[Lucky]

Here's the deal, guys. We're close enough to make these decisions. Simple stuff but they should be decided. And since we often go back and forth about this stuff we should just all make a concentrated effort to decide now. So here are the matters which we think need to be decided.

Set Draft Date - March 11th - 18th is the rough ideas being tossing around. 18th would get us through 2/3rds of Spring Training and give us 2 weeks for the draft. The 11th would leave some more questions in Spring Training but probably not in the first few rounds. And it would make sure to give us plenty of time to complete the board draft before the season starts. Maybe just a compromise between the two and we can pick a midweek night to get together and start?

Finalize Draft Order - It stands as (a) new teams get top picks; (b) consolation bracket winner gets next highest pick; (c) championship winner gets last pick, and (d) rest is decided by reverse standings. Anyone have a problem with this? You can see it in the Draft Order thread, but comment in here.

Keeper Rules - We were debating the rules for keepers past this season and we sort of agreed on this idea. At least 7 out of the 12 guys seemed cool with this. We've still got the time to hash it out or change it but it really should be done by the draft so people know what it means to draft a guy in round X.

- Keep the existing rules for '07 draft.
- In '07-'08 protect the first 4 rounds in the '07 draft as "Can't Keep" and protect all '06-'07 Keepers as "Restricted Free Agents."
- You can "Franchise" 2-3 of the Restricted Free Agents. The rest go into the "Can't Keep" pool.
- We set up some kind of limit on how many times you can Franchise someone. And possibly setup penalties past certain years (as described in Dev's scenario). A round idea would be to say you can Franchise someone 3 times (meaning you can keep them for 4) and in years 5 and 6 you can keep them at a cost of a draft pick.

Minor League Draft - Dev suggested this and a bunch of us really like it. It would be a separate draft with a separate roster of guys. They wouldn't be on your Yahoo team but they'd be reserved for you so noone else would be allowed to pick them up in the league (commish would obviouslly have to enforce that if someone forgot or tried to steal someone). Here's the basic idea that we sort of brainstormed.

- Minor League Draft is held somewhere between May 1st - 15th. This gives everyone Spring Training to scout picks, stats to base it on, and no confusion over who will end up being on major league rosters.
- Any minor league players who haven't qualified as rookies in the major leagues are elligible (50 IP or 130 AB).
- 5(?) players chosen.
- Any player drafted is protected from being acquired by other owners. If need be the commishioner will enforce that (if an owner picks up the player and plays him).
- Once a player is called up you have 20(?) days of their callup to decide whether to keep them on your roster or drop them off your MiL list. If the player is demoted in that time you don't have to make a decision (provided they still qualify as elligible). You may activate them before then.
- Once a player is moved to the ML roster you drop a player and pick up the MiLeaguer over at Yahoo. You can then choose a new Minor Leaguer to fill your Minor League roster here.
- You may drop a player and add a new player at any time provided they fill the criteria.
- The whole thing would be kept track of right here, just like we have with the Keepers.

So weigh in folks. The Minor League thing is not a done deal. A number of us just really like the idea. The Keeper System needs to be addressed and we had a 7 out of 12 approval last time. And the draft stuff obviouslly needs to be decided as we're just about 6 weeks away from the likely draft date. So talk up, even if its just to say "I like what you have." If you don't we're going to have to make these decisions anyway and you're not going to have a ton of grounds to complain about them.

I PMed everyone and U2Ued them at OO. If anyone talks to anyone through other means feel free to remind them to come over here.



And if you're not in the league sorry this is taking up space at the top of the board. Wanted to grab all the guy's attention.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I like what you have. You already know how I stand on this stuff anyway. I just wanted to weigh in officially.

I'd say drafting on the Yahoo message board on a Sunday works best, given the 3 hr time difference between the champs on the left coast and the chumps on the right.

Draft order, keepers and MiLBS all sound great to me.

[Army Dice Clay]

I really have no opinion as far as the draft dates go. It would be nicer to see it a bit later in the month and preferably not on a Wednesday night. Just to put it out there, I'm taking a small vacation from March 9 - 13 to Florida for a college baseball tourney. So anytime beyond those dates and not on a Wednesday I can make that work.

As far as the minor league draft goes, I'd be alright with it, but honestly I don't have a ton of time on my hands to research about minor leaguers. I'm going to barely have enough time to keep up with the regular league. I'd be okay with it, but I honestly would have no idea who to draft beyond the big names you always hear about.

[Jack Quinn]

I am cool with everything, I s'pose I will have to do some research on the minor leaguers.

