JimmyJam League Baseball: Fantasy News (2.5.14)

Finally, we have a draft date, and, oh, man, Parker is going to be mad.

After some deliberation, the 2014 JLB Draft, or drat, will be at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 22. I would expect it to take two hours. Feel free to join us online as usual, or come to my house for a live/online draft. I can set up tables for laptops and we'll have a good time. 

In prior years, I have set up the timing for the draft to allow for longer periods in the first couple rounds and then I would speed it up later, but we will go with 70 seconds per pick throughout the entire 2014 draft.

The season will start the very next day with the second game of the Dodgers-D-Backs two-game series in Australia. So, draft some Dodgers if they have a great game on Saturday.

And laugh if Clayton Kershaw throws a complete-game shutout, or, as they would say down under, "a rip snorter of a game!"

Yeah, I don't know. I saw it on a website.

Nevertheless, we'll miss one game. That's not bad. Only 2,429 left after that.

With the draft set up, now it's time to talk keepers. With the draft being a week earlier and the JLB rules calling for keepers to be submitted at least a week before the draft, we have a bit of a conundrum for owners who have position battles that were hoping to be solved in spring training. To think that they'll be solved on Saturday, March 15, only two weeks into spring training games, is crazy.

So, here's what we're going to do.

1. Everyone's keepers will be due at 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 15, per JLB rules.
2. Every team will be allowed, but not required to, have two "position battles," meaning you can submit the names of up to two players you did not select as keepers, but you are considering over players you did select.
3. Those two players must be submitted at the same time, or before, keepers are due; and they all will be announced to the League so everyone knows.
4. You will then have until 9 p.m., Thursday, March 20, to inform me of whether or not you will make a change to your keepers. All keepers will officially lock at 9 p.m., Thursday, March 20.
5. All other keeper rules will apply, and as usual, I will still consider any injury issues on a case-by-case basis the week leading up to the draft day.

I hope this will help everyone who didn't want the draft to be a week earlier than usual.