How do you determine your first round draft order (1 Viewer)

[GroveDiesel]

I'm trying to decide how I want to do my draft order in our keeper league this season. We're converting to a keeper league and I'd like to base the first round of the draft on last season's performances. I'm just not sure if I should go by regular season record or go by playoff results or what.

 

[3nOut]

Reverse order of playoff results (playoff teams) for picks 7-12. Non-playoff teams get picks 1-6 through a lottery. That way, nobody tanks games at the end to get a better pick.

 

[Islander]

We use a measure based on injuries for the previous year. The team that got screwed the most by injuries in 2005 will have the first choice of draft spot in 2006. A game missed by a first round pick hurts more than a game missed by a 10th round pick, etc.

So it's not based on performance. We don't want to reward bad teams with the first choice of draft spot, we want to somewhat offset the bad luck element of injuries.

 

[Cookiemonster]

Reverse order of playoff results (playoff teams) for picks 7-12. Non-playoff teams get picks 1-6 through a lottery. That way, nobody tanks games at the end to get a better pick.

Sounds like my favorite way:7,8,9,10,11,12,5,6,3,4,2,1

Playoff teams in bold. Effort is rewarded but non-playoff team pick first. Best non-playoff record picks first in order to prevent teams from tanking their last game or two.

 

[The Jerk]

If you're converting from a redraft to a keeper, first of all I hope you're not allowing teams to keep any players from the previous year UNLESS THE OWNERS WERE AWARE OF THAT BEFORE THE PREVIOUS DRAFT.

Second, I don't think you should use any method except pure random draw for this year. If there are no keepers, then there's really no correlation between last year and this year (as I see it). Starting with next year, you can use any of a number of systems. My favorite is a hybrid NFL/other leagues approach:

Teams can be ordered by record, total points, or a combination -- mainly, it depends on how your league rewards its owners. The champ and runner-up (i.e., most successful teams) should be the last picks. Bottom 3 or 4 teams determined by a lottery to prevent tanking late in the season.

Finally, the number of straight "NFL style" draft rounds should grow as the number of keepers increases. If you're only keeping a few players, then only a few rounds should be NFL style. If you're keeping a dozen or even more players, then the entire draft should proceed NFL style.

Above all else, try to get consensus on the approach that will be used, then clearly list it in as much detail as possible to prevent future grumbling, then stick by it as much as possible or you might as well not have a system.

 

[Capt Hook]

Similar to the first response, the picks from this year should go to the NON playoff or cashing teams from the previous season, BUT the higher they finish the better the pick - want to keep all team trying to do their best throught the season.

So, for instance in a 12 team league where 4 teams make the playoffs, the draft order for the next year would be

Pick.....Order of finish

1-1......5th

1-2......6th

1-3......7th

1-4......8th

1-5......9th

1-6......10th

1-7......11th

1-8......12th

1-9......4th

1-10....3rd

1-11....2nd

1-12....1st

 

[GregR_2]

For picks 1-6, we do a combination of order of regular season finish and consolation bracket results as follows.

We give each team 2 "points" based on their seed in the consolation bracket. So the last place team is the 6th seed and gets 12 "points". The Points are not fantasy points, just used to determine draft order.

Then teams get additional points based on their order of finish in the consolation bracket. If you win the bracket you get 8. Runnerup gets 6, followed by 4, 2, 1 and you get 0 if you come in last place in the bracket.

We total the two values and the team with the highest total gets 1st pick, next highest gets the 2nd. If you come in dead last in the league, your 12 points from your seeding guarantees you no worse than the 4th pick overall (and that you'd end up that far down would be rare). If you were the 7th place team in the regular season, the best you can do if you win the bracket is 10 points which means you could do as well as the 3rd pick overall.

Hopefully it's obvious that the goal is to give teams incentive to win every playoff game, but still give teams who totally sucked a fairly early pick. There are some downsides to it, there is still incentive to tank once eliminated from the champ bracket. (Of course, we don't allow tanking, so that's another story.)

