Transitioning from Draft to Auction

The transition debate is what I imagine will be the most problematic. All I can say at the outset is that baseball is generally unfair, and if we develop a system that is good enough for this one time transition of a maximum of 70 players (7 keepers x 10 teams), then we'll be all set.

The first problem, though, is to decide what to do about second-year keepers. I, personally, think the "highest available pick the second time around" rule is dumb, and I wouldn't mind rescinding it for something like "his round position jumps 7 rounds the second year." This is a conversation, though, that we need to have TONIGHT. That and to decide whether we will do a draft or auction or auction/draft next year.

Luckily, the second problem—translating draft position into auction prices—can be done outside of a decision on the above problem.

Last month, I proposed taking the league budget b and breaking it down into SUM(x = 1 ; x = 25) xn, thereby using n as a sort of basepoint by which the inverted round of a player is multiplied to figure out his contract price. So a first rounder would cost 27n, a tenth rounder 18n, and so on. However, using the numbers from my head, b = $265 and the league minimum is $1. As such, I propose making n = 1. Hence, someone picked in the last round this year but kept would be under contract for the league minimum. Someone drafted in the first round would cost $27. According to BP's Player Forecast Manager, using the parameters of our league, there are only 8 players worth more than $27—and two of them are between $27 and $28, so it's a pretty good deal for first rounders. Otherwise, it's not a good deal until you start getting into the late teens / twenties, which just means that the keeper market will be scarce in transition.

So next year, seven players from each team would automatically go under contract at prices determined using the a scheme like the one above. Second year keepers would obviously have their round values augmented before it got translated into a price.