Pace of live Main Event drafts

[kgrady]

There was a comment posted on our league's message board which alluded to the pace of our draft. Since I have also been thinking about this, I decided to open a thread on the overall boards.

As has been the case before, the pace of my main event draft this year was very sporadic. There would be a series of picks made at light speed, yet there were also instances where things slowed to a crawl. This unevenness was such that the draft never really had a desirable flow. We probably had a dozen names called of players already drafted. I was guilty of one of them.

I tend to be deliberate when my turn comes up. Most of this is out of necessity. When picks are flying fast and furious, it is very difficult to keep up. I typically use 30-45 of my seconds to pick, not because I'm weighing my options, but rather because I have a queue full of names to cross off of my spreadsheets.

Granted, if everyone uses the entire minute for each selection, the draft would take 7.5 hours, without any breaks. Nobody wants that. It seems to me though that there isn't enough consideration being taken to ensure a comfortable drafting pace. Many participants anxiously blurt out their selections as quickly as the facilitator will allow. One might conclude that half the drafters, and the facilitator, have their taxis waiting down at street level with the meter running.

Is there anything that can be done to strike an appropriate balance? The onus used to be on the facilitators, back when they were using the stickers. The best facilitators would wait until the pick was posted to the big board before prompting the next participant for his/her selection. This allowed enough time for the likes of me to update my spreadsheets while still maintaining a reasonably expeditious pace. Now that it's all computerized, the picks are posted much more swiftly.

I have a few suggestions and encourage others to chime in.

1) Roster grids are nearly impossible to read unless you're positioned close to the projector screen. This makes keeping up with a fast-paced draft that much harder.

2) Facilitators should make a conscious effort to slow down the fastest drafters. An extra five seconds between picks would save time in the long run. Everyone would be better able to maintain the pace. I wouldn't have any need to "take the air out of the ball" when it's my turn to pick, because my sheets will be caught up. I would also think there will be far fewer instances where people try to draft players that are already rostered.

3) Some of us probably should take stock in what we're doing and limit the volume of lists we're maintaining during the draft. I was definitely at fault in this regard. I tried to keep up with the overall roster grid. Several times I was about to give up on it, but then the draft hit one of its lulls and I was able to catch up. I should know better. I need to set aside my stubbornness and be practical. The manual roster grid is cool and I love to have it, but it is a low priority during the draft itself. I can always fill it in afterwards if I really want it.

Kevin

[Chest Rockwell]

Not trying to be all Gekko here... I love Mark for the record.

If I am sensing that you are taking your time and do better at a slower pace why would I not try to do the exact opposite to you especially if we are on an end together and your picks can have an even larger impact on my draft?
These people are trying to take your money not ensure an enjoyable experience for you.

Again not trying to start one with you here as much as offer an idea why they might be doing it. There are obviously limits. I am not going to talk loud next to you while you are picking or intentionally try and ruin anyones time. I would however not stop picking within a second if I thought it gave me an advantage that btw over the last few years I have really needed

[Sack]

Kevin - Many excellent points, nothing worse than waiting months for a draft and have several people
want to rush through the draft at an insane pace.

I was lucky in NYC this year in that both moved at an acceptable pace. I understand my friend Kent's
point about being on the turn and using your timing to help put pressure on another player in the draft.
However, if the facilitator doesn't take control of the draft, you as a player must step up and force his
hand. Nobody at that table should be allowed to make a verbal pick until instructed to do so by the
draft facilitator.

I also agree 100 percent on the screens. Quite frankly, they are unusable for several people at the table.
I like that the names come up directly on your Draft Board - but you need to have a device to follow the draft
in this manner. This is really true for an Auction.


Thanks Kev - good points and delivered in a fair manner to my eye.

