Draft Day Player Pool

[Copperfields]

Hello All,
For the past several years, I tracked daily roster moves for NL teams through Spring Training, and eventually ended up with a list of players who were still on Spring Training rosters as of Draft Day.

It's looking doubtful that I will be able to do the work for this in 2009, but Matt G. has volunteered to take over the reseponsibility for it this year - though he has expressed some reservations about 1) his familiarity with some of the deeper features of Excel, and 2) the amount of work required - particularly in the day or so before the Draft.

I'm confident that Matt will be able to get the player lists done, but also wanted to toss out another option for discussion. This is actually something Bob suggested at the Banquet...

Rather than using a list of players who are still actually on Spring Training rosters, use "projected" 25-man rosters for our list of players elgible in the auction. There are a number of websites that project Opening Day rosters. It would just be a matter of agreeing on a reliable source, and whatever that source publishes will be our Draft Pool.

The big benefit of this, of course, is that no one needs to do the work to come up with the draft pool list. I used to spend up to an hour a day surfing for info on cuts during ST, and most of the two days prior to the Draft were spend finalizing the lists and preparing them for print, etc. It goes a long way toward explaining my lack of preparedness for drafting my team.

Some drawbacks are obvious - we're essentially allowing someone's opinion determine our Draft Pool and I guarantee there will be players on the projected rosters that do not end up making the Opening Day roster. Likewise there will be guys who DO make the Opening Day roster who won't be available in the auction.

It will require a shift in mindset realizing (and being comfortable with the fact) that the Draft Pool is what it is -- it doesn't represent who's currently in camp or who makes the Opening Day roster, it's just a list of 400 players for us to pick from.

Anyway, that's the idea - any thoughts or comments on this variation?

David

[redhots]

Since this was my suggestion I will throw in my .02........

I suggested this for the following reason:

As David said, it is A LOT of work for someone to actually go through and find every individual cut during spring training and compile these lists that we have used as our pool of players to draft from. It is true that we are letting someone else's opinion determine our draft pool and there will definitely be players that are sent down that are auctioned and vice versa. The point is we will all be drafting from the same overall pool so to me it makes minimal difference.

Why make extra work for someone? No matter who is taking the time to do this work they will get tired of it. How could they not? If it was easy everyone would be doing it. Ask David how many other leagues use his lists from previous years and I'll bet he gets contacted plenty this Spring from other commish's who have used his lists in the past and are bummed that he won't be doing it anymore. They won't take the time to do it themselves so they will move on to some other aggreed upon roster lists and be fine.

My point is that as long as the auction pool is the same for everyone and we know it ahead of time then doesn't that make more sense and save someone a WHOLE lot of time?

It makes sense to me. Will someone find a way to get a player at auction year to year that they wouldn't have otherwise? Sure. Will it make that much of a difference for the league and our teams year to year and long term? I don't think it will be that much.

Some change makes sense and in this league right now I think this change is a no brainer.

My personal opinion.

Bob

[Demreb]

Dudes -

I must have been in a pizza coma when this was mentioned at the banquet - or in the bathroom - or just plain spaced out.

I certainly see the merits.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in an e-mail or forum posting or just thought about it, but this topic is emblematic of what we're facing this year and beyond in the CFCL. With David stepping away from the Herculean duties and none of us having the time to assume ALL his former responsibilities, we are going to have to approach the CFCL in a new light.

It is clearly evident that we cannot have everything we had in the past, so we have to decide what is critical to keep, what can we do without and what can we modify.

The draft list, I believe, falls into the third category. We certainly can't live without it or else the draft will run way too long. We can't keep it as is so we have to modify it.

Sure, we'll be drafting guys that aren't on a major league roster, but since we are an Ultra league, that doesn't preclude us from being able to acquire the missing players. We simply can stock them on our reserve list.

If we use this method in years going forward, draft picks could be that much more valuable and certainly draft position will be more critical. A lot of incentive for teams to make a run for 5th place even if they have no shot at the money.

