Important info about Live Draft

Communication of important messages from SOM to us is often lacking around here, so I wanted to direct your attention to the latest post in the "Garcia's Blog" forum. They are going to run two live draft leagues - Monday, January 20, at 9pm ET and Thursday, January 23, at 9pm ET. To participate you'll need to submit a request to online support. I assume first come, first served. Full details are here

Nicely done on your part Sir Thank you

iM IN for monday

I am new enough here that I never participated in live drafts with the previous host, but it appears to me (if all goes well) that this will be a game-changer. Why would anyone prefer taking their chances on a flawed autodraft system when they can pick the player they want each time in turn. Won't standard leagues become almost impossible to fill? Who needs to wait two days for waivers any more? I don't see a lot of reasons why anyone would prefer autodraft instead of live draft, except lack of time or computer access. Maybe the sharks who've figured out the optimal ranking scheme to get all the best players will complain, but (again assuming no bugs) certainly not me. I can't wait to give it a test drive.

Sunshine and pancakes !!!

I drew the 8th straw...so no bonds, maddux,hornsby, ruth, or gibson. seems to me top five are only automatics. 8th could be mantle, dimaggio, mays, walker, pedro,duffy. also depends on who from your division picks ahead of ya, and NATURALLY, TWO of my division mates have top five picks.

Why would anyone prefer taking their chances on a flawed autodraft system when they can pick the player they want each time in turn. Won't standard leagues become almost impossible to fill?

No. Standard leagues will not become impossible to fill.
You need 11 other players who want to commit 2 hours and to be available at a time when you want to do a live draft.
The most successful time in the past was Friday evenings. Saturdays were hit and miss. Most other days they didn't happen.
And now that the salary cap option will be available, there may be even fewer filled.
EXAMPLE: Gee, I wanted to do a live draft with a $120 cap, but only 5 others wanted to do that. And meanwhile the unlimited salary cap draft filled up while I was waiting for more people to enter mine.

is there a place to see mock draft results?

I drew the 8th straw...so no bonds, maddux,hornsby, ruth, or gibson. seems to me top five are only automatics. 8th could be mantle, dimaggio, mays, walker, pedro,duffy. also depends on who from your division picks ahead of ya, and NATURALLY, TWO of my division mates have top five picks.

Wait, I'm not supposed to use my 1st pick on Dennis Bennett?

So, how did it go? How burdensome was the 2 minute clock? How long did the draft take?

Inquiring minds want to know.

It went pretty smoothly. We mostly used less time than the 2 minutes for each pick, even in the later picks which can be tricky for guys new at live draft. Didn't have any one manager that ALWAYS used the full 2 minutes, and so we finished in about 2 and a half hours. I think the 2 minute time is good for leagues having some newbies in them, but it really depends on all managers making their picks quickly, and I'm definitely looking forward to going back to those 45 sec drafts.

The one issue that came up is that most of us hadn't noticed that it is a non-DH league, even though it was posted as such, and we didn't notice it until after we finished the draft and started putting our lineups together. So my pick of Hack Wilson was a bit misguided -- he'll make a great PHer and backup CFer.