E-Mail/Spreadsheets Sent

If anyone did not get the e-mail, let me know. Either comment here or e-mail me: stephen.graham.smith@gmail.com

2010-2011 Winter Meetings

Is anyone interested? If so or if not, please discuss. This might be difficult for Kyle, but if you can get out to the east coast it would be a good chance to catch up with all of us. If we do this, it would likely be in or between DC/NY (this is a central location for most of us).

I am thinking along the lines of a long weekend: meet up on Thursday, go home on Sunday. Let me know your thoughts.

Expansion

If anyone can find someone by February 1 who would be willing to take on a team for the 2011 season, please post something about him/her on the blog so we can vet him/her. If we find said person, then we will discuss expansion rules prior to the draft and prior to anyone having to make a decision about dropping players so that there is ample time to adjust strategies accordingly.

Draft Dollars

Zach $126
Matt $134
Lance $146
Connor $149
Jonathan $151
Steve $165
Nick $202
Kyle $209
AndrewM $229
Bick $246
AndyS $257
Ted $445
Eric $550
Elliot $631

Dropping Players During Draft

Kyle makes a fair point in the comments a couple of posts down. I don't see any functional reason why we couldn't allow someone to draft beyond the roster limit and then drop back down within 24 hours. This is particularly true since the time frame of a round is a whole week.

I will have full and detailed rules for the draft coming soon, but since this has been discussed recently I will go ahead and declare this change. Alternatively, I will accept instructions from people who wish to draft players contingently (for example: instructions from a manager could say that Todd Helton is 3rd priority but please don't draft Helton if it will put me over X players).

Draft Dollars Sunday

Draft Dollars will be included in an updated spreadsheet that will be e-mailed to the league on Sunday. Happy trading.

$$ for Sale

my draft $$ are for sale.

Want:
waiver priority, 3B, Closer, Catcher.

will trade before or after dollars are release, but first legitimate offer gets em since they aren't worth anything to me.

Draft, etc.

Soon after the World Series (or more importantly for me, after my November 6 exam) I will assign draft dollars and compose rules that codify what we did last year. If anyone thinks there are particular aspects from last year that should be improved and you have a way to do it (not changing the entire system; a mere modification that maintains the essence of the draft) please post it as a comment to this thread.

2009 ALL FA Team

I bet a lot of teams (2/3rds of the league) wishes they had these totals at the end of the year:

R HR RBI SB AVG W S K ERA WHIP
715 191 723 115 .294 89 90 878 3.49 1.23

Anyone could have had these stats. These stats came from my 2009 All Free Agent Team. To make the All Free Agent Team, the player had to begin the year on the free agent list. This team would have accumulated 93 points and come in 5th or 6th in the league. Also, with somebody managing, this team would have accumulated more points. The games played on offense was 202 from the max, which would have put this team dead last in offensive games played. Assuming a manager subbed players in for 1/2 of those 202 games, and those players why played in those 100 games only got an rbi and run every other game, a SB every 10 games, and a couple of hr's, that is +10 more points. This puts the all FA team in 3rd or 4th place. Here is the team:

C - Miguel Montero
1B - Kendry Morales
2B - Aaron Hill
SS - Ben Zobrist
3B - Casey McGehee (pre all-star) / Gordon Beckham (post all-star)
OF - Juan Rivera
OF - Marlon Byrd
OF - Andrew McCutchen
DH - Nyjer Morgan (until he got injured) / Rajai Davis (afterwards)

SP - Kevin Millwood
SP - J. A. Happ
SP - Joel Pineiro
SP - Scott Feldman
SP - Rick Porcello
SP - Jonathan Sanchez (post all-star break)
RP - David Aardsma
RP - Andrew Bailey
RP - Leo Nunez
RP - Ryan Madison

SO, not to re-hash old arguments about what or who has made the league unfair for the bottom half of the league, but it was possible for someone to come in with nobody on their team in the beginning of the season and finish in the top 4. Some notable players that did not make this team because they were added with waivers in the middle of the season or dropped by others during the season are Howie Kendrick, Carlos Marmol, Matt Gamel, Drew Stubbs, Wade Davis, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Brian Matusz (available in beginning of season).

To continue my argument, look what the draft last year gave us: Matt Wieters, Billy Butler, Elvis Andrus, Matt LaPorta, Tommy Hanson, Trevor Cahill, Rafael Soriano, Neftali Feliz, and Chris Tillman. This is some great talent, but with everyone participating, that is less than 1 player per team. Also, out of this group only Butler, Andrus, Soriano and Hanson really made a big difference this year.

What does this mean? Last offseason, the draft gave a team 1 or 2 players. The FA list included a team that was capable of coming third in the league to pick from. So, any argument this offseason about the league being unfair, catering to the top, etc will be pointed back to this post. This year, every team had a chance to finish in the top 3 or 4. The talent was there for anyone to have. Good luck next year to everyone and remember, last place this year could easily be 5th place next year with a little luck from some FA pickups.

E-MAILS

Post your name, team name and e-mail you want to use for trading in the offseason

Zach Jett - Rookies - zcjett@gmail.com

And the Offseason Begins!

