Greg - Clarity?

Team Herron · Post by **Team Herron** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:51 pm

Greg,

I just want to check something. In the NL Auction league, do I have any opportunity to use Aaron Boone. I have had him since the draft, and although he s signed by the Indians - he hasnt made the 25-man roster.

If he gets called up, am I allowed to start him as long as I never bench him (ala Timo Perez). Or, is he dead weight?

I have to sign Nomar tomorrow, so I am determining who to drop - thus a response is time sensitive.

Jesse

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:09 pm

Jesse, at this point Aaron Boone is worthless in the NL Auction League. He was a free agent at the time of the draft and thus you made a calculated gamble that he would eventually sign with an NL team and play the last month or so for your team. But his AL stats do not accumulate for your team since he is now available only in the AL. Whoever paid for him in the AL Auction League obviously can use him and get his stats.

Hope the clarification was quick enough and sorry for the bad news. Good luck the rest of the way.

If it makes you feel any better, I took El Duque in the NL LABR League reserve round hoping for an NL signing and of course that hasn't paid off for me either! His AL stats haven't done a thing for me in 2004.

Team Herron · Post by **Team Herron** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:46 am

No worries - we get Nomar today. A big day for us. I assumed Boone was no good for us, but my greater fear was dropping him to find out we blew it!

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 11:10 am

No problem on Nomar. You can still accumulate his stats in the NL. Losing him wouldn't be fair and would certainly throw too big of an element of luck into this contest. Once he's drafted and on a roster, you can't lose his stats just because he got traded into another league.

Players like Ugueth Urbina and Aaron Boone, who were unsigned on our Draft Day, could only accumulate stats in the league they signed with. So anyone who gambled on Urbina in our NL-only Auction League, wasn't able to accumulate his stats from the Tigers. Same with Boone now.

Hope this helps.

Liquidhippo · Post by **Liquidhippo** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:57 am

Cool, thanks for answering, i totally agree with you on that one, it would penalize owners for something they have no control of and unnecessarily increases the luck element of the equation. Any feel yet for if there will be interest in Chicago next year for an AL-only or NL-only league? I was going to do one this year but there weren't enough people who signed up for one in Chicago.....How close did Chicago come this year? I'll probably go to Chicago either way for the NFBC next year, but theres a slight chance i'd opt for New York if i had to in order to do an Auction league.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:08 am

I haven't decided on the price point for the Auction Leagues yet for baseball. Was $1,250 too high? Should we go down to $600 and award a $4,000 prize instead of charging $1,250 and giving a $7,500 first prize in the NL and $7,000 in the AL? That's something I want to discuss with everyone.

I have to believe that we'll attract more people to Chicago next year, but New York will be a better area to guarantee full leagues, I think. I believe we'll attract at least one NL and AL league next year in New York and I'd love to shoot for more. But we'll see.

Again, any thoughts on the price point for auction leagues is appreciated.

Liquidhippo · Post by **Liquidhippo** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 6:24 pm

I'll most likely be in Chicago, and i'd PROBABLY try an AL-only or NL-only league regardless of price, but the $600 entry fee would make it a no-brainer, i've never done an auction league(heck i've never 'seen' a real auction league mentioned anywhere but here), and would feel better having my first go being 'only' $600. My guess is, lowering the price would increase the number of entrants, especially from NFBC'ers who just participate in the main draft, but don't want to shell out another $1250 for the auction, but there will undoubtedly be some, especially those who ONLY participate in the auction leagues, who would prefer the higher stakes.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:41 am

Almost all of our 37 entries in the Auction Leagues last year were NFBC guys who added to their enjoyment that weekend. We did have three guys in Chicago who signed up just for the NL Auction League and took a refund when we couldn't fill that league. They didn't want to do mixed league drafts and have said they will sign up for the NL Auction League in Chicago next year again with the hope that more Cubs fans will join us.

Again, we'll look at the entry fee structure shortly and get a consensus from the group. We obviously want to add more auction leagues, yet still have a prize structure that's worth the effort.

Leaderboard Sports · Post by **Leaderboard Sports** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:03 am

This was my first auction as well and so far we're doing very well (first place) and I definitely will be in again next year and I expect there to be at least 4 auctions in Vegas next year as all the LeaderboardSports people really enjoyed the auction experience and I think curiosity will bring more and more snake drafters in a day early to try their luck at an auction.

I would prefer the $1250 leagues but the best solution might be to offer both. You could have a $1250 NL and AL league and a $600 NL and AL league with the understanding that incomplete $1250 leagues would be converted to $600 leagues in an effort to fill a league. You might end up with one $1250 NL league, Two $600 AL Leagues, and One $600 NL league or three $1250 leagues and only one $600 league. That way you can get a feel for what people want and if say Chicago has 3 people signed up for $1250 and 7 for the $600 league with 2 weeks to go just drop the 3 people down to the $600 league and make an effort to fill it.

That's what I would do anyway. As the years go by the people who get their feet wet in a $600 league would have the opportunity to move up to the bigger money leagues if they desire.

Bags · Post by **Bags** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:16 am

Greg -

Any chance of adding a Mixed-League Auction with the friday night auction leagues? I understand that it has to be a draft for the main $100,000 league on saturday but there are way more people out there than everbody thinks that play in mixed auction leagues. I think you would fill them quickly.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:07 am

Both are good suggestions. I had a handful of requests for mixed auction leagues this year and I have considered that. Certainly offering more options is a possibility in 2004. You can bet that Tom and I will be calling everyone even more at the end of this baseball season and getting your thoughts on everything.

But different levels of auction leagues is a possibility and even a mixed auction league is a possibility. We'll find a way to fill out that weekend in all three cities in 2005, that's a guarantee.

KJ Duke · Post by **KJ Duke** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 8:08 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Both are good suggestions. I had a handful of requests for mixed auction leagues this year and I have considered that. Certainly offering more options is a possibility in 2004. You can bet that Tom and I will be calling everyone even more at the end of this baseball season and getting your thoughts on everything.

But different levels of auction leagues is a possibility and even a mixed auction league is a possibility. We'll find a way to fill out that weekend in all three cities in 2005, that's a guarantee. Greg, how about a nice round number like $1000 for the acution lges?

Your niche here is high-stakes, $600 could be a bit low for some that are committed to travelling to a high stakes game and could pull others down that would have joined at $1250.

Separately, I think adding a lower high-stakes ($400-$500?) Internet auction or single league snake drafts would be a great idea.

For Internet drafts, you probably get a lot of the same players interested in drafting before they head out for the big draft (as a very realistic tune-up), as well as after they've returned home and evaluated what they could have done better. Obviously, you also bring more players into the fold that do not want or cannot travel to the live draft.

Your payout structure is very good, and I would think that you could add on these Internet drafts at a much lower cost per league and thus offer more attractive prize pools than other on-line sponsored leagues. You've already earned our trust, so you've got a great opportunity to increase your market share with this group while also building trust with an emerging group of players that may not be quite ready for the big game.