draft process

History lesson.

Way back in the early days of SOM when we were collectively all trying to figure out how the draft process worked, 12 volunteers agreed to submit identical rosters with each of them ranked exactly the same. I assumed, as did many others, that after the draft order was randomized, that team A would get its top player, then in round two team B would get its 2nd player and team A would move to bottom of the list, and in round three team C would get the 3rd player with teams A and B moving to the back of the line, and so on.

It did not work that way. Team A got every player on its draft list, Team B got all the players with salaries just below those on Team B, Team C got all the players with salaries just below those drafted by team B, and so on. The 12th team in the randomization, Team L, drafted a team that bore little resemblance to the draft list we all submitted.

In other words, the way the draft process works is:
1) the 12 teams are randomized.
2) Team A gets the top player on his draft list. Team B gets his top player, but if he has already been taken, he gets the next player below his #1 pick salary at his primary position. Team C gets his top draft pick, but if he's already taken, he winds up with the next available player at the same position (as long as he's not on somebody's draft list somewhere). By the time we get to team L in the first round, his first player drafted is 11 spots below the one he wanted at the same position.
3) In round two, the process gets repeated all over again. Team A gets the second player on his draft list. In actual leagues, it's possible one of the other teams may have drafted him in the first round so he gets a replacement. But in our experimental draft, he is given to team A. Team B again gets the player right below him at the primary position. Team C through Team L continue to get the leftovers.
4) In the waivers process, the whole thing is identical, but reversed. Team L is first in line and Team A is last.

In our extreme example, Team A had a much better roster after the draft was over than Team L. Wasn't even close.

If someone wanted to try a similar experiment to see if it's still that way, be my guest. At least you can do it with 6 teams now instead of 12. But I strongly believe things have not changed, you would get exactly the same results today.

I'm pretty sure....If all teams listed Bonds 1st, the team that received him in the first round, would then "lose" the 2nd round tie breaker rule, and *not* get their 2nd round pick as listed...can anyone verify that?

If all teams listed Bonds first, the team that was lucky enough to get Bonds was still "lucky" because it got first dibs at its #2 player as well. What you describe (back of the line) was what I assumed would be true, actually we were all very surprised it turned out the way it did. I went back looking for the old thread, but since it was from the ancient days of Sporting News sponsored ATG and ATG2, not available. Someone else who participated in this little experiment will have to back me up on this.

If true, i think this is an abomination. That said, a lot of the really critical team building occurs after the draft, so the devil is in the post-draft details with so many players in the pool.

I recall that the "test" league that supertyphoon mentioned was done, but as I remember it the results only verified what we were told. I don't think any alarming or jaw dropping results were uncovered. Certainly not that the one that got their #1 pick also got all the rest of their choices.

I think it's been published somewhere along Nev's statement that once you win a tiebreaker, you drop back to the bottom of the list to get your NEXT tiebreaker, assuming you tie again. And that the one that LOSES a tiebreaker will most assuredly WIN any subsequent NEXT tiebreaker.

Again another useless conspiracy theory. We have seen many changes over the years but of all the positive changes that MAY HAVE come from players suggestions and our involvement in testing (live draft comes to mind), I don't recall anything that WE have uncovered that brought changes to the autodraft. Not to say that SOM may have tweaked the autodraft one or many times over the years without publicizing it.

But I am old and have been known to be wrong from time to time.

I may not be clear on all the details, but the facts are every team submitted identical rosters, ranked the players in exactly the same order, and one team got every single one of these players on their draft list. When it's a stunning result like that, it's something you can't forget. It's possible the draft process may have changed since then, I hope so, but I doubt it.

I may not be clear on all the details, but the facts are every team submitted identical rosters, ranked the players in exactly the same order, and one team got every single one of these players on their draft list. When it's a stunning result like that, it's something you can't forget. It's possible the draft process may have changed since then, I hope so, but I doubt it.

So far, there are MANY things like this-
doubles and triples being turned on, things not corresponding to the rolls on the cards, etc etc that have almost always turned out to be not the way we were told.
Based on what Ive seen, would be surprised if this wasn't true- could have been changed of course, but likely not.

The autodraft process, is far from perfect, but my sense is that implementing any of the ideas in this thread, will require very complex and time-consuming programming. Just imagine what a second tier choice for each slot would take in terms of programming, its mind boggling---i.e., what if your 2nd choice was already chosen by someone else--then what happens?
And if you want to have lots of cash for waivers, all you have to do is to autodraft some cheapo players, or cheaper versions of the players you do want (then you can switch the cards to the higher salary card after the autodraft or waivers).
the bottom line is that if you don't like what the autodraft gives you, and how it works, then you have 3 choices---get better at autodrafting strategy, or join leagues that have serpentine online drafting, or join a franchise league.

I've read this entire thread, I like the idea of a serpentine draft, especially if what supertyphoon said about how the draft really works is true. It doesn't seem fair at all if that is the case. Maybe as a start, it would be a good idea for them to show after the autodraft is done the order in which the teams were randomly placed in for the draft, sort of like what happens when you join a live draft league. Then maybe some of you smart folks out there could compare notes and see how or why you did or did not get a certain player on your draft list based on how high he was ranked. Better yet, I'd be curious enough to know what's in the black box to do a similar experiment. All it would take is a private league that drafts all of its players at Diamond Dope agreeing to submit bogus identical rosters and rankings just to see what happens, then picking up the players you really want and pre-drafted offline afterwards.

Maybe as a start, it would be a good idea for them to show after the autodraft is done the order in which the teams were randomly placed in for the draft, sort of like what happens when you join a live draft league.

That's a great idea as a first step that does no harm to the existing process