Congrats to all on another long season. Now that the offseason is here, we need to clear up some things to make sure this offseason runs more smoothly:

* When do teams need to get their roster size down to 24?
* With trades in the offseason, will teams be required to drop to 27 if they do 3 for 1's as they would have to in the regular season? How about after we are dropped to 24?
* Steve, you should work on very specific rules for the auction draft that we can post on the message board to reference whenever we have a dispute. Maybe come up with a draft over the next month and let us all give our input on it througout the winter. (maybe no trading during the 3 weeks of auction? specific priority tie breaking rules? )
* I will post another post specifically for e-mail addresses. So, if you want to make trades in the offseason with someone, use that e-mail address.
* We need to decide on next season (2011) rules and offseason now. Are we dropping 3? 6? 0? Are we expanding? Are we doing something drastic like dropping to 15 and redrafting? Salary Cap? Auction or line draft in the offseason?
* Are we doing a Plus League again this season (I say yes, since I will purchase stat tracker anyway).
* Are we still going to use Yahoo? ESPN is pretty good too. Also, for those interested, I think it would be neat to find a site that supports a salary league with contract for individual players. If anyone knows of a site that supports this, let me know.

Predictions

Andrew:
AL
East: Red Sox
Central: Twinkies
West: A's
Wild Card: Royals
NL
East: Mets
Central: Cubs
West: Dodgers
Wild Card: Dbacks

Connor:
NL
East: Mets
Central: Brewers
West: Dodgers
Wild Card: Braves
AL
East: Yanks
Central: Indians
West: A's
Wild Card: Sox

Kyle:
AL
west:Angels
cent:Tigers
east:Yankees
wild:Redsox
NL
west:Dodgers
cent:Cubs
east:Mets
wild:Philly

Zach:
AL
west:Angels
cent:Tigers
east:RedSox
wild:Tampa
NL
west:Dodgers
cent:Cubs
east:Mets
wild:Cards

Holy Cap!

The salary cap (either version) shouldn't be that hard to understand. Perhaps Zach and I are partially guilty of a confused presentation of our ideas. It is my wish to remedy any confusion with this post.

As it stands, there is a somewhat massive imbalance of talent in the league. This also leaves the better teams with vast amounts of resources to acquire future talent (see: Offseason 2008-09, Connor trades Harang, Ankiel, McGowan and Cabrera to acquire Matt Wieters).

A worse-off team than mine may not have been able to pay the price to move up and get Wieters.

The salary cap, by definition, gives each team the same amount of resources to acquire and accumulate talent. Each team will (eventually) have $260 with which pay their players. No more, no less.

Usually, salaries are established at the league's creation through an open auction. Since we did a snake draft instead, we currently have no player salaries. There are a couple of ways to remedy this problem:

1) Determine player salaries based on PECOTA projections (Zach's proposal)*
2) Determine player salaries based on past-season performance (Connor's proposal)

After we initially set salaries by either of these methods, my proposal is that prices would be set by the market going forward. We would agree on a rate for salary inflation (say, $3/year), and if the owner of Torii Hunter was willing to pay $15 for Torii Hunter in 2008 but is not willing to pay $18 in 2009, Hunter can be cut. Hunter will then be bid on and auctioned off. His salary will be determined by the prevailing market price (say, $12).

This obviously gives more value to young, cheap players that can be picked up off of free agents for $1 and experience a modest price increase each season, creating a good chance that they will overperform their salary for many years. But you aren't going to win a league with a bunch of $1 rookies (Zach's apparent strategy for this season notwithstanding).

If you still have questions, I encourage you to go through the Google Doc emailed out by Zach. I'm still not 100% done with my proposal, but most of the meat should be on there. If you're unable to view the Doc, let Zach know.


*While setting these prices retroactively is something of a tricky subject leaving it impossible to be completely fair to everyone, I can't justify the logic of setting retroactive prices using projections of the future. This could be particularly cruel to the managers that this new system was meant to most help, given the gaudy PECOTA projections for some young players currently on under-performing (is that the correct PC lingo?) teams.... Thus, my opposition to Zach's sub-idea.


Addendum: There are no "picks" under this system (also, there are no "picks" under the current system). There is only "cap space". It's just like every other major professional sport except baseball. e.g., The Panthers have $20 million in cap space. Therefore, they sign Player A at $8 million, Player B at $4 million, Player C at $5 million, and Player D at $3 million. You might even say that these players are "auctioned" on the open market and the highest-bidding team wins the player. Yeah, it costs money to sign Peyton Manning, but with it comes the benefit of Peyton Manning's production.

Message to Lance: Wrap it up!

DC now has an HIV/AIDS rate that rivals that of Africa's.

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=77642

Geithner...

Does anyone else feel like Tim Geithner could learn something from the level of detail that Connor and Zach are offering to "fix" a "broken" system?

Salary Cap

I have e-mailed everybody a copy of my proposed salary cap idea, current player salaries and a team by team breakdown of player salaries. I also posted this on Google Docs for everyone to see (I apologize if I sent multiple e-mails. Google kept saying their server was down but then it sent the invites anyway. )

Comment back on here and let me know if the general idea sounds good. If so, we can work on editing the rules throughout the season and implement it next offseason.

