CFCL Draft 2011

Welcome to CFCL 2011, the 28th year in CFCL History (League Slogan: "We're Not Even Halfway There!")

There were some interesting milestones in this year's draft. For the first time in 27 years the Copperfields were not seated at the Draft Table with their Traditional three uber-large three ring binders or computer loaded with 1500gig of player information. But the league did get a bit of a morale boost when the former 11 time champion stopped by to present last year's champion (Ruffins) with their trophy. David also took a league photo of our motley crew that is currently on display at the CFCL Internet Headquarter front page.

Along those same lines, for the first time since 1992, Owner Emeritus Mahlan was not on the Executive Committee ballot. The election provided some excitement as Rich and Mike C. received strong support. Early on in the tallies Bob and Matt B garnered some votes, but out of nowhere, exploding down the stretch Tim joined the Executive Committee going away.

With the league picture being completed and the Executive Committee being elected, it was time for our 26 year tradition to continue with the Ruffin Privilege. I think most owners were anticipating Dave to throw out Joey Votto so we could all watch the Clowns sweat immediately as he tries to build his Cincinnati Red CFCL dynasty.

That's not the way it went down. Zigging when he was expected to zag, the Ruffins nominated Hanley Ramirez for .25 at 1:13pm. Dem Rebels picked up Ramirez at .49 when the Revenge didn't want to make Ramirez the first fifty cent player of the day.

The Revenge started the next stage of entertainment as they nominated Votto and the league got to see a showdown between rivals. It came down to the Clowns and Kenndoza Line slugging it out.

First we take a side trip, the Kenndoza Line couldn't draft in person due to the birth of their second child. [The league was stunned to find out the Line's second son was born TWO WEEKS prior to the draft!!] So somehow he convinced his brother, Jeff, to be the physical presence. Kenn still called the shots via sketchy cell phone communication, but Jeff's voice was the final word in the Draft Room. The owners immediately took a liking to Jeff and even offered that he come back in Kenn's place next year. It may have had something to do with the fact that when everyone was signing the 2011 Copperfield Ball, Jeff was asked to sign for Kenn and Jeff said "Kenn's writes like a little girl."

Back to the bidding. The Clowns and Line spiritedly swung back and forth at each other. "47", "48", "49", "50", "51" almost without hesitation. When the Line said ".52" the Clowns shook their head and said "Pass." And thus the divide between the Clowns and Line became even greater.

By the end of the second round five pitchers had been drafted for .30 or higher. As a point of comparison, the last two drafts combined only produced a grand total of four pitchers over .30. This was a source of great frustration for Rebel Management.

Also by the end of the second round the newest member of the CFCL, Stranger Danger, had made an impact. Usually new owners sit back and get a feel for the lay of the land or are intimidated. Not Scott. After two rounds the Danger had picked up five players spending a total of $1.35 or 80% of their Draft Day budget.

Notable this year was the Home Town Discount players. Last year seven of eleven players had their HTD exercised. This year only three as the bidding was much more interesting. When the bidding took place for Chad Billingsley, the Bulls held Topper Rights. The Danger were the last team standing in the bidding and had the opportunity to raise their final bid in an effort to dissuade the Bulls from using their Topper. Mission accomplished. The Danger jumped from .15 to .25 and the Bulls passed.

The Red Hots held the rights to Prince Fielder so the Bulls, taking a page from the Danger Book, increased their final bid from .34 to .41 in an attempt to pry Fielder away from the Red Hots. Bob would have none of it, using his .03 to grab Fielder at .38.

Dem Rebels followed suit by jumping their final bid from .12 to .14 for Ryan Dempster. The Red Hots passed.

But the goofiest move came during the bidding for Ubaldo Jimenez. The Kenndoza Line held Topper Rights. The bidding finished with the Clowns sitting at .27. While they were deciding what, if any , amount to increase their final bid - the Line announced they would not use their Topper, thus potentially saving the Clowns a few extra pennies. Who knows? It could have been the Line's way of offering an olive branch since they strong armed Votto away from the Clowns.

Red Hots (Fielder), DemRebels (Iannetta) and the Bulls (Montero) successfully exercised their HTD rights.

Second year team Twin Killers were the first team to complete their active roster at 5:42pm when they picked up Ryan Madson.

The Red Hots completed the Draft portion of the day at 6:52 when they bid on Ryan Spilbourghs.

The entire day took seven hours and 13 minutes (only six minutes longer than last year).

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the draft (after Joey Votto pulled on his Kenndoza Line jersey) was offered by the Twin Killers. They successfully got under the skin of nearly the whole league, one by one, in their dogged pursuit of bidding on quality players. They particularly pissed off Dem Rebels consistently with their bidding on Shaun Marcum and Wilton Lopez. It didn't seem to matter to the Killers that the Rebels provided transportation to and from the draft. See if that happens next year.

The general consensus among owners was that this was one of the more enjoyable drafts in recent years. Hopefully the in-season trades that take place will allow that feeling to contine through the whole season.