The Inaugural Draft

So, the inaugural draft of the SDMB OOTP league was held on Zev's computer on December 15, 2002--almost 18 OOTP seasons ago and nine years ago in the real world. Being the curious sort that I am, I wanted to know who got the most value from the draft. I won't bore anyone with the details of how I got the data. Let's just say it wasn't easy.

But there is one problem with going back to the beginning worth mentioning. I don't have an almanac for the first year, 2002. So, it's difficult to find out what players did that year. If they were still in the game in 2007, I have player pages that have all of their stats going back to 2002. But, there are no player pages for 2002-06. So, if a player left the game before 2007, there's no way to get their 2002 stats. I don't have any team pages for that year because there's no almanac. I don't have any player pages because they left the league before the first set in 2007. In short, I'm stuck. Luckily, it's only 25 players that have this problem, and then only for 2002. (Well, there are three player-seasons after 2003 where I lack data, but those are special cases and really don't change the big picture very much.)

And, where I have been able to reconstruct 2002 player data, I don't have 2002 team or league data. That means it's hard to calculate 2002 VORP figures, because I don't have the league environment to compare it to. In the end, I just used the league figures from 2003 to form the environment, ran the calculations for the 2002 player-seasons, and called it a day.

Without further ado, here is the information for that first 50-round draft. This draft was all done by the computer, so I guess we can't kick ourselves for missing any players. In descending order of overall value:

1. Saskatoon: Picked 4th. 4,759 VORP over 278 seasons (17.1 average). Best player was Demarcus Ramirez (831.2 VORP over 15 seasons). Top season: Ramirez, 2009 (99.7 VORP).

2. Ohio (then Kingston): Picked 1st. 4,241.4 VORP over 238 seasons (17.8 average). Best player was Christopher Moss (610.9 VORP over 13 seasons, still playing). Top season: Timothy Palacio, 2011 (90.5 VORP).

3. Houston: Picked 3rd. 4,207.9 VORP over 291 seasons (14.5 average). Best player was Juan Melton (443.6 VORP over 8 years). Top season: Melton, 2006 (99.0 VORP).

4. Seattle: Picked 7th. 3,997.7 VORP over 262 seasons (15.3 average). Best player was Gregory Mudge (601.7 VORP over 14 seasons). Top season: Mudge, 2010 (94.2 VORP).

5. Monck's Corner (Virginia): Picked 8th. 3,869.1 VORP over 276 seasons (14.0 average). Best player was John Okane (675.7 VORP over 16 years, still playing). Top season: John Redman, 2009 (91.1 VORP).

6. Danville (California): Picked 2nd. 3,232.5 VORP over 270 seasons (12.0 average). Best player was David Kerry (503.3 VORP over 13 seasons, still playing). Top season: Frank Nunn 2004 (109.8 VORP).

7. Shackamaxon (Stockholm): Picked 5th. 2,756.5 VORP over 266 seasons (10.4 average). Best player was Troy Nelson (357.0 VORP over 9 seasons). Top season: Nelson, 2002 (80.7 VORP).

8. Brooklyn: Picked 6th. 2,560.4 VORP over 254 seasons (10.1 average). Best player was Robert Casarez (513.2 VORP over 8 years). Top season: Casarez 2004 (133.9 VORP).

Some other notes.

As you would probably expect, the players picked by 2002-03 champion Houston had the most combined value in 2002 and 2003.

Monck's Corner got two of the four most valuable players in Okane (6th round) and Albert Garcia (2nd round).

The first round pick with the highest career value was Richard Pimental, 4th overall, by Saskatoon.

The third most valuable player, Christopher Moss, was picked in the 42nd round by Ohio.

Troy Nelson, Shackamaxon's best pick, is only #28 overall. Michael did not do well in the draft, which makes his run of titles all the more impressive. (On the other hand, he did get Sean Arant when we filled the AAA rosters with created players in 2003, so he shouldn't sprain anything patting himself on the back.)