In your defense, brevity and I do have a love/hate relationship.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/25/2010
Well, to be fair, you're getting awful long-winded. Brevity is your friend.

The benefit of punting early picks is obvious. You get compensation for them. If you don't sign them, you have more money for other things. Like IFA. So you load your draft board with "wants to go to college" players. Play comp pick roulette until you hit a draft that shows you some players you really want.

Can't be more clear than that.

If most drafts don't show you some players you want, you're not doing it right.

Was that pithy enough?

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/25/2010
Well, to be fair, you're getting awful long-winded. Brevity is your friend.

The benefit of punting early picks is obvious. You get compensation for them. If you don't sign them, you have more money for other things. Like IFA. So you load your draft board with "wants to go to college" players. Play comp pick roulette until you hit a draft that shows you some players you really want.

Can't be more clear than that.

Also, as I said, this has to with draft class quality, and is not limited to high-picking teams. In a slightly-above-average draft, there will be no IFA-driven reason to punt high picks. In such a draft, there will be more ability to get value by going over-slot later in the first round, as teams wanting to get into IFA bidding will likely opt for a prospect willing to take slot over a prospect 5-10% better who may demand a couple of extra $mil. And you disagreed with that.

How many drafts have you participated in?

I'll provide some answers for you:

A) Only two. Maybe I don't really know as much about draft-quality as I'm letting on.

B) Many. I'm an alias even though I steadfastly denied being one.

You pick.

4. But I study. Keep some records. My sample size is not just my own picks. Besides, this is an economics issue more than anything. And I'm also not really sure what that has do with this, conceptually.

I mean, I can go back and look at 15 seasons worth of drafts in one of my Worlds and decide how much variation there has been. That doesn't take a genius, does it?

Unless you know how much people budget, how they rank players, which players they see and their ability to succeed in the draft, it doesn't really matter what sort of records you have. You've participated in 4 drafts and, at best/worst you budgeted 14m/6m in scouting. None of your drafted players have seen any BL time.

Opinion on draft-quality denied.

Besides, would you disagree with the statement that if you don't see many players that you like in most drafts you're doing it wrong? Do you often look at a draft board and say "I only see 2 or 3 good players there." As I recall, you're Mr You Can't Have A Team With Nothing But Stars. You're all about finding the undervalued pieces, right?

I've passed on signing a couple of first round picks because I hoped to do better next season. I contemplated doing it in Hamilton(pick #1) this season because I was only able to budget 14m and, after I whittled my choices down to two, both had a wart. I didn't really want a dude with warts as my first pick.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/25/2010

Unless you know how much people budget, how they rank players, which players they see and their ability to succeed in the draft, it doesn't really matter what sort of records you have. You've participated in 4 drafts and, at best/worst you budgeted 14m/6m in scouting. None of your drafted players have seen any BL time.

Opinion on draft-quality denied.

Also wrong. I have 18/18 in one world that has drafted.

And I can see how others budgeted (it's in the records) and how they've succeeded (also in the records) and you have no more idea who any of your competitors are seeing on their boards or how they rank them than I do, except perhaps by reading the forums (immaterial).

You can't deny someone an opinion, either. You can deny that you agree with it, but generally speaking following the arguments out instead of credential-questioning will earn you more support, I suspect.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/25/2010I've passed on signing a couple of first round picks because I hoped to do better next season. I contemplated doing it in Hamilton(pick #1) this season because I was only able to budget 14m and, after I whittled my choices down to two, both had a wart. I didn't really want a dude with warts as my first pick

How does this contradict anything I've said? In 60-ish seasons, you've done it a couple of times. That seems to be right in line with what I was saying.

You seem to be implying that passing on signing picks shouldn't happen. I'm telling you it's a legit "strategy" that can be employed by anyone hoping to hit it big in the IFA market.

I'm not saying I have ANY idea on who my competitors rank or how they rank them. I'm saying all you can see are the results. Without knowing the options/thought process, you don't know a whole hell of a lot.

Opinion on draft-quality denied due to lack of experience and knowledge.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 1/25/2010
You seem to be implying that passing on signing picks shouldn't happen. I'm telling you it's a legit "strategy" that can be employed by anyone hoping to hit it big in the IFA market.

I'm not saying I have ANY idea on who my competitors rank or how they rank them. I'm saying all you can see are the results. Without knowing the options/thought process, you don't know a whole hell of a lot.

Opinion on draft-quality denied due to lack of experience and knowledge.

I'm not implying that at all. It's a perfectly good and legit strategy for that rare draft class that's so bad that you can almost ensure youself a much better player in the same Type D slot next year. I also think it's a great gambit in the second round in years where there are a ton of sandwich picks, as you stand a pretty good chance of actually seeing your pick move up next year if the sandwich pick total is lower.

What I'm saying is that the cap makes this a trade-off. If you intend to sign both #1s next year, AND you're signing your draft picks (again- for those who aren't that's a seperate issue), then you make it much tougher to have IFA success next year. So, from an IFA standpoint, you're really trading next year's success for this year's. Punting picks is a one-year strategy based on draft quality, not a long-term strategy for cornering the IFA market.

Surely you can see that if it is your intention (over time) to sign all your #1s (either this year or as a Type D in future years), and also sign the highest quality IFAs you can find each year, then your best bet is to always sign players for slot money only, which will maximize your average available IFA cash.

This will, almost certainly, push over-slot guys father down in the draft (maybe just a little, maybe more than that). And it isn't just "signability" types either. The "will sign if deal is right" types may slide also, as IFA hunters push them down their draft boards a few slots.

And that's all economics. Not learned game lessons.