As for the draft, how are we doing that again? The way we did the pay one last year was a little prolonged, but I actually kinda liked it because it gave you some time to consider your next pick, and getting everyone in the same place at the same time is gonna be a challenge. I liked having it at the Yahoo page too.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

We HAVE to do it at the Yahoo page... the smack talk alone was worth it.

[Sparty]

I need the draft to be the earliest possible in that week because I have NCAA Tournament that week.

I'm going to abstain from the draft order because I'm new and you guys should decide that.

The keeper thing is fine, I love the MiL thing.

[Lucky]

Does the Yahoo board make a difference from this place? Seems like either is as good as the other. Or are we thinking Yahoo is just more convenient?

GM, what's your schedule? Tournament starts the 15th so I take it Sunday night the 18th wouldn't work for you to get together. Would Sunday the 11th or Monday the 12th? Or do are you busy with division stuff and play in and all that? Would Monday the 19th be a night you could handle?

You and MKid know how the draft worked for us last year, right? We picked a night and all got together on the Yahoo board. Everyone had X minutes to make their pick, place it on the board and then the next guy was up. We did as many rounds as we could and when we had to split we just kept it going. So if you had to depart we'd go until we got to your next pick. Then you'd just be responsible to make that pick as soon as you could so the next guy could follow. It sounds like it will take forever but it actually went really well last year and everyone seemed to dig not having to make those 90 second decisions. If we start on the 11th we have 3 weeks which is PLENTY. Last year we got together 2 consecutive Sunday nights (or something like that and got the whole thing done in about a week and a half). And as Solly said the smack was awesome.

Army, if it will make you more open to the MiLeague Keepers I was thinking I could put together some simple material for everyone. Some lists and scouting reports and a few directions to point you too. It could be as easy as me sending you to Baseball America's Top 10 for the Twins. Give you something to base your picks on. I was figuring I'd spend the next month or so posting some stuff in that Stat Symposium I never use so I could do some of that too.

[Lucky]

Bear in mind the MiLeague Keeper thing is a bit of a crapshoot to begin with so if you're not that focused on it it shouldn't kill your or anything. Odds are if we all have 5 guys 3 or 4 of them won't amount to anything anytime soon. And once they make the ML rosters we'll have to drop them or play them. So if one of these guys comes up and struggles or rides the bench he'll probably end up getting dropped and become inelligible for this system.

It will give an edge to those really paying attention or really astute. But not a MAJOR one. Not much more than those guys usually have because they're the ones always picking up the young studs like Cole Hamell before their first starts in the majors. Or Vols drafting Delmon Young last year because he expected him to make an impact. There might be some of us who grab a AA guy who you never heard of who makes an impact in 2008.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

luckylopez said:

Does the Yahoo board make a difference from this place? Seems like either is as good as the other. Or are we thinking Yahoo is just more convenient?

Actually in terms of archiving stuff, this site would be better. Yahoo only lists the 200 most recent messages and let's face it, Moose could do that alone by saying how much the Mets suck. We should draft on here and you, me or Pun will import the picks into Yahoo. I guess Pun would since he's the commish.

[National Champion Chris Cole]

I'm ok with all of the rules set up. Let me know where to show up and what night although I'm always going to do better between 9am-5pm eastern time because my computer time is during work. When I'm home I'm usually watching TV and speding time with my wife.

[Mikey]

Solly's right... we won't have a post limit here. We should draft here, and make our choices in BOLD. And I'm good just about anytime except for Tuesday and Thursday nights. Only question I have is the Franchise penalty after a set number of years. And I think it can somehow be linked to a player's preseason ranking on Yahoo. If the guy Franchised after a et time is in the Top 12, costs him his first round pick... and so on.

And, I love how Gimmick is under the assumption that Michigan State is gonna be in the Tournament this year... I KID, I KID!

Everything looks good to me.

[Lucky]

I love the preseason ranking penalty. Ranked 1-12 you lose your 1st round pick. 13-24 your 2nd. Etc. I guess we go by Yahoo's ranks? I like that a lot and it speaks right to the worth of the keeper.

[Attitude Adjuster]

Here’s my two cents:

Draft date: I will be in Reno for the NCAA basketball tournament from March 14-19. That probably throws a wrench in your plans. If you can start the draft on March 19, I’d be a much happier camper (as would a couple others it looks like). It was difficult last year for the time I was away, and Moose did most of my drafting in the middle rounds. I’d really prefer to be around for the draft, but I understand if I’m in the minority and can check in from time to time while in Reno.

Draft order: Does the draft order snake back every other round or is it like a real league? In other words, I know I have the last pick of the first round. Does that mean I get the first pick of the second round or will I always be the last pick of each round? I don’t care either way, but just want to clarify.

