Draft Day 2010

[Demreb]

Fellow Owners -

All the votes are in and things are murky at best as to what is the preferred date for the 2010 draft.

When you responded by ranking 1,2,3 your preference for the dates, I assigned that ranking the same point value and then added up each date's points. Lowest score wins.

Here's what came out:

Saturday, April 3rd finished with 16 points.
Sunday, March 28th ....22 points
Saturday, March 27th ....22 points.

From that tally there is a clear cut winner. BUT the way the votes were provided is what makes it interesting. Seven owners said the 3rd was their #1 choice. But the remaining three owners said the 3rd was their least favorite option. In fact the three owners voting the 3rd last all said "if we could avoid Easter weekend all together that would be great."

The seven owners that voted the 3rd the #1 choice all shared the sentiment "the closer we can draft to Opening Day, the better".

The three owners not wanting the 3rd all selected Saturday the 27th as their #1 choice. Five of the remaining seven owners selected the 27th at their least favorite choice.

What I would like to see here is a bit of a discussion of what we should do. Normally I would say "Majority Rules, the 3rd won" and leave it at that. But since we have owners coming in from out of town and owners with young families dealing with a holiday weekend, it's not that cut and dry.

If you voted that the 3rd is your least favorite date, let us know if that was a preference or if that was a "I'll be divorced and disowned if I show up Saturday to draft."

If you voted for the 27th as your least favorite, let us know if that was a preference or if that was a "I'm not coming to draft from a bunch of players that will be in the minors next week".

Once we lock in the date, then we can decide a time and location.

Not to influence anything, but I think (as I mentioned in the e-mail) if we draft later on Saturday we should still be OK with the Oak Brook facility. That position gets even stronger if we draft on the 3rd since I really doubt anyone would be having meetings or presentations late in the day before Easter.

That's not to influence things, just a point of fact in case anyone cared.

Let the discussion begin!

[mcoulter2008]

OK. As an EC member and one of the owners in the minority at this point, I'll tread the waters first.

I selected the April 3rd date as my least favorite for a variety of reasons. It has been stated that if we were to have a draft on a Saturday, it would likely take place later in the day, leaving us drafting "until midnight or close to it." Since the following day is Easter Sunday, I felt this presented the least favorable time to push a Saturday night draft. It would mean less prep time for Easter baskets and holiday family time for those of us who have children. It also would mean those owners traveling in to Chicago would likely be traveling back out ON Easter Sunday. That seemed a bit untenable to me.

As "Sportsline czar," I also perceived an advantage of holding the draft a week earlier, allowing the rosters to be input at a more leisurely pace -- thus less prone to mistakes. And should they occur, there would be ample time to correct problems prior to the season's first pitch.

To me, these benefits outweighed the pitfall of a few players being selected during the auction being shipped to the minors. If an owner wants a marginal player badly enough to submit a winning bid on them, I doubt they are going to be overly stressed that they are shipped to the minors for a period of time. These types of things happen and that is why so many veterans go in the early rounds of the rotation draft, to provide roster depth.

We are all seasoned owners for the most part, and know the bulk of the major league franchises well enough that I would assume these cases would be minimal. Besides, it would be likely that these cases involved players that would be up to the majors soon enough as it is. And holding the auction the day before the season doesn't necessarily guarantee that there won't be these problems anyway. In my inaugural season, I was forced to sit on Blake DeWitt until well into the season because his status wasn't determined until Opening Day.

That's my 2 cents/argument for the last weekend of March. Will I be disemboweled should the draft be held the night before Easter? No. Which makes it a preference of mine that it not be held then and not a necessity.

[kenndoza (archived)]

Thanks Mike (and Rich) for your comments. I appreciate the fact that some people will have trouble drafting on a holiday weekend, it's not going to be a problem for me to travel/draft that weekend, even Sunday. I think if we *do* have the draft the week before, it basically is going to have to be Saturday for me.

