OK, everyone. A few very important notes as we head into the 2019 JLB Draft. If you skip this post or skim it haphazardly, you may run into some issues Saturday night.
The biggest thing is going
to be the roster maxes and how they work in the Fantrax draft room. The short
answer is: they don’t work when it comes to mixing with minor leagues since we do
not cap minor leaguers when it comes to positions.
When I leave our roster
maxes as is — 5 for batting positions, 12 for starting pitching and 8 for
relief pitching — the draft room gets a bit buggy. Sometimes you can move
players to minors, other times you can’t.
So simply put, I raised
the maxes for the draft, like I did last year. There are six minor league spots in 2019 so all maxes are raised for the draft by six.
Immediately after the
draft is complete, I will reset the maxes to their JLB sanctioned levels.
Here’s a cliffnotes list-view of what you need to know for the draft:
1. Maxes are raised by 6 everywhere — 11 for batting positions, 18 for
SPs, 14 for RPs. YOU MUST keep track
on your own. If you go over the active player max, the player(s) that put you
over will be removed from your team after the draft and placed on waivers.
2. Moving players to the minors: Everyone kept three players in their minor
leagues this season. Per JLB rules, those players must remain in those spots
and cannot be replaced until June 1. If called up, they must move to the active
roster and that green spot will remain empty until June 1. The three new minor
league spots added are free to move players in and out of. You can draft minor
leaguers and move them there, or if you kept extra minors as active players —
like Firestine and Steroid — who are eligible to be in your minors, you can move them there now or in
the draft room. Because the new three minors are interchangeable, you can move
now and change mind in or after the draft.
3. Draft timing: Each pick is at 2
minutes this year, up 30 seconds from prior years. It will remain at 2
minutes throughout the draft. It is set up to auto-pick from your queue if your timer runs out twice, and if
your queue is empty for any auto-pick, it will not auto-pick from the top of the draft pool, it will just skip your pick once time runs out. You
will leave the draft and will have to fill your roster via free agent moves. So if you're going to miss any parts of the draft, be sure to set up your queue.
4. Free agency: We are at 7
moves a week no matter what, so in the opening week, once all non-drafted
players have cleared waivers, everyone will have 7 moves through Sunday of
opening week. You’ll get 7 more for the following week.
5. Draft breaks: New to this year will be the implementation of two
draft intermissions. After the last pick in Round 5 (a.k.a., Round 24 in our
draft), I will hit SUSPEND DRAFT to
give us a 5-minute break. Go get a beer. Take a breather. Check out other
rosters. Adjust. We will have another 5-minute break once more after the last
pick in Round 10 (a.k.a., Round 29 in our draft). Our draft typically runs 2
hours and 10 minutes each season. The extra 30 seconds a pick will add a few
minutes, of course, and these breaks will add another 10 minutes. Why am I doing this? Two reasons. One,
to give everyone a chance to reset and avoid rushed picks. We drop a lot of
drafted players — and probably still will — but I hope this will assist in giving
teams a chance to make decisions that aren’t as rushed. Two, and this is the biggest reason, is to
help the commish, your’s truly, actually draft. Every year, it never fails, during
the draft, I’m receiving phone calls, text messages or, as you have seen,
fielding questions in the draft room chat. I lose a lot of time and I have had
my picks sneak up on me because owners miss some rules, skip some of the important posts and/or need clarifications. Breaks will be EXACTLY five minutes,
timed by Alexa, so the on the clock pick in Rounds 24 and 29 — that’s Firestine
for both — must be ready to go because I will hit RESUME as soon as Alexa
goes off. (I figured this was better than implementing an automatic pause for every in-draft question message I receive.)
6. Draft start time: We will start at 9 p.m. on the dot. As mentioned,
prior drafts have clocked in anywhere between 1:50 to 2:10 — yes, I’ve kept
track. We will undoubtedly be a bit longer this year, but should still come in
around 2 and a half hours. If it goes significantly longer this year, I promise
to adjust for the future. In any case, grab a beer or a mixed drink or a glass of
wine and enjoy the night. From 9 p.m. to midnight, we’re going to chat baseball
and draft. Let’s have fun! See you
there.
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| EXAMPLE 1 |
8. Setting up the queue: Pretty simple, but in the examples to the right, you can move players up/down one spot at by clicking the blue arrows. If you want to make a big jump, click on the cross, player will highlight green like in EXAMPLE 3, and then click on the cross of the player whom you wish to have him move up next to. It will always place him below the player you click.
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| EXAMPLE 2 |
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| EXAMPLE 3 |
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