New teams lottery for 2012

[Saxmania]

3 new teams to be distributed - the Ubaldo Beavers, Dirty Sanchez, and the Romanian Yankees. (All names can be changed!)

3 new owners - Cabrera!, dgreco, and Black Sabbathia. Can you all please post here - or get someone to post for you - to confirm that you're willing to play? The cost will be $10 this year per team.

Each new owner will randomly get one of the teams listed above. You can see the full rosters on this thread: http://forums.nyyfans.com/showthread...-2011-Round-up.

You will have a choice - you can retain the roster, including expanding up to 2 players on expiring contracts for 1 year each at the current salary, or you can dump the whole roster in a firesale and clear out your entire payroll. (If you keep the roster, you can dump individual players, but will have to pay 50% of their contract after you release them - if you have a firesale, you pay nothing, but everything's gotta go - prospects too, I think!)

I'll allocate teams via random choice generated from http://www.random.org/randomness/ as soon as all 3 new team owners have confirmed that they're good to go for this year. Then you'll be able to start planning who you want to extend, dump, trade, or gracefully release for next year . . .

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[Costanza]

Cabrera! is in.

[Costanza]

Where do we send the moola.

[Saxmania]

It'll be a Paypal payment when GDR comes back online for the 2012 season (there's always a tiny risk they won't be back for the new season, in which case your payments would have to be returned, so I prefer to wait until then).

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[Go Buccos]

The GDR site says that the baseball league is "back in season" for 2012. You may want to check it out Saxmania....I don't mean to be pushy, but I've been waiting, rather impatiently, for the league to be up and running again lol.

[Big_E]

Say's it's in-season. But it's showing 2011. I see no announcement for 2012.

[Costanza]

I have heard it will be up and running sometime this week.

[Saxmania]

I've sent chasing PMs to the other two new owners. Will create the new league as soon as GDR allows!

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[Black Sabbathia]

I think I'm down, but I have a few questions

1. Is there a cash prize for the winner, or is the money going to administrative costs?
2. Can 'NX' players be extended for us new owners, or are they totally off limits?
3. Is there a full list of the 'NX' players who will be available? Coming into this totally blind it's a little hard to get a grasp of the relative value of players and teams without spending hours analyzing the existing teams and pool of available players

[Saxmania]

I think I'm down, but I have a few questions

1. Is there a cash prize for the winner, or is the money going to administrative costs?
2. Can 'NX' players be extended for us new owners, or are they totally off limits?
3. Is there a full list of the 'NX' players who will be available? Coming into this totally blind it's a little hard to get a grasp of the relative value of players and teams without spending hours analyzing the existing teams and pool of available players

1. No cash prize at the moment, but as the whole thing cost $79.95 last year, if it stays the same, I'm happy to collect $10 from everyone and dish out $20 as a prize. Not sure if it's really worth doing, though.

2. No-one gets to extend 'NX' players, returning or new owners. That's hard-coded. But you can always sign them again during free agent bidding; you just have to release them for everyone to bid on. (I'm not sure why new owners should get an advantage over returning owners here, or have I misunderstood?)

EDIT - Remember, if you don't like the team you get, you can always dump the whole thing in a Firesale and start out fresh, so don't worry too much if you don't get a roster you're very happy with!

3. Best thing to do is go to the 2011 round-up thread and have a look; all the 'NX' players are denoted as such. Because they were signed mid-season, their salaries would be somewhat reduced by the lack of competition for their services, though, so I would guess that during bidding their prices might rise by 1.5-2x their NX contract. There'll also be plenty of other free agents who were never signed in 2011, though - it'll be easier to see when the site is back up for 2012.

If you follow WAR, my rough guideline is $2.5m/WAR in this league - so an ace pitcher might get $15m or so, but a steady regular might get $5-6m or so. As ever, bargain shopping is the key. Also, relievers are somewhat overvalued because their points-scoring regime is adjusted to bring it in line with starters, but you only need 2-3 bullpen slots, so it's not that bad.