Speaking as one out of towner, I like the Saturday afternoon idea best. I prefer April to March (an extra week to prepare!), but if it has to be March, I can live with it. Sunday is the worst because it means I'd have to take Monday off and I already know i'll be taking some days off in the prior week, so it might be a tough sell for my company. Then again, they're sending me to Hawaii next week, so maybe they like me.

Mahalo!

[Demreb]

Shut the *@#$ up! You're going to Hawaii on the company dime? That's it, we're draft on Sunday night in April or March and you can't make a bid until the 5th round.

Seriously, thanks for your feedback. Hopefully we can get more owners to share their perspective and lock in on a date.

It certainly sounds like the Saturday afternoon draft has grown some legs, now it's just a matter of picking March or April.

[kenndoza (archived)]

Nov 13, 2009 14:26:55 GMT -5 Demreb said:

Shut the *@#$ up! You're going to Hawaii on the company dime? That's it, we're draft on Sunday night in April or March and you can't make a bid until the 5th round.

Believe me, I was as shocked as anyone. I recently got a promotion and they told me I'd go to Tampa a lot, then out of the blue they said "we need someone to go to Hawaii." My wife and son are coming too, but that ain't on the company dime. Not easy to plan a trip to Hawaii for three (including a two-year-old) on one week's notice, but it's a nice problem to have.

[morkertt]

Though I'd prefer a Saturday, I'm happy to step back and let our out of towners figure what works best. A week earlier doesn't make much difference to me either...simply more time to regret bidding on a few overpaid players before the season starts! (Is the season seriously still over 3 months away???!!)

[MGrage]

Well, since I've been in the league, I've only had to draft a week early once. That was the year I ended up with Mark Prior for like 19 cents. He was still in training camp so he was eligible to be bid on. Now granted, he hamstrung my team in later years, but those first two years were fantastic. Undoubtedly, there will be other similar rookies in major league training camps next year as well. Would I put an endgame bid of a penny on Drew Storen? You bet your arse I would. Even if he goes back to the minors for a couple of months, he could still end up the closer in 2010. With an abundance of free agents and/or good rotation picks, I can easily replace him on my active roster.

I'll have to find my notes on one of the plethora of flash drives I have, but I'd be willing to bet that there were at least 100 demotions in the last week of spring training last year. What if we gave up the posh confines of Rich's conference room and drafted elsewhere earlier in the day? That way our carpetbagging owners could catch a flight Saturday night so they could be back home on Easter. BTW, flying on Easter morning would probably be a breeze since the vast majority of travelers would have made better plans and already be where they want to be.

One more option would be to draft the weekend after the start of the season. I don't know if this has ever been done before in our league though. We could either retroactively add all the stats from the first week or just do without them. Well, I hope I've muddied up the waters enough for now. Mahalo

Matt

[Copperfields]

You know, when I wrote "the closer we draft to Opening Day, the better", I just looked at the three options available and really hadn't given any thought to the fact that the day after the 3rd is Easter and what that would mean for the folks travelling or those of us with families. In retrospect, drafting Easter eve might not be the best idea after all.

As Matt G. noted, we have drafted with a week+ left in spring training before -- actually, it was 2002, the year that "Trading The Gator" was filmed. When Rich mentioned the possibility of an early draft, though, the first thing I thought of was Mark Prior and the absurdity of the bidding on him (he went for .17 then got sent to the minors a day or so later). Whether to take a chance like that just adds to the strategy, I guess.

Other than Prior, I don't recall a ton of issues with players getting sent down after being acquired in the auction that year. According the roster change reports, 20 players got reserved prior to Opening Day, which I guess isn't too bad.

Matt's correct, about 100-150 players get cut during that last week of the preseason. The big thing there is it really makes the Draft Day Player Lists crowded, which makes doing your homework important. In retrospect, perhaps that's why some people thought the draft in 2002 was so slow -- drafting a week earlier than usual means a lot of roster/lineup/rotation/bullpen spots aren't as set as they are a week later, so people had to do more waffling about who to nominate or whether to go that extra penny.

