Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:09 am
I have been thinking about this draft issue too.
What is the purpose of the draft? Generally, it is to benefit weaker teams. In the mystery league, I dont think it really accomplishes that. The same exact teams two years in a row can perform drastically difficult depending on the random nature of the year chosen by HAL. Furthermore, in this type of keeper league, the better teams on paper one year could be the worst the next year due to players dropping off the roster.
The draft will let people who lost a significant number of players re-stock, but there is a time lag of one year before that starts having any affect at all.
Then, the way I see it, the draft is a way to even out the benefits of winning a league. I guess, my conclusion then, is that the bottom 10 teams should have random position in the draft. I KNOW that is not going to happen,m but that is what makes most sense to me.
If I am 20 games out after the 80th game, I am not saying that I am going to tank games, but I am not going to actively be managing my teams to hard. I will be checking the waiver wire to see if anyone drops a good player in a bad year with more seasons in him more than anything else. I assume that is what most people will be doing. Thats what I would be doing under any draft rule system if I thought I didnt have a decent chance of making the playoffs.
The current rules clearly encourage the people who are 5th-6th from the bottom to have different priorities. The fix proposed does not really significantly change that and is just complicated. The only rule change I think makes sense is to have more teams elligible for the random draft order. That being said, based on other responses, people clearly like the way it is.
I am curious what other people's experiences were like. Not sure if this was the system used in the 30 year league but this is more accelerated so it wouldnt necesarilly be the same. In that league, you had good players for 8-9 seasons, not 3-5, people didnt drop off the teams in mass as they will here and there was more time to improve your team throught the draft. In other words, if you spent 2-3 years at the bottom ,you got a bunch of first picks and were competitive. Here, if you have 2-3 years at the bottom, the player set at the end of those 2-3 years is going to be dramatically different all around.