2 cents on prospect draft

I think the 5 man prospect draft is beginning to complicate things too much

might I suggest we just have a 25 or 30 round draft and just forget about the prospect bench until our offseason 2009

in offseason 2009 we can do a review of the previous season and implement a farm/prospect system that we can all live with and draft at our own leisure because we wouldnt be strapped for time

if we cancel the prospect angle of this then gm's can simply draft for this upcoming season with an eye towards simply getting a solid base of 10/15 or so young/old veterans to build with as a base for season 1

if gm's still want to draft some prospects and stash them on their rosters for this year then that means more quality veterans available for the rest of us to draft --said prospects would have to be in espns database and drafted during our upcoming sept 20th draft ''live''.If the dude isnt in espns database on the day we draft then just draft someone else.

Hey Butch,

As always, thanks for your suggestions. It does seem like this prospects draft is creating a little challenge, but I still think we can overcome. Greg and I really want a separate prospects draft before the regular draft for a couple of reasons:

1. Almost every long term keeper league has a farm team, and it's something most managers want and expect in this type of league. Greg and I both really wanted to include a farm team at the start because, well, it's pretty cool.

2. Doing a prospects draft first also puts things on a bit more even footing from the start. The person drafting 10th may not have a chance at Crosby or Ovechkin, but he would be assured first pick of the youth crop. Probably Stamkos. Keeps things even from the get go, which we're really hoping to achieve here.

I'm going to talk with Greg about this. Now that we have a few new managers we'll either revisit the possibility of doing a slow draft starting September 17th. Or we'll simply figure out a way to do this prior to the ESPN draft on Sunday the 21st, such as reserving the ESPN draft for 3:00 pm EST and starting the prospects draft at 1:30 pm EST. We're playing around with the times a little bit, but I expect that might be possible.

One way or another we should be able to get this all sorted.

Cheers,
Matt

I am in the pro-slow-draft boat myself.
I think it is super important to have the prospect team and I think the slow draft is the best way of doing this without issues with the main draft.
5 rounds is not that much at all so I do not see the issue myself as I do not not see us picking anyone too way off to not be in ESPN's system.

Matt/Greg I thought you said in a previous email that a slow live draft wouldnt work for a handful of gm's ?

if its still an option -then lets most def do it that way , however -I'm not too sure 4-5 days is enough time to get it done .

I've seen days where 1 pick gets done in 24 hrs and days where 10 + get done -its not an exact science by ant means

if gregs vacation runs til sept 17th and its the main reason for us not starting to slow live draft sooner then we should explore pushing the 25 round draft to sept 27th .Ten days (17th to 26th) should be enough days to slow live draft 50 players

Hey Keegan and Butch,

Yes, I agree with Keegan that the farm team is a must have, and a slow draft format could very well work. Dallas was one of the guys who couldn't do a slow draft in the first week of September, and he decided to bow out today because he was recently nominated as commissioner of his current keeper league. He didn't feel he'd have time for another keeper league with the newly acquired commissioner duties.

So with Dallas gone and soon to be replaced with another GM, it's quite possible a slow draft could work in the first week of September, or during the four days leading up to the regular draft on Sunday the 21st. Now that we're drafting on Sunday versus Saturday, we would have an extra day prior to the regular draft to finish a slow prospect draft.

I'm going to send out another mass email to everyone and get feedback ASAP.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Cheers,
Matt

p.s -when did the 25 round draft get moved to the 21st ?

I thought I was on top of things -apparently not

Hey Butch,

The question to change the draft from the 20th to the 21st was posed to all managers several days ago because Jean had to work on the 20th and because your Dad's B-Day was on the 20th. I sent out an email to all managers to see if Sunday would work, and everyone got back to me and said that it would. I thought you did as well.

Even though we had to let Jean go, the Sunday seemed by consensus to work best for pretty much everyone, so that's why we have officially changed it to the Sunday.

Am I right that Sunday will work fine for you?

Cheers,
Matt

either day is fine

so , sunday it is