Silent Auction Draft - Season 2 Rules Discussion Topic

Flyingman has given me permission to run season 2 of his awesome theme league idea.  He will help out with the compiling of player lists and providing links, etc.

We've been going back and forth via site-mail on rule changes / improvements.  This thread is an open forum to comment on these proposed rule variations.

I will post all the ideas we've had below.


1/18/2013 12:06 PM
1. I like the 16-team idea.  We'll stick with this for now.  Once this theme becomes more popular, we could go to 24 teams.

2. The first 9 people to enter (including the league creator) gets to submit a second category (but only after we get the first 16 categories submitted).

3. To eliminate the chance of poor category choices, I have the following suggestion.   After all 25 categories are submitted, the 16 owners will vote YES or NO on each category, YES = keep it, NO = get rid of it.  A majority vote (i.e., 9+ yes votes) is needed to keep the category as is.

4. At any point prior to voting, an owner may change his category.  This might be desired if there is overlap or if a specific position is under-represented.

5. The draft order for the categories is based on cumulative bid dollars submitted. For example, the category with the highest cumulative bid total goes first, etc.  We'll still run 5 drafts per day, run simultaneously.

6. We'll keep the $1000 bankroll for bids, but the new rule is that you can't use a bid amount more than once.  So you only get one $1 bid, one $2 bid, etc.

7. Trades during or immediately after the draft are allowed, but the rule is that you must always have one player from each category on your roster at all times.  You are allowed to trade draft positions. 

8. Your category must have between 16 and 25 players to choose from. 
1/18/2013 12:19 PM
First thing I have to say is, this is the most fun I've had with a team in a while!  I will promote, promote, promote the next season; this can only be better with a full 24-team league!

As far as improvements, the only thing I've had a problem with is five draft simultaneously on work days.  Luckily, with drafts starting early, I've rarely had more than two picks on a day.  Maybe a few more days after the draft orders are determined for 'early drafting' would ease the pain a little.

The links to the draft category searches on the Theme Page was awesome and made things much easier; adding them to the individual draft pages would be a nice touch.

Trades would add an interesting twist as well, I think; allowing the trade of players or actual picks would add some excitement.

Just some thoughts over my first cup of coffee ...
1/18/2013 12:19 PM
Feel free to post your comments.
1/18/2013 12:19 PM
I would recommend limiting the player pool further in a category, such as if a 16 team league have the number of total players be somewhere between 16-25 players; if 24 teams then between 24-32 players, or thereabouts. 

Especially with our experiences this first time through, I don't think we need to put any rules in place regarding the quality of the categories or the distribution of quality in the categories. Maybe just use examples from this season in the league description of what makes a good category and what doesn't. You could list the Federalist SP (or the '78 Yankees, or a couple of others) as a good category and the Back End Pitchers as a bad category. With those examples it should further help owners from creating categories that aren't worth bidding in. There need to be choices and decisions and if every player has the same value or if the worst player is still a valuable option, then there's no decision or choice to be made.

The only other thing I can think of is that there were several categories with SP and not many with RP, so teams are all bloated innings-wise as we were all required to take something like 9 starting pitchers. I'm not saying we have to create position by position categories, the excess at some positions and shortages elsewhere helps with the decisions and choices aspect, but being required to take 9 SP is a little silly, maybe limit the pure SP categories to like 2-4, and then have more categories with a range of pitching options or pure RP.


1/18/2013 12:27 PM
I started typing that before the other posts were up, I almost suggested #6, as well, but figured in the end it's all the same.

And also will chime in that the early drafting helped me out a ton. I can't draft while at work and if I didn't have the last pick in several categories as well as make more than half my picks early, I'd have had a really hard time with long proxies.

The ability to change categories and vote on them is a great touch that solves my issue with my 3rd paragraph.
1/18/2013 12:31 PM
Posted by just4me on 1/18/2013 12:27:00 PM (view original):
I would recommend limiting the player pool further in a category, such as if a 16 team league have the number of total players be somewhere between 16-25 players; if 24 teams then between 24-32 players, or thereabouts. 

Especially with our experiences this first time through, I don't think we need to put any rules in place regarding the quality of the categories or the distribution of quality in the categories. Maybe just use examples from this season in the league description of what makes a good category and what doesn't. You could list the Federalist SP (or the '78 Yankees, or a couple of others) as a good category and the Back End Pitchers as a bad category. With those examples it should further help owners from creating categories that aren't worth bidding in. There need to be choices and decisions and if every player has the same value or if the worst player is still a valuable option, then there's no decision or choice to be made.

The only other thing I can think of is that there were several categories with SP and not many with RP, so teams are all bloated innings-wise as we were all required to take something like 9 starting pitchers. I'm not saying we have to create position by position categories, the excess at some positions and shortages elsewhere helps with the decisions and choices aspect, but being required to take 9 SP is a little silly, maybe limit the pure SP categories to like 2-4, and then have more categories with a range of pitching options or pure RP.


This has been discussed. I originally pitched the idea of a 16-team league capping* the available player list at 20 or capping the available player list for a 24-team league at 30.

I'm not sure if we need to police the draft lists created by returning owners, but any potential new owners might need some help. I'm on the fence on whether voting down categories is a good idea. We might be able to get away with just strongly suggesting that categories should have a gradation from good to mediocre players.

*When I say capping, I mean it somewhat loosely. If you have a good category that contains 21 players instead of 20, then go for it.

