What If FCM Had A Rule 5 Draft?

[mattynokes]

I'm confused by this bit.

3. Teams must have as many open slots on the 35-Man Roster as their selections. (If they wish to make 2 selections, then can only have 38 players on the 35-Man Roster.)

Is that a typo? If it's a 35 roster why is there any mention of 38?

Yeah that's a a typo. When I initial started writing it up, it was a 40-Man Roster. The number should be 33.

For starters you kind of used a best case scenario view on this. I've been in leagues that had rule 5. I can tell you right now you will never see any specs that are worth grabbing let alone 13 picks worth. You may see a couple here and there but defentely not this many.

So this leaves us with mostly bench fodder (even that is being generous, it would more likely be guys who are AAAA types). If everyone wants to make 3 picks that's 90 picks. At a minute per pick that's an hour and a half. Now factor in scouting the file which let's say is another hour. So that's 2 and a half hours of time spent for what amounts to guys who would barley crack a bench.

And you're using a worse case scenario with 90 picks. If every team actually had 3 spots open, then there wouldn't be any talent available, so it would render that year moot. So, that's quite dense.

Certainly there wouldn't be quite as many 80+ peaks available as I had. People will make roster moves to jockey around talent. Like I mentioned in the article, a side effect could be instead if using those crappy, should be released low 70s during a rebuild, teams might opt to play those mediocre, high 70s overall, prospects instead.

I've been in leagues with Rule 5 Drafts, too. And they sucked. They didn't have them setup as streamlined and sensible as I have it. You simply cannot say, "League X did it and it didn't work well, so yours won't either." The league I was in allowed you to expose anyone you wanted. That led to most people exposing older MLB vets in order to protect more young talent. That way if you lost them, it was no big deal and probably a blessing to remove their salary.

And it doesn't have to be 3. We can limit it to 2 picks. As I showed PR, my Indians would likely have a few decent low 80s prospects left exposed. Some teams will run into instances where they've jockeyed the roster around as much as possible and still have a few decent options left exposed for others to select. With this scenario, I also would have 0 picks that I could make.

This point isn't too big but most of the time a good reason to have a rule 5 draft is because you see too many teams hoarding talent. Well even if teams are hoarding talent (which some are) it's not like we have no talent sitting in FA all year that could be signed. I'd rather see some program in excel made that could keep track of the amount of times a player is sent down and called up and oncenhe's out of option years then he's placed on waivers. I'm not sure if spreading the talent around was one of your concerns or not but I thought it was worth mentioning.

In conclusion, for the amount of more dynamics it adds to league (which is minimal at the best of times anyway even if your best case scenario came true) it's not worth the investment for 2-3 hours just to do it. You could say "well you could just pass and not do it" but I think adding something to league is only beneficial if we can have everyone or almost everyone utilizing it.

Because of the way Mogul does September call-ups work, there is no good way to chart options in league play. I think you're over dramatizing the process for this. This is actually how I would plan for it...

1. I would be able to release the Rule 5 Excel Spreadsheet within 24 hours of the FA File. (The file takes me about an hour to do)
2. Teams would have until FA Update 2 to get their additional protects in. (At least 48 hours to do)
3. Draft would be on WB night. (About another 48 hours from the final release)

Teams can actually start scouting as soon as I release the initial Rule 5 file after FA. Then if a team decides to protect a target of theirs, they can just cross them off their list. For example....

DRAFT LIST
1. SP B. Wright (CLE)
2. SP Price (CLE)
3. 2B J. Wright (CLE)

I would undoubtedly protect Basil Wright, but with how my team would look heading into the off-season, I don't know if either Price or Jason Wright would be protected or not. As soon as someone saw who I protected, they could cross them off their list. Or maybe they already sent me a list for draft night and I would be able to decipher their list.