Overall though, I'd guess drafting the 27th or 28th would be preferable to April 3. I personally have no preference for Saturday vs Sunday. If there are owners who need to work on Saturdays, then I'd say that eliminates that from consideration (or forces us to start later). If no one has work obligations, then I'd say the people paying to travel here should make the call.

Getting everyone together with the least impact to professional & personal lives is the first priority. If that means we have to draft in less comfortable accommodations, so be it (assuming that we CAN find an alternate location).

Edit to add: To answer Matt's question about drafting after Opening Day - yes, we used to do that all the time - for at least the first 8-10 years of the league. As documented in the original Rotisserie League book, Draft Day was traditionally the weekend AFTER Opening Day. This led to the phenomenon known as "The Littlefield Effect" - named for Padre reliever John Littlefield who earned 2 saves in the first week of the season (before the Rotisserie League's draft), which led to him being auctioned at a closer's salary. He didn't earn another save all year.

I can't remember if we were drafting before or after Opening Day in 1994, they year Karl Rhodes took Dwight Gooden deep three times on Opening Day. Since he only went for .09, it was either before Opening Day, or the CFCL we sophisticated enough to know a fluke when we saw it.



David

[Demreb]

OK we seem to have run out of steam on this topic without an official resolution. Here's what we know.

One thought is to let the owners travelling in from out of town be the final word (since they have the biggest time and money commitment).

Dave would prefer to stay away from April 3rd if at all possible.
Kenn, when he voted, said April 3rd was his first choice. So that doesn't solve much. HOWEVER, Kenn also in a previous post mentioned that if the 3rd would cause problems due to the holiday then he was locked in to March 27th (Satuday) which is Dave's first choice. So far so good.

Mike Coulter would prefer March 27th (as he voted) since that gives him some time to comfortably add all the players into Sportsline.

In my opinion I think Mike C's vote counts in equal strength as our out of towners. Yes, it's not costing him money to get to the draft, but he is the one doing all the work immediately after.

Bob has coaching responsibilities on Saturdays but mentioned that given enough lead time he could arrange to have someone cover for him. His preferred draft date was March 27th.

Everyone else (if I remember correctly) preferred April 3rd because it was closest to Opening Day, but there were no scheduling/work issues.

So for our travelling (Ruffins and Line), working (Hots) and CFCL working (Clowns) teams, the 27th is the most preferable when we take everything into consideration.

I will put it out there for everyone - Can we vote the 27th to be our Draft Day?

If so, we just have to decide on the time. I think it's easier for Bob if we draft later in the day. I think I would prefer it as well and I think that also makes it easier for us to get the Oak Brook Draft Location if we're coming in later - not much activity would be going on mid-late afternoon on a Saturday.

Here's what I need.

Yea/nay on the 27th along with a preferred starting time. If it's morning I would say we start at 7:30 like 2009. If it's afternoon I would say we shoot for a 3pm start.

Of course your thoughts/ideas are always welcome.

[Copperfields]

For what it's worth, those of us who showed up at the banquet (Bob, Tim, Michael C., David M.) talked about this briefly. The consensus was that drafting on the 27th was preferable to messing with potential Easter conflicts the following week.

If I interpreted everyone's comments correctly, that means 4 votes in favor of March 27.

We didn't discuss time of day specifically, so I won't speculate on everyone else's preference. For me - I don't care. I could do the 8:00 AM start or 3:00 PM equally easily. Since at this point there seem to be multiple arguements in favor of the later start, I'm happy to throw my support that way.

David

[kenndoza (archived)]

Nov 22, 2009 16:47:46 GMT -5 Demreb said:

Yea/nay on the 27th along with a preferred starting time. If it's morning I would say we start at 7:30 like 2009. If it's afternoon I would say we shoot for a 3pm start.

Yeah from me. Definitely afternoon works better for me, as I would probably drive in Saturday morning. If we start Saturday morning, I'd basically have to miss work Friday.

[redhots]

Yeah from me on the 27th and the 3pm start time is definitely preferable.

Thanks.

Bob

[mcoulter2008]

The 27th was my first choice and remains so.
Time of day isn't really too big of a factor.