Reserve Draft is Wednesday Night!

Thanks to everyone who checked in with me regarding their preference for the scheduling of the Reserve Draft.  Wednesday night won out, narrowly.  Again, my apologies to those who will be inconvenienced by this.  It wasn't possible to perfectly accommodate everyone's schedule.  If you find yourself in a bind, may I suggest that you just send a list to the League Office.  By my calculation, there are 99 spots to be filled.  Rank that many names, and e-mail them to me as a text file attachment.  I won't open the attachment until the draft, and if you're not on the call, I'll award you the highest remaining player on your list.  Scott, you're welcome to make the first pick at any time between now and Wednesday night!

We are set for 10:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 4.  The call-in number is 800-610-4500 (toll free, obviously), and the access code is 8510192.  You should already have received an e-mail invitation from FreeConference.com with all of the details (including how to mute and unmute yourself, and so on).

Last year the call took about 35 minutes, and many teams were off the phone long before then.  In case you're wondering, the league is billed $0.10 per minute per participant.

Hopefully you've had a chance to check out the Reserve Draft Grid ... you can print it out and follow along as we crank through 99 players.  (UPDATED on 4/3/12 at 3 pm)

A small request ... Sometimes it's a little bit hard to hear on the conference call.  The League Office would appreciate it if you would state the name, team, and position of the player you're choosing when you make your pick.  Thanks.  I will get all the picks entered into the OnRoto site immediately after the draft, and then attempt to "finalize" our rosters.  I'll let you know when rosters are finalized and it's okay for you to start self-transacting.  I'll attempt to get FAAB up and running as soon as possible after that (it should be by Friday at the latest).  If you have any transactions you'd like to make effective for the Wednesday night Cardinals-Marlins game, please just e-mail me.

Thanks everyone ... talk to you Wednesday night!

Reserve Draft, etc.

The 2012 LTBNL Auction/Draft is in the books!  It was an outstanding effort on everyone's part.  It seems that, 24 years in, we all pretty much know how this thing is supposed to work.  Huge thanks to Steve for hosting, and for the coffee, doughnuts, bagels, and so on, and especially for expertly handling the LTBNL's finances.  Thanks also to Doug for a magnificent b-dubs lunch (and for punting saves).  The corporate board-room set-up seems to work perfectly for our group ... it's hard to imagine trying to do an auction at this point without the rosters being projected onto a wall.

Post-Auction rosters have been entered into the OnRoto site.  Please be sure to check out your team's roster and let the League Office know if anything seems amiss.

The Reserve Draft will take place, as usual by conference call, either Tuesday or Wednesday night.  I am sorry to say that it's impossible to perfectly accommodate everyone.  Doing it one of those nights at 10:30 pm is as good as it's going to get.  If you have a strong preference between the two nights, let me know by the end of the day on Sunday ... I'll announce the "winner" and the rest of the details for the call on Monday morning.  

Here is a handy grid showing the draft order, and all the forfeited reserve picks and the traded picks (there were a bunch of traded picks this year).  Nobody asked me to move their frozen reserve players from the bottom slots, so I left them there, at least temporarily.  You're welcome to still move your frozen players if you want, if you want to pick in different rounds, but if so, let me know ASAP.  With respect to traded picks, if a team made a trade giving up, for example, its "third-to-last" pick, or its "last-round-pick," the grid takes into account the fact that the last pick may be in the 7th round, due to frozen reserves.

All efforts will be made to enter the reserve picks right after the draft.  However,  please don't attempt to self-transact until the League Office has submitted final rosters to OnRoto.  I'll let you know when things have been finalized and you're free to transact on your own.  Note that there's an NL game on Wednesday night, so if you need any moves effective for that game, you'll need to e-mail me between now and first pitch.

Thanks everyone ... more info to follow.

Another season ...

The League to Be Named Later kicks off  season number twenty-four on Saturday, March 31.  We will convene for our annual Auction/Draft at 10 a.m. or so, at Steve Geraghty's office in Upper Arlington.  If memory serves, we drafted there in 2009 and it was a spectacular setup.

Please try to be on time so that we can vote on proposed rules changes and be finished by a reasonable hour.  For those still interested in basketball, the first national semi-final starts at 5 p.m.  If you're not planning to be present in person, please let me know so that we can arrange a Skype setup or something.

Freeze Lists will be due on Tuesday night, March 27, by midnight.  I'll enter them into the OnRoto site as soon as I can, so hopefully everyone will have everyone else's list by noon on Wednesday.  As in recent years, the Arnie Rule is in effect!  If you have any questions about the rules, call me or check the Constitution.

I propose that we again use the MLB official team sites and their "active roster" pages as our guideline for what players are eligible for the Auction.  Well, actually the "active roster" and the "non-roster invitees" pages.  Once again, we're drafting four or five days prior to Opening Day, so things may be a little difficult.  We'll have to use common sense and Internet searches, and then vote on a nominated player's eligibility if it's called into question.

I would expect we'll have proposed rules changes to vote on. The Astros' move to the other league practically necessitates that we reduce roster sizes and the cap.  There may be anti-dumping/anti-merger proposals.  KC, maybe you could draft something to address the issue we encountered last summer regarding whether it's legal to waive a player who's under a long-term contract.

Plan on holding the Reserve Draft by conference call on Wednesday night, April 4, probably at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.  If that day and time doesn't work for you, let me know as soon as you can.  You can watch the Cardinals-Marlins game as you draft!

Thanks everyone ... see you Saturday.