 

[GroveDiesel]

If you're converting from a redraft to a keeper, first of all I hope you're not allowing teams to keep any players from the previous year UNLESS THE OWNERS WERE AWARE OF THAT BEFORE THE PREVIOUS DRAFT.Second, I don't think you should use any method except pure random draw for this year. If there are no keepers, then there's really no correlation between last year and this year (as I see it). Starting with next year, you can use any of a number of systems. My favorite is a hybrid NFL/other leagues approach:Teams can be ordered by record, total points, or a combination -- mainly, it depends on how your league rewards its owners. The champ and runner-up (i.e., most successful teams) should be the last picks. Bottom 3 or 4 teams determined by a lottery to prevent tanking late in the season.Finally, the number of straight "NFL style" draft rounds should grow as the number of keepers increases. If you're only keeping a few players, then only a few rounds should be NFL style. If you're keeping a dozen or even more players, then the entire draft should proceed NFL style.Above all else, try to get consensus on the approach that will be used, then clearly list it in as much detail as possible to prevent future grumbling, then stick by it as much as possible or you might as well not have a system.

Everyone already knew that it would be a keeper before the season started. I definitely covered my bases on that one. No way would I do that to everyone. I definitely understand the reasoning for randomizing the first few picks. Not sure if I need to worry about it in this league as I know that there isn't anyone in the league that would tank. Not a bad idea for protection though. I was leaning towards using the playoff results for the guys that made the playoffs though and think that I probably will go that direction. I'll have to think about how I'm doing the rest.

 

[videoguy505]

Reverse order of playoff results (playoff teams) for picks 7-12. Non-playoff teams get picks 1-6 through a lottery. That way, nobody tanks games at the end to get a better pick.

Me too. NBA-style lottery, though, not equal chance, 6 balls in the hopper for dead-last, one ball for the team that bubbled out of the playoffs. After 2 years, the dead-last team has picked 2nd and 3rd so far, not 1st yet.

 

[Yo Eleven]

What we do is allow the team with the worst record after week 13 to have the 1st pick in their draft spot, so they can choose anywhere from 1-12. This continues on with the one exception being that the league champ automatically gets the last pick in draft spots, in essence, they don't get a choice.

We enjoy letting the owners use some strategy in picking their spot, as opposed to being slotted based on their finish.

 

[The Jerk]

If you're converting from a redraft to a keeper, first of all I hope you're not allowing teams to keep any players from the previous year UNLESS THE OWNERS WERE AWARE OF THAT BEFORE THE PREVIOUS DRAFT.Second, I don't think you should use any method except pure random draw for this year. If there are no keepers, then there's really no correlation between last year and this year (as I see it). Starting with next year, you can use any of a number of systems. My favorite is a hybrid NFL/other leagues approach:Teams can be ordered by record, total points, or a combination -- mainly, it depends on how your league rewards its owners. The champ and runner-up (i.e., most successful teams) should be the last picks. Bottom 3 or 4 teams determined by a lottery to prevent tanking late in the season.Finally, the number of straight "NFL style" draft rounds should grow as the number of keepers increases. If you're only keeping a few players, then only a few rounds should be NFL style. If you're keeping a dozen or even more players, then the entire draft should proceed NFL style.Above all else, try to get consensus on the approach that will be used, then clearly list it in as much detail as possible to prevent future grumbling, then stick by it as much as possible or you might as well not have a system.

Everyone already knew that it would be a keeper before the season started. I definitely covered my bases on that one. No way would I do that to everyone. I definitely understand the reasoning for randomizing the first few picks. Not sure if I need to worry about it in this league as I know that there isn't anyone in the league that would tank. Not a bad idea for protection though. I was leaning towards using the playoff results for the guys that made the playoffs though and think that I probably will go that direction. I'll have to think about how I'm doing the rest.

I should add that if you do a lottery, make it a weighted lottery (as posted by videoguy505). How many keepers?

 

[ukshane]

Our draft order is based on end of the season rankings. There is a pretty good toilet bowl prize for the week 15 and 16 combined high score which keeps non-playoff teams from tanking.

 

[GroveDiesel]

If you're converting from a redraft to a keeper, first of all I hope you're not allowing teams to keep any players from the previous year UNLESS THE OWNERS WERE AWARE OF THAT BEFORE THE PREVIOUS DRAFT.Second, I don't think you should use any method except pure random draw for this year. If there are no keepers, then there's really no correlation between last year and this year (as I see it). Starting with next year, you can use any of a number of systems. My favorite is a hybrid NFL/other leagues approach:Teams can be ordered by record, total points, or a combination -- mainly, it depends on how your league rewards its owners. The champ and runner-up (i.e., most successful teams) should be the last picks. Bottom 3 or 4 teams determined by a lottery to prevent tanking late in the season.Finally, the number of straight "NFL style" draft rounds should grow as the number of keepers increases. If you're only keeping a few players, then only a few rounds should be NFL style. If you're keeping a dozen or even more players, then the entire draft should proceed NFL style.Above all else, try to get consensus on the approach that will be used, then clearly list it in as much detail as possible to prevent future grumbling, then stick by it as much as possible or you might as well not have a system.