Team Dollar Values

These are the 2009 BP PFM (Baseball Prospectus Player Forecast Manager) results for the current dollar value of each player's team:

Steve - 276
Zach - 283
Lance - 351
Markham - 289
Matt - 268
Connor - 259
Bick - 191
Eric - 183
Andy S - 133
Elliot - 153
JRoss - 234
Nick - 261
Jamie - 178
Kyle - 224

If we switched to mine and Connor's salary cap idea, this would be how much you are paying for your team. This was using a 260 dollar salary cap, and right now the average team salary is 235. Is anyone else interested in a salary cap idea?

how are the draft dollars at the end of the year calculated?

also (copied from our Yahoo League forum):

ake note I don't expect to be in the bottom 5 again this year, but after having been there 3 years I think this is only fair to help the turn-around. 

Officially motioning the following things.... 

1) Reverse, line-order draft to replace the draft dollars. While the idea of the draft dollars is nice, some people just don't want to or can't take the time to play the system. The top 5 teams from last year benefited the most this offseason and that's BS. We're here to help the bottom not make this a league for 5 people. The picks, like draft dollars are tradeable, but only after they have been announced. 

2) Bottom 5 people are reverse order 1-5 on waiver priority at the start of the next year (6-end would stay the same order as it was previously). This allows anyone who isn't in the draft or other prospects to head to those bottom teams. Just a little more advantage. 

3) Trades themselves take only 5 vetos (1/3 of the league) unless another 3rd party "likes" the trade and posts as such. In that case 1 additional person is required for each person who likes it. Off season as well. 

4) Offseason trades take just as long to go through as season trades (unless 1/3 of the people are in the same place... aka chatroom, phone conference, etc, etc). That keeps people from calling everyone last minute because they HAVE TO make a trade. 


I don't care if we take part of this, but we need to have 1-3 I think for this league to become more fair as a keepers league.

In Defense of the Auction Draft

Now that the draft is over, I wanted to defend the auction style. Remember, the purpose of the auction draft was to distribute dollars in order of finish - I decided to see how the draft might have worked out, assuming no one traded any draft dollars. I also took out any players drafted for $1.

To Kyle: Wieters and Billy Butler (and 15$ for remaining players bid at $1)
To Jamie: N. Feliz and Mark Lowe (and 25$ remaining)
To Nick: Cahill and Willis (and 6$ remaining)
To JR: Hanson (and 9$ remaining)
To Andy S: LaPorta (0$ remaining)
To Elliot: Tillman (11$ remaining)
To Eric: Tazawa (36$ remaining)
To Bick: Brett Wallace (32$ remaining)
To Connor: Lars Anderson (51$ remaining)
To Matt: E Andrus (33$ remaining)
To Andrew: Gil Meche (12$ remaining)
To Lance: Homer Bailey (8$ remaining)
To Zach: R Soriano (0$ remaining)
To Steve: K Gregg and JR Towles (9$ remaining)

Players at $1:

Cabrera, Asdrubal
Cabrera, Daniel
Dickerson, Chirs
Gallagher, Sean
Griffey, Jr., Ken
Napoli, Mike
Ross, Cody
Ross, David
Sheffield. Gary
Weeks, Rickie
Wigginton, Ty
Zito, Barry


As you can see, if people had valued their draft dollars appropriately, then the result would have been similar to a snake draft. Perhaps a good way to get an auction draft to work is to not allow the trading of draft dollars. Some managers took adavantage of others who did not appropriately understand the value of their draft dollars - we're fantasy baseball players, not saints.

Infinite Loops

I think this is Steves Methodology for infinite loops (incase people were confused about how results were determined...steve conform or deny this...im sure you didnt think like this step by step, but in the end i think you chose the results based on this method) :

Algorythm:
1) List each Free Agent followed by each bid made for said Free Agent and the priority assigned per bid.
2) Identify the infinite loop. Only consider the top X bids, where X is the number of Free agents involved in the loop.
3) Find the person(lets call him Bidder A) with the most draft dollars and the Free Agent that he bid as his current top priority.
a) go through the truncated list of X bids and look for any other #1 priority bids for the Free Agent.
b) If any are found, lower Bidder A's bid to that amount and go to (d). If not, go to (c)
c) Continue to go through the list, until the highest priority is found. Lower Bidder A's amount to that priority's bid amount and go to (d)
d) Bidder A gets said Free Agent for his updated bid price
e) Bidder A loses all dd's if his team reaches the max and has offered nobody as a replacement for any future Free Agent bids.
4) Repeat step 3 until infinite loop is gone.

Example:
* Steve has the most money and wants Feliz as his number 1 priority...Zach bid for Feliz as a Priority 2 at 382 so Steve gets Feliz for 383. Steve now has Feliz and 356 DD's.
* JRoss has the most money and wants Cahill as his number 1 priority...Lance bid for Cahill as a Priority 1 at 366 so JRoss gets Cahill for 367. JRoss now has Cahill and 76 DD's.
* Zach has the most money and wants Hanson as his number 1 priority...Lance bid for Hanson as a Priority 2 at 366 so Zach gets Tilllman for 367. Zach now has Tillman and 17 DD's. (Steve has me getting him for 357...either way the draft is the same so it doesnt matter...he just overlooked Lance's bid for Hanson of 366 and only considered his own at 356)

The rest is just whoever bid the most I think....I doubt this matters at all since we probably wont be doing this style anymore, but just incase we decide to do this way again alteast we have a written out way of deciding infinte loops.