I'm open to other opinions, but unless someone wants to put in all the time to come up with a Draft List, this may be the best option.

[mcoulter2008]

Greetings all.

The points our new commish make on this change are fairly compelling.

The time it takes to form this list can/will almost unfairly compromise the person creating the list from preparing fully for his own team's draft.

If we find a reliable source for this material, the number of players that will fall through the cracks will be minimal. Even with the player lists created by Dave last year, I ended up having to sit on Blake DeWitt for half a season in the minors because he was a last-second roster promotion. So there are quirks to every system.

The players that do fall through will be the rookies who make a surprising run or the non-roster types. These are players that are invariably picked up during the reserve draft anyway.

Not to get too research oriented on this, but it would be nice for someone (or a committee) to look into places to locate projected rosters. Find out when they are generated and if they are updated and when. Having the closest thing to a sure list is what's best. But I think we can live with a few players sliding into the auction that shouldn't or players sliding into the reserve draft that should have been auction bound.

And as previously mentioned, the added talent in the reserve portion could create more of an incentive to make a run for 5th place.

Just my 2 cents. And seeing how we now have about three or four owners who don't have a problem with the change (with Matt, who would have to do all the extra work still not chiming in) I think we should find someone to start looking into places to find projected rosters and perhaps put this thing to a league vote.
M.Coulter
GM-CCC

[kenndoza (archived)]

I've got no problem with the idea of going to a "reliable" source, but the key is "reliable". I know there are sites that have projected lineups, depth charts, rosters, etc., but who is actually the best at that stuff? Hopefully someone can pose this question on the big roto message boards and we'll have the answer.

Also, we'll need to specifically say what the cutoff should be. I'd imagine this reliable source will be making changes with the rest of us. For example, I'll probably leave Cincy for the draft Friday night or Saturday morning and won't have a printer, so I may print out this list Friday afternoon before I leave. If we say something like "whatever the website says at noon on 4/3", we'll close the loophole of someone showing up on draft day with a different list (and of course it's acceptable to say something like "as of 6:00 a.m. on draft day" or whatever, just as long as we say beforehand what the cutoff is).

A suggestion for future years (though it's probably too late for this year) is to throw out the lists altogether. ALL players (other than A.L. players of course) are eligible for the auction, even minor leaguers. If you want to waste an active roster spot on a hot prospect that you won't be able to stash the following season, it should be your right. This might wreak havoc with inflation down the road, but it could be interesting. I'd imagine this idea might not be too popular, but I thought I'd throw it out there nonetheless.

Regardless, I'm fine with the suggestions put forth above, and I'm all for having owners only preparing for their own teams rather than (selflessly) doing busywork for the rest of us.

[Copperfields]

Good discussion so far, guys. Rich raised some points/benefits I hadn't thought of. Oh, and by the way Rich, the discussion about this at the banquet was a quick side talk between Bob and me on the way out -- you didn't sleep through anything.

This type of thing has been discussed on Roto forums in the past, and the possible sources I remember being mentioned are:

• Inside Pitch (theinsidepitch.com/Rosters.html) - this is one that Bob endorses
  
• Sandlot Shrink (www.sandlotshrink.com/fbdepthchart.htm) - these are supposedly updated daily, but it's worth noting that they're full depth charts (which includes prospects, etc), so would result in a significantly larger Draft Pool)
  
• mlb.com

That's not a complete list of candidates - just what I remember from previous discussions.

I agree with Michael that it would be good to have a committee look at possible candidates. Perhaps some of us could check possible sites for the teams we're most familiar with: Michael could cover the Reds, any number of us could do the Cubs, etc. Even if it's American League teams, we'd still get a sense of the site's accuaracy and reliability.

If we do end up going this route, I also think it will be important to have the EC come up with some guidelines/rules around this procedure:

• A cutoff date - Do we go with the rosters as they're published on the Friday before the Draft, the night before the Draft, the morning of? Not only do we need to agee on using a single source, but we need to agree on a single instance of that source.
  
