Draft Time

There are two different ways we are going to get your teams all playered up. We are going to have a snake draft for 20 players, then followed by an auction, for the remaining 20 players.

We're going to use stratdraft for both.

The reason we are doing this, is so that we can speed up the proccess of getting players on teams. Plus, we are going to use the actual MLB player contracts during the draft. When we start the auction, though, the contracts and bids will be all on us.

So here you go, see if this makes any sense.

The snake draft date is still yet to be determined, but will be towards the end of February. It will be a typical snake draft, and there will be 8 hours between picks. And while the 8 hours is the maximum amount of time you will have between picks, please be considerate of others.

The player you draft will also come with an MLB contract. The contract sheet for the top players will be emailed out so that you can reference who you are getting and how much they will cost you. For the most part, the contracts are actual contracts of the MLB players from 2014.

Along with the price of the contract, you will also have to inheret the length of the contract as well. However, because our league doesn't offer contracts for more then five years, some of the contracts have been shortened.

Here is an example:

Suppose you draft Adrian Beltre as your first round pick, because you love you some Texas Rangers. Damn Skippy. His 2014 salary is $17M, so you would take that whole salary on. And the length of his contract runs through 2015, so you would have to pay him that for the next two years.

As far as contracts go for the draft, we are also only using the guarenteed portion. So the length of the contract is not contingent upon 'opt-in' or 'opt-out' clauses, or arbitration eligibility. Just the guarenteed contracts count.

And we have had to adjust a few contracts as well, based on such large, and sometimes disproportionate yearly increases. But the 2014 salaries on the spreadsheet that will be sent out is as close to "real life" as we could get it, as well as fair as we could make them.

The example is Mike Trout. In 2014 he was only owed a mere $1M. However, his contract increased substantially in the next few years: $6M, $16M, $20M, $34M, $34M and $34M. So, instead of giving one lucky owner five years of Trout for $1M, it made more sense to average his five years out so that Trout will count as $20.8M for five years.

Again, not trying to mess up the system, just seems like that would be most appropiate way to handle the outliers. So if a player has a drastically disproportionate rate of increase in their yearly earnings, we tried to average the years of the contract.

But, like anything, while it is, I'm sure, not perfect, it is the official document we are going to use. So it is what it is, and really it's just a start. Once the players' contracts run out, they will be thrown back into FA and can bid upon by the whole league. And if you don't want that large or long of a contract for the player, pick someone else.

But for the snake draft, all players drafted will have guarenteed contracts already given to them based on their 2014 MLB actual contract.

Some players might not be drafted. Think Josh Hamilton. Hamilton is set to make $26.5M over the next four years. If you want him for this contract, then more power to you. But if nobody takes it on and he falls through the cracks, then Hamilton will go into the FA pool for the auction. Once he's in there, you can bid anything you want on him, at whatever reduced price and length of contract he will go for.

So players not selected in the draft will go into the FA auction.

Rookies are also going to have a different system. A rookie is considered to be a player new to stratomatic for 2014, so they made their MLB debut during the 2014 season. If a rookie is drafted, their contracts will reflect the rookie salary structure of the SLN ($.3M, $.4M, $.5M, $1.0M).

After the draft, all the players will be put onto your team pages and you can begin to track usage.

The FA auction will be held about two weeks afterwards.

It's recommended that each position have the minimum of 650 abs, so after the draft, you can assess what your needs still are and adjust your team accordingly. Likewise you will be able to see how much money you have left under the cap so that you can make bids without going over.

The FA auction will use strat draft and the players will be staggered and tiered. Once we get closer, we'll make to sure to have a list available of all the players who were not drafted.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Hope this made sense and wasn't too long.