In other news, I am pretty stoked about giving up 4 waiver spots and getting Hanson in return.

Another Trade Completed

To Velocirocktors d.b.a. Furcal's Offer Sheet: Nate McLouth (OF, PIT)

To Athens Blizzard: Christopher Davis (1B/3B, TEX)


By the way, Steve, kudos on coming up with the idea for this blog. There have definitely never been this many offseason trades (and by "offseason trades", I of course mean thinly veiled attempts to screw Kyle's team)

PLUS League

Because we are never able to get together all at once to communicate, this is the only way I can see a Plus League working: everyone who is interested, send me a check for how much you feel like you want to pay (not cash! just check). I will communicate this to people who don't do the blog. The total cost is $125. If I receive at least $100, I'll put in the difference myself and upgrade us on my credit card. If one person puts in a lot more than anyone else and I have more than $100, I'll call that person and ask for a check for less while I put in some money to even things out.

My mailing address:

42 Pheasant Run
N. Granby, CT 06060

Trade completed

Connor send me all of his draft dollars (289) and in return we swap waiver spots.

Draft Dollars Correction

Steve messed up with my draft dollars in the e-mail...he said that i have 76 dd's left over, but that is how much i paid for andrus. I had 172 and then i bought andrus, so I actually have 96 DD's to spend this round.

Trade Completed?

I think Elliot and I have reached an agreement on a trade.

To Velociroctors: $150

To Aaron Burr All-Stars: Hong-Chih Kuo

Elliot, do you confirm?

Plus League

Nobody has posted in 24 hours...which obviously means that everyone is planning last minute trades and conspiracy plots for round 3. Anyway, to break the silence, I thouhgt I would once again propose the Plus League Idea. It would be fun...bobble head prizes or shirts...trophies etc. Plus, it cost less than what we will pay for stat tracker alone (and stat tracker is included in the plus league package). Last remember, I think we had like 5 people that were in, and then we had Kyle who makes enough in an hour to pay for the whole league but wont pony up the 9 bucks.

Its only 9 bucks....also, I will pay for anyone who wants me to in return for them giving me draft dollars/players (yes i know this is illegal, but it could cause an uproar amongst league members....so I want to be involved)

Trade Completed

I have completed the following trade with Jamie:

Jamie gets:

Randy Johnson
Juan Pierre
Ken Griffey, Jr.

I get:

$568 in draft dollars

Round 3

This is the third and final round. Nominations are:

Kyle Tommy Hanson $1
Lance Trevor Cahill $3
Zach Rafael Soriano $1
Connor Neftali Feliz $1 (drops Weeks)
Steve Gary Sheffield $1
Matt Sean Gallagher $1
Bick Kevin Gregg $1 (drops Willis)
Strniste Cody Ross $1
Nick Chris Tillman $3
Jonathan David Ross $1

Remember to e-mail your bids by midnight Thursday night ET.

Mistake

I never got $50 from Zach as part of the CC/Webb/$50 for Morrow/Scherzer!

To add to how bad I've been screwed this offseason.... 

Round 2 Results

Results of Round 2 were as follows:

Kyle Lars Anderson $172

Matt LaPorta $301

Lance Mark Lowe $11

J.R. Towles $2
Nick - -
Andy Strniste Daniel Cabrera $1
Zach Elvis Andrus $76
Connor Rickie Weeks $1
Matt Asdrubal Cabrera $1
Jonathan - -
Steve Ken Griffey, Jr. $1


The attached spreadsheet in the e-mail contains details. I also adjusted Lance's price for Butler in round 1 down to $2 due to a mistake I had made. Remember to get nominations in for the third and final round by midnight Saturday.

LF Average 1B

For Ordonez and Duechesher.  Willing to talk about few others... Ibanez, Carmona, Saunders, Miller to name a few names.

Trade Completed

I trade:

Javier Vazquez

Connor trades:

Milton Bradley (my man-crush, for anyone who reads Sox & Cocks)

Multiple bids

I just wanted to know if we can bid on more than one player in the final round?

Circular bids?

How are we handling it if for example Jonathan and I both bid on Lowe and Towels (example). Say I throw all my $$ on lowe and the rest on towles and he throws all his money on towles and lowe as next... but we're the only two to bid on these guys? Who gets who for how much?

March Madness Pick 'Em

OK, so after saying I didn't want to organize the tournament pick 'em, I decided that maybe I really wasn't that lazy. So here it is, feel free to join.

League Name: Keeper's League: NCAA Edition "Balls welcome, bats optional."
Group ID: 19127
Group Password: sirbigspur

See you at tip off.

Round 2

Hello league. Sorry for the delay in getting this out. My flight from Chicago last night into Hartford turned into a flight this morning to Boston followed by a frantic search for the one bus company that was willing to risk its passengers' lives in the storm. Believe me when I tell you that this is the first thing I'm doing now that I'm home; I have not unpacked or even kissed my mom.

The deadline is still midnight ET Thursday night to place your bids.

