ATB XIV Details - Draft Order, Divisional Alignment, and More

A few items to go over

1. Draft is now officially set to kick off on Monday, February 6.

2. For game scheduling reasons, we must have 20 teams in the league.  Right now we're stuck at 17 total confirmed owners which means we'll likely have some PC led teams this year.  This is a good news/bad news situation.

• On one hand, 20 teams dilutes the player pool a bit and make the draft more challenging.  
• On the other, in previous seasons the PC team has never made the playoffs and their presence does not add a challenge to the regular season.  

3. With the 20 teams confirmed, I am able to set the Draft Order and Divisional Alignment (Career Wpct listed first and draft position in parenthesis):

American League

.630 - Justin B (16)

.599 - Steve C (1)

.589 - Justin P (11)

.589 - Lou P (13)

.537 - Sean S (18)

.491 - Matt B (20)

.460 - Ivar A (15)
New - Dave K (3)

New - Fred B (17)

New - Joe V (19)

National League
.586 - Mike S (2)
.576 - Jason B (4)
.549 - Joe T (14)
.526 - Brad P (8)
.501 - Jeff B (10)
.485 - TJ O (5)
.479 - Shotgun S (9)
.441 - Jay H (6)
.427 - Brian B (12)
.362 - Alan C (7)

Draft Order
1) Steve C
2) Mike S
3) Dave K
4) Jason B
5) TJ O
6) Jay H
7) Alan C
8) Brad P
9) Shotgun S
10) Jeff B
11) Justin P
12) Brian B
13) Lou P
14) Joe T
15) Ivar A
16) Justin B
17) Fred B
18) Sean S
19) Joe V
20) Matt B

Regular Season and Playoffs

• 162 Game Season
• No Interleague Play
• Top 4 Teams in each league make the playoffs, with home field advantage being determined by 1) Overall Record, 2) Head to Head Record, 3) Pythagorean Winning Percentage
• Three rounds of playoffs, all series 7 games.

Going with Standard ATB

Dissension in the ranks!  Well, not really, but there is definitely a dividing between the 10 year veterans and the 3-5 year veterans when discussing the new proposal to eliminate seasons.

As a result, for the current ATB XIV we will not be eliminating any seasons.  Last year we opened up hundreds of new players with the new playing time rules, so the pool is still fresh enough.

I do believe shaking things up is good idea, and we'll work towards it for ATB XV - maybe along with an Auction style draft as well.  Or perhaps a hybrid, I'll think on it.

We're up to 17 owners, 1 short of last season.  If you know of anyone, send them my details - thanks!

Current Owner List for ATB XIV

If you are not listed below and want in, please let me know - up to 15 confirmed:

Allen C
Brad P
Brian B
Jason B
Jay H
Jeff B
Joe T
Justin B
Justin P
Ivar A
Lou P
Matt B (w/ Paresh G)
Mike S
Sean S
Shotgun S
Steve C
TJ O

Previous Owners who I have not heard from yet
Jay S
Kevin C
Leanne
Paul T

One Last New Idea - Eliminating Random Player Seasons

Note:  Input requested at the end!

I mentioned earlier I am searching for new owners.  The reason for this is to shake up the player pool a bit, the more owners the deeper into the player pool we have to search.

Absent an influx of new owners there are others ways to accomplish the goal.  The most common in the world of DMB leagues is a progressive league.  Meaning, a player is drafted and season after season his real life year is to be used.  (Ruth '20 drafted in ATB V, then Ruth '21 be used in ATB VI).  I love this idea, but frankly it is an incredibly arduous task and until DMB allows importing of player data it is off the table for ATB.

Other ideas such as Keeper Leagues or Contract Leagues can work, but that seems to stray to far from what the heart of ATB has always been - a fresh start each and every year and a good old fashion snake draft.

To make sure interest remains high and a fresh crop of talent is always being used, I would like to randomly eliminate some of the Top Seasons from the player pool.  This is not to say eliminate a player entirely, rather remove a single season for certain players

To do this I plan to removed 20% of the top 15 at each position from the draft. To be clear, if 1920 Babe Ruth gets this treatment, then his 1921 season along with every other is available.

Purely as an example, I have done this based upon last years draft, and the following player seasons would be ineligible:

Catcher

Pick 76 - 1933 Mickey Cochrane
Pick 200 - 2009 Joe Mauer
Pick 230 - 1947 Walker Cooper


First Base

Pick 36 - 1969 Willie McCovey
Pick 50 - 1920 George Sisler
Pick 90 - 1977 Rod Carew


Second Base

Pick 27 - 1884 Fred Dunlap
Pick 39 - 1976 Joe Morgan
Pick 155 - 1990 Ryne Sandberg


Third Base

Pick 72 - 1966 Dick Allen
Pick 95 - 2004 Adrian Beltre
Pick 210 - 1894 Lave Cross

Shortstop

Pick 151 - 1936 Luke Appling
Pick 152 - 1884 Candy Nelson
Pick 198 - 1896 Bill Dahlen


Left Field

Pick 12 - 1887 Tip O'Neill
Pick 118 - 1928 Goose Goslin
Pick 123 - 2001 Luis Gonzalez


Center Field
Pick 26 - 1941 Joe DiMaggio
Pick 73 - 1885 Pete Browning
Pick 80 - 1915 Benny Kauff

Right Field

Pick 52 - 1990 Rickey Henderson
Pick 92 - 1914 Steve Evans
Pick 146 - 1927 Paul Waner


Designated Hitter

Pick 97 - 1969 Reggie Jackson
Pick 247 - 1995 Edgar Martinez
Pick 296 - 2006 Travis Hafner


Starting Pitcher

Pick 13 - 1995 Greg Maddux
Pick 30 - 1914 Dutch Leonard
Pick 65 - 1888 Ben Sanders


Relief Pitcher

Pick 167 - 2003 Eric Gagne
Pick 173 - 1999 Jeff Zimmerman
Pick 172 - 2003 John Smoltz

What say you?  Good idea? Bad idea?  Suggested changes?