• How to handle late-breaking news - Say the Yankees tire of the A-Rod steroids thing and deal him to the Pirates on Draft Day morning. He won't show up on our source lists, but should be made available in the Draft. We need official guidelines for handling stuff like that, even if it's after the cutoff deadline.
  
• What will actually be provided on Draft Day - It's likely that whatever source we use will not have players sorted based on our positional distribution. They definitely won't have players who are already on CFCL teams as keepers removed from their lists. We'll need to decide if we want to just give everyone the lists straight off the website or have someone work with them to format them into usable lists with keepers removed. That's another reason to set a cut-off date for the lists we'll use.
  

[redhots]

David - Quit trying to make Rich feel better........it was all those Pepsi's he downed that caused him to miss out on the conversation )

Excellent points about agreeing on a cutoff date/time for the source.
Also a great point about how to handle late-breaking news which, in my opinion, should only affect "major" players. That would be easy enough to deal with before we start the draft by asking if anyone knows of any last minute changes and we could just vote right then and there by a show of hands whether they should be allowed into the auction or left for reserve.

As far as what should be provided on draft day....my .02 would be that each owner is on their own and we don't need to provide anything.

Kenn's thought about not having a list "at all" is interesting. I wouldn't be against it but as Kenn said it may reek havoc with inflation down the road......it may not be so bad however as if you purchase a hot prospect in the auction they would not have a minor league contract so you would have to keep them for a couple of years with their contract moving along and then decide whether to cut bait or extend them........not sure how this would effect things overall down the road and I'm sure that is a HUGE stretch for owners who have always had a list to go off of at the draft but I think the middle ground of a "reputable site" is probably the best step for this particular league.

To be honest, (sorry David) I barely even used the list at all. We all have a good idea of who should be available and who probably should not be available. There are always question marks and those are the guys we are really talking about here. The closer we draft to opening day the more accurate the "reliable source" should be and in years where we have to draft a week ahead of time for whatever reason the most important thing, in my opinion, is that the list is THE SAME for everyone no matter who is on it.

More of my cents thrown in.

Bob

[Demreb]

The DoorMatts weighed in via voicemail today in agreement with a "reliable source draft list".

He made a good point in response to one of David's bullet points. David mentioned something about having to filter out the players that are being kept by the CFCL teams. Matt's feeling is that each of us could be responsible for scratching the names off the "reliable list". It shouldn't take too long.

I would agree. I hadn't thought about the issue until David brought it up, but I think Matt's right. It won't take long to scratch off the names especially since we have the list of keepers almost a week in advance of the draft.

Rich "the middle man" Bentel

[mrmoore75]

I am all for finding a "reliable" source to pull the draft day lists. Unfortunately it took a while to come to this realization (sorry David) but we don't want to over burden anyone who has volunteered their time.

I do think the lists help to move the draft day along. I know I found it incredibly helpful.

[MGrage]

Better late than never, eh? Unfortunately, I was detailed to a firehouse without Internet access yesterday so I didn't get the memo until I got home this morning. Anyways, unlike Bob, I get a great deal of utility from the lists so I'd want to keep some form of formal list going. I really don't think it'll be too much of a hindrance for me even with the last minute crunch of roster moves. I typically spend about 5-6 hours online in the weeks leading up to the draft so doing the research necessary wouldn't be too much of an imposition. In addition, the plans I had for the day before are very much in doubt now, so I probably will end up with lots of free time then too. Plus, I'll be on furlough from March 20th to April 7th. I need something to pass the time. No plans to go to Spring Training this year ....

I kinda figured there'd be a learning curve when I signed up for this. Dave's had decades of trial and error to refine the way he did the lists. I also don't have multiple distractions/tax deductions clamoring for my attention like he does too. If Peanut starts whining, I just lock her in a closet so I can't hear her. I really don't think it'll have much of an impact on my Draft preparations if I do this. Actually, I kinda believe it might make me even more prepared which was one of my reasons for volunteering.

