That we probably ought to address is the length of time the draft seems to take.
So far we have 10 solid players, 1 probable player and 4 players (Stunnedmonkey, JM, HoosierBacker, and TheBigLebowski)) that we have not heard from yet. I think Kevin Doyle (Stunned) is leaning towards not playing this year.
If we wind up with 14 or 15 players and we go 10 rounds, thats as many as 150 picks. If we put that on a strict clock, even a tight "five minutes per pick" rule, we'd still be faced with over 12 hours of drafting. Obviously there is almost no way to avoid the draft taking 2 days short of putting all the players in a room together at the same time, and even then it would take a solid day.
So the first thing should be: "I know the draft takes a while... get used to it".
The fact is that unlike Fantasy Football or Baseball or Cricket or whatever, this Roto is essentially over as far as any strategy goes after the last pick, except for following the scores of Boise State and Central Michigan every other day in the paper or on the web. We really can't do any manipulation once the draft is over. We've thought about ways to do that, but nothing seems to work. So basically the whole game is really the lead-up to the draft and the draft itself... its then basically a three-month exercise in seeing who was smartest or luckiest. So the draft probably SHOULD take a while.
However, I think we can do something, hopefully, about those seemingly unavoidable and fairly frequent long breaks where the person on the clock suddenly disappears for an hour or more, and holds up the draft, while the rest of us are all ready to pounce on Cleveland State and Baylor with our next picks... that is frustrating.
We could move the draft.... Its always been held in the first few days of December during the day... daytime drafts have the advantage of people being on line, but that pesky work-thingy seems to get in the way. Of course we could all take the day off... but I don't think that would really work. An evening draft has been suggested, thereby taking the work thing out of the equation (well, except for Ashton and Terry, who, I understand, work the evening custodial and drive-through shifts now respectively).... An evening draft is actually worse for me personally, as I actually have an easier time drafting and tracking at work than I do when I'm at home with my kids and my wife, who regards most of you as either imaginary or as vaguely like a pack of axe-murdering child-predators ("How do you KNOW these people? You're so weird!").
I think an easier solution, though not perfect, would be to "mandate" that everyone do a "draft list" and give it to a proxy. Then, if you're on the clock and your 5 or 10 minutes is up or we haven't heard from you, your proxy will draft for you off your list. If everyone does this, theoretically we'll eliminate or cut down on the breaks in the action. I've seen two styles of draft lists... one is to set up a list of 10-or-so teams in rank order... the proxy simply takes the highest remaining team on the list that is still in an open conference for that player... simple.... But putting that list together gets to be a pain in the rumpus after about 30 or 40 picks. The other is to set up a list with all the teams in ranked order in each conference, and then give the proxy an order of conferences to draft from... the proxy takes the highest remaining team in whatever conference is next on the list... that seems to be a tad easier, but it is not as pure. The other issue is, at least in my experience, after about 3 rounds, my lsit falls apart, and I start moving teams around and re-doing my list... and in the final few rounds my list is usually utterly worthless and I'm picking by gut.
A better solution might be to simply pay attention... If you know you're picking in 12 more picks, but you're going to be off-line for the next three hours, do a short and dirty list of 36 teams, in order, and get it to your proxy... and if you're brave, give the proxy some leeway to pick for you off that list. That way the proxy can make the next pick or two for you while you're away. Obviously, if your going to be gone all day, you have to do it the hard way.
My suggestion...
1) We keep the At-large
2) we mandate some sort of proxy list... either a "five round" list of 75 teams, or a shorter list if you're goign to be gone only a short time.
3) we start in the morning and go into the evening.
Thoughts?
So far we have 10 solid players, 1 probable player and 4 players (Stunnedmonkey, JM, HoosierBacker, and TheBigLebowski)) that we have not heard from yet. I think Kevin Doyle (Stunned) is leaning towards not playing this year.
If we wind up with 14 or 15 players and we go 10 rounds, thats as many as 150 picks. If we put that on a strict clock, even a tight "five minutes per pick" rule, we'd still be faced with over 12 hours of drafting. Obviously there is almost no way to avoid the draft taking 2 days short of putting all the players in a room together at the same time, and even then it would take a solid day.
So the first thing should be: "I know the draft takes a while... get used to it".
The fact is that unlike Fantasy Football or Baseball or Cricket or whatever, this Roto is essentially over as far as any strategy goes after the last pick, except for following the scores of Boise State and Central Michigan every other day in the paper or on the web. We really can't do any manipulation once the draft is over. We've thought about ways to do that, but nothing seems to work. So basically the whole game is really the lead-up to the draft and the draft itself... its then basically a three-month exercise in seeing who was smartest or luckiest. So the draft probably SHOULD take a while.
However, I think we can do something, hopefully, about those seemingly unavoidable and fairly frequent long breaks where the person on the clock suddenly disappears for an hour or more, and holds up the draft, while the rest of us are all ready to pounce on Cleveland State and Baylor with our next picks... that is frustrating.
We could move the draft.... Its always been held in the first few days of December during the day... daytime drafts have the advantage of people being on line, but that pesky work-thingy seems to get in the way. Of course we could all take the day off... but I don't think that would really work. An evening draft has been suggested, thereby taking the work thing out of the equation (well, except for Ashton and Terry, who, I understand, work the evening custodial and drive-through shifts now respectively).... An evening draft is actually worse for me personally, as I actually have an easier time drafting and tracking at work than I do when I'm at home with my kids and my wife, who regards most of you as either imaginary or as vaguely like a pack of axe-murdering child-predators ("How do you KNOW these people? You're so weird!").
I think an easier solution, though not perfect, would be to "mandate" that everyone do a "draft list" and give it to a proxy. Then, if you're on the clock and your 5 or 10 minutes is up or we haven't heard from you, your proxy will draft for you off your list. If everyone does this, theoretically we'll eliminate or cut down on the breaks in the action. I've seen two styles of draft lists... one is to set up a list of 10-or-so teams in rank order... the proxy simply takes the highest remaining team on the list that is still in an open conference for that player... simple.... But putting that list together gets to be a pain in the rumpus after about 30 or 40 picks. The other is to set up a list with all the teams in ranked order in each conference, and then give the proxy an order of conferences to draft from... the proxy takes the highest remaining team in whatever conference is next on the list... that seems to be a tad easier, but it is not as pure. The other issue is, at least in my experience, after about 3 rounds, my lsit falls apart, and I start moving teams around and re-doing my list... and in the final few rounds my list is usually utterly worthless and I'm picking by gut.
A better solution might be to simply pay attention... If you know you're picking in 12 more picks, but you're going to be off-line for the next three hours, do a short and dirty list of 36 teams, in order, and get it to your proxy... and if you're brave, give the proxy some leeway to pick for you off that list. That way the proxy can make the next pick or two for you while you're away. Obviously, if your going to be gone all day, you have to do it the hard way.
My suggestion...
1) We keep the At-large
2) we mandate some sort of proxy list... either a "five round" list of 75 teams, or a shorter list if you're goign to be gone only a short time.
3) we start in the morning and go into the evening.
Thoughts?