Fri Jan 29, 2016 1:07 am
Since we have players that have not done live draft, I kept this document of live draft tips. Remember that proxies are OFF BY DEFAULT – you have to turn them on for them to work.
CHEET SHEET
Live Draft things to know.
Gentlemen, the first thing you will learn is that if you are up, meaning it’s your turn to pick, after you search for a player, instead of every player having “PROXY” on them, it will say “MAKE PICK” – clicking make pick and that player will be played as your current pick and the draft will move on to the next player. If it is NOT your turn, all players searched for will say – PROXY. Once you select proxy, the player will go on your proxy list. He will be listed at the top of your proxy list and will be played next when it is your turn.
Also, notice that BY DEFAULT once you have proxied a player, your PROXIES ARE NOT ON – you actually have to click the ON button and then SAVE. This has tripped up many a draft. Players painstakingly setting proxies only to have them not fire because you never turned them on. This will be hammered into the heads of every player once we get the finals started.
Once you proxy a player, they will be listed as PRIORITY 0 GROUP 0 – all subsequent players will ALSO have this assigned to them (0,0) until you set their priority and or group. If you never change their priority or group, players will be played from the top down. You can ASSIGN a Priority and group and then click SAVE and this will order your selections. Priority 0 will be played before priority 1 and 2 and 3 and so on. GROUP 0 within a priority will be played before group 0 priority 1- once you click save, it will put the players into YOUR order.
Let’s say you want a strong pitcher but you only want ONE strong pitcher – pick one at 0,0 / 0/1 / 0/2 but #0 is your first choice. If you get him, you don’t want the other two. So for 0/1 and 0/2, you put YES on the tab for REMOVE IF GROUP PICKED. So you get your 0/0 pick and the other two pitchers will be REMOVED from your proxy list. Remember to click SAVE after you change the dropdown box to YES.
If you don’t do this, say you are on the turn, meaning you get two picks in a row at #1 or #12 – two pitchers is what you will get – like it or not. You can drop a pick, but someone else will have to approve the drop and it’s a pain in the neck.
Likewise, priority 0 will always be taken before priority 1 so if you want to make this useful, lets say you want a shortstop first and THEN a second baseman second – set your shortstops at priority 0 and your 3rd baseman at priority 1. – etc on down the line.
You don’t HAVE to set priority and group but I have seen live drafts complete in two days, so you know that in this case, players are making good use of proxies.
A couple of other things. Below I said you will see MAKE PICK – this is incorrect, it will just say “DRAFT”. (But you knew that)
Yes, the live draft site is PAINSTAKING SLOW. – Sometimes I can drop Adrian a note to reboot the site, but I might also say that the site is RELIABLY SLOW. In other words, once you get used to it, you know how long it takes to proxy a player, so have a cup of coffee nearby.
The finals live draft will have the clock set for 3 hours, AFTER we get through the first round. This is just to be sure that all players are in place. Once I turn the clock on for 3 hours, it will also turn off by itself “EVENINGS and WEEKENDS” – we don’t know the exact times. What this means to you is this…..
If a players clock has run out and he has not picked yet, he may be skipped. This is not done automatically. In order to skip a player to move the draft along, the player up AFTER the expired clock player must cast a MANUAL (“DRAFT”) PICK. Then and only then will the draft continue to move along firing off proxies. There is one exception to this. If you are ON THE TURN meaning you are at #1 or #12 in a place where two picks will be made, then skipping a player does not seem to work. Adrian knows about this and does not care to fix it. Nothing we can do, and for this reason – LIVE DRAFTS were removed from being a part of a regular Barnstormers tour event. – We simply cannot have a flawed live draft application affecting us in this way.
Skipping a player is generally only really practical once we get into the later rounds where all you have left is bench and garbage players. Of course since you are only picking 15 players, even those later round players will have a place for you. But you can see that to do a manual skip on a player in the early rounds, say the third round – well – I would just rather this not be done. I can’t stop you and I don’t want to put a rule in on that, but generally, let people play their early rounds without being skipped. Or keep me informed on the status of your draft by e-mailing me or dropping a note in your forum thread. I will make a ruling.
For the FINALS, everyone here is more mature and we have a far less chance of anyone disappearing during the draft and going AWOL. People – use your forum thread if you are going to be away, tell everyone that you are going to grandmas house for the weekend and you will not have internet access and that you have set a ton of proxies. Then at least everyone knows what is going on when your clock runs out.
The problem turns to extreme frustration when we have multiple NEWBIES in a draft who simply will not use proxies AT ALL and you can see that they are making every pick a manual pick. In this case, there is a lot of hair pulling and mashing of teeth during a live draft and the draft can go 7-14 days to complete. – I have seen live drafts done in TWO DAYS when everyone is making proxies. This is what I expect from a group of mature players like who will be in the finals and yourselves. Of course, every draft is different.
Also, be reminded that you must pick a stadium and they are listed in the dropdown for pitchers and batters – etc. Since you will have to draft your stadium, it is up to you to decide how important your stadium is and when to play it. If you gotta have a particular stadium, better make it higher on your list. One other thing, if you fail to draft a stadium, you will have to forfeit one of the picks you made and do a DROP on that player, then someone else will approve it and then you can manually “pick” your stadium. All players must have one stadium drafted in the live draft.
The live draft site will not let you proxy a player that would put you over the CAP. In this case, the live draft site knows you will have 10 bench players at maximum fifty cents (.50) each, so this would be 95 Mil in a 100 Mil league. If you try to proxy a player that will put you over the cap, that proxy pick will be ignored and that player will not be placed on your proxy list. Be aware, in live draft money goes fast and you can wind up with a lot of high priced players by mismanagement of your money. Best bet is to keep a team open side-by-side and draft on a real SOM team while you are making proxy picks.
