I might be out of town, but I won’t know until a few days beforehand. So for now it’s OK, but that might change.
Weekends are always fine for me. Weekdays, not so much, except after 10pm ET>
Weekends are fine with me.
Sep 5 is fine for me.
the draft time is fine with me.
Okay, cool. Note that if we end up staying with Sep 5, a few unlucky dopers could be doing live drafts on three consecutive nights. heh. (Keeper league is Sep 6, Big League is Sep 7.)
Bah. That’s not unlucky. It means we’ll be warmed up. 
I apologize for my absence from this thread and my failure to respond to emails; I was dealing with a couple of Real Life issues and kind of psychologically retreated from the online world in general for a couple of weeks. Won’t happen again (or, if it does, I’ll give notice and hand off any responsibilities that need handing off).
Is it too late to do a draft on Sunday the 29th, at 10:30 PM Eastern? That’s what I have it set for at the moment, but if anyone feels that that doesn’t give them enough time to get ready then of course we can push it back to 9/5. If we stick with the 29th, I’ll input the keepers on Thursday, early afternoon, which would make the cut deadline Thursday the 26th at Noon (Eastern). That would give people three days (from now) to decide on keepers and then three days from then to settle on draft strategy. If we wind up drafting on 9/5, then I suppose we’ll stick with a Noon on Thursday (the 2nd) cut deadline. Yahoo seems to have somewhat more
In any event, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have people submit their cuts to me via Private Message, especially for this inaugural cut. None of us really know just how many players will generally be kept or cut, and that information is potentially quite valuable: if other people are cutting a lot of marginally useful veterans, then it makes sense to clear out some more space on your roster than if everyone is keeping 21 or 22 players. So, while obviously there’s no penalty for declaring your cuts in the open (and you can do it here or on the Yahoo page, whatever), I’d encourage folks to submit your lists to me via email or (preferably) PM. Label it clearly in the subject heading and I won’t look at them until it’s time to enter the keepers – but, for appearance’s sake, I’ll also PM my own (theoretically provisional) cut list to the first person who sends me his.
Fine by me.
I have a dumb question: do we draft, then keep, or keep, then draft? I mean, let’s say I cut three players, and keep the rest… does that mean I get to pick in rounds 1-3, or in rounds 19-22?
We’ll also need a decision on divisional structure/realignment, so everyone who cares one way or another should make an official note of their preferences, from most favored to least. There’s (A) changing nothing, (B) grouping the strongest and weakest teams together and then instituting a relegation system in future years, © splitting up the strongest teams each year so that each is in it’s own division, or (D) something I forgot or that you just though up. Obviously, if someone doesn’t state an opinion from here on but has previously done so, we’ll count the previous opinion as best we can.
Draft, then keep. Everyone gets a 1st Round pick (presuming we all cut at least one player, of course). If I’m understanding the alternative correctly, that would be a pretty crazy huge drafting advantage for whoever cut the most players.
Oh, and looking at available Yahoo draft slots, if we draft on 9/5, depending on how quick we decide on that, we may or may not wind up with a draft time starting at or after 11 PM Eastern. Works for me, but just thought I’d give a heads up.
Yes. Hence my asking, since under those circumstances I’d be cutting half my team. :eek:
This Sunday night works for me for drafting, and this Thursday works for me for the keeper deadline. Sep 5th also works.
I vote realignment with strongest teams split to different divisions, but note that this is purely an intellectual vote. To be honest I don’t care how the divisions are structured.
I vote for keeping things as they are. Looking at the final standings, one thing that jumped out at me is that every division finished with the same overall record (28-28). Doesn’t get much fairer than that.
Should we do an auction draft?
The downside is that it could be gamed, like say there is one rookie you really covet. You could just free up one single roster spot and dump all your money on that one player and nobody would be able to outbid you.
The upside is that auction drafts are fun, and it wouldn’t matter as much how many players each owner was keeping.
The problem with auction drafts is that some of us are more familiar with them than others, and that confers a huge advantage. Since we didn’t originally set up the league to include one, I say no, although I won’t mind if we do one anyway.
Besides, we’d all bid our entire bankrolls on Ryan Matthews.
I definitely enjoy auctions, but we have been operating this whole time under the assumption that this year’s draft would be traditional; I haven’t thought about whether or to what extent doing an auction instead would affect strategy, but I would *assume *that there are *some *relevant dynasty-related differences (could be wrong). Also, I apparently suck at auction drafts, fun though they are.
Anyway, it’s kinda late in the game to make this sort of change, right? Maybe it’s a discussion for next year’s draft, instead?
The draft time should be fine. I have my live draft on Saturday, so by Sunday night I should be somewhat returned to sobriety.
I’m fine with the divisions as they are now, but I’m not vehement about it.
I’d want to stay with the regular draft now. I do enjoy auction drafts, but I think it would be a very bad fit for a deep dynasty league like this one. I think RNATB is right about the auction ending up with most people bidding their bankroll on one or two guys.
I’ll PM my cuts to you Varlosz. Thanks again for taking the lead on this.
Yeah, the auction idea didn’t even occur to me until you mentioned how the number of open spots could be considered strategic info.
Snake draft is fine this year, but during the draft keep the idea of an auction in mind for next year. We’ll see how it goes.