find this option anywhere. Are you sure it exists?

Cheers,

Mike

I was echoing Pistol...

I can't find this option anywhere. Are you sure it exists?

I took a look around and I couldn't find it. I'm certain that it used to be an option because I did it a few times, and I thought that someone else had done the same thing in another league I'm in, but it doesn't appear to be an option anymore.

Not that big a deal.

I actually hope I'm in the middle. I hate being on the ends and having so many picks made between where I pick. In this draft if you're on the end it's 38 picks between your 2 consectutive picks. If there's a run on a position and you want in, you're out of luck.

Everyone will be pleased to know that I will be at the Barfield draft on-time: I have decided to return from the Bay Area on Wednedsay, not on Thursday.

Rest assured, though, I'll still be taking Ted Lilly in the first round.

http://bbfl.scottlucas.com
More thoughts on incorrect picks in keeper rounds. This ugly (hypothetical) scenario occurred to me:

1. In the 5th (last) keeper round, the Austin Senators accidentally or intentionally choose Carlos Delgago, a keeper belonging to Toronto Walrus.

2. Later in the 5th round, Toronto Walrus no longer has any keepers to pick. If Walrus is online, he can choose Austin’s last keeper and they can swap later. But, let’s say that Walrus is out for the evening and has pre-ranked his selections for the computer to pick on auto-pilot. Even though Walrus has pre-ranked his players properly, he is forced to select non-keeper Scott Podsednik, his highest-ranked non-keeper.

3. Reykjavik Fish Candy, who has the first non-keeper pick (6th round), also has Scott Podsednik ranked highest but now cannot draft him because Walrus selected him in a keeper round. Candy is upset.

How do we handle this situation?

No matter the offense, I think owners should be able to keep their keepers. Dropping players of keeper quality into the waiver pool gives an unfair advantage to teams with the highest waiver priority. Also, allowing the aggrieved party to claim the offending party’s keeper doesn’t really work because, as the above example shows, one wrongly chosen keeper can create two aggrieved parties (perhaps more).

I think that the offending owner should forfeit his first non-keeper (6th round) pick. And if the owner is online, conscientious, and wants to cause no further harm, he should select an obviously awful fantasy player with that pick. Donnie Sadler, for example, or Andy Abad, or Manny Alexander. Someone who clearly has zero value.

If the owner is offline or is not of the opinion that he has erred and selects a quality player, he will be forced to waive that player. Two wrong picks, two waived players, etc. (BTW, I think the owner should have to forfeit the pick even if the situation is corrected within the keeper-round picks.)

In the case of Walrus in the example above, where an owner makes a “wrong” pick but is clearly innocent, we’ll have to use our best judgment.

FWIW, I’m not on the Rules Committee and certainly don’t want to act as though I’m handing down edits from on high. Just trying to elicit some feedback for how we should deal with a worst-case scenario.

The easiest thing will be for all owners to not only prerank their keepers, but also to exclude the other owners keepers. These two steps will ensure that any absent owners will not futz the draft up. It would also greatly reduce the risk of making an honest mistake in those first five rounds for owners who show up: simply select your players from your rankings list (which won't have the players you have excluded on it).

I agree with Scott. A loss of a draft pick is pretty steep, but there is no reason for a mistake to occur if everyone follows the correct procedure of pre-ranking.

My only other input would be this: if an owner drafts a non-keeper (Podsednik) during the keeper rounds for whatever reason, the team that intended to draft this non-keeper in a correct round should select the keeper that was not selected by the offending team (Pettitte, say), so that a trade can then be made. If the owner that intended to draft Podsednik is not there to select Pettitte, he loses out, and the first team to select Pettitte would recieve the Podsednik pick.

I can't think of another way to handle it, but I would imagine most everyone will make an attempt to be there to prevent such things.

I think at minimum everyone should have pre-ranked their five keepers at the top of their list. As long as everyone does that then there's no chance of the draft being disrupted by people absent from the draft. And for people who are present we just have to assume they will correctly pick their keepers who will be ranked right at the top of their list.

It would be nice if everyone excluded the other 95 keepers from their draft list as well but at minimum they should do the above.

I think excluding the keeper is a good idea. Wouldn't/shouldn't be that hard if you're taking the time to pre-rank anyway.

Just a question, and I know it is too late to switch now, but I'm curious: who else would've kept Estaban Loaiza in my situation?

Also, for anyone who feels like answering- I'm a little loaded with pitching in another yahoo league. Should I deal Kerry Wood for Vlad G?

dp,

me and yes

I think given our scoring categories (particularly K/BB) that keeping Loaiza was a good idea. He may not do exactly what he did last year but chances are he can do something close. I think your keepers were fairly clear cut with the possible exception of speculating on a bounce back season from Green though I think that's a safe bet too.

I don't know what your scoring categories are in the other league but in almost every league I would make that trade to get Guerrero. Especially if as you say you are loaded with pitching.