Kyle Mark Lowe $1
Lance Lars Anderson $1
Nick Matt LaPorta $2
Andy Strniste Daniel Cabrera $1
Zach Elvis Andris $1
Connor Rickie Weeks $1
Jonathan J.R. Towles $1
Steve Ken Griffey, Jr. $1
Matt Asdrubal Cabrera $1


No two managers shared a nomination this time.

NL Only

I've started up the 3rd annual usc nl only league.

The needed info to join is as follows:

League ID#: 125305
Password: gococks

March Madness

Does anyone want to do a yahoo bracket?

I think it'd be fun if everyone in this league did one together, but I have no interest in setting it up myself.

I'm done arguing, time to fix this...

I dont think anyone here denies that there was a big issue. Forget it, let's just make sure it doesn't happen ever again.

Here are my proposals for future offseasons:

1) Line order draft. Aka 1, 2, 3, 4....14, 1, 2, 3.... etc.

Here's why: Last place deserves the first pick and not to be bought out by stienbrenner. Likewise, first place deserves last pick. You can always trade a pick so first place can trade up, but it makes it so the top 4 teams cant just trade their money around and have one of them get 1st pick again (not saying that's what happened, but it could). Prospects/offseason is supposed to help the last place teams not the first place teams. Also, half the people seem to not care enough about the $$ and would rather ignore the system or just give away their $$ than try to buy anyone. It's the 1 person who collects the highest $$ getting anyone of value then everyone else just grabs people they redrop or could have got off free agents anyway.

2) Trades last X number of days before they go through. Where X= same number of days it takes our Yahoo ones to go through. Trades also should be confirmed before they start this time.

Here's why: No time to refute trades and no time to react to trades that happened.  On yahoo, everyone sees what you are doing for however many days and can respond to it, offseason it's all about secrecy and going behind people's backs which isn't why we're here.... 

3) Boost the waiver spot of each of the last 3 place teams by 1 (if possible) at the start of the next season.

Here is why: Gives the lower teams again that extra push to move forward over the course of the season and get the prospects a little sooner. We've had the same 3-5 people in the top 3 for 3+ years now and it's just getting old. I was in the bottom 3 the last 2 years and didn't get anyone from it. Not a soul. Used my waiver twice for scherzer and snyder (I was @ #5 when I got scherzer so I really shouldn't have) but I'm w/o a prospect this offseason AND #11 in waivers.... how am I really expected to change from last year's last place?

 

Funny

Anyone think I am indenial? I just realized I have all 3 players from the Athletics big 3!
Mark Mulder
Tim Hudson
Barry Zito

Whoops! haha funny

Case Closed

Kyle Warnock, posted Tuesday at 10:51 pm EST on this Blog:

"I get $100 from elliott, and he gets Ibanez."

So, why do you now think you get more and that you should have my money? I made my trade with elliot after you posted this post, and elliot confirmed my trade after seeing this post.

Case Closed. Give Kyle 100 of Elliots dollars. Time for round 2. Lets see if it is as exciting as round 1

The Kyle-Connor-Zach-Elliot-Wieters Love Pentagon

Perhaps this trade debachle should serve as a warning - mainly that trades lacking full disclosure might not be a good idea. However, I think the most logical move would be that the original Ibanez trade be ruled void - since the terms of the trade were (generally) Ibanez for "whatever it will take to get Wieters" and one party did not get their side of the deal, then the trade seems to be void to me. I doubt Elliot will have any serious objections to this.

And since I dont think Ibanez was even moved on the spreadsheet (and Elliot did not give up any draft dollars), there is not anything technically to change.

Honestly, no need to get too angry, winter is almost over, baseball is back, and I am helping protect the homeland - so you should all feel really safe... um... well, at least baseball is back.

Auction Draft Rules

I am a little confused. After looking at the draft shouldnt the price of Butler been $2 for me? There was only one other bid for him and it was only $1.

I was under the impression that your opening bid (the one that gets published on the blog) is a starting price - so any bids under the opening bid are irrelevant (thus eliminating the need for any "value" bids like the ones Steve and Connor made), because the price "floor" has been set. In addition, you can't withdraw a bid, so your opening bid counts as the 1st priority.

This would change the opening round so that:

Lance: Butler $2
Nick: Wallace $200
Andy: Zito $2

I want to argue that the trade between zach and connor was one sided. Connor gave up a player that is in the top 10 for one in the top 10 + all of zach's money...... Oh wait I cant... it went through immediately.... and too much has happened.... plus it's not like it was a "bad" trade considering some of the other one's zach's been pulling....

Oh and while I'm at it...

Elliot get's ibanez then for nothing.... cause that's how the deal worked....

guess taking last matters oh so much in this league... thanks to everyone who conspired against me 

and i'm done with the draft/offseason... my $$ are just getting wasted NO I DONT WANT TO TRADE THEM

Round 1 Results

The results of Round 1 follow (and are in the spreadsheet):

Kyle Ty Wigginton $1
Lance Billy Butler $32
Nick Brett Wallace $172
Andy Strniste Barry Zito $1
Andrew Markham Junichi Tazawa $194
Jamie - -
Zach - -
Connor Matt Wieters $697

Mike Napoli $1
Bick Homer Bailey $52

Gil Meche $52

Dontrelle Willis $4
Jonathan Chris Dickerson $1
Steve - -

The details of every bid and priority are in the spreadsheet.


