I had several questions about last week’s log about draft picks with people wanting to know how to set up a minor league draft for their league. So let’s get to work.

While these suggestions are mainly for AL, NL or even mixed keeper leagues, you can certainly use them for a redraft league with easy modifications.

First, the salaries for your “FARM” must complement your auction and free agent salaries. In “normal” $260 auction leagues, I strongly maintain that all free agents (and reserve picks if you use those at the draft) should have a $10 retention salary, which in my shorthand would be 10F14 – a ten dollar free agent acquired in 2014. In keeper leagues where a drafted or free agent player is kept for three years at the same price, you want your minor league players to have a lower salary than a major league player you are acquiring via either FAAB or waivers or whatever your league uses.

Speaking of FAAB, I am strongly against using the FAAB acquisition price to determine a player's retention salary. It just makes no sense – if the player is keepable (in my league that would mean being on an AL roster or on an AL team’s minor league roster), then if you spend $100 in desperation, that player couldn’t possibly be retained. By the same token, teams lower in the standings can’t be adding players for one dollar and carrying those salaries forward. Just use $10 like the founding fathers did.

Another note for keeper leagues is the difference between the player’s retention salary (price he would be kept for next year) and his salary against the salary cap, which all auction keeper leagues should have. I am old school there, using a $300 cap for a $260 league. Yes, you can use $325 or even $350 but that much room is just asking for problems with dump trades that you mitigate with a tighter salary cap. Free agents should count $5 this year against the salary cap but have a $10 salary if kept for next year.

The AL and NL keeper leagues that I have played in for over 25 years both use a $5 salary for drafted minor leaguers. Actually, my GAR AL league splits that to $5 for hitters and $3 for pitchers, which helps balance the minor league drafts.

Most leagues I am familiar with restrict the minor league pool to players who are under a minor league contract. Some specify they must still have Rookie of the Year eligibility. Personally, I favor a wide open policy there, especially if you are going to allow an unlimited number of FARM players, which really gives teams the ability to build a good franchise. Your league will have to define those parameters when you codify all of this to add to your league rules.

Again, I favor excluding all players from foreign leagues (there is one exception as some players in the Mexican League are allowed to play there even though they are under contract to minor league teams in the US). Your mileage may vary – have to keep the lawyers happy especially as I bury a Happy 17th Birthday greeting to my granddaughter Raven Nicole Mills in Bothell, Washington.

Okay, you have defined the player pool for your minor league draft and the salaries they will have once they are activated in your league. In my league, if they are still FARM players, I try and use a M13 designation which would mean they were drafted as a minor leaguer in 2013, for example. Once they are activated, that would be changed to 5DYr for drafted in that year at a five dollar salary. Most of the stat services have an easy way to establish and amend those designations just like auction/free agent salaries. To go back a minute to free agent salaries, you don’t want those cheaper FAAB bids to subvert the pricing of your minor league players, thus the $10 retention salary.

Activation rules differ widely. Obviously, if a FARM player makes an opening day roster, he must be activated to a team’s freeze list at the auction. If they are activated after opening day, here are two suggestions:

    1. If the player is activated to the major leagues prior to the All-Star break, they must be transacted (activated, reserved or waived) the transaction (Monday) day after 30 consecutive days on a ML