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XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 9:19 am
by Greg Ambrosius
I am in the Xperts Fantasy League (XFL), along with 14 other industry writers/personalities, which is the industry's premiere Keeper League. It was started by Ron Shandler at the Arizona Fall League Symposium and is about 14 years old now. It's a fun league as you can keep 15 players from year to year along with their salary bumped up by $5 or $3 each year.

We have our early draft in November and then a supplemental draft in March before Opening Day. This year we agreed that holding the supplemental draft of 17 minor-leaguers/free agents didn't make sense since we didn't know when Opening Day would be. It made sense to hold it closer to the new Opening Day, and if baseball is cancelled altogether, to not hold it at all this year.

But Ron and several of our other antsy owners needed a draft fix, so they decided to create a retro league and to hold a 12-round draft knowing the finished stats from that season. They chose 1982 and 12 owners held an online/Zoom draft with Dean Peterson representing our NFBC team. I was knee deep in trying to preserve our NFBC leagues to concentrate on 1982, but I'm glad Dean (my old STATS buddy) represented us.

Ron writes about the draft and the first round on ESPN.com today, and it's very interesting:

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/baseball/s ... many-bases

This retro draft has my mind racing about the possibilities during this down time. The beauty of a retro draft is that the standings are completed as soon as the draft is completed, so there's instant gratification. You also likely can see how you are faring during the draft with the right software, so you have a chance to correct your mistakes in real-time. It's an interesting concept: Kind of like taking a test with several other people and everyone has the answers. Even though you know all of the final stats, you still would have to build the best, most balanced roster to win it all.

Imagine if we held a 15-team 2019 NFBC draft today with all participants knowing the final stats of each player. Would you find that interesting to try and compete against other owners to build the perfect 23-man roster? Could you do multiple drafts and build rosters differently to win the league titles? I think it really is interesting and if 2020 doesn't return it may be our only game for the time being!! :cry:

Anyway, we have enough old-time veterans who may have some thoughts on this concept. I'm not sure we could even do something like this easily, but it's obviously doable if needed. Just something to consider. Thoughts?

Retro drafts. Interesting. ;)

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 10:13 am
by gellin
I'd be interested in doing this but I'd want it to be a slow draft and I'd prefer the pool of draftable players are from a period longer than one year. There is another thread about this in the forums under the topic "All time leagues."

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 10:39 am
by mdecav
This basically becomes an optimization problem. It’s just who can solve it best.

I’d have interest.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 11:00 am
by Greg Ambrosius
mdecav wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 10:39 am
This basically becomes an optimization problem. It’s just who can solve it best.

I’d have interest.
Yeah, like Ron said about the 1982 draft, it's really knowing the player pool, the category strengths/weaknesses, position strengths/weaknesses and managing all of that knowing what the final stats are.

I thought the Rickey Henderson analysis was spot on. I didn't dive into the stats, but I saw the early draft results and had no idea why Henderson went 5th. Without any studying, in my mind he seemed like the obvious No. 1 pick. But I didn't realize Stolen Bases were so plentiful that year, so he had less value than Robin Yount, who dominated at shortstop and still put up solid 5-category numbers.

It's just another puzzle to solve and in a different way. And likely with 12 or 15 guys who also think they can solve the same puzzle better and faster. Intriguing, for sure.

We have past stats, but I haven't talked with anyone about creating software for this. It's interesting though and I'm going to see what it would take to make this happen. Keep the comments coming.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 4:03 pm
by Gekko
I’d be interested in Express draft, and I’d also be in the winner’s circle.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 6:45 am
by gellin
Here are the rules used for a 2011 All Time Draft from the "All time leagues" forum thread (I don't think the 1500 innings minimum is necessary if you require 7 starting pitchers):

You can draft any player who played in the AL or NL starting from 1901 to present (no Federal League players). We are using a 20 game minimum in season for the batting positions. If a player qualifies at multiple positions, you can move them around during the draft until you fill your roster.

For pitching, we are using two relief slots on the roster. A pitcher needs to have 30 relief appearance to qualify as a reliever.

Format:

This is a standard 15 team Roto league. Each team will be drafting 23 players [14 hitters – 2 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 SS, 1 CO (1st or 3rd), 1 MI (2nd or SS), 5 OF, and 1 utility (any batter) and 9 pitchers (1500 innings minimum and 2 required relief pitchers)]. There are 10 categories – five hitting (BA, R, HR, RBI, and SB) and five pitching (W, ERA, WHIP, K’s, and SVs). Each team will be ranked in each category from 1st to last. The top team will receive 15 points and the lowest will receive 1 point. Teams will split points if they are tied in a category. BA, ERA and whip will go to the furthest decimal point to break ties.

If an owner drafts a player in the early years and he has pitching and hitting stats, he will only get the stats for the position he decides to use him at. A hitter will receive no pitching stats and pitching will receive no hitting stats.

If a team fails to get enough innings, he will receive one point for all pitching categories with no other team gaining any points. If a team selects a starting pitcher when he has only two relief slots left, he must make another selection.

This league will have running standings with the exception of rounds 5, 10, 15, and 23. In those rounds, we will be using a neutral party for our selection and the year of stats we are using. In each round a player will declare the player they select plus the year they want to use their stats.

We will be using Baseball-Reference.com for our stats. Their stats right or wrong will be our guideline.

This is a slow draft with a 24 hour clock. If a team is timed out, it will go to the next pick. After that player makes his pick, it will go back to the previous team and he will have two hours to make his pick.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 10:17 am
by ToddZ
We're doing 1990 Monday night, starting at either 7 or 8 PM ET. The draft tracker/standings/roster sheet is publicly viewable

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I'll verify the time when we firm it up.

The group also hangs out in a Zoom room during the festivities, which for me is more fun than the actual draft, getting to chat with some friends.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 11:13 am
by mdecav
ToddZ wrote:
Sat May 02, 2020 10:17 am
We're doing 1990 Monday night, starting at either 7 or 8 PM ET. The draft tracker/standings/roster sheet is publicly viewable

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I'll verify the time when we firm it up.

The group also hangs out in a Zoom room during the festivities, which for me is more fun than the actual draft, getting to chat with some friends.
Is there a SP/RP max or limit?

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 12:48 pm
by ToddZ
No, not yet. No one tried to exploit that, though it could have been more a function of the particular pool than not thinking to conjure a plan. Most of the top relievers of the era tossed a lot more innings than nowadays, so even those focusing less on W/K totaled over 1000. Most had around 1500-1700.

I should add AB and IP to the Google Sheet.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 2:31 pm
by mdecav
ToddZ wrote:
Sat May 02, 2020 12:48 pm
No, not yet. No one tried to exploit that, though it could have been more a function of the particular pool than not thinking to conjure a plan. Most of the top relievers of the era tossed a lot more innings than nowadays, so even those focusing less on W/K totaled over 1000. Most had around 1500-1700.

I should add AB and IP to the Google Sheet.
How did position eligibility work? Johnny Bench only played 1 game at catcher in 1982.

Re: XFL Hosts 1982 Retro Draft - Interesting Concept

Posted: Sat May 02, 2020 5:25 pm
by ToddZ
I didn't set the eligibility so I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was the default from mlb.com, where we got the stats. It was decided everyone would be eligible at just one spot, keeping in mind the purpose was as much 12 guys getting together for a few hours as it was the draft itself. We did it in lieu of our usual monthly supplemental draft and it went over so well, we're looking at every other week, possibly hosting two simultaneously as others are expressing interest after seeing/reading about it.