Please Vote: Determining Draft Order
Dec 27, 2015 21:14:37 GMT -5
Post by Ben (Rays GM) on Dec 27, 2015 21:14:37 GMT -5
We've been discussing an overhaul of the way we determine the draft order in our league. As much as we try to encourage teams to stay competitive, it's hard to do when the system rewards you with the best draft pick for being the worst team. The Gold plan (named after its inventor, Adam Gold) attempts to take away the incentive to lose and replace it with an incentive to stay competitive. Here's how it works:
Once you're mathematically eliminated from contention, you start accumulating gold points, and draft order is determined by a ranking of most points earned. You earn points in the following ways:
1) You earn one gold point automatically each week after being eliminated, as long as you make an effort to field the best lineup you can with what you have available to you that week (in other words, don't leave your three OF spots open while three active OF sit on your bench).
2) You earn one point for every category that you win after being eliminated. If you win a week 7-5, you get 7 points. If you lose 10-2, you get 2 points.
The team with the most points drafts first, followed by the team with the second most, etc. Ties are broken by looking at record (lower record picks first). If still tied, we'll look at the previous year's record and keep going back until the tie is broken.
Because you can win up to 12 categories per week, most points will be earned the second way. This forces teams to stay competitive up until the final week of the season, and gives every team something to play for even after they're out of the playoff race. But the first way of earning points is designed to give an extra boost to the teams that were eliminated earliest, so that the early picks continue to go to the teams that need them most.
It's a major change, and it's a significant deviation from the way MLB does things. But it'd also be pretty unique to our league and could help solve one of the most complained about issues that we have, which is teams fielding incomplete lineups and not showing any motivation to win. When the only incentive for teams at the bottom to win was a pat on the back and a worse draft slot, I can't really blame teams for not trying harder. But by changing the system and giving teams the incentive to win rather than to lose, we bring a new sense of realism and fairness to the league.
Note that this would go into effect for the upcoming 2016 season, thus determining the 2017 draft order.
Once you're mathematically eliminated from contention, you start accumulating gold points, and draft order is determined by a ranking of most points earned. You earn points in the following ways:
1) You earn one gold point automatically each week after being eliminated, as long as you make an effort to field the best lineup you can with what you have available to you that week (in other words, don't leave your three OF spots open while three active OF sit on your bench).
2) You earn one point for every category that you win after being eliminated. If you win a week 7-5, you get 7 points. If you lose 10-2, you get 2 points.
The team with the most points drafts first, followed by the team with the second most, etc. Ties are broken by looking at record (lower record picks first). If still tied, we'll look at the previous year's record and keep going back until the tie is broken.
Because you can win up to 12 categories per week, most points will be earned the second way. This forces teams to stay competitive up until the final week of the season, and gives every team something to play for even after they're out of the playoff race. But the first way of earning points is designed to give an extra boost to the teams that were eliminated earliest, so that the early picks continue to go to the teams that need them most.
It's a major change, and it's a significant deviation from the way MLB does things. But it'd also be pretty unique to our league and could help solve one of the most complained about issues that we have, which is teams fielding incomplete lineups and not showing any motivation to win. When the only incentive for teams at the bottom to win was a pat on the back and a worse draft slot, I can't really blame teams for not trying harder. But by changing the system and giving teams the incentive to win rather than to lose, we bring a new sense of realism and fairness to the league.
Note that this would go into effect for the upcoming 2016 season, thus determining the 2017 draft order.