Keeper Rules: You guys confuse the hell out of me with this, but if we had 7 of 12 like it before (and I think I was one of them), let’s just keep it this way and not talk about it any more.

Minor League Draft: I’m sure there’s a few of you digging on this, and I’ll play along if the majority wants. But except for Lucky, who can name five minor leaguers they want to keep just in case they get called up. I can think of one (though I don’t remember his name right now), and that’s only because I heard the local radio guys talking about his last week.

[Lucky]

AA: Here's the draft order. Complete. Yes, it snakes.
www.natecorbitt.proboards81.com/index.cgi?board=keeper&action=display&thread=1159730284

If AA and GM both find the 19th easier that might be the right time to start it. It gives us less than 2 weeks to finish but we can probably pull that off if we know the need. M-Kid, I realize your problem but do you think getting on the computer that Monday night would be doable? I mean, I can do an afternoon draft fine (most days) but can everyone else? Or is sometime Monday night better?

[Lucky]

In response to both Army's and AA's concerns I decided to toss together a bunch of links. Basically a lot of quick stop lists of the top minor leaguers in baseball along with some more in depth content if you want to check out. Some video and audio if you dig deep enough. Figured it could help anyone get more knowledgeable even if its just of the top 50 or so.

www.natecorbitt.proboards81.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=stats&thread=1169579775

[DevSop]

I'm okay with anything thats decided, as long as I have some notice to get ready and whatnot.

[Mikey]

19th is fine for me.

I think the Yahoo preseason rankings are the best way to do it. Now the question is, when do the penalties kick in?

[National Champion Chris Cole]

Monday afternoon would be the best. I have a problem with Monday Nights with softball. If we did a Night draft I'd be better with Tues or Weds. Again anyday around 5:00pm Eastern Time would work as well. I can stay at work later. But I'll go with the majority if that is too early.

[GoVols]

I'm pretty much ok with everything. My only thing is simplicity. I love fantasy baseball as much as the next, but I'm obviously not as informed as some of you. I don't want to become any more of a joke in this league than I already am.

I'd like to make the keepers as simple as possible. I love the minor league draft idea, but will probably be bugging some of you with questions.

Basically, keep me informed of what's going on and I'm good to go.

I also wanted to get entry fees into the mix here. I was thinking $20 would be a good number.

Last thing we should discuss is scoring categories. I liked the setup last year, but would like to tweak it a bit to keep certain categories (holds, stolen bases, e.g.) from being able to be dominated by one player. Don't have any suggestions, but wanted to point it out.

By the way, thanks to Lucky for the all the work and info he's done for us. I really appreciate it because I really enjoy the league.

[Lucky]

I probably should have included pay questions in this thread too. Pun had a pay info thread awhile back. Not sure if you missed it. Dev talked us into going up to $25 with these payoffs.

1st place - $140
2nd place - $60
3rd place - $40
Regular Season Winner - $60

Does that work for everyone?

I know the keeper and minor league stuff looks complicated and is making people's heads hurt but its not that bad. My crazy compensation round draft idea was complicated. This stuff is fairly straight forward. The minor league draft is at least. Some guys are going to have trouble and all of us will probably have trouble past that 1st or 2nd round but I already have a bunch of lists and scouting reports up in the Stat Corner and I'll add more in the 4 months before then.

The keeper stuff is a bit more complicated but it really is something that needed to get figured out. Unless we just decided that you can keep someone forever or can never keep them again, both seem to be extremes. But if we've got it pretty much worked out I swear it will go easier now. One of these days I'll add the rules to the Keeper thread and once the new draft happens I'll update the "Can't Keep List" and "Restricted Free Agents" list. Its going to be the same process as last year, really. It was just something Mike and I thought we had to do the work on now so it can run smoothly later.

This leagues is still basically about a draft with some keepers. There's some added worry about how long you can keep some guys and there's the extra minor leagues you can grab. If that really gets too much of a headache I'm sure we can amend/drop it.

I love Holds and SBs are a pretty standard stat. Do you want to drop them? I think Hs are major because they open up the reliver pool so much more instead of having everyone chase 30 guys and ignore hundreds of others. And I think its pretty hard to dominate that category unless you load up with MRs. But that's an option anyone can make. I mean, I can make a concentrated effort to draft SB and HLD guys and probably give myself an edge. But I end up sacrificing other categories that other guys will focus on. I know as a personal habit I almost always end up finishing the draft short on HRs and/or SBs. Usually because of a heavy focus on SP and HLD.