1/18/2013 12:41 PM
Also I like the idea of trading. But my idea is a sloppy 72-hour period after the drafts where owners try to trade players based on positional needs and strengths. As you can probably tell by now, I like it when things are fast and chaotic. It would be like the winter meetings of Sim Baseball. All trades would be one for one player exchanges and they would be posted on a separate thread we would have in the theme league forums.
1/18/2013 12:46 PM
One thing that I would like to see is a day of timed drafts on a Saturday or Sunday.  The rational against this has been that many people have conflicts on a weekend that would interfere with drafting.  I believe many of us have conflicts drafting during the work week also.  It would be fair for those people to not be in a position to have to draft with proxies all of the time.

Also I like the idea of scheduling the drafts based on most points bid for the whole category.  Another alternative would be if we would implement my first suggestion of  having a mix of drafting on the weekend and work week, that we give the largest bidder for each category the selection of which day they would like the category to be drafted.  We limit the selections to 5 per day. 

It killed me this time (only because of my lack of discipline. I learned this time around) that when I had a top 5 choice, the user with the top bid chose to wait until the last day to make his pick.  A good strategy on there part.  The order of pickiing categories is a huge factor in this draft and should be considered when making the bids.  My team probably could have been significantly different based on the days I made my picks. 

That being said I love people picking early ahead of a timed draft. 
1/18/2013 1:02 PM
The more I think about the voting, the less I like it, even though it does help solve an issue I saw... I think the ability to change the category is enough, the voting completely changes the league. Owners can suggest a category be changed, and give an argument for it, but I still think it should be up to the individual and not forced on them.
1/18/2013 1:02 PM
I would like to see a list of stadiums as well, and we all have to bid for our stadium. The commish can select an equal amount of pitcher friendly, hitter firendly and neutral ballparks. This would be the last category, because only after we see who we drafted will we know what stadium we want.
1/18/2013 1:05 PM
Posted by mllama54 on 1/18/2013 1:02:00 PM (view original):
One thing that I would like to see is a day of timed drafts on a Saturday or Sunday.  The rational against this has been that many people have conflicts on a weekend that would interfere with drafting.  I believe many of us have conflicts drafting during the work week also.  It would be fair for those people to not be in a position to have to draft with proxies all of the time.

Also I like the idea of scheduling the drafts based on most points bid for the whole category.  Another alternative would be if we would implement my first suggestion of  having a mix of drafting on the weekend and work week, that we give the largest bidder for each category the selection of which day they would like the category to be drafted.  We limit the selections to 5 per day. 

It killed me this time (only because of my lack of discipline. I learned this time around) that when I had a top 5 choice, the user with the top bid chose to wait until the last day to make his pick.  A good strategy on there part.  The order of pickiing categories is a huge factor in this draft and should be considered when making the bids.  My team probably could have been significantly different based on the days I made my picks. 

That being said I love people picking early ahead of a timed draft. 
I wish there was some way to have an unscheduled draft. That is, get owners to be able to make their picks on their own time and do it promptly. But like you said, people will wait on certain categories until they know what they need. 

An unintended consequence of having to schedule 5 drafts a day and setting them up randomly is that it required a lot of strategy. It's fun to think of the many different ways my team could have ended up if certain drafts were held earlier or later than others. But now that you mention it, I do like the idea of the "winner" of the category being able to choose when a draft is held. Maybe we do that and do it in the order of biggest top bid to smallest top bid.

1/18/2013 1:09 PM
I think it would be good to have a list of suggested parameters for categories. As long as anyone's category meets the reqs, it would not need to be voted on, but if it is questionable whether it meets the reqs, we could vote on those. Commish approves the cats that do not need voting.

As an example, a limit of 20 or 25 players can be exceeded, but if you do so, your category will become subject to a vote for accepatnce. Another recommendation could be that there is a variety of talent from top to bottom. If there are 16 hitters who all are great players, anyone can bid $1 and know they will get a great player. Conversely, if all players stink, then why bid a lot? I bid $1 in the starts wth Q cat and won the 10th pick. Limiting each owner to one $1 bid etc. helps prevent ties, but with a cat with all bad players, there still will be a 5 way tie at $1. If the commish decides there is not enough variation between top and bottom, he can put it up for vote.

It is also good to have a lot of cats with multiple positions represented. That really adds to the bidding strategy. Some cats devoted to one position is ok, but too many will take some of the excitement away. BTW, this draft is defecient in 2Bs and overloaded with OF. Even one or two 2Bs or SS in a cat full of OFs and 1Bs adds a lot to strategy. If the commish notices this, he can put a staright OF cat up for vote so it can change to include IFs. 

Just some thoughts off the cuff, after my second cup of coffee.  
1/18/2013 1:16 PM
I'm not a fan of scheduling the drafts based on bidding; having one or two 'big' categories late in the draft makes it more interesting.  Do I take a 2B on Day 2, or hold out hoping I can get the guy I want on Day 5? 

Some sort of limit to categories may be in order; it's conceivable, without limits, we could have 25 pitcher categories.  A limit of (for example) between 12-15 batters and 10-12 pitchers would ensure a split - or we could trust the commish to say "hey, nominator #20 - your category has to include catchers or middle infielders".  Also, a way to ensure there are no throw-away categories is to mandate a certain number of 'quality' players per category: a pitcher category has to have X number of pitchers with an ERC+ of Y or more, for example - or again, the commish could be empowered to say that the category doesn't have enough quality.

Oh, and sign me up for season two.
1/18/2013 1:17 PM
As for actual drafting, I've been in draft leagues where there is a week or so of 'open drafting', and after that any unfinished drafting is put on a timer.
1/18/2013 1:19 PM
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