Kicking Off 2010

The 27th Season of the CFCL began (League Motto: “We’re Not Even Halfway There!”) on Saturday, March 27, 2010.

For the first time in over ten years the draft was not held at the corporate office of Dem Rebels. This year the Red Hots hosted at Plainfield North High School. Immediately that caused issues since the Copperfields showed up early, but at Plainfield Central. Since the schools are all laid out the same and have the same room numbers, it took a while before the Copperfields realized that they had the wrong location.

Before the business of 2010 could take place, the books on the 2009 season had to close. The inaugural Copperfield Trophy was presented to Champion Kenndoza Line. Kenn then signed the 2010 trophy ball in the Champion’s Space right below the Cubs logo.

Election for the Executive Committee took place next wherein Rich, David M. and Mike C. were resoundingly re-elected to drive the CFCL semi for the next year to look out for potholes and avoid construction.

After a few more housekeeping measures, (one of which was presenting the Revenge with a poster of Carlos Zambrano [Tim selected Z in the Winter Waivers]. Why give the poster to the Revenge? Because the Rebels wanted the poster the hell off their basement wall!!!), the Ruffin Privilege was invoked by Dave Holian. At 1:14pm Dave bid .10 on Roy Halladay and we were off to the races. The DoorMatts finished the bidding on Halladay; acquiring him for an extremely affordable .37.

By the end of the draft the highest paid pitcher was Tim Lincecum (.40 to Kenndoza) and the highest paid offensive player was Matt Kemp (.46 to the Red Hots). A lot of money walked into the draft, and for the first time in recent memory, a lot of money walked out of the draft. Eight of the ten owners had money left over from their salary cap – four of them in double digits.

Idle useless stat - $5.67 (28.35 per player) was spent in the first two rounds in 2010 compared with $5.86 (29.30 per player) in 2009.

Home Team Discounts proved to be very popular once again. Eleven players were eligible and seven were reacquired by their former team by using the discount. For the first time ever, the Ruffins used their discount and liked it so much, they exercised their HTD on successive players (David Wright .33 and Jimmy Rollins .30) with the 4th and 5th picks of the first round.

Some interesting things materialized throughout the draft. The Red Hots committed to stay up late each night this season to watch his team as the first five players they drafted were Dodgers. The Candy Colored Clowns did their level best to acquire as many Cincinnati Reds as possible both in the Auction and Reserve Rounds. Showing undying love, they bid .17 on the soon to be demoted Aroldis Chapman, .13 on Johnny Cueto and reserved the injured Edison Volquez at .07 not to mention using their HTD on Brandon Phillips.

In what seems to be an annual occurrence the Clowns and Rebels squared off though this time Derrek Lee was not involved. Matt Holliday landed on the Clowns roster when the Rebels blinked at the .44 bid.

The first penny player arrived rather early this year. Halfway through the sixth round Dem Rebels completed their pitching staff with, appropriately, Brad Penny. Last year the first penny player was taken in the 8th round (Pedro Feliz).

At some point during the draft (claiming to try and throw the Kenndoza Line off their game) the Clowns offered to kick the Line in the scrotum. Had the Line asked one more time what the final bid was, the Clowns may have had company.

Round seven began with the Ruffins getting Jeff Francouer for .06. Ruffins proudly proclaimed that they now have incentive to spell Francouer correctly. Just remember Dave, it’s “u” before “e”, but the “e” is silent.

The draft lasted 12 rounds, but when the Red Hots spent .18 on Felipe Lopez to end Round 5, they only had .03 to spend on 3 players over the course of the remaining seven rounds.

The first team to complete their roster was Dem Rebels at 5:24pm with the acquisition of Eugenio Velez for .01 and an embarrassing .12 left in their pocket. Getting Penny for a penny threw everything out of whack.

An hour and half later the draft concluded at 6:49pm when the Copperfields selected Kevin Correia for .01.

This year was interesting in that there didn’t seem to be that one player that owners were sitting back waiting to grab late in the draft. Last year Yunel Escobar went for .22 in Round Nine (to the Copperfields). This year Akinori Iwamura (.12) and Chris Dickerson (.11) were taken consecutively to finish Round 7, but I think that was more a statement on the talent available after that than owners lying in wait.

The entire Draft and Rotation Draft lasted seven hours and seven minutes. During the draft comments were made that it felt like a slow draft. Had the draft started at last year’s 7:30 start time, owners would have been heading home around 2:37pm, which certainly would have been a world record for CFCL drafts. Starting the draft at 1:00pm and ending it in the evening may have made it feel like a long draft (starting during the day and ending at night), but certainly the pace was strong overall.