The existential "pick" question arises occasionally in Strat and I have tried to be consistent over the years in following the traditional response. Let's start with a simple case:
FREE AGENT PICKS
- You can drop up to 15 players prior to the FA draft, so technically that means you have 15 picks available
- If you only drop 10, though, then picks 11-15 are forfeited, since you did not take the action necessary to keep them available
- And since they are not available, they can not be traded
- You are required to have an active roster of no more than 30 players prior to the draft, though, so picks 1-10 are deemed to be available and can be traded (as long as you don't trade for earlier picks, etc.)
- In other words, your roster size determines your pick availability
PROSPECT PICKS
- Same thought process applies to prospects
- You are allowed to have a maximum of 10 prospects at any one time
- Subtract the number of prospects you have from that max of 10 to get the maximum number of valid prospect picks
- Thus, if you have 7 prospects already, then you have 3 prospect picks available (and you forfeit a 4th one, if you have not already traded it)
- What's different from the FA picks, however, is that you can choose to promote a prospect in order to free up space under that cap of 10
CASE IN POINT
- willmurr traded for enough prospect picks that he at one point would be forfeiting 2 of them
- He promoted Brady Singer to make room for one of those and I replied that he would then only be forfeiting his 4th rd pick
- I then ignored the issue later, when willmurr traded that forfeited pick to lakeviewdave
- And still being unconscious, I even received that pick in a trade with Dave
- Result: Forfeited pick has been bouncing around, which needs to be corrected
POTENTIAL RESOLUTIONS
- willmurr still has room to promote another prospect; if he does, then that 4th rd pick becomes eligible and the trades can stand
- If willmurr chooses not to promote another prospect, then the trade with lakeviewdave is voided (no harm, no foul) and the trade with me would also be voided (replacement needed, since Dave has already made FA draft picks because of it)
Ain't this fun?