Saturday, March 01, 2008

Strat-O-Matic Draft


So we want to have a draft Strat league...but we don't want it to take forever, and no one wants to have to do too much research. I've got an idea to fix that, based on how Magic booster drafts work.

Each person in the league will pick two MLB teams (we'll get to that procedure later). I'll remove all of the players with too few at-bats or innings pitched, so each person will have a stack of around 40 cards. Everyone looks through their stack, drafts one player, and then passes their stack to the left. Rinse and repeat until everyone has 26 players and a home park (yes, we're drafting those too).

Why this way? First, the draft will be ludicrously faster, since everyone picks simultaneously; if we all stick to 5 minute rounds, the draft will last less than two hours. Second, you only need to think about the few good players in the stack in front of you rather than every player in the draft, and that means less advance research.

Other details: I'm leaning towards a version of Brian's "relaxed schedule" idea. Play whoever you want each week, but by the end of the league you'll have to have played a minimum number of games against each other team (so you can't just keep beating on the weakest link). Injury lengths are capped at one series. We'll use the solitaire rules for player availability (each game, three position players have to roll versus their real-life at-bat total to see if they can play). We can probably go with most of the super-advanced rules, particularly park effects.

If you're up for this, post in the comments, and list good dates and times for you to draft. Unfortunately I have a lot of travel coming up (Mar. 9-13 and 16-20), but I can make just about any non-work-hours time on any other date.

16 Comments:

At 8:11 AM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Brian said...

I'm in. I'm fairly flexible about drafting time/location.

 
At 9:27 AM, March 02, 2008, Blogger scott said...

I'm in. I guess I am fairly flexible about drafting time/location although weekend (with some advanced notice) works best; friday evening would be second choice; i would prefer not a monday evening but if necessary could probably make it work.

 
At 3:25 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Brian said...

My Friday evenings are (I think) booked during March. Maybe this Saturday (at wherever gaming happens to be?) I suspect we'll have most of the usual suspects there already.

 
At 3:45 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger scott said...

I was kind of hoping that we could get out the list of teams thus allowing those of us who would like to prepare a little the chance to do so ahead of the draft; but this coming saturday would work fine if we can get a quorum by that point.

 
At 6:38 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Dennis Ugolini said...

How about this:

- Hopefully everyone interested signs up by tomorrow
- I'll random draw a team picking order
- We'll choose teams by posting to this thread, in serpentine order (first to last, then last to first)
- I'll prepare the stacks of cards, while everyone else can check baseball-reference.com over the course of the week
- Draft on Saturday the 8th?

 
At 6:43 PM, March 02, 2008, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll join in. The times Dennis mentioned sound ok to me.

 
At 6:44 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger scott said...

up to 4 managers...
works for me; only caveat is that I only have access to sabg blog at home in the evenings but even with that possible delay we should be fine;
do I understand that we are picking the 2 teams we will get to pick our first player from?
how will what league we will be playing in aka dh be determined?

 
At 6:50 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger seanp said...

I'm in, just to show off my insane amount of baseball ignorance...

 
At 7:36 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Dennis Ugolini said...

I'm very pro-DH, since it's always boring when the pitcher is an automatic out. But I'm willing to concede that if others feel strongly.

Yes, you are picking the two teams that you'll get to choose from first. We'll randomize the seating on draft day.

 
At 7:49 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Brian said...

I figure if we have 5-6 managers, we'll just have a super division (no point in two 3-team divisions). If we have 8+, we'll have two divisions (one of each, unless there's a strong preference). If we have seven, then we'll be annoyed.

I am ambivalent about DH or not.

 
At 7:58 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger scott said...

i am ambivalent as to dh; i just don't want to end up drafting somebody who is in reality a dh only guy and then end up in the NL and have a choice between using my early pick dh as a ph or gigantic liability in the field...

 
At 8:28 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Brian said...

I'm sure we'll hammer out all the rules before the draft (although after picking teams is OK). We can take a few minutes before we start and clarify everything...

I doubt anything will change what teams people pick.

 
At 8:44 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger scott said...

actually since i am picking teams based on my expectations over the first few draft rounds which in turn is somewhat dependent on the rules; it could matter ...

with that said since I think I am probably the only one insane enough for this to be true and since I will enjoy the heck out of this regardless; it is only a theoretical issue

 
At 10:29 PM, March 02, 2008, Blogger Dennis Ugolini said...

DH it is. If only for the comedy of Frank Thomas being forced into the outfield after a rash of injuries.

 
At 3:24 PM, March 04, 2008, Blogger seanp said...

looking over the proposed draft - if I choose two teams, those two groups of players go into one stack? So I only get first draft pick out of one of the two teams?

 
At 3:06 PM, August 14, 2009, Blogger Unknown said...

I am interested in finding Strat-O-Matic fans in San Antonio to play with. Thanks.

 

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