Ken M

[Gekko]

Chest - great seeing u in NYC

[Rotofan18]

Last Saturday was my 1st Main, NYC league 3 and thought pace was ok. I used a computer to track players because I didn't want to be struggling to find players on a list. The computer had a search function making it easy to move along. I actually was a team that probably took 10 seconds or less on average to pick and only waited on the person entering names to keep up. I felt a part of my strategy was to be ready with my pick ( i had the 3) put pressure in the even number rounds on the 1 & 2 picks as they had to double up on the turn. Think in the end with breaks it took 4 hours. Not too slow not too fast imo. Good luck guys still drafting!!!.....steve

[kgrady]

Not trying to be all Gekko here... I love Mark for the record.

If I am sensing that you are taking your time and do better at a slower pace why would I not try to do the exact opposite to you especially if we are on an end together and your picks can have an even larger impact on my draft?
These people are trying to take your money not ensure an enjoyable experience for you.

Again not trying to start one with you here as much as offer an idea why they might be doing it. There are obviously limits. I am not going to talk loud next to you while you are picking or intentionally try and ruin anyones time. I would however not stop picking within a second if I thought it gave me an advantage that btw over the last few years I have really needed

CR - Your point about quick picking as a strategy is fair. I had not thought about it from that perspective. That said, my concern is slightly different. Most often I am not using my 1 minute allotment to weigh my options and make a player selection. I would guess that last Saturday I knew who I was taking 27 out of 30 rounds. I still had to slow things down just to keep my spreadsheets current. If you want to make a fast selection to limit my reaction time for making a player decision, that's fine. It's another matter when player selections come too swiftly to maintain one's lists of who has been drafted.

[jdryan]

I have done many of these by now. I don't have a problem with the pace, some go fast, some go slow.. I do have a problem with the board if sitting far away. I really miss those color stickers.. I sat at #6 on Thursday team #7 was great helping me a couple times with who was picked I just couldn't see the board far away.. the draft on Thursday pick #13 Go Mookie !!! I I could see with no problem... the Man is a great event with some really good guys so if the board is the worse thing I can deal with it but bring back those stickers!!

[Ando]

I still have a headache from looking at a fuzzy projector from 2 live drafts in Chicago last weekend.

[Chest Rockwell]

Not trying to be all Gekko here... I love Mark for the record.

If I am sensing that you are taking your time and do better at a slower pace why would I not try to do the exact opposite to you especially if we are on an end together and your picks can have an even larger impact on my draft?
These people are trying to take your money not ensure an enjoyable experience for you.

Again not trying to start one with you here as much as offer an idea why they might be doing it. There are obviously limits. I am not going to talk loud next to you while you are picking or intentionally try and ruin anyones time. I would however not stop picking within a second if I thought it gave me an advantage that btw over the last few years I have really needed

CR - Your point about quick picking as a strategy is fair. I had not thought about it from that perspective. That said, my concern is slightly different. Most often I am not using my 1 minute allotment to weigh my options and make a player selection. I would guess that last Saturday I knew who I was taking 27 out of 30 rounds. I still had to slow things down just to keep my spreadsheets current. If you want to make a fast selection to limit my reaction time for making a player decision, that's fine. It's another matter when player selections come too swiftly to maintain one's lists of who has been drafted.

I find that when I do all of the things you are doing at the table and I used to by the way... is that it is like spending too much time on administrative tasks on my job and not enough on strategy. I would ask why do you need to track everyone's team by paper. Scratching out names off your list gives you an idea of supply/demand if you are on an end and need to figure out which of two players you are more likely to sneak through you can still do that by the screen.

I wish the screen were displayed in roster grid format. For instance the top line is C where you can quickly see a visual of who has what. I realize that the screen is probably too small to display 23 spots at once though.

[Greg Ambrosius]

I have done many of these by now. I don't have a problem with the pace, some go fast, some go slow.. I do have a problem with the board if sitting far away. I really miss those color stickers.. I sat at #6 on Thursday team #7 was great helping me a couple times with who was picked I just couldn't see the board far away.. the draft on Thursday pick #13 Go Mookie !!! I I could see with no problem... the Man is a great event with some really good guys so if the board is the worse thing I can deal with it but bring back those stickers!!

