Before we get going, did anyone tell Jeff Luhnow that the jersey budget doesn't come out of payroll? No? Well, they're stuck with them now.
When we last visited Slaughtergarde, a series of nonsense stats and impossible roster rules had been made and we were waiting to draft. Drunk with my power as Commissioner, I strongly considered an auction draft where everyone had a $200,000,000 budget. But with 36 teams and 12 roster spots on each, that would have taken all weekend. So we chose a regular live draft with a five second time limit. Rob Pettapiece rightly pointed out that even our draft mechanics discouraged good decision making. But it would also give us a draft that only took about an hour.
Seeing as how I am intentionally trying to cause chaos, I was awfully surprised when chaos ensued.
The first couple of rounds went smoothly, with about half of our teams drafting live and the other half relying on their pre-rankings and/or dumb luck -- a completely valid strategy in our league, where no one has figured out how the Potions count works. I'm not sure I understand it myself.
Veteran Bauxite Matthew E showed he had done research by selecting Kyle Lohse in the first round, fourth overall. An exceedingly well-rounded pitcher in Slaughtergarde, Lohse's only real deficit is his Moustache Quality (ranked 530th in MLB in 2012).
Other first round notables: Annie tipped her hand to her draft strategy for The Magic Mikes by drafting Mike Napoli. Enrique surprised with the selection of Wandy Rodriguez. And David Ortiz went to the delightfully-named Chicken Pox Prospects.
The second round went by without incident. 72 picks in, we had taken about six minutes. And then all hell broke loose. In the third round, teams that were not present began to make their selections instantly instead of counting down their five seconds. Owners like yours truly near the back half of the snake would make a selection and then immediately hear "You're on deck -- you're on the clock! Time up!" while a dozen players had dropped off of the availability list. We were making terrible selections while a computer voice shouted at us and flashed the names of the literally hundreds of players that were being automatically drafted all around us. I accidentally drafted Vernon Wells for a roster spot I knew needed a player who had a moustache. He wasn't even on my screen when I was getting ready to click. Some managers gave up and hit the Autopilot button, which made things even worse.
In the end, our league took just over eight minutes to draft 432 players. And as we sat there, stunned, asking each other in the chat room what the hell just happened, the CBS Sports website stopped responding.
That's right, our draft crashed CBS Sports. I don't know how proud I should be about that, but I know how proud I am.
As the Dungeon Master of Slaughtergarde, I'd like to call out a few owners for their exceptional drafting:
Bauxite, Pro Dodgeballer and Economist Mike Moffatt gets the Impossibility Award for drafting not one but two players with negative numbers for Willpower, which is a counting stat.
The award for Best Stunt Draft goes to Annie Graham's Magic Mikes, whose roster satisfies all of Slaughtergarde's Byzantine construction rules while containing Mikes Moustakas, Aviles, Napoli, McKenry, Carp, Olt, Fiers, Leake, Adams, Gonzalez, Pelfrey and Dunn. That was no easy feat: witness the attached screenshot of roster warnings.
And finally, the Instant Regret award goes to Rob Pettapiece, for dropping Raul Ibanez less than thirty minutes after drafting him.
See you next week, after we've played some games.