Matt nominated Asdrubal Cabrera for the first round, but it went into my spam folder and I just found it this morning. I'm sorry Matt. I'll put him up as your nomination for round 2, and you may also nominate a 2nd player for round 2 if you want.

If your roster is at 27 (Bick), then unless you drop someone or make a trade to reduce your roster size, you won't be able to draft any new players.





PLEASE get your nominations for round 2 in by midnight Saturday night (the midnight that comes between Saturday and Sunday).

In response to the trade between Zach and Connor, putting connor higher in pts than me, Elliot is giving me $55 (or Connor's $$ +$1) for ibanez as part of the trade that happened back in Jan so that I can get Wieters.

I knew this crap was gonna happen and I wasn't around tonite to be able to say this in time, so since I'm probably too late... 

Although technically it is still 10:42 here... so it's thursday... and elliot agreed to this about a month ago when I posted before.... SO technically this is just the post saying that this trade has been agreed on BEFORE midnight....

Trade Completed

Velocirocktors d.b.a. Wiltin’ Bradleys trade Miguel Cabrera to Hamiltons for Mark Teixeira and $208.

Trade Completed

I give:

Greinke
Josh Johnson

Ligers gives:

Doumit
Sheets
Chris Young

I drop:

Pierzynski

Nominating Players

Players who are on a team no longer appear in the free agents list on the Yahoo! site. However, if you do a search for a player, he will show up as a free agent even if he is on a team. I realize this is still not very user friendly, but it is a slight improvement.

KC Royals as countries

http://www.royalsreview.com/2009/2/24/766400/if-the-royals-were-nations

this is hilarious

Trade completed

Elliot trades 162 draft dollars

Zach trades ian stewart

How long....?

does it take for trades to go through? Are we in offseason mode where someone can make a trade at 11:50 pm, 10 minutes before draft deadline and email in the increased $$ for a player?

Also, I think (elliott needs to verify this) I get $100 from elliott, and he gets Ibanez.

Interesting Question

Bored at work and I was just fantasizing about fantasy baseball and I got to thinking, who currently has the most players on their team that they originally drafted 3 years ago?

I still have Teix and Holliday....so I have 2. Does anyone have more than that?


BTW, lets join a PLUS league this year.

trade complete

zach trades manny parra

andy S trades 168 draft dollars

Round 1

I sent out an e-mail with updated rosters.

The nominations for round 1 are:

Kyle Ty Wigginton $1
Lance Matt Wieters $300
Nick Brett Wallace $200
Andy Strniste Barry Zito $1
Andrew Markham Junichi Tazawa $194
Jamie Coslett Gil Meche $1
Zach Billy Butler $1
Connor Mike Napoli $1
Bick Homer Bailey $1
Jonathan Chris Dickerson $1
Steve Dontrelle Willis $1

I did not receive nominations from Eric, Matt, or Elliot. Therefore, these three managers may not bid on any of the players above.

E-mail me at uscgranbydraft@gmail.com with your list of bids (in order of priority) by midnight Thursday. If two managers make the same bid on a player, the bid which arrives earlier wins.

For those keeping score, Matt Wieters was initially nominated by three managers and Gil Meche by two. Connor and Jonathan both initially nominated Wieters at $1 and Steve initially nominated Gil Meche at $1. Also note that Jonathan's second choice for a nominee was Homer Bailey at $1, who by then had already been nominated.

Still looking to trade Magglio

If anyone is interested in picking up a big OF/Util bat, I'm looking for 1B, 3B, waiver, closer or $$. 

Trade

Andy S gets: Mike Pelfrey
Lance B gets: $150 draft dollars

Trade anyone?

does anyone want to trade someone for all my draft dollars? I am in need of a good position player or a very good pitcher? If anyone is open for it let me know. I dont even know how many draft dollars i have so id just perfer to trade them.

Plus League this year

Me, Connor, Eric and Lance all voted yes...

How about a Plus league this year? Just 8.33 per person.

Alright guys

6/15 of us have joined the league. That's unacceptable. Let's get this shit rolling!

4 Great words for Valentine's day

Pitchers and Catchers report

Trade Completed

I trade Jake Peavy, Chris Young and 72 draft dollars (Jross confirm the draft dollar amount...i think this is correct)

Jross trades David Price

Draft

Hello League:

The attached workbook has everyone's team and a list of all players that were dropped. For what everyone is really waiting for, here is how the draft will work:

The draft will work on a weekly rotation and will last three weeks. Each round begins on Monday morning before I go to work (this could vary a little, but it should always be before 8:00 AM). I will post to the blog and send out an e-mail telling people which players will be bid on for that week. Everyone should send their bid for a player to the following e-mail address: uscgranbydraft@gmail.com. All bids that are received by midnight Thursday (Thursday night, not Wednesday night) count. The highest bid on each player will win the player and that bidder will pay the second highest bid plus $1.

The results of each round will be posted and e-mailed on Friday morning. Everyone then has until midnight Saturday night to e-mail the player they want to nominate for the next round to uscgranbydraft@gmail.com. Each round will have 14 players up for auction (1 from each team). I will only look at this e-mail on Friday mornings and on Sundays. I will send an e-mail that includes all information that I see, including every bid.

