Draft Day Nightmares

Every year I have the same, Groundhog Day-like dream night after night for approximately two weeks...and it always happens at this time of year: just prior to my annual AL-only auction. I suspect – although many of you may not admit it – that I’m not the only roto geek in the world who has dreams like this. So I share this with you today as sort of a public service. One way or another, you’ll feel much better about yourself after reading this. I figure either you’ll now know that someone else suffers as you do, or, more likely, you’ll realize that compared to my problems yours are really just a drop in the bucket.

Before I begin, however, let me take a step back. Since 1995, I’ve been in a highly competitive AL-only league in the Baltimore area. It’s been fun every year – we’ve ranged from 10 to 12 teams and we have a good group of owners who know are very knowledgeable, to say the least.

This is the league I take most seriously – I’ll generally play in two to four leagues per season – and I spend much more time preparing for this draft than any other. We’re a $260 auction league with 10-man keeper lists and 10-man minor league rosters. So you need to do your homework before heading into the auction every year or else you’ll have to endure a long, tough summer full of ridicule as your team languishes near the basement.

Anyway, back to the dream...or, I should say, nightmare. (And, yes, I realize that having dreams about a rotisserie baseball draft probably means I should seek professional help. Believe me, that’s nothing I haven’t heard before.)

So the dream always begins the same way. I show up a half-hour or so early for the auction and immediately I see a few of my fellow owners in the parking lot. It’s a warm, sunny day so we spend a few minutes just standing in the parking lot, talking about which players we each feel other owners will pay ridiculous prices for.

After a few minutes of trading what amounts to mostly misinformation, we decide to head inside. I always pick a spot in the corner of the room where I can see every other owner’s face, but no one else can see my notes.

As usual, we have a few owners who show up late, and after an hour or so of ordering drinks and waiting on the late-arrivals, we finally get started.

The first name is thrown out for bid and there are the customary ooohs and aaahs, along with the usual wisecracks about how this player is likely to get injured or that he should go for no less than $50.

In every single dream of late, I should point out, Vlad Guerrero has been the first player brought up for bid. I have Vlad on my list and I jump into the bidding at the $20 level and continue on up into the $30s before backing off.

The bidding, however, keeps on going well past the $40 mark and climbs into the $50s. Once the bidding hits $56, I hear, “Once...twice...sold.” I find it a bit odd that Guerrero sells for more than I expected him to, but I cross him off my list and we move on to the next player.

But here’s where it starts to get strange. (And, again, I realize that the whole concept is strange to begin with; so cut me a break on that...)

Each time a player comes up he always sells for a much higher price than I had forecast. I can’t force myself to overpay for players early in the draft, so I jump out of the bidding and watch as the players begin to fly by. Player after player comes and goes...and I’m not getting any of them.

Joe Mauer comes up and I become determined to finally land my first big name. After the bidding opens at $10, I jump in and try a pre-emptive surprise bid by pounding my fist on the table and yelling, “$35 FOR MAUER!!”

The commissioner repeats my bid, saying “OK...$35 for Mauer going once...going twice...”

But then I hear “$36.” I figure someone is bidding me up, so I jump over $37 and go straight to $38. But it’s no use, as I soon hear “$39...$40...$41...”

At this point a full-scale bidding war breaks out and Mauer's price jumps to $50. I figure that’s too rich for my blood, so I back off and feel secure in the knowledge that I’ll soon have control of the auction as everyone else will have over-spent way too early.

This continues for several rounds. Each time a player comes up for bid I jump into the fray but the bidding always carries on well beyond what I feel comfortable spending on that player. So I wind up dropping out.

I come close to getting Aubrey Huff for $25 but then get blindsided by another owner who suddenly bids $30. I make a run at Mariano Rivera – in fact I come within a half-second of hearing the word “sold” – before someone else jumps in and bids him up into the mid-$40s. This just goes on and on...player after player.

But for some reason, each time we do a recap of how much money each owner has left to spend, everyone else always still has plenty of money. 30 or 40 players have sold for $40 to $50 each yet somehow everyone else still has more money than I do and they have complete control of the auction.

Let me stop here and point out that I realize – in the light of day – that this makes absolutely no sense. I understand completely the idea that each time a player sells for more than he is forecast to, that means another player will sell for less than I thought. I get that.

It’s just that it never works out that way in my dream. After a few more rounds, I become the butt of nearly every joke as I still have NO PLAYERS. Everyone else has a team loaded with all-stars and I’m sitting there with an empty roster.

The dream gets fuzzier for a bit, but then near the end I select each of my players – for $1 each – as my fellow owners pack up and leave. A few stop by to console me on their way out but most of them just shake their heads and laugh, as if they’ve gotten away with some sort of hilarious crime.

As I drive home I keep trying to piece it together and figure out why I’m left with a roster full of $1 players and more than $200 in unspent draft dollars. I go over the numbers in my head again and again but I can just never figure it out.

The dream always begins and ends the same way. We always start with Johan Santana, and I always wind up completely frustrated and confused as I leave the room having left over $200 on the table. As it’s happening I know it makes no sense but I am absolutely powerless to stop it.

This has gone on now for five straight years – I just keep having this very same dream over and over in the nights leading up to my draft. It’s not something that keeps me awake or causes anything more than mild curiosity and slight annoyance...but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it keeps happening.

So as your draft approaches, I hope you sleep much more soundly than I do...and I hope you leave your “real” roto draft with not a dollar to spare.

As for me, I have a few more nights to figure out a solution to this puzzle, as my draft isn’t until March 31. That’s 14 more nights of settling in for the best day of the year – Draft Day – only to have each draft quickly dissolve into a baffling dream fit for the likes of Bill Murray.

So, again, I wish you the best of luck on draft day. But if the first player brought up at your draft is Johan Santana, you may want to spend whatever it takes to get him...just to be on the safe side.