*** VD 12 Commentary Thread ***

[Controller Jacobs]

I'm assuming the motion to add "intangibles" as a category passed.

I've got some tables loaded from baseballdatabank (open source project taking over from Lehman). It's only thru 2017, but it includes country+state of birth and year of birth, among other things.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I dug up my old spreadsheets for the picks around the turn. I just realized that I had contemporary hitters significantly overvalued. Ten years ago there weren't nearly as many good contemporary category hitters as there are now. Somehow I managed not to pick one on the turn, although I came close (would have been my fourth choice after Van Haltren, Musial, and Nen).

[johnnya24]

I regret the Pujols pick because he's a Contemporary hitter. I'm having to pass on options because I can't afford to pick a 2nd Contemporary so soon.

You could make an argument for expanding Contemporary hitters to 4.

[Kevin Seitzer]

The good contemporary hitters make up about 5.5/15 of the draftable pool. One could argue we still need to keep the limit at 3, since they represent roughly three of the 15-ish decades of baseball history (1990s, 2000s, 2010s). There is basically no reason to have a deadball hitter limit at this point, as the good ones make up about 3/15 of the draftable pool.

The deadball pitcher limit isn't as big a deal as it used to be, either. The good ones make up about 3.5/10 or 4/10 of the draftable pool. That's getting pretty close to their historical representation in decades.

[Ken]

The good contemporary hitters make up about 5.5/15 of the draftable pool. One could argue we still need to keep the limit at 3, since they represent roughly three of the 15-ish decades of baseball history (1990s, 2000s, 2010s). There is basically no reason to have a deadball hitter limit at this point, as the good ones make up about 3/15 of the draftable pool.

The deadball pitcher limit isn't as big a deal as it used to be, either. The good ones make up about 3.5/10 or 4/10 of the draftable pool. That's getting pretty close to their historical representation in decades.

Interesting - outside of the quantity, is the quality relatively equally represented as well? In other words, while the deadball pitchers represent 35-40% of the player pool are they equally spaced or are they concentrated more near the top?

[johnnya24]

These rules are artifacts from the early days of the drafts. I'm surprised we haven't discussed revising them more over the years.

That said, the rules were designed to reflect the skewering effect that these Era player could have rather than their percentage quantity in relation to the player pool.

[hacko]

I regret the Pujols pick because he's a Contemporary hitter. I'm having to pass on options because I can't afford to pick a 2nd Contemporary so soon.

You could make an argument for expanding Contemporary hitters to 4.

I know I haven’t made some picks because they were contemporary hitters. I had them on my list but didn’t want to pull the trigger yet.

[Kevin Seitzer]

These rules are artifacts from the early days of the drafts. I'm surprised we haven't discussed revising them more over the years.

That said, the rules were designed to reflect the skewering effect that these Era player could have rather than their percentage quantity in relation to the player pool.

Well, I think with multiplicative scoring, a lot of that skewering effect is eliminated, and it's really the percentage representation of good players in those categories that remains from the effects we were trying to eliminate.

When I talk about percentage representation, I'm talking about the representation in the top 210 hitters and top 140 pitchers, for instance, although it doesn't change too much if you change the specific numbers.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Interesting - outside of the quantity, is the quality relatively equally represented as well? In other words, while the deadball pitchers represent 35-40% of the player pool are they equally spaced or are they concentrated more near the top?

You can look at the first round--the first five pitchers selected were all deadball pitchers. After that it seems to even out some. Of the next 24 pitchers selected in this draft, only five were from the deadball era. Obviously we have a limit in place which is affecting that, but basically you can see it's not that big of a deal at this point.

[johnnya24]

I'm all for opening up the player pool more. If nothing else it shakes up values.

The advent of Decades drafts eliminated the fear that the historical dimension of vintage drafting would be of overshadowed by era skewering players i.e. we'd only end up drafting modern and vintage hitters, ignoring players from other eras.

[johnnya24]

F*** ... apparently 970 Evo's were on sale 40 percent off on Amazon earlier. Not anymore. The one category of thing I was actually looking for.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Yeah, I think if we were starting fresh making rules today, we might not see the need for any deadball/contemporary player limits.

[DMT]

Yeah, I think if we were starting fresh making rules today, we might not see the need for any deadball/contemporary player limits.

Seems like a good idea for the next draft.

[heyelander]

F*** ... apparently 970 Evo's were on sale 40 percent off on Amazon earlier. Not anymore. The one category of thing I was actually looking for.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil? I'm headed out to pick some up for thanksgiving cooking in just a few minutes actually.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Evo Draft

1.02 Revo without the R