Looks like newarkwilder, MJDsupporter and buddhagamer get spots 1, 2 and 3 in 80-81, respectively.

Oh gee... this draft (if you could even call it that) has unfolded exactly as expected (like what was the point?).

I might need some time to figure out what I need to pick here (sarcastically).

Whomever though this was a good idea for a draft format needs to really rethink what was the point they wanted to do with this draft method.

Guess I'll take 3rd pick in 1980/81 as if I had a choice.

I'm predicting this team will lose 100+ games right now.

I agree this draft and theme concept are a bit too experimental and are far from fair or perfect. In retrospect, a regular draft of players from 1920 to 1990 (with a salary cap of say 120M) may have been preferable.

Conceptually, it wasn't bad. Execution was flawed.

The best format would've been to let the Top 6 pick years and receive last pick in their divisions, as happened. But then we should've drafted from the bottom, with each person getting to pick not only their division, but which draft slot they wanted in that division.

I hate to see ****** off owners before a draft even begins; the last thing we need is people bailing from this tournament because it's no longer fun.

take it with a grain of salt because I'm the 27th seed and kind of just happy to be here, but I have a hard time seeing how this league isn't heavily, heavily skewed toward the top seeds. I'm not sure picking fourth and fifth is even meaningfully worse than picking first and eighth for most of these season pairs. it is what it is, and I have a ton of respect for the folks putting these leagues together, but this one feels like a big miss.

We should acknowledge the work and time that the guys running this put into it. Not every theme will be perfect but it's appreciated that they are putting it together and managing it nonetheless so that we can all compete. Being commish can be a thankless job sometimes.

2nd pick in 80/81

I think sometimes there are just unintended "consequences" to certain themes that are hard to foresee when brainstorming ideas. Like I said, I think this one has a strong foundation, but as has been stated, it needed to be tweaked if the objective was to create an even playing field.

Remember the ascending salary draft from a few years ago? It turned into a big mess. It was an experiment that failed. Thankfully the commish scrapped it and started over with a new theme. Not every theme works out.

Posted by discodemo on 9/9/2025 4:49:00 PM (view original):
Remember the ascending salary draft from a few years ago? It turned into a big mess. It was an experiment that failed. Thankfully the commish scrapped it and started over with a new theme. Not every theme works out.

Ha — I had forgotten about that. Not my finest theme design. We made it 15 rounds in and had to cancel it. Brutal.

A better alternative would of had the 6 captains selecting owners to place in their own divisions instead of the owners picking which division they wanted to go. That would of likely made the distribution more even (instead of everyone piling into silos).

Each of the top 6 owners would of been incentivized to not giving a higher rank owner chasing them higher picks so likely the better owners would of been picked evenly.

I agree with Mike that redcped, schwarze and ron have done a great job running the tournament. Thanks guys!!

I suppose I should say something here though it might not be especially helpful since I didn’t personally design this theme or in any way attempt to game it out or even scout it in advance.

I did realize when I started scouting seasons that we’d be unlikely to build rosters anywhere near a high cap. But I also don’t think any division group will wind up with more useful salary than any other. We might find out otherwise as it unfolds, of course.

I’m also not married to it, and if the large majority of the group believes we won’t get a fair league out of this then we should be open to alternatives.