Well, there has always been last minute additions and subtractions to the official list. It was never really a big deal. I thought I could get close to the final 400. Maybe not as close as Dave would, perhaps have another dozen or so slip through. I think the biggest hurdle is coming up with the initial spring training rosters. But since I have so much free time, I wouldn't mind spending a day typing them in by hand. The closest thing to spring training rosters I can find now are the 40 man rosters & NRIs on each team's MLB page.

Every year I try to get the furlough that our Draft falls in. I have enough seniority so I get it every year too. This year I'm lucky enough to have 2 full weeks with nothing but time on my hands and no job, no family and practically no commitments to distract me. I would really like to take on this challenge and your concern is appreciated but I wouldn't have offered if I didn't think I could do it. Mahalo

Matt

[Demreb]

Here endeth the lesson (Movie anyone?)

If Matt feels he's up to the challenge, let's let him finish the job he started. Any help we all can provide as far as obscure roster moves would be helpful.

Let's see how this works for this year. If Matt can handle it well (as I'm sure he will) then we have transitioned successfully. If there are any problems that he runs in to, then next year we can use a "reliable source" and the upside is we have over a year to keep an eye out for one.

Thanks again for volunteering, Matt!

[kenndoza (archived)]

Feb 20, 2009 11:34:21 GMT -5 Demreb said:

Here endeth the lesson (Movie anyone?)

You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!

[Copperfields]

Untouchables on the "lesson" quote. Nice reference Rich!

Your response was right on (almost) with what I was going to say.

First, I want to emphasize that I didn't post this thread because I didn't think Matt was up to the task - I don't want Matt or anyone else to think that I was desperately trying to find an alternative to Matt taking the task on. Matt did express some concerns about the level of Excel expertise involved. When Bob suggested a third party solution I thought it was at least worth talking about - this was just the first chance I had to post something about it.

I'm with Rich. I'd say we go with the original plan of Matt compiling the rosters and Draft Day lists. In addition to that, though, I think it's also worthwhile to still investigate those third party 'reliable' sources and choose one to have as a contingency plan in case we need it. I'm thrilled that Matt's geared up and excited about tackling this task, but it's hard to know how much of what you can chew until you've actually bitten it off.

And to tell the truth, it does take considerable time away from Draft prep - especially in the couple of days before Draft Day. You look at the rosters you've compiled over the previous month and see that most teams are down to 26-29 players but there are 5 teams that still have 43 players listed. At that point you're pretty much reduced to doing investigations on a player-by-player basis, which take a lot of time. And once you've got the rosters, there's time spent creating the positional lists and formatting them for printing, etc.

So it wouldn't hurt to have a fall back plan in place.

Along those lines, I've got another candidate for a third party source. I had posted a note at Rotojunkie (http://www.rotojunkie.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96650) asking about potential sources for up-to-date Spring Training rosters, and someone who has used our rosters in the past posted this site:
www.mlbdepthcharts.com/

If nothing else, it looks like it might be a good source for roster updates, if not for the rosters themselves.

David

[Copperfields]

Kenn's respoonse:
Re: Draft Day Player Pool
« Reply #11 Today at 11:42am »

My response:
Re: Draft Day Player Pool
« Reply #12 Today at 11:42am »

Oooo - Kenn must have beaten me to the buzzer on the Untouchables quiz by mere seconds. Though I have to ask for a judges ruling -- since I typed more after my triva response than Kenn did, logic would dictate that I may have had my answer in before him. Though I've got to give Kenn credit for posting the full quote...

[morkertt]

My initial thought here is that this seems like an awful lot of time to spend on this. Changes seem to come daily...down to every last pitcher on the roster. I like the idea of the reliable web site (but agree we need to find one!). That said, Matt seems more than willing to take on the job for this year. I say let him take it this year, but perhaps make the change for 2010.

PS-thanks Matt!