Still, I'm open for debate. Here are the stats from last year:
R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OBP
W, SV, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP

For my own personal tastes I'd consider adding 1 stat to each side. For pitching it would be Ls. Just a nice balance against the Ws and anyone who ends up throwing starter after starter out there to try and rack up Ws. And for offense it would be SLG, Extra Base Hits, or Total Bases. Something to give some credit to 2Bs and 3Bs, neither of which are represented in those stats. Lots of players ending up losing a lot of value because of that.

But I'm fine with the stats as they stand if that's what we want.

[Mikey]

I was fine with the stats from last year, but I do think adding losses is a good idea.

Going from OBP to OPS would help the 2B and 3B problem, but it would still leave us another category to fill. Just something to consider.

As far as payout, I suggest a payout to all six playoff teams, as follows:

Champion: $125
Runner Up: $45
Third Place: $40
Fourth Place: $35
Fifth Place: $30
Sixth Place: $25

[DevSop]

One thing that would stop someone from loading up on starters like Lucky suggested is a weekly league. All lineups have to be in by the first game on Monday and thats ur team for the entire week. This stops people from rotating the starters who are facing KC/TB type teams and dominating categories like wins/k's even if they do handicap themselves in ERA/WHIP. I do like making it 7 by 7 with slugging for the batters. For pitching, there's not much out there which kinda sucks. Maybe complete games or losses if we do weekly could work. There's probably something

[Pun]

I'm good with everything you guys have. One thing, though, I've already talked with Lucky about it, but I don't know if I am going to be able to commish this season. I had a tough enough time running things last season, and with the new baby coming, it's going to be even rougher. If Lucky has more time, he can start the league and run it. Solly might even be able to do it. (Anyone that has as many posts at OO and over here must have the time to run a league. ) I can start the league and give Solly and Lucky my pass to input the draft results. Or, Solly or Lucky can do the same thing. I would consider creating an account just for the fantasy league, but I kind of like to keep the fantasy results I've built up over the last 3 years. If someone else doesn't care about those, they can also create the account as well. I think Lucky and/or Solly would be a great choice for the new commish.

[Lucky]

I hate those weekly locking leagues myself. Partly because I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that starter thing. You take a big risk with your ERA, WHIP, and L (if its there) to balance against the hope for Ws and Ks. And everyone's free to do it. It can get annoying but I think its completely fair (and do it occasionally). I also often have a position I'm not that confident in or a stat I'm not that strong in and I might make moves to help that mid week. And of course there's injuries, rain outs, and changes. Lock the rosters on Monday and you can't do anything to deal with that stuff. You can get a week destroyed if someone goes down early in teh week or if a team gets a couple of games rained out.

I'd deal if it happens but I HATE that. I'd sacrifice damn near anything to keep it out.

OPS would cover the SLG thing but it also adds on odd twist on OBP/SLG. They've both involved but you often end up with guys heavily favoring one side over the other. I'm cool with it if that's what we want but if we want 7x7 it just seems to make sense to be to do OBP and SLG and keep OPS out of it (since its there already). Unless there's a 7th stat people want. I've played with Steal Percentage and Fielding Percentage in the past. Both add an interesting twist but always struck me as more of a headache than anything else. We could always add Hs I suppose. Its simple, even if its more or less covered in AVG.

I'd be fine with that "everyone who makes the playoffs is a winner approach" if we wanted it. I admit I'm a bit of a traditional sports fan who finds it odd to see the 6th place guy in a 12 team league break even. Feels wrong to me. But that could easily end up being me. I kind of like Dev's idea of rewarding the Regular Season winner since he did it for 5 months but then has to hope for no bad week.

[Sparty]

I love OPS and losses as categories. I've always used them in all the leagues I've run.

I'm not so sure about the 19th because, please note Tarheel, I'm covering women's hoops this time around and their weekends extend to Tuesday. Although MSU is hosting this year, which means I'll be staying here, I do not know the off-day schedule, so I wouldn't want to commit to anything uber-important like this without knowing until a few days before if I can participate or not.

That is why March 11 would probably be the best for me, I'm thinking.

Here's what I was thinking in regards to the all-playoff teams get paid scenario:

On the surface, I didn't like it because it's weird. Then I thought about it, and it would create more competition at the middle-bottom of the standings to get to that last playoff spot. Teams wouldn't give up as easily because there could still be money made. But then you're taking away from the teams that did actually do very well. Although I guess you could say that you should always be fighting for a playoff spot, but it's easy to give up hope if you're far behind...which brings me to my next idea, to inspire competiton:

Giving a little prize (less than $25, more than $10) to the winner of the consolation bracket, so again, there is something to play for at the end.

These are all off the top of my head and quick, so hopefully they make sense.