I Choose You!

Draft day yesterday for the baseball league I'm in. We found ourselves in the fortunate position of not actually having to draft anyone as pretty much everyone from last year's team (as well as some players that took a year off) was coming back. That said, the preparation for the event was not diminished. Let me walk you through the process of my role as GM in preparing for, and executing in the draft.

Three tryouts were held over the past month. Through each, members of my team and I jotted down notes on the players evaluating them on their fielding, hitting, and pitching. It's not as cut and dry as it sounds because this being an adult league many people may not have played for years and that has to be taken into account. So while maybe you don't take a lot of stock into the accuracy or strength from a throw, you can evaluate the player's footwork and throwing motion. Example of some hastily written notes:

No time for neat handwriting when you have to be watching the field.

I then compile everyone's notes and observations and craft up a spreadsheet with all the players I think will still be available when my division drafts (we're the last to go). E-mails are generally thrown around at this point, but because we are drafting maybe one (or none) this year not much electronic traffic was generated.

What a world we would be in without Excel...

My team is the fourth to draft. At this point we have decided to take one of my player's friend with our first and only pick. With a little snooping I'm glad to see that none of the teams drafting before me intend to pick the player with their first pick meaning he will still be there when I go.

Shady under the table agreements are made outside in the lobby before the draft.

Armed with that information, I go into the draft room knowing this will be a cakewalk this year. The past two years I had to draft eight plus players. It got so desperate last year that other team's GMs were handing me their draft sheets so I could get as much information as I could on the remaining player pool (everyone else was done drafting at that point).

In the War Room.

The draft then commences and we go through and pick players until our rosters hold at least the minimum of fifteen players. I was also involved in a trade where we gave up one of our players for a scrimmage game provided by the other team.

The draft board. Very high tech.

The best story of the day: Tryout players are invited to attend the draft to see the process in action and meet their GM's right then and there. Not many players exercise this option, but you can see one glaring problem with this -- what if they player doesn't get drafted? Phil, the GM of the Nuts, was stuck between drafting two players. Rather than consult notes or ask other GMs for their opinion, in an unprecedented move he busted out a dime and went heads or tails. The players pictures were up on the screen and I couldn't help but think that I recognized one of the people... then it hit me. I had saw him before going into the draft room. I turned around and there he was, standing at the doorway with his girlfriend. He was watching whether he would play baseball this season being determined by a coin flip. I guess it's lucky he won out, but I'm sure a few words will be exchanged before the season begins.

So there it is! My roster is set for the upcoming season and we're looking to bounce back from a down year. With the return of pretty much the same roster that led the league in batting average, we're hoping for great things this year as we work on improving the other aspects of our game.