On Sunday, I will check the e-mail to make sure that two people don't nominate the same player for the coming week. If this does occur, then whoever nominated the player first (whoever's e-mail came in sooner as long as it came in after I announced the previous round's winners on Friday) will still nominate that player and I will contact the other person to get a new nominee. I will tell the entire league when this happens. If I ever nominate the same player as someone else, I will automatically defer to that person and nominate someone else myself so that I do not gain an unfair advantage from knowing exactly when I'm going to post results on Friday. Also, whenever someone has to nominate a new player they will get to see all the other players who have been nominated (because there is no way around me having that advantage in case this happens to me).

After the dust settles on Sunday, I will post the 14 players on Monday morning and thus begins the week.

The first round will begin on Monday, February 23. You may send in your nominee to uscgranbydraft@gmail.com at any time between now and Saturday night midnight, February 21. When you nominate a player, you are automatically bidding $1 on the player. You may choose in the e-mail to start the bidding higher than that, or you can start it at $1 and then send in your actual maximum bid during the week. The draft will end midnight March 12.

Please check your e-mail and join the league on yahoo! now that it is up.




Update:

Lance and Connor pointed out some errors in the roster that are now rectified. Lance also reminded me of a part of the draft rules that I forgot to mention in the earlier e-mail:

Firstly, I will announce the amount of money that you initially bid on a player that you nominate. Secondly, you may bid more money than you have at an aggregate level. If you are bidding more total money than you have, you must rank each of your bids in order of priority. If you fail to do so, it will be a headache for me but I will go by the order in which I see them.

Example:

I get so pissed off with A-Roids that I drop him and he enters the draft. I also drop Manny because I see him getting the Barry Bonds treatment (note: this is only hypothetical!). Suppose Lance has $500 and would love to have either A-Rror or Man-Ram. He can bid his full $500 on both A-Hole and Manuel individually, saying that his first priority is A-NusInjector (ok, that one's a stretch...). Then, if someone beats him out for Asswipe, he now has a $500 bid placed on the-greatest-right-handed-hitter-the-game-has-ever-seen-that-didn't-do-steroids. No one's second priority will be recognized until all first priorities have been executed or beaten out, no one's third will be recognized until all seconds are done, etc.

One last thing. Connor pointed out to me that Eric has no draft dollars. If at any point during the draft (or at the start) you run out of draft dollars, you are done with the draft. You no longer nominate anyone. During the draft, you may not exceed 27 players total on your roster. For everyone, this means that if you draft more than 3 players, you must immediately drop players to maintain your roster at no more than 27 players. Those players who are dropped MAY NOT be drafted. These players must go through the waiver process at the beginning of the season.

Remember that after this draft your dollars are worthless. Try to spend them all in the draft, because saving them will do you no good. Also note that if someone does take more than three players, this necessarily means that someone else will be short a player on his roster. We already know that Eric is going to start the season with three empty roster spots, and there may be others in a similar situation by the time the draft is over. So, the waiver battle at the very beginning should be interesting....

Also, in the uscgranbydraft@gmail.com address, I will not delete any e-mails and I will give everyone the password after the draft is over so that you may audit my work.

Happy drafting,

PLUS League this year

So, I argue that we join a plus league this year instead of a free league. Here is why:

* With 15 teams, it is only $8.33 per team...some of get stat tracker anyway which is 9.99 and stat tracker is included. So, for 8.33 per person here is what we get:

*League Prizes...either bobble heads or tee shirts, which would be pretty neat
* Stat Tracker
* Scouting reports from rotoworld.com (and a draft kit for people playing in other leagues)
* lineup analysis, record book, transaction analysis, etc of mlb teams

I think its a good idea. Since I would probably get stat tracker anyway, I am in favor of it. what do you guys think?

FBB09

The yahoo leagues are up....09 has started!

So, draft starts Monday?

Updated Drops

When I finally went to do the drops, I realized that the Yahoo! player rankings are not available. They will reportedly be available February 10 (Tuesday) for 2009. On that day, I will e-mail out the updated copy of the rosters. Because the player pool will be available, the draft will begin the following Monday (February 16). Full details of the draft will be sent out with the rosters and posted here on Monday.

Trade Negotiations Question

Quick question. During some of my trade negotiations, people have expressed concern because if they were to accept a 2 for 1 trade, they would have to drop someone before the draft (whereas after the draft they wouldnt have to if they didnt draft 3 people). So, is it legal to make a trade pre-draft and post it on the message board along wtih a date for which the trade comes into effect? I am assuming this is allowed, since this is the exact same thing as coming to an agreement and not telling everyone until after the draft (but if we are allowed to post to the blog, we can avoid another situation the the epic Zach/Connor he said he said situation of 2008).

New Stats

I have been reading through some of the new ways of analyzing stats and i thought this one was pretty good:

"BK/P is a new stat I made up, showing how many birds a pitcher accidentally kills per pitches thrown. Currently, Randy Johnson leads the world in this category, with .000018. I rounded up.
Fantasy Properties: Good in judging a pitcher's capacity as a stone-throwing fighter in caveman times, in case you ever find yourself on the wrong end of a time traveling experiment. Not good for anything else."

