Slowest of the Slow Drafts

[Daren E]

DC 95 just finished our 10th round this afternoon at 6 days after we started. That projects out to 30 days for 50 rounds. Would that be an alltime record? Or can some other league out there top that?

[Corleone]

That is amazingly slow. How many owners would you say are responsible for the delays? Just one guy or several?

I have thought some of mine were slow but nothing close to that

[Daren E]

I'd say half are contributing. Lots of 4-6 hour picks, one even expired in the middle of the day.

[Roy's Outlaws]

That sound like being in HELL

[Pitch12]

Sounds exactly what you signed up for, which is a SLOW draft

[mattjb]

Sounds exactly what you signed up for, which is a SLOW draft

Apart from the fact that at the current pace they wouldn't finish in time for the season.

[Daren E]

We are at mid-morning in Day 7 and just starting Round 12, with 2:30 left on the clock for the current pick. I'm actually fine with a fairly slow draft, as I've been pretty busy outside of the drafting world right now. But yes, as a previous poster noted, we project right now to finish our draft on about April 7 at the current pace, a week into the season. Greg or Tom did state in one of the signup blogs for these last few drafts that they would shorten the time per pick if we were in danger of running over into the season. I think it's safe to say now that we are in danger, although I suppose they could wait a few more days to see if it picks up...

[Corleone]

Sounds exactly what you signed up for, which is a SLOW draft

I disagree with this. I signed up for 5 of these Draft Champions leagues this year and while there is a 4-8 hour clock on them, the majority of the owners make most of their picks within at most 1 hour. There is always one guy though who repeatedly goes 4, 6, 8 hours and times out.

Just because you have an 8 hour clock, you shouldn't feel justified in ignoring the draft for hours at a time and making the others wait.

Greg has a great post on these boards (he says it alot better than I do) about the intention of the Draft Champions leagues and the importance of communication and respect for your other owners. It should be mandatory reading prior to entering one of these drafts.

i would also note they took the word SLOW out of the name of the format this year.

[The Mighty Men]

Sounds exactly what you signed up for, which is a SLOW draft

This is always the lamest of the lame excuses. L-A-M-E. And it comes up all the time, like the rest of us haven't heard it 100 times previously.

[Pitch12]

Sounds exactly what you signed up for, which is a SLOW draft

This is always the lamest of the lame excuses. L-A-M-E. And it comes up all the time, like the rest of us haven't heard it 100 times previously.

Just like the rest of us haven't heard the "I'm in a slow draft and people are taking 4 hours".

Join a faster draft then. End of story

[Greg Ambrosius]

We are at mid-morning in Day 7 and just starting Round 12, with 2:30 left on the clock for the current pick. I'm actually fine with a fairly slow draft, as I've been pretty busy outside of the drafting world right now. But yes, as a previous poster noted, we project right now to finish our draft on about April 7 at the current pace, a week into the season. Greg or Tom did state in one of the signup blogs for these last few drafts that they would shorten the time per pick if we were in danger of running over into the season. I think it's safe to say now that we are in danger, although I suppose they could wait a few more days to see if it picks up...

We will definitely shorten the time between picks during the final days for any Draft Champions League that has the potential to not finish on time. Everyone can plan accordingly, but we should be averaging 2 -3 rounds of picks per day. If you can't do that, then trust me you'll be averaging a lot more than that during the final days. Good luck all.

[BK METS]

Sounds exactly what you signed up for, which is a SLOW draft

[mattjb]

We are at mid-morning in Day 7 and just starting Round 12, with 2:30 left on the clock for the current pick. I'm actually fine with a fairly slow draft, as I've been pretty busy outside of the drafting world right now. But yes, as a previous poster noted, we project right now to finish our draft on about April 7 at the current pace, a week into the season. Greg or Tom did state in one of the signup blogs for these last few drafts that they would shorten the time per pick if we were in danger of running over into the season. I think it's safe to say now that we are in danger, although I suppose they could wait a few more days to see if it picks up...

