Nine seasons is impressive, and I'd say last year was one of our best, in terms of playoff drama, league involvement, and most importantly, the trade deadline. I've said it a thousand times, but I have never heard of any league that does the trade deadline better than this one, and I guarantee you haven't either. The reason we like fantasy sports is so we can feel like the GM of our own team, and nothing creates that atmosphere more than agonizingly deciding if you're a buyer or seller, stocking up on and dangling draft chips, reading the motives of your fellow GMs, and of course, the nonstop buzz of your phone in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to the trade deadline. As I said, the 2015 trade deadline was a complete success, as we saw a record 22 trades!
As we've grown accustomed to, we saw a split in buyers and sellers. The heaviest buyers were John, who has become a perennial staple in this category, myself, who made yet another inspired run to the runner up position, and Scanlon, who behaved erratically and irresponsibly with his assets throughout the deadline activities.
Less heavy buyers included Richie and Dan, who both ended up missing the playoffs by 7.5 games, Mark, who was a first round playoff bow out, and Pflanz, who clinched a bye but was one and done in the playoffs.
A couple of managers weren't on either side of the fence, to the tune of different results. Andy stayed quiet throughout the deadline, and was one and done in the playoffs despite being the #1 seed, and Perk also pretty much stood pat (although this was more of a result of losing his cell phone the weekend of the deadline), and took home the whole damn thing.
Finally, our three sellers made out very well last year in what turned out to be a seller's market. Brad picked up an additional first round pick, Greg has ensure that his whole team will be drafted by round 9, and Eric has accumulated an unprecedented amount of draft picks, including 5 first round picks, and 10 picks in the first four rounds. See below for full list of draft picks.
Before we get to the draft however, there is a lot of housekeeping to be done. First of all, the Draft Lottery. As it has been for every season of the Franchise, the 6 teams that made the playoffs will be eligible for the draft lottery. The worse you did last year, the better odds you have of the #1 pick in this year's draft. For the teams that made the playoffs, their spot in the draft is already set, either based on your playoff finish (for teams that made it to round 2 and beyond), or your regular season standings (for teams that didn't make it out of the first round). See the established draft picks as well as lottery odds below.
The lottery will happen roughly two weeks before the draft date (which hasn't been officially set. I am trying to set a draft date in stone by the end of the week. Help me out if you haven't already by letting me know when you're around and when you can skype in or whatever. For 8 years we've been able to have at least 75% of the league in physical attendance for a live draft. I definitely want to keep this tradition intact.
Finally, keepers will be due exactly one week before the draft date, but it's never too early to start thinking about. The keepers rules are the same as always, choose 4 players from last year's roster (you should have access to view on Yahoo), no restrictions on keepers (no round penalties, no positional requirements), just pick 4 guys you want to keep. The beginning of the trading season happens as soon as keepers are announced. Last year was the first time we had any real action in terms of trading keepers and draft picks prior to the draft. There were three or four draft pick trades, that was cool, I'd like to see more of that this year, and I doubt I'll be disappointed with this crew.
So start thinking about keepers, start planning your draft, start doing a rain dance for your lottery number to come in, and let me know what your schedule looks like for the draft. And for the ninth time, it's great to be back