Everyone already knew that it would be a keeper before the season started. I definitely covered my bases on that one. No way would I do that to everyone. I definitely understand the reasoning for randomizing the first few picks. Not sure if I need to worry about it in this league as I know that there isn't anyone in the league that would tank. Not a bad idea for protection though. I was leaning towards using the playoff results for the guys that made the playoffs though and think that I probably will go that direction. I'll have to think about how I'm doing the rest.

I should add that if you do a lottery, make it a weighted lottery (as posted by videoguy505). How many keepers?

The weighted lottery is a pretty good idea and a decent way to discourage tanking while still trying to help out the truly worst teams. We're just doing 3 keepers.

 

[Mr. Mojo]

Ours is random - draw cards from 1-10 for choice of draft spot.

Except we have a lottery as follows:

10 Place from last year - picks 3 cards and keep best one.

9th and 8th from last year - pick 2 cards and keep best one.

Everyone else - pick one card at random.

Whoever gets card #1 gets first choice of draft spot (1st - 10th).

Whoever gets card #2 gets first choice of next 9 spots available, etc.

All this does is allow a lower place finisher from last year a better chance at one of the top players.

 

[TSB_VaKnight]

I'm trying to decide how I want to do my draft order in our keeper league this season. We're converting to a keeper league and I'd like to base the first round of the draft on last season's performances. I'm just not sure if I should go by regular season record or go by playoff results or what.

Top 6 draft spots determined from regular seasons' standings, final 6 spots determined by order of play-off standings

 

[Keith R]

We use Irony.com's online dice server. Playoff teams roll 1 die, non-playoff teams roll 2 dice. Highest roll drafts 1st, 2nd highest 2nd, etc.

 

[The Jerk]

If you're converting from a redraft to a keeper, first of all I hope you're not allowing teams to keep any players from the previous year UNLESS THE OWNERS WERE AWARE OF THAT BEFORE THE PREVIOUS DRAFT.Second, I don't think you should use any method except pure random draw for this year. If there are no keepers, then there's really no correlation between last year and this year (as I see it). Starting with next year, you can use any of a number of systems. My favorite is a hybrid NFL/other leagues approach:Teams can be ordered by record, total points, or a combination -- mainly, it depends on how your league rewards its owners. The champ and runner-up (i.e., most successful teams) should be the last picks. Bottom 3 or 4 teams determined by a lottery to prevent tanking late in the season.Finally, the number of straight "NFL style" draft rounds should grow as the number of keepers increases. If you're only keeping a few players, then only a few rounds should be NFL style. If you're keeping a dozen or even more players, then the entire draft should proceed NFL style.Above all else, try to get consensus on the approach that will be used, then clearly list it in as much detail as possible to prevent future grumbling, then stick by it as much as possible or you might as well not have a system.

Everyone already knew that it would be a keeper before the season started. I definitely covered my bases on that one. No way would I do that to everyone. I definitely understand the reasoning for randomizing the first few picks. Not sure if I need to worry about it in this league as I know that there isn't anyone in the league that would tank. Not a bad idea for protection though. I was leaning towards using the playoff results for the guys that made the playoffs though and think that I probably will go that direction. I'll have to think about how I'm doing the rest.

I should add that if you do a lottery, make it a weighted lottery (as posted by videoguy505). How many keepers?

The weighted lottery is a pretty good idea and a decent way to discourage tanking while still trying to help out the truly worst teams. We're just doing 3 keepers.

With only 3 keepers, will you be having only the first round or two NFL style?If it's all NFL style, to me it strongly favors the weaker teams from the year before.If it's pure serpentine, it gives an advantage to the team with the best keepers.Obviously, there should be some advantage to the team with the best keepers, but I think that a round or two of NFL style drafting helps to offset that advantage just like the NFL draft theoretically helps the weaker teams close the gap with the stronger teams. Then it's serpentine from there on out.