Inaugural Draft / Salary Cap League / Rookie Draft Order

[toddstewart42]

We are in a RSO league, and are trying to figure out how to assign the rookie draft order since it is our inaugural draft. I would like to have them included in the draft so it is fair across the board, but RSO dose not give you that option.

Idea #1 Do something completely Random ( Pick out of a hat, something creative)

Idea #2 Order the Rookie draft by who has the most money left over from inaugural free agency draft.

The only people who will understand are those who are in a RSO league, so hopefully there are a few out there.

Opinions? Ideas?

[theone]

We held our rookie snake draft with randomly chosen draft order prior to the FA auction. We had a list of the top 12 rookies we agreed would not be drafted. These were included in the FA auction. Not a perfect solution but ensures top prospects are available to all.

[Goirish374]

welcome to RSO! it's a great platform and i hope you have a lot of fun there!

unfortunately, #2 will not work. the draft/FAA sequence is coded for the system as a whole, and each season except for this one you will always have FAs already on your roster, then hold a rookie draft, then a veteran FA auction. for the inaugural season this means the very first thing you do is rookie draft.

in your commish tools you should have options to either randomize the draft order or allow the commish to set it manually for the inaugural draft. the overwhelming majority of leagues just use a randomized start.

the option theone mentioned above is one that has been used before, but keep in mind the limit you have set on how many contracts of each year and how that might change if you are trying to sign undrafted rookies to long term deals in the FA Auction.

[bruiser]

Just my two cents:

I've always done a random rookie draft prior to startups. I used the Kentucky Derby to help determine random order, but it just doesn't matter... you will have some owners that complain.

More likely than not the owners that complain will finish the inaugural season very poorly, so hopefully they draw a high rookie draft slot. The teams that don't care how you determine the rookie draft order are aware that good owners will win more often regardless of where they slot in the draft.

Rookie draft order does not help bad owners. Nor does it handicap good owners. It just doesn't matter.... keep all this in mind.

[toddstewart42]

Thanks to all for their suggestions. I ended up emailing the developers and they suggested auto drafting rookies, and then manually releasing these players from their teams with commissioner powers. This will allow all players to be available for the Free Agent Auction Draft for Inaugural Year.