We will definitely shorten the time between picks during the final days for any Draft Champions League that has the potential to not finish on time. Everyone can plan accordingly, but we should be averaging 2 -3 rounds of picks per day. If you can't do that, then trust me you'll be averaging a lot more than that during the final days. Good luck all.

So even at the low end of your expectations (2 rounds a day) people should be picking every 48 mins to get 30 picks in 24 hours. I completely agree. The problem is the people who take 4/6/8 hours rely on everyone else to pick fast of the draft would never finish. I still think the answer is a personal 24 hour clock that turns on for you when you're on the clock. That way it can't go past 15 days.

[Daren E]

Excellent post on the 24-hour cumulative clock per person as I was just thinking about posting the exact same idea! One tweak, though, is that nobody's 24-hour clock should be running at night, say between the hours of midnight and 6am (exact hours up for negotiation). That way you can't get screwed if the guy before you repeatedly makes his pick at 1:00 am and then your clock would run down for 6 hours until you wake up and make your pick. Also, once your 24 hours are up, the default clock for your picks after that would have to be set at 5 minutes or 15 minutes per pick from there on out, or whatever number, so that you still have a chance to keep picking the rest of your team.

I wonder if the programming boys could set one of those up for next year? Or for FB this year?

[Corleone]

We are at mid-morning in Day 7 and just starting Round 12, with 2:30 left on the clock for the current pick. I'm actually fine with a fairly slow draft, as I've been pretty busy outside of the drafting world right now. But yes, as a previous poster noted, we project right now to finish our draft on about April 7 at the current pace, a week into the season. Greg or Tom did state in one of the signup blogs for these last few drafts that they would shorten the time per pick if we were in danger of running over into the season. I think it's safe to say now that we are in danger, although I suppose they could wait a few more days to see if it picks up...

How's the mood in your chat room?

In my current DC (4 hour version), the one guy who has been consistently slow was getting ripped pretty good for a while there although it has subsided recently.

It is a bit more frustrating when you join the 4 hour version which presumably would be filled with quick pickers and then run into the same issue - at least with the 4 hour clock it cuts the total amount which can be spent per pick in half.

[jwillh9181]

I have done 3 of these and my last one DC96 is the slowest ever. We banged out 3 rounds in the first night and then it has averaged 2 rounds a day, more and more owners are lagging as the draft goes on.

My guess is these DC leagues will be less popular next year due to a few owners that didn't think the commitment thru this year. I know I will most likely do just one, every league has had a few slow owner and a couple of yahoo's that act big and tough on the message boards instead of trying to communicate to help.

One onwer explained thru a league email that if everybody took as much time as another was taking it would get done in May. The slow owner had no idea and sped up. Other owners tried the cyber bulling(once again real tough over the internet) on the message board and it went no where, all it took was one helpful email from one owner to all of us.

Polite communication is the answer people and maybe some helpful tips given before you can sign up for a draft, short but sweet so owners will actually read them.

Another decent idea is to show how fast each owner is drafting, this way they could see that they are really slow compared to the other owners.

[Bronx Yankees]

I am in a really slow one right now (Round 45, we started on February 24). Mostly, it has been two really slow pickers, who refused to even acknowledge others' pleas for some consideration. They repeatedly took 4-8 hours per pick, and would never use the chat function. Frankly, when it became clear that no matter how diligent 13 teams acted we were going to suffer two interminable delays every round, most other owners became less diligent, and things slowed down even more. I've done four eight-hour drafts and two four-hour drafts this season, and pretty much have concluded that without changes I am done with the eight-hour format. Most owners are great and try to be considerate, but it seems that every draft there are at least one or two extremely slow pickers who will take the full eight hours, refuse to communicate, and otherwise suck the life out of a draft. In contrast, the two four-hour drafts that I've done were both great. Things moved quickly, folks were considerate and communicated frequently, and the level of dedication was much, much higher.

