If there is a desire for change, I don’t think we need to scrap the whole them. Just find an agreed upon way to realign divisions, if possible.

I give the commishes props for thinking outside the box on themes. Most are very interesting. I have to admit that the unveiling of the themes is kind of like Christmas morning for me.

+1 to disco. Reading through the themes for the first time each round is one of my favorite moments of playing. And the other draft is fun.

As the guy who sort of unintentionally opened Pandora's box a bit here I'll say that while I have my issues with this theme and do believe it to be flawed, I won't have an issue with playing it out. But it's not my fave so if there's a simple (ideally high-cap) alternative that folks like, that works too.

Posted by newarkwilder on 9/9/2025 4:43:00 PM (view original):
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.

I must be missing something. The top two in points both wound up with their whole divisions filled in the top 12 of the standings, which theoretically should make it harder for them to win their own divisions.

You also note that where you pick in any one draft isn’t too significant. So, I’m missing the real concern. No one is complaining about the years chosen either.

So someone please explain what wound up unfair here, because that’s eluding me.

I think it’s mostly that the “worst” three Round 1 owners ended up in arguably the lowest quality draft without any choice.

I will play it out as is. I just don't want to take any flak if we (those in the 80/81 and the last 3 owners) all end up losing 100+ games each and our division has a sub .500 division winner) and skewing how the WISC ends up playing out. I don't know about you guys and/or my division mates but I think I'll be lucky to field a 90M roster without bloating it with excess IP/PA.

I think this could of been a viable theme with either a reasonable cap (i.e. 100M) which wouldn't of totally made everyone crazy over having a high pick or maybe not using such a small window of years (maybe franchises instead).

Posted by redcped on 9/9/2025 5:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by newarkwilder on 9/9/2025 4:43:00 PM (view original):
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.

I must be missing something. The top two in points both wound up with their whole divisions filled in the top 12 of the standings, which theoretically should make it harder for them to win their own divisions.

You also note that where you pick in any one draft isn’t too significant. So, I’m missing the real concern. No one is complaining about the years chosen either.

So someone please explain what wound up unfair here, because that’s eluding me.

I’m just giving my opinion and don’t think I’ve given any reason to take offense. think I made it very clear that I have a ton of respect for the commissioners and the job they do. and I echo buddhagamer that I don’t see any reason to change the theme at this point. play it out and we’ll see what happens ¯\_(?)_/¯

to clarify my point about draft order: the description of the theme suggests that giving the last owners higher picks is meant to increase parity and I don’t think it does that. I think pick 4/5 is probably more desirable than 1/8. maybe I’m wrong! certainly there’s sharper strategic minds than myself here. just how I see it personally.

Since this theme was my idea, I need to comment.

I wanted to come up with a player draft (which is always fun and filled with strategy), but also reward the top 6 owners, which is why they got to choose their seasons. Clearly, there were unintended consequences, which became clear as the draft unfolded.

I am ok with scrapping this entire concept and going with a more traditional draft like somebody suggested, maybe even using the years 1920-90 to keep out the deadballer pitching as well as the steroid era players.

Going to be offline for the next 4 hours. I will check back tonight to see comments.

I don’t mind switching, doesn’t even have to be a draft, I’m sure there’s a theme out there that’s moderately interesting that was scrapped as a finalist.

I’m toying with a draft idea that incorporates many elements in place here but adds agency and wider player pools. I’ll run it past schwarze and ron and we can see if it addresses the concerns.

I agree with d_rock.

I also believe that the 80/81 player pool isn't as bad as some people think.

Posted by d_rock97 on 9/9/2025 6:51:00 PM (view original):
I don’t mind switching, doesn’t even have to be a draft, I’m sure there’s a theme out there that’s moderately interesting that was scrapped as a finalist.

While I would be OK with letting this draft stand, I agree with this, especially if there is a higher cap theme that could be used. As much as the draft was suboptimal, my biggest disappointment in this theme is the fact that many/most teams will not reach $120M in usable salary. Since our $120M teams were predetermined by our round 1 selections, as it currently stands most of us won't be creating teams above $110M for the final round of the WISC.

Posted by discodemo on 9/9/2025 7:00:00 PM (view original):
I agree with d_rock.

I also believe that the 80/81 player pool isn't as bad as some people think.

I digged in deeper comparing avg salary for every position in the AL and the disparity isn't as big as I think it was going to be (although the 68/69 pitching is head & shoulders above the 80/81 which has zero elite starters). The 2 big 3B in 80/81 likely skews the data though but OF seems to be better than most.

I'm fine with continuing with the draft as is.

I also would not mind either option (non-draft high cap, keeping this draft, or a different simple draft).

I trust in the commish-cabal to untangle this from here one way or the other. Think it's safe to say that viewpoints have largely been aired and we can abide by their decision from here.

While I'm fine with whatever is decided on, just note that some of us have already done a decent amount of research under the original criteria (and I'm not just saying this because I ended up in the 68-69 division).