The web site for the project is, appropriately, 
I just wanted to point out that there is a dearth of good software or web site tools that work well for a live, in person, auction draft. I’m working on my cheat sheet tonight and am thinking about what an ideal software package would do for me. Ideally, it would contain a screen that could be projected onto a screen for the rest of my league members to see. Currently, I get the ESPN.com Draft Board and try to run it during the draft while managing my own draft, but I would LOVE it if there was a software package that would do this while letting me run my draft.
Here are some things it should probably do:
- Traditional live draft features - Pre-ranks, including dollar value, stats, any updated news, etc. should be a part of this application’s database.
- Projectable/Public Screen - A two screen application would be ideal where one screen could be projected onto a wall during the draft. It would function similar to the draft board we use now, but keep me from searching for the right sticker among all the sheets. It could also show the current player up for bidding. The second screen would be private, allowing me to manage my own draft, including budgeting, remaining cap space, and other features.
- Team Assistant - The planning tools for live, online drafts are pretty good at getting a sense of what your team is made of now. Auction drafts, on the other hand, have the whole cost and salary cap variable thrown in. So, it would be nice to know, based on your current cap limits, the best way to split up the remaining budget based on, say, your un-drafted positions and TD projections.
This is one of those, “when I have spare time projects,” but I already have three of those right now (and I’m planning for my fantasy draft instead, go figure). It would be nice to build this one. Of course, it would ideally hook into ESPN.com’s online game so that there wouldn’t be that post-draft roster entry pain, but I can help whoever add that functionality in later.
July 25th, 2005 at 6:52 am
Also as a part of the team assistant, I wouldn’t mind if it said, “you currently have 3 TEs, maybe you should draft an RB, since you onlly have 1 of those.” Not literally of course. Seriously though, what I would like would be interactive recommnedations based upon my individual team’s makeup and who is left in the pot. I know its not easy to build, but if the prerankings are done well, it shouldn’t be that hard, right?
July 25th, 2005 at 11:01 am
You should talk to Eric… he has part of this program done.
His first year, which was a year before you came into the league, he wrote a program for his laptop that basically told him what each person was worth money wise, etc…
Originally based upon the cap space of all twelve teams… then as players were selected, it would update the value of each player based on (a) available cap space of each team, (b) need, and (c) statistics of all remaining players…. or something like that.
It was intricate. I saw him using it and telling us what players “should have gone for”. I didn’t get to see it first hand because I was running the draft, but others saw it and this is what they told me, so take that as second hand information and it may be a little errant in spots.
Anyway, if you get it done… I would welcome the improvement.
As far as projection of players being bid on, could you use some form of projection system in conjunction with Powerpoint… or another applicable program?