Best draft dates/tools

I’m about to create a new “ottoneubie” league. We’ve got all of our 12 owners together, and we’re spread across the globe - from Australia to Germany, with Brazil and the U.S. in between. Got a couple questions about our draft(s):

  1. We like the idea of doing a prospect draft like I’ve seen @LuckyStrikes talk about on some posts, is that simple enough to do? Do we just do it offline and have the commish input the choices manually?

  2. Does it matter when we have our drafts? We’re thinking of doing the prospect draft in November and the 40-man draft in January/February. I’m guessing the only difference is by then we’ll have the updated salary averages after arbitration, salary increases, ownership % after keeper deadline. Is there anything else I’m overlooking?

  3. We’re most likely going to have to do a slow draft, as it will be nearly impossible to find a good time for a live draft. Is Couch Managers the best way to go about that? If we just use the Ottoneu draft room, can the commish just pause it anytime for however long needed?

We like the idea of doing a prospect draft like I’ve seen @LuckyStrikes talk about on some posts, is that simple enough to do? Do we just do it offline and have the commish input the choices manually?

Yes. The commissioner can manually enter each player into the “restricted list.” I suggest maintaining a Google sheet with two tabs: a) transaction log for the MiLB; and b) minor league rosters. Make it accessible to everyone to view but only have the commissioner be able to edit it.

Does it matter when we have our drafts? We’re thinking of doing the prospect draft in November and the 40-man draft in January/February. I’m guessing the only difference is by then we’ll have the updated salary averages after arbitration, salary increases, ownership % after keeper deadline. Is there anything else I’m overlooking?

I’d suggest doing the MiLB draft after the main auction. Reason is that that will allow everyone a chance to bid on top prospects.

We’re most likely going to have to do a slow draft, as it will be nearly impossible to find a good time for a live draft. Is Couch Managers the best way to go about that? If we just use the Ottoneu draft room, can the commish just pause it anytime for however long needed?

I’ve never used it, but I know that a number of Ottoneu leagues have down slow drafts with Couch Managers and most have seemed satisfied with it.

In terms of the Ottoneu draft room, the commissioner can pause the draft at any time. Whether it’s a 5 minute break or if you need to pick up the following night.

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I recommend against the MiLB draft because it’s a custom rules that fundamentally alters the Ottoneu experience and would disqualify the league from Ottoneu Prestige League. If you are starting a league for new Ottoneu players who want a full Ottoneu experience, additional roster spots for free MiLB players should really not be part of that.

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Thanks a lot for the replies! We actually hadn’t thought of adding extra spots for MiLB, we were just going to use 2-3 spots from the 40-man roster, but I suppose that would take up those spots with players that might not see any action in 2022, so I can see how that would fundamentally change the experience.

Re. an optimal draft date, is it better to wait until after the keeper deadline or should we get going as soon as possible?

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I have a few draft suggestions but I’ll need to get to a keyboard.

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First up, @walt526 has a ton of experience commissioning Ottoneu leageus so don’t sleep on his advice.

I’d prioritize giving yourselves a LOT of time over having full information. The initial draft is long, but it can be tamed if you do a few things (imo):

  1. Draft in stages, carve out a couple of hours each on two different days and get through some of the superstars. In my opinion nothing beats the live auction draft and its extremely worth at least acquiring some players through that system.
  2. After the biggest names are gone and you feel sated on live draft drama (or you just can’t find any more time to carve out) you can move on to CouchManagers, which has an exports that Ottoneu can automatically import. Definitely the best path for the slow auction part of your draft.
  3. Don’t feel like everyone has to be at 40/40 players by the end of this process - after the keeper deadline you can move on to 48 hour in-season auctions to finalize your rosters.

Your absolute number one advantage due to starting now instead of on March 1 is having more opportunity to find times to draft.

This is pretty much right. Arbitration salaries update on November 15 so you’ll have that info, but the keeper deadline is when average salaries and roster% becomes a bit more interesting. More interesting still closer to Opening Day, but again, you have a time advantage and you should use it.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

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Awesome, @nivshah and @walt526, thanks again for the detailed suggestions, they’re all very helpful!

I think we’ll do exactly that, take advantage of the time we have and get started as soon as possible, probably just after the WS. We have some major time zone challenges to overcome, but it’s good to know we can pause and restart any time we have to.

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League 100 ranges from Alaskan to Italian time zones, so we find ourselves drafting at about the same time each year, so no one has to get up too early or stay up too late. I find it helpful to use a schedule polling app like Doodle to give everyone their say on the reasonable timing options.

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Good to know it’s been done before. I’ll look into Doodle. Australia to Germany is a pretty rough conversion Nov-Mar, but we’ll try. Thanks!

One last question here (for now at least): we’re pretty much split on whether or not we will have playoffs. I think that “nay” side is mostly concerned about switching to a different scoring format at the end of a learning season. Any suggestions? Can we change the settings after the league is created?

You’re doing a 5x5 and then FGPts for the playoffs? I would not like that format at all. The sorts of players who are valuable in 5x5 are not necessarily the most valuable in FGPts and vice-versa. I build very different teams depending on the scoring.

I think if you want to play matchups, then just do a H2H league. Doing season long and then H2H at the end doesn’t make much sense to me. YMMV.

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Alternately, going from roto to H2H playoffs is a true recreation of how every American professional sport decides its champion and there is definitely some fun in that.

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Yeah, I would have been fine with the crapshoot nature of the playoff system, but since it’s an inaugural season we’re going to keep it simple. We’re up and running :star_struck:, thanks again to everyone who replied for all your help!

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