FA Pick-Ups on ESPN

[redsoxgm]

It will not allow me to pick up anybody on the FA pool on espn.com. I am trying to pick up my two MiLB call-ups. I saw that others did this to complete trades. Am I doing something wrong?

[New York Yankees]

No..until after the draft, these moves on the ESPN site can only be done by LM management. Who are you trying to add?

[redsoxgm]

Max Scherzer and Brandon Jones

[New York Yankees]

Thanks, I will get them on your roster.

[digitals1983]

WAIT. What he gets to pick those guys up? I thought rosters were locked other than drops/ If not I would have picked one of them up long ago???

Is this true? I hope not.

[Arizona Diamondbacks]

Those two players are part of his minor league system, so he owns them. He is just calling them up to his major league squad.

The rosters are locked to make sure no free agents are picked up before the drafts, as that would pretty much ruin the point of having a draft. If anyone has any last second call-ups they'd like to make before the drafts, just make a post about it and one of the LM's will do that for you.

[digitals1983]

I see. still, hmmm.... I don't know if I like the Pro boards all that much, and the lack of control i feel because I can't move my guys, around. Not sure I'm diggin the leagues setup. No offence.

But its just too, clattered for me, and with no draft board to go from I just am lost and I won't have the time to go thru everyones rosters and get a board of whose left for the drafts. So I think I'm going to have to retire before I even get a chance to play a game with ya all. Rick I'll see you in the NL league and Tom thanks for the email with the prospect info. and I hope everyone has a good season. Sorry guys, hope you'll forgive me.

Sorry
Robert

[Arizona Diamondbacks]

I can understand feeling overwhelmed with all the information, but all it takes is a little time and research to learn things eventually. Everyone started off feeling the same way you are.

I'm not sure I get what you mean about wanting a draft board. There are so many players available that it would take someone hours to create a respectable draft board, and even then there would be dozens of players left off of it. It's much easier to simply make a big board of players that get drafted, so that each owner can check that and know what players aren't available, as opposed to what players are. The way I personally handle it, is I have a document listing all of the minor league players that are owned, all I have to do is look at that document and if a player is not on there then I know he's available. It's basically a reverse draft board. Then once we start drafting, I create a list of players I'm targeting, if/when players on my list get drafted I simply cross them out, leaving me with a list of available players that I want to draft. Basically, each person has to make their own personal draft board, I think it's much better having one that I made as opposed to a generic one made by someone else, but that's just how I feel.

I agree Proboards is a bit cluttered, but you have to remember it's just a tool we're using. Almost all of the league action will be conducted on ESPN, Proboards is just a way for us to conduct business during the offseason as well as store all our information in a public setting so that everyone in the league has access to it. It will need to be updated during the regular season, but that's about all that will be happening on it once the drafts are done.

I'd very much prefer if you stayed, but you do what you gotta do. If you feel that this league is too confusing, cluttered, or will require too much effort then you're free to leave.

[curvingfair]

Robert

I also hope you stay. You should give it a shot, because I think you'll enjoy the draft(s). ProBoards can be kind of confusing. I'm always bouncing around between "Trade" and "Transaction" threads and subthreads and getting lost. I figured it was just because I'm not the shiniest penny in the roll. Welcome to the club.

I love the fact that we don't draft from a prepared "board." Getting ready for the MiLB draft was the most fun I had this weekend (I guess they don't call me Mr. Excitement for nothing). I put together a list of all the prospects I might consider owning, then divided them into three categories -- three stars, two stars and one star, depending on how much I wanted to own them, how likely they were to be promoted within their organizations, how they would fill my future roster needs, etc. A process like that can take hours, days or weeks, depending on how thoroughly you want to research the subject. I was actually a little disappointed when I finished.

Then I went through and checked who was already owned by other teams in this league and crossed them out. I think that process took less than an hour. Then you do something kind of similar for the MLB draft, but there you do have ESPN's "board" for reference. You just need to cross-check rosters to see who is already owned.

I will admit I'm a total sports junkie, especially baseball. Basically this league comes down to how much you enjoy scouting players, minor leaguers as well as major leaguers, and crafting a real strategy for building your team into a winner. If you like scouting and strategy, I really think you should give this league a chance. If your idea of a good draft is figuring out whether you should draft HanRam or A-Rod first, this league may be too detailed for you.

Good luck whichever you do.

Peace

Peter

[LA ANGELS GM]

Robert,

You should stay, I think we are building a great league here, you should have seen things last season at this time...it is greatly improved!!

Here's my suggestion on how to make up your draft list....just print out the top 100 list from espn or somewhere for both the MiLB and MLB players...then you can pretty quickly go through an line out the ones that have been taken already...then you can easily see what's left.

As I said it is much better this season, because the guys have made it a rule to have everyone's team pages up to date...something I don't think we had last season...With the list already printed and the rosters update..it only took me about 30-45 to get my "board" ready.

[redsoxgm]

You can quickly search if a minor league player is owned by using the search feature on pro boards. All you have to do is type in the name of the player, adjust the search area to include posts from about a month back when the 09 rosters where made, and if a player doesn't show up he is available.

[New York Mets GM]

If he doesn't stay my friend who was gonna own the team before he is interested. He sent the check in email back but missed whatever deadline it was. If you want him, let me know.

[digitals1983]

Sorry guys, been looking to get back on here all day. I think I was being a little jumppy last night, however With running my own business which is a 24/7 job I have just a little amount of time to do my fantasy stuff as it is, and with the little extra it would take for this league I just don't think I'm going to have time for. I was rethinking it to see if I could find enough time to fit in the work it would take and I just cant find an extra amount of hours, for checking guys off lists and what ever else I would have to get into.

I still think its best if I let you go on without me. Thanks for trying to talk me out of leaving but after review of my rash decision I still feel it is the right one. So you can move on, and I can not worry about not having to find extra time on top of that I allready spend on my fantasy sports.

Thanks and GL Robert.

[Arizona Diamondbacks]

Alright guys, Robert is no longer with us, so we are reviewing potential replacements. Unfortunately, this may cause us to have to push the drafts back by an unknown amount of time. If we bring in a replacement in the next few days, we can't give him only 2-3 days to learn everything and then expect him to be ready for the drafts.

Davey, Rik, and I are currently discussing how to handle all of this and see who we might have lined up as a replacement. Mets, your friend is an option, but we're also going to see who else is available. Hopefully we'll have a new guy in here within the next 48 hours and then we'll go from there.