If you don't use WAR - $15m is Cy Young/MVP territory, $7-12m is All-Star, $3-7m is useful regular, below that is usually a prospect, a roll of the dice, or an out-and-out bargain. That's my personal guideline.

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[Go Buccos]

I would add that it's best to keep some cap room available once the FAB is finished. Chances are pretty good that there will be a position or two that you're either not happy with the performance of the current player or find yourself in an injury situation and need to pick up a replacement. Keep in mind also that the contract demands for FAs will go down as the season progresses (after a while they just want anyone to pick them up). Once we get up and running, take advantage of the tools available through the assistant GM feature to gauge where your roster stands. It can help you determine whether you need to pick up just a couple pieces or if you need to go into full out firesale mode.

[Black Sabbathia]

Thanks for the response to my questions. I'm definitely in, this sounds fun and challenging. Can't wait to see which team I end up with!

[Go Buccos]

Excellent! It is definitely both fun and challenging. Last year was my first season in the GDR format, it took a little getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, it was easily the most enjoyable league I've been a part of. Welcome to the league, and best of luck this season!

[Go Buccos]

Just curious, but did anyone else receive a number of emails stating that the league FAB had been pushed back by a few days? I got four this evening, with the last one saying that the FAB had been moved to March 28th. Just wondering if anyone knows what's going on.

[Big_E]

Yeah got the same thing.

They are getting ready to launch soon.

[Big_E]

From: ME
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 1:17 PM
To: support@gamedayritual.com
Subject: GDR 2012

Is Game Day Ritual Baseball coming back for 2012?

Yahoo and CBS Sports (Sportsline) are already active.

Thanks

Eric

*****************************

Hey Eric,

Yep – we’re migrating server to improve performance and to facilitate new features.
We should be open very soon.

Scott
www.gamedayritual.com

[Saxmania]

Yeah, I logged in yesterday to try to see if I can pay the fee or change any options (such as the FAB date!), but no dice, so it's still not activated.

Still need 'dgreco' to check in. I've PM'd him once; I'll try to track him down over the next few days.

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[Costanza]

Cabrera! would like to know if he has a team (Ubaldo Beavers?).

[Saxmania]

We'll do the lottery when all 3 owners have checked in - we need 'dgreco' to say hello. He hasn't posted here since last year, so if I don't hear from him by the end of the week, we may need a new owner.

Just checking - Cabrera! is Go Buccos? I assumed so, but now I'm confused again . . .

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[Go Buccos]

Haha, Go Buccos is the owner of the league champion Dead Man, Inc franchise. If I remember correctly, Cabrera! is actually a Tribe fan (correct me if I'm wrong Costanza).

[Costanza]

Yeah, for some reason Cabrera! registered for NYYFans.com and then was blocked the following day without a single post. I asked Go Buccos and Cabrera! to register simply for the ease of communications for GameDayRitual.com. They mean no harm. As soon as GameDay is up and running, Cabrera! will register for GameDay and send you his portion of the money. Cabrera! is one of the new teams, Go Buccos! is defending league camp Dead Man, Inc.

[Saxmania]

Oops - got it! Forgot that Dead Man, Inc. wasn't registered here before . . . thanks for clarifying, you two!

Be seeing you,

Saxmania

[rodg12]

Yeah, for some reason Cabrera! registered for NYYFans.com and then was blocked the following day without a single post. I asked Go Buccos and Cabrera! to register simply for the ease of communications for GameDayRitual.com. They mean no harm. As soon as GameDay is up and running, Cabrera! will register for GameDay and send you his portion of the money. Cabrera! is one of the new teams, Go Buccos! is defending league camp Dead Man, Inc.

Have him try registering a username without the '!.' It's possible the forum software doesn't like that character in the username.

[Go Buccos]

I can't login to GDR, but it looks like they're accepting signups for baseball. Sax, are you able to login and verify?

[Saxmania]

Looks good - I'll need to log in from home, as my personal connection at work is shockingly poor. Should be signed up in the next 6 hours or so!

Be seeing you,

Saxmania