Sorry Jody, we are NEVER going back to stickers. It's not because I'm a hip, techno guy, but I'm sure you'll understand my reasoning once I address some of the concerns here.

About three years back the New York Hilton rejected our shipment of draft boards and a day before the draft we had no boards for the live drafts. We had to scramble to find new boards to save the New York drafts and at the end of the day it all worked out. But at that moment I realized that our events were beholden to cardboard boxes and colored stickers. Without them, my live drafts were dead. At that moment I decided we could do better than that and we would.

The technology isn't the problem here, that's for sure. In fact, the software works fine. The picks are entered within seconds, everyone's team is loaded upon each pick and the draft board looks clean with no confusion on who was picked. With the big sticker of the player going on the board with a photo you no longer hear "who was picked?" over and over. The auction boards now have the price of the winning bids next to each player and it keeps track of everyone's remaining budget and max bid. We don't need to do money checks during auctions. The entire thing is saving auctions 30-60 minutes when done right.

Now, can everyone see the 110" screen with those picks? Not perfectly. Could they see them perfectly with the stickers? Maybe. But it's how we present these picks that have the "cause and effect" you're talking about. For example:

Buying 10-12 projectors to cover all cities at once was a big initial cost. We didn't initially buy HD projectors and the first year was rough on the eyes. We bought all new projectors two years ago and added more this past year. The technology just keeps getting better and better and if we buy the best projectors you will see marked improvement. Again, this is on us to keep upgrading the projectors so that everyone can see the picks perfectly.

As for the teams in the back not seeing the screen or even the old cardboard stickers, it's obviously a matter of how the room is set up. We give everyone two spots at the draft table, which means that the back row is 25-28 feet away from the screen. It doesn't matter how you present the draft picks, that's a long ways away. We could reduce that in half by not allowing co-managers at the table and making them sit behind you, but that wouldn't be a good experience. You could see the draft board better because you're closer, but is that what we want?

Here's one solution: I'm now seeing about half of the live drafters bringing an iPad or some type of tablet with them to the draft. They call up the draft board on their team page and can clearly see every single pick right in front of them no matter where they sit. Look around this weekend in Las Vegas and let me know how many people are doing this. I'd say 7-8 per league. Good idea for everyone going forward.

As for the pace, the facilitator has less to do with that today than ever before. In the past with the stickers, it could take anywhere from 15-45 seconds for someone to find those stupid things. At that point the facilitator arbitrarily put the next owner on the clock or waited until the sticker was on the board. With today's setup, the facilitator has the pick on the board in 5 seconds every time. It's amazing how quickly we can do this now. The next team is on the clock before the facilitator knows it most times. YOU FOLKS control the pace of the draft, not us. As Kent said, some people pick quickly to throw others off and some people take the full minute to slow it down. That's everyone's prerogative. We certainly aren't advocating fast drafts; we're here no matter how long it takes.

And if we want to stroll down memory lane, here's some old thoughts: We held drafts two weeks before Opening Day from 2004-09 because we had to physically take the draft boards back to Iola with us and type in every player from every team from every league. It took us a full week and then some to do that. We moved within one week of Opening Day in 2010, but Tom and I had to go upstairs after the live drafts and type these in. This was insane and it was filled with rosters with wrong players. What we are doing today is light years ahead of the process we had before.

Sure, some people still miss the old draft boards. People loved to look at previous drafts that way, but as I've said before we never liked people on Saturday looking at the drafts of top players from the last two days and scouting their picks. That was never the intention. We tried to put those boards to the side out of view but they soon became magnets for players. I didn't like that and it wasn't fair to those owners who drafted earlier, but it was what it was. Now I don't mind if everyone looks at the Main boards from that day, but not having yesterday's boards lying around seems fairer to all involved.

