The long-running (since 2001, I think) SDMB Big League Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league is back again. I renewed the league a while ago and sent invites to all of last year’s managers; this year Yahoo’s renew feature automatically renews all of last year’s teams, so there are currently 15 teams with the cap set at 20. Have not set a draft date/time yet – it’s a live draft with autodraft if a manager is not online for it (i.e., if no selection is made during a 30 second window). Last year, several long-time participants weren’t able to make the draft time selected, so I’d really like to get everyone’s input on what will work best for them – I generally like to make it as close to opening day as possible to give everyone time to prep and so everyone’s aware of any late spring training injuries, etc. Keep in mind that we have managers across all US time zones, so evening time tend to work best (9 pm EDT is 6 pm PDT). Drafts typically run a couple of hours (24 rounds x number of teams x 30 seconds would be maximum). There was some sentiment against Sunday night last year, and I’m not going to be available on Sun, 3/25 myself. Opening day is Thu, 3/29. I tentatively selected Tuesday, 3/27 at 8:30 pm EDT, but I expect we will change that based on manager input.
There are several threads here from past years about the league including draft recaps, etc. Basics are this is a non-keeper rotisserie-style fantasy league, with a couple of twists. One is the format – rather than the traditional 5 x 5 (5 offensive categories and 5 pitching categories), we use a 6 x 6: OPS and SLG replace BA as offensive categories, and Holds are included as a pitching category. The other is depth – total number of teams/managers has varied from 13 to 19 year to year, with 15-17 being the most common total. With 24 roster slots + 2 DL slots for a total of 26 players per team, and 15-17 teams, there’s not a lot of value out there on the waiver wire at any given time, and it can be a challenge to come up with a trade that helps your team without giving up something critical to get it. You either have to draft really well or be aggressive about finding and dumping players who can help upgrade a position.
Also, I would still love for someone else to step up and take over as commissioner – this year is even more hectic and unpredictable for me than last year. There’s really not much involved, particularly once the teams and the draft date/time are set, but I feel like I haven’t done all I should’ve to promote things the last couple of years, and fresh blood would probably be a good thing.
We should have up to 6 open slots for managers this year (more if any of last year’s participants drop out) – if you want to join, or know someone who does, here’s the link to sign up: Yahoo
I work night shift and I’d have to try to draft by the mobile app. But, I’m pretty good at pre ranking and thus would like to be in the league again for this year.
I’m in two money leagues and we’ve already started offline drafting so I’ve been doing fantasy research for this season already.
I’d be happy to volunteer to take over as commish sometime in the future if I can ever get off this cursed night shift.
I don’t have any conflicts toward the end of March so any date would work for me. Weeknights preferred.
I could probably commish this year if you don’t want to, rackensack - I gave up the role four or five years ago but life has changed a bit and I could handle it now.
So far, here’s what I’ve got in the way of feedback on draft days:
Monday: 1 YES
Tuesday: 1 NO
Wednesday: 2 NO
Thursday: 1 YES
Friday: 1 NO
Saturday: 1 NO, 1 YES
Sunday: 1 YES
Monday, Thursday, and Sunday are the days that don’t have any vetos; if we did Thursday, it’d need to be a full week before Opening Day (3/22). Monday night isn’t great for me as I run a disc golf league on Mondays, but the days are still short enough that we’re done relatively early – just means I have to scramble to get dinner and get ready.
If we did Thursday or Sunday, is there anyone that’s definitely not able to do it? And is there a consensus on time? Is daytime on Sunday viable?
I’m going to push again this year that we change the settings before the draft to include all baseball players available in the Yahoo system. I think we tried doing this in the past, but we missed the “as soon as Yahoo makes them available” option. In a league as big as this, I think it’s an issue of parity. As an example, in 2015, we all knew that Kris Bryant was going to be a full time star for the Cubs, but we also knew that the Cubs would do what was best for the Cubs, and wait 2 weeks before bringing him up to the majors to start his clock. What that did was prevent him from being available in the draft. What should have been a 6th or 7th round pick, was now just gifted to the top waiver wire holder as essentially a Round 27 pick.
This is going to happen again with Acuna this year. I don’t feel like this is an unreasonable pre-draft change, and think it’s simply an oversight of a rule we all wanted to have implemented a while ago.
(I’ll also not hold a grudge if rackensack decides against it - it’s a friendly league, and we survived the Kris Bryant situation.)
As for drafting, daytime is not good for me. Ideally I’d have a post-8:00pm EDT draft.
I’ve got great news: I’m taking a staycation that week so I’m free to draft almost anytime. I’d strongly prefer not Sunday the 25th now since I’ve got friends visiting.
Monday: 1 YES
Tuesday: 1 NO
Wednesday: 3 NO
Thursday: 1 YES, 1 NO - no options left before Opening Day
Friday: 2 NO - no options left before Opening Day
Saturday: 1 NO, 1 YES
Sunday: 1 YES, 2 NO
Since Monday was the only remaining available day with no vetoes (except me), I’ve updated the draft time to Monday, 3/26, at 9 pm EDT (having it at 9 gives me a little more time between disc golf league and the draft).
I invited my adult son to join the league this year since we had open slots, and he’s just joined. So given that I have an immediate family member in the league, it’d probably be better if you were to take back the commish role (or at least co-commish we me serving as backup if needed). Let me know if you’re good with that and I’ll make the change.