East Coast blog- ahhhs ya feel me?*(That being said, expect an Earliest Hockey Memories post on Wednesday, an NHL 10 Wish List post on Thursday and another entertainment related post on Sunday among random bits.)
ANYWAY, since this idea is more than just our baby, we thought we'd pick the collective brains of voters and readers alike. Since we have become weary of Internet based voting since Rory Fitzpatrick got boned by the NHL and Mike Komisarek was a starter in the All-Star game, cast your "votes" in the comments.
Keep in mind that CLS elections could, in fact, be rigged. Nonetheless, share your thoughts. Perhaps they will even be considered (evil Newman-style cackles).
Proposition #1: Salary Cap
Since we are known for being Salary Cap Dorks, it is our strong preference to have a ceiling for how much imaginary spending will be allowed. However, we are lenient tyrants and will bump the cap ceiling up to $57 million. (OK, it's more about our hatred for decimals but don't complain)
One thing, though: don't worry about your team's budget. We don't need TOO much reality within our fantasy draft.
Proposition #2: Measurement of Judgment
Right now, we're thinking that teams could be assessed via a few methods:
1. Performance in a single simulated season of NHL 2010 (and maybe NHL 2K10 if 2K sports sends us a T-shirt HINT!).
Grease the wheels, 2K Sports, grease the effin' wheels.
2. Pure, simple numbers like points/assists/goals/plus-minus/Russian supermodels shagged.
3. Super in-depth formulas from some of our favorite hockey stat heads, if we can stop giving them Indian burns and pink bellies.
4. We could also do it like College Football does it: have head coaches (aka our armchair GMs) get their interns to rank opposing teams. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to rank your own. Just think of all the bribery (none) and corruption (lots) that will ensue! Eureka!
5. Teams could be judged/lampooned/showered with praise by a nebulous panel of sexperts.
Why don't you assign my KNUCKLES a Corsi rating?
Proposition #3: Method of Drafting
This one's going to be decided largely "behind the scenes" but why not give you all a chance to express your opinion? Here's a few methods we're pondering with a quick pro/con:
1. Live draft:
Pros: Quick, most like a "real life" draft
Cons: Coordinating 30 schedules = agony, some people might not get to make their picks
2. E-mail:
Pros: Everyone gets to pick, no immediate reactions of laughter and mockery for picking Peter Forsberg in the 5th round
Cons: Could take FOREVER, no immediate reactions of laughter and mockery for picking Peter Forsberg in the 5th round
3. Message Board/Scheduled picks
This would be sort of a hybrid of the two ideas. Have a scheduled time when someone makes the pick, but be a little more flexible with WHEN they can make it.
Pros: Everyone gets to pick
Cons: Unless they miss the deadline
Pros: In which case they will receive Dan Cloutier or Roman Cechmanek. Mouhahahaha.
4. WILDCARD!
Anything we haven't thought of yet? Do tell!
So, what do you think, folks? Express yourself in the comments.
* Sorry, we're painfully white.
15 comments:
Personally, I think the easiest method is to create a Google group for the draft. We follow a set schedule and make the picks by email. Everyone sees all the emails, it goes by insanely fast.
Are we doing full teams here or what? I'm down for whatever. If we did full teams (which WOULD take forever), then I like the idea of salary cap + entering the teams into NHL 10 and simulating a season or something. I figured we'd only do like a single round or two though.
A 30 team fantasy draft, going long enough to build a whole team, would be a hell of an undertaking to do live. I think doing it by email and throwing up a couple picks a day would be pretty good. Maybe do like 2 picks a day for the first round, and then after that we speed it up a bit? What should be done semi-live is the draft order. Tease it out, as we do this planning for the whole thing. Figure the whole lineup, and then reveal say, 1-5 today, 6-10 tomorrow, etc. Revealing at least part of the order early on will also allow people to start planning. If I know I'm #1, I can make my pick and have it all ready to go for you. If I'm #2, whoever goes #1 is going to heavily influence my pick. If I'm #24, well, the previous picks are going to be less important to me, because as you come down from the very top of the league, your options are more wide open and the differences between players get smaller. I think getting the draft order up (or at least the first part of it up) ahead of time will go along way towards helping get this thing moving smoothly.
Also, if we go with some sort of schedule: As much as I'd like to see someone blow a first rounder on Dan Cloutier, we could just do like the NFL draft does: If you miss the scheduled time for your pick, you can turn it in late, but whoever is behind you goes on the clock and could potentially take the guy you want. So say #10 doesn't get their pick in by the time its supposed to be ready to go, then #11 can make his pick, and #12, and so on, until #10 gets his in. For the sake of completeness though, I would say maybe give a maximum of three people picking over you before you're just booted and someone else assumes control of the team.
If you need any help with doin anything, let me know. I've got no problem jumping in and helping where I can.
Hmm... I'm game for anything, really. I've usually wound up doing the "here's who I want - make it happen, Yahoo!" drafts, which actually work pretty well for me.