I hope this makes sense. The live drafts and auctions are UNBELIEVABLE. And they just keep getting better. You folks control everything. It's our job to improve on the experience with better HD projectors and improved technology, but damn we're so far ahead of where we used to be. Bring more technology with you and the experience can be even better. That's where we're headed folks, not back to cardboard draft boards and stickers.

[kgrady]

[\quote] I find that when I do all of the things you are doing at the table and I used to by the way... is that it is like spending too much time on administrative tasks on my job and not enough on strategy. I would ask why do you need to track everyone's team by paper. Scratching out names off your list gives you an idea of supply/demand if you are on an end and need to figure out which of two players you are more likely to sneak through you can still do that by the screen.[/quote]

Yes, I have decided that going forward I will scrap the roster grid. My position-by-position spreadsheets and combined rankings are challenging enough to maintain.

Regarding Greg's post ... I understand that the stickers system is obsolete. It makes perfect sense to key enter the players as they are selected. It's a practical savings in time and cost. I was merely observing that the screens are difficult to read and that this contributes to the sporadic pacing of some drafts.

Kevin

[Tom Kessenich]

I was merely observing that the screens are difficult to read and that this contributes to the sporadic pacing of some drafts.

Kevin

We definitely want to keep improving the clarity of the imaging that is provided and hopefully the technology continues to improve in that regard. We didn't have any 12-team leagues in NY this year but I will say that in football the clarity of the screens for the 12-team leagues is striking. It doesn't matter where you're sitting, you can see the names on the screen easily. But with 15 teams it does become a little more difficult trying to fit all of that onto the screen, especially in 30 rounds. But we'll keep working at it.

[jdryan]

I hear ya, again if the board is the worst thing of the week I can deal with it ... The Ipad is a good Idea and used that on Sat
now if you give me better draft slots KDS don't like me... I will forget the board You guys do a great job so Thank You keep my summers going...

[CALI CARTEL]

The number of draft sheets does reach epidemic proportions for some people. My sheet might be a little too small for some people to read, but I have a two page draft list (one hitters, one pitchers) with over 600 players on it. Even if you blew it up to 3-4 pages so that some of the more visually challenged could read it (I'm sure I'll be there eventually), it would still be a vast improvement over some of the drafters out there that have to file through a dozen or more sheets of paper on every pick, to not only find who they want, but to cross off who others have taken.

There's absolutely no reason you can't have one sheet with Infielders, one sheet with Outfielders, one sheet with Catchers & Utilities, one with Starting Pitchers and one with Relievers -- 5 sheets max, and even that I think is pushing the limit a little too far.

[Greg Ambrosius]

I hear ya, again if the board is the worst thing of the week I can deal with it ... The Ipad is a good Idea and used that on Sat
now if you give me better draft slots KDS don't like me... I will forget the board You guys do a great job so Thank You keep my summers going...

It's not the KDS that doesn't like you!! It's the random selection part of the computer that is screwing you. You're getting pulled late in each league where KDS can't help you much. But we'll keep trying.

[kgrady]

The number of draft sheets does reach epidemic proportions for some people. ... There's absolutely no reason you can't have one sheet with Infielders, one sheet with Outfielders, one sheet with Catchers & Utilities, one with Starting Pitchers and one with Relievers -- 5 sheets max, and even that I think is pushing the limit a little too far.

It depends upon what information one wants to have for the draft. I have separate sheets by position which contain projections. It's all ordered so I know right where to find everything. When the pace is expeditious, yet sane, keeping up is no problem.

By no means am I suggesting this is the "right" way to do things. It works for me, plus I'm always looking for ways to improve upon my approach.

It is true though that if you have too much information or are disorganized, this can be very detrimental. It can lead to mass confusion.

Kevin

[mattjb]

I would have a 2nd page of the draft board that it automatically turns to every 10-15 seconds or so that just shows the current round or last 15 picks.