The concept I'd really like to see is personal clocks. Everyone gets 24 hours (or some other reasonable amount of time) to do their 50 picks. If they run out of time, auto pick kicks in and they have fill and manage their queue every round. With a 24-hour clock, every draft would have to conclude in 15 days or less, and no one would be disadvantaged because everyone would have the exact same amount of time. You want to take four hours to make your first round pick because you choose to completely ignore the start of the draft you just signed up for to go out for a long dinner? Fine. Now you have 20 hours for your next 49 picks. For folks who pay attention and are not afraid to use auto pick when they are going to be tied-up, 24 hours to do 50 picks should be more than sufficient (although the NFBC could start with 30 or 36 hours until folks get used to the concept). Most teams would never even come close to running out of time, but now there would be some consequences to totally blowing off a draft and 14 other owners. It would immediately become impossible for one or two owners to kill a draft, because they would run out of time and be thrown onto auto pick (which, really, should not hurt them so long as they managed their queues between turns). Maybe we'll have something like this next year.

[Corleone]

I am in a really slow one right now (Round 45, we started on February 24). Mostly, it has been two really slow pickers, who refused to even acknowledge others' pleas for some consideration. They repeatedly took 4-8 hours per pick, and would never use the chat function. Frankly, when it became clear that no matter how diligent 13 teams acted we were going to suffer two interminable delays every round, most other owners became less diligent, and things slowed down even more. I've done four eight-hour drafts and two four-hour drafts this season, and pretty much have concluded that without changes I am done with the eight-hour format. Most owners are great and try to be considerate, but it seems that every draft there are at least one or two extremely slow pickers who will take the full eight hours, refuse to communicate, and otherwise suck the life out of a draft. In contrast, the two four-hour drafts that I've done were both great. Things moved quickly, folks were considerate and communicated frequently, and the level of dedication was much, much higher.

The concept I'd really like to see is personal clocks. Everyone gets 24 hours (or some other reasonable amount of time) to do their 50 picks. If they run out of time, auto pick kicks in and they have fill and manage their queue every round. With a 24-hour clock, every draft would have to conclude in 15 days or less, and no one would be disadvantaged because everyone would have the exact same amount of time. You want to take four hours to make your first round pick because you choose to completely ignore the start of the draft you just signed up for to go out for a long dinner? Fine. Now you have 20 hours for your next 49 picks. For folks who pay attention and are not afraid to use auto pick when they are going to be tied-up, 24 hours to do 50 picks should be more than sufficient (although the NFBC could start with 30 or 36 hours until folks get used to the concept). Most teams would never even come close to running out of time, but now there would be some consequences to totally blowing off a draft and 14 other owners. It would immediately become impossible for one or two owners to kill a draft, because they would run out of time and be thrown onto auto pick (which, really, should not hurt them so long as they managed their queues between turns). Maybe we'll have something like this next year.

The personal clock idea is great I hope they can make it work.

You could also set it up where - if all the owners were in the US, don't want to screw over someone halfway across the world - during the day the time is 2 hours, at 10pm it goes to 8, back to 2 hours at 8am or something.

Maybe have multiple DC options - the standard 4 or 8 hour, the 'personal clock' version, or the 2/8 plan. People can pick which one they like based on how slow or fast they want to be or will accept from others. I'd take the personal clock version every time.

Or could do a hybrid where the first 15 rounds are a standard 2 minute per pick draft and the rest is on the 24 hour personal clock or whatever. I know I am most impatient when I'm waiting out that 7th round pick to see if my guy drops to me. Not so much in the 26th round.

[mbendar16]

I don't think the personal clocks are going to work unless everyone in a draft is in the same time zone. When exceptions, as shutting the clock off for sleep like mentioned in one of the posts above, has to be created for it to work, it seems like it's going to be difficult to me. I'll admit I'm not an IT guy, so maybe it's easier than I think.