Or so sayith Malkin and Luongo, who enjoyed their stay on my squad last year. Whatever you guys come up with, I'm fine.
Google group would work pretty well I think. I'm not sure how to do a full re-drafting other than that. Maybe ranking the teams by GMs, but that's just adding complexity.
Also, I think making our teams fall within the Cap is a great idea.
(Also if this is going to happen the week of August 3rd-7th I'm probably going to have to pass, since I'll be in a new home without internet access.
I'm pro Cap. Let's make this as realistic as possible, yo.
And NHL 09 > NHL 2K9
What the proposed time period for this draft? Is this something we're trying to get done by the start of the season? Or something that could take a while? If we're doing a full 23 man roster (23 rounds, duh) then that is going to take a hell of a long time. Conservatively, with five picks a day being made, then a full 30 team re-drafting would take a few days over four months.
Personally, if this is something we wanted to do right with the right amount of research that goes into building a brand new team, I'm down with that.
I think this is something that we could all do for fun, or we could actually get some great press from it if we get the word out.
Using the salary-cap and current cap hits would be good, but what about unsigned free agents?
Also, if we go with some sort of schedule: As much as I'd like to see someone blow a first rounder on Dan Cloutier, we could just do like the NFL draft does: If you miss the scheduled time for your pick, you can turn it in late, but whoever is behind you goes on the clock and could potentially take the guy you want. So say #10 doesn't get their pick in by the time its supposed to be ready to go, then #11 can make his pick, and #12, and so on, until #10 gets his in. For the sake of completeness though, I would say maybe give a maximum of three people picking over you before you're just booted and someone else assumes control of the team.
I really dig the NFL-style idea.
To me, how deep this draft goes depends almost entirely on the response. If half the team GMs want to keep going, then we'll keep going until the bitter end. If almost everyone is bored after round 10, we'll either fill the rosters with the same average players or we'll just chart the progress of selected players.
Some of this will have to be played by ear.
Using the salary-cap and current cap hits would be good, but what about unsigned free agents?
What do you think about this idea: if they aren't signed by the time you draft them, take their 2008-09 salary and round it down (say a 4.7 million guy becomes a 4).
Rounding it down could express an apparent lack of interest in the free agent market, but keeping it within $1 million would be fair.
(And, yes, I just pulled that idea out of thin air)
What do you think?
Why are we complaining it could take forever? We do have more than two months to get through the draft. Say we do even a 25 man roster, there is still plenty of time to get it done. Could easily ro a round per day with weekends off ...
I concur with the Google groups idea
Gotta say I think the NHL10 simulation is the best proposal thus far (aside from re-draft concept in the first place)... as a method of measurement, it fully encapsulates the triviality of the entire project while quickly and unequivocably validating one member of our league as the champion of blogosphere NHL GM's.
Should we go this route, I propose simulating bit by bit with standings updated after each month of the simulation, then each round of the playoffs. At least create a little drama, you know?
As for the draft, 30 GM's picking 20+ players (full roster or just 12F, 6D, 2G ??) would be crazy via live draft unless you broke it into segments, which would make coordinating 30 schedules that much more difficult. We should maybe make the 1st round live draft, with the balance done via e-mail or google group.
Salary Cap? Yeah, OK... I think its bound to work out that way regardless, as everybody gets a shot at high-priced talent, then everybody ends up picking from cheaper roster-fillers... anybody else think Brian Campbell or Wade Redden might go undrafted? Regardless, makes it more realistic, and adds complexity and excitement, in my opinion.
I prefer email/google group/whatever to the live draft. And drafting whole teams. There's nothing going on in hockey right now, and I can only watch the bruins history DVD so many times.
And 2 separate threads: One for Picks (and eventually standings) and one for discussion/trash talk/exposing banginpanger for the fraud he is.
Seems like everyone wants a salary cap. I don't have any love for the cap, but if it makes this more exciting for you nerds than I'm all for it.
One thing we could do is two trophies:
1 - NHL 10 simming
2 - Actual stats through the year.
This way we get an instant winner who can gloat for a couple months while his fantasy drafted team turns into mud in the real league. The second part is just a fantasy league, that can get set up somewhere.
I like Cornelius' idea of actually pumping this into a fantasy hockey league or something as well, just as a fun alternative way of letting everyone know how awesome we are.
It would be ideal to do the draft live, but like you said getting 30 ahem....GMs together is a nightmare. If you would have spectators (of course roped off, and feed plenty of beer), it would give me a reason to hunt down my old White #16 Olcyzk Winnipeg Jets Jersey.
"J" "E" "T" "S"...."Jets, Jets, JETS!"
Oh the past......
The best part of this thread is that we now have all the GM's set for when James creates the CLTS Memorial Fantasy Hockey League in September.
As far as what everyone as said... i'm up for the NHL 10 simulation.
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