fantasy baseball draft

so tomorrow is the big day. i've got the exact kind of fantasy baseball league that i wanted and it's with a great group of acquaintances / friends from back in d.c. who are all diehard washington nationals fans like me. yeah we're crazy like that but it'll be great in a few years.

so the league:

• 5x5 roto (rank in each category as compared to the league):


• offense: runs, homers, rbi's, stolen bases, and batting average


• pitching: wins, saves, strikeouts, era, and whip ((walks+hits) / innings pitched)


• nl-only (yeah we don't need those lazy dh teams)


• auction style draft (my first! more below)


• keeper league

many fantasy sports leagues use a serpentine draft format where everyone picks a number out of a hat and numbers 1 thru 12 select a player and then numbers 12 thru 1 select a player and back and forth it goes round by round. in an auction draft, everyone has a budget (typically $260 for 23 players - 14 position players and 9 pitchers) and you go around simply bringing a player up for auction. this way, you have access to any and every player, though you may have to pay big for them and you have to spend at least $1 on all 23 roster spots. as for the keeper league part, we've decided to make the rules that after the season, can sign up to 5 players each year to 1 to 3 year contracts for a price a bit more than you get them in the draft. risk/reward and all that jazz.

obviously, the draft has to be done in person. well, that's not totally true because there's this awesome site fantasyauctioneer.com, but they didn't want to use it. almost all of them are in northern virginia so i'm going to audio chat via skype or ichat. wish me luck!! (and no injuries this season!)