Drop Deadline

I was wondering when the drop date was and when we might expect to see the drops from several other people in the league. It would be nice if we could know all of the drops at least a week before the draft so we can prepare - there are at least 33 more players that have to be dropped by my calculations (Elliot has 9 players to drop alone).

Trade

Zach trades Sabathia and Webb and $50

Kyle trades Scherzer and Morrow

Draft - Snake Draft

I was wondering - will we continue our practice of having a snake draft (in reverse order of finish) to fill out our rosters after everyone has spent all of their draft dollars?

Draft

So, what are we doing for the draft exactly? Lets start with a vote for whether it is a 1 day draft or 1 player per day draft...

comment with your vote (this is a chance for all you connecticut guys to voice your opinion too!)

my last drop

my last drop is Kotchman. That puts my drop list at lewis, wilson, infante, morales, towles and kotchman.

Non Yahoo Players pt 2

By limiting the draft to players who were available at the end of last year we would be severly limiting the rebuilding efforts of teams at the bottom of the league. The structured amount of draft dollars is the best way to get the good, young talent onto the teams that need them, rather than allowing players to be picked up via the fluid and often ambiguous timing of the waiver wire.

Teams who finished in the bottom half of the league should have a significant advantage in acquiring young talent. Players like LaPorta, Wieters, and Gamel (and that's just prospects named Matt!) should all go to the teams that need young talent - not the teams lucky enough to notice their appearance on the waiver wire or fortunate enough to get a trade for the top spot waiver position right before a call up.

Non-Yahoo Players

With the draft coming up, I wanted to know how we will determine who is available? Obviously we will have the "dropped" list and most MLB veterans are already in the Yahoo system - but what about prospects who may or may not be in the Yahoo system at the beginning of the season?

Personally, I think we should use the following rules for allowing a non-Yahoo player to be on a team:
1. The non-Yahoo player can only be picked up in the yearly supplemental draft.
2. The drafting team retains the rights to the player for only one year. If the player is not added to the Yahoo system during that year the player is available to be re-drafted the next year.
3. An empty bench spot must be retained to accomodate for the player.
4. The empty roster spot cannot be used to pick up a player on the DL.
5. The teams finishing in the bottom 5 of the league in the previous year may have an additional non-Yahoo player retained without having to leave a roster spot open (or they can have one and keep their roster spot).

Thoughts?

Droppings

Co-Owners Nick and Gregor will be dropping the following players from their roster:

SP Jon "Judy" Garland

SP Daniel "After I Get Knocked Out In The Fourth, I Will Catch A" Cabrera

C Miguel "Please Do Not Make My Salad With" Olivo

2B Jeff "I Am Such A" Kent

3B Pedro "My Sweater Is Made Of" Feliz

OF David "Word" DeJesus

We are looking to trade some of our quality pitching for a thumper...

Trade & Drops

Trade:

To "Stuck on 3rd" (formerly Viva Alexei): Cliff Lee and $50 Draft Dollars

To "Steelers>Jesus" (formerly BMacs Pneumonia): Robinson Cano, Jeremy Bonderman, Chad Qualls, and Fernando Rodney

Dropped by Stuck on Third: Ross Olendorf, J.A. Happ, and Adam LaRoche

Drops

Paul and I are dropping the following players:

Daniel Murphy
Jorge Campillo
Hiroki Kuroda
Mike Adams
Sean Gallagher
Rich Hill
Jason Schmidt
Gil Meche
Scot Shields

Elliott and I have come to a very interesting agreement....

Ibanez for price to be named before the draft. We have determined this already and are not disclosing this until a later time.

Drops/Trade

Here are my drops:

Zach Miner
Cha Seung Bak
Tim Wakefield
Kevin Milwood

Trade Info:
I am willing to do a lot of trading (as always). Below is a list of the player I will NOT trade under almost any circumstances:

Tiexiera, Braun, Hanley, and Hamels

Everyone else is fair game. The only thing I know I need right now is a 3B. Depending on who you go after, I might need a player in that position too (ie if you go after Pedrioa, I will probably need a 2b replacement).

Facebook message me if you are interested in some trades.

List for trade

I'm open to trades and looking for waiver spots. In the mix of big names available:

Magglio Ordonez
Brandon Wood

Raul Ibanez

Carmona

Miller

Putz

technically you can trade people you dropped cause they don't get dropped til the 15th... probably not interested so much in that.

Looking for one or more of the following in order: 1) Waiver jump 2) draft $$ 3) 3B 4) 1B 5) CL

NOT interested in 1) SP 2) OF 3) C 4) SS/2B

No matter what.... need to get rid of more of my guys than I get (can make up for the difference in numbers with $$, waiver spot or talent). Also I understand that having less right now is having more so I'm not expecting to get the good end of this.... but I'm putting up players here you wont be able to get in the draft once the start of the first round is over.

Interested?

Anyone intersted in outfielders? I'm looking for SPs, Cls, and middle infielders. On the block is my entire OF corps consisting of:

Lastings Milledge

Shin-Soo Choo

Nate McLouth

Jason Kubel

Denard Span

Chase Headley (3B, OF)

Corey Hart

Daniel Murphy

Pat Burrell

Rick Ankiel

Make me an offer.