If there is going to be a change for next season, I think the suggestion Dan (Doughboys) came up with of FAST, MEDIUM and SLOW is the way to go. STATS can definitely set this up right in the signup page and have something in the rules to explain what each one means:

FAST - Expectation for this DC format is a quick pace, typically 6-8 rounds per day but can be more. Be prepared to pick throughout the day and/or communicate to your fellow drafters in the league message chat room why you will not be able to pick.

MEDIUM - Expectation for this DC format is a slow pace during the day, picking up the pace at night when everyone is home from work. The pace of these drafts are typically 3-4 rounds per day. Communication and courtesy is expected in the league message boards when you know you won't be able to make your pick.

SLOW - Expectation for this DC format is for players to be able to take the maximum time for each pick and have a very slow pace. The pace of these drafts are 0-2 rounds per day.

My slow explanation is admittedly bad because I always try to have courtesy for my fellow drafters, so of course would need to be changed. I think I hit the FAST and MEDIUM styles pretty much to what they are. Anyway, this would accomplish a few things:

1. Would set the expectations for new players that don't understand how the clock is intended to work for these drafts.
2. Would stop the "I have 8 hours excuses". If you want that right, pick SLOW or prepare to explain why you are not following the rules. Also, if people in the SLOW really took their alloted time, leagues would take months because there wouldn't be the 10+ people to bail them out of their maximum time picks each round. My guess is there would be very few of the SLOW leagues.

Something to think about for next year as all of us are either finished or close to finishing the DC format and looking forward to our live drafts approaching quicker by the day.

[Outlaw]

From my view the different options in place work well. some tweaks for next year, sure, but the bottom line the Slow drafts far exceeded expectations this year for about 99% of the players. All the new players that have joined, increased prize money. A few slowbies out of close to 2000 individual dfaters, amazing fun and experiance for 99% of us. as for the 1%, they will probably leave each year, becuase they didnt have fun or most likely finish in the money.

[mattjb]

No need to turn the clocks off with 24 hours for everyone. very unlikely to be an issue in my opinion.

[uky]

The last one I signed up for took 5 days. I don't sign up for 4 or 8 hour drafts anymore for the above reasons. I have lost my patience over the years. Greg/Tom have done yeomans work in offering variations of a clock to accommodate the draft world. If you sign up for an 8 hour clock draft, you better understand there's a chance it could take a long time between your pick and a long time to complete the draft. There's no telling how many threads have been on these boards over the last few years with the same discussion. You have my sympathy, but sorry, that's simply the way it is.

[Stonewashedjackson]

i am in dc 79 and we are barely averaging 1.5 rounds per day. the problem has been several 8 hour runoffs. one owner did not even have anyone in his que after his 8 hour runoff and the system picked Aroid for him.
the main problem though is that the owner who got the number 1 pick constantly takes near the full hours and then since he is on the turn many times HE DOES NOT EVEN MAKE HIS NEXT PICK FOR MANY HOURS when he could have made it real soon after his last pick of the previous round.
he even came into the chat room and said he was going to take 16 hours on purpose to make his 2 picks on the turn.
tonight he made a pick and then waited like 3 or 4 hours more to take his next pick.
he has also stated he wants the draft to take a real long time and my guess is that wants to be drafting as near the season starting as possible in order to know what the situation is on all the real MLB players leading right up to the start of the season.
owners have posted in the chat room and even sent emails and he is just a smart ass so he takes even longer on purpose.
it would be real good for the NFBC if they could ban him next year from slow drafts.

[crazytown]

Great, ban him because he was playing by the rules?

[Corleone]

Great, ban him because he was playing by the rules?

Did you see the stuff about purposely taking 6 hours to draft even though he was there and also taking several hours between consecutive picks?

There is 'playing by the rules' and there is 'purposely being a D-bag' and I think we all know where this one fits.

The 8 hour clock does not mean you are entitled to take 8 hours every time. If you are sleeping, or you are overseas or you have a demanding job - understandable. But if you are purposely taking several hours 'because I have 8 hours to pick, those are the rules' then you are a D-bag and I hope to never be in a league with you.