Need feedback about creating a new league.

[Torontos #2 Fan]

Hey guys, I'm thinking about starting a new league with some buddies and basically it will be a 25 man roster. Similar stats to my current leagues. The thing is the team we draft is the team we keep and I want it so we draft a 25 man farm team/prospect team. My issue is, what is he best approach to drafting the following years? I know we draft the following prospects but I don't think we can add more players once the league is set. I use espn. So should we have to drop a certain amount of players to draft the new prospects? Honestly I know this doesn't make sense, I guess I'm just curious how everyone S leagues run if they have a prospect team as well and what's the best way to run one. Thanks guys.

[Eskimo Brother]

Best way to run it is Fantrax. Second best way is to have someone crazy enough to keep a google doc spread sheet up to date all the time.

Otherwise have some NA slots, open each roster up to 50 normal slots for the summer, and then say that they have to be down to 45 by whatever date you want to do your prospect draft, bringing you back up to 50, and then changing the settings back to 25 players and 25 prospects.

[SuperMario]

Best way to run it is Fantrax.

This is all you need right here.

[PenguinHunter]

Fantrax is awesome for this kind of set up. You can set up as many minors as you want.

Another option that is really good for it is CBS but it is more expensive. I am in a MLB dynasty league on CBS and it is awesome for how it tracks minors and such.

[butch]

Fantrax is awesome for this kind of set up. You can set up as many minors as you want.

Another option that is really good for it is CBS but it is more expensive. I am in a MLB dynasty league on CBS and it is awesome for how it tracks minors and such.

how deep does CBS dig into listing prospects ?

[PenguinHunter]

for baseball it is really deep... not sure what their hockey platform is like.

[Jouko-Pouko]

If you're starting a new league from scratch, maybe have just 15 prospect spots to start and add 5 more spots each year for 2 years. After that, GMs will need to drop the amount of players they draft. But give them all summer long to make their cuts - just allow illegal rosters for the summertime.

And Fantrax is all I know, so I have no idea if other platforms offer similar features but they should.

[Torontos #2 Fan]

If you're starting a new league from scratch, maybe have just 15 prospect spots to start and add 5 more spots each year for 2 years. After that, GMs will need to drop the amount of players they draft. But give them all summer long to make their cuts - just allow illegal rosters for the summertime.

And Fantrax is all I know, so I have no idea if other platforms offer similar features but they should.

thats a great idea. Thank you everyone for the input. Does it cost money to use fantrax?

[scdakotart2000]

I advise Fantrax as well for prospects. I am in an ESPN league with a forum for prospects. It can get dicey and a pain to keep track of..........

[Jouko-Pouko]

thats a great idea. Thank you everyone for the input. Does it cost money to use fantrax?

You can use Fantrax for free but then it's missing some features which you may or may not need. You can then upgrade to premium if you want. I'm not sure what the cost is but I believe it's somewhere around $60 because it's usually something like $3 for each GM in the leagues I'm in. When everyone pays their part, the cost is very minimal - you can't find much cheaper hobbies anywhere.

[butch]

thats a great idea. Thank you everyone for the input. Does it cost money to use fantrax?

theres a free and pay version depending on the settings you'd need --79.99 u.s

your gm's can all pay chip in fee towards the pay version right at fantrax

[Pengwin7]

While I like Fantrax, there are other routes to using other websites - as sometimes your GM group isn't ready to switch.
For sites like Yahoo or ESPN, just create a thread called "Minor League" rosters.
Each GM types out there list of JR/Minors players and it stays there. When they add/drop/change that team, they just type it in their post.
That way, each GM can do a CTRL+(search) to check if a player is owned.

As for drafting - you have to feel that out.
I'm a big fan of partial keepers (where you are forced to drop some players every year), because I believe it promotes a league-wide push to trade.
In full dynasties, a GM can pretty much snipe guys that rise up and may not ever need to trade.
And... if he doesn't need to trade, you may see him disappear during summer with people asking "Has anybody heard from Jimmy this summer?"
In a partial keeper, GMs are forced to cut assets yearly, so having them trade maybe two players they'd cut to a rebuilding team that offers a slight upgrade can work for both teams.

In the WHL, we keep 25 of our 35 player roster (we keep 25 on PRO and 10 on JR... but may expand JR someday).
When we cut to 25 keepers:
20 are placed on PRO (of our 25 roster)
5 are placed on JR (of our 10 team JR roster)
June 30th is our cut-off date for picking those 25 players (promotes trading in June).
In mid-July we do our prospect 5-round draft.
In mid-September we do our PRO redraft 5-round draft.

So... just about every month except August is very active in our league.
If you want deeper minors systems, you can have 20 or 25 in minors and drop 5-10.
Whatever number you force drop, make that the amount of the draft.

For example, if you force a team to drop 5... have a 5 round draft.
That'll replenish numbers smoothly.

[Torontos #2 Fan]

Great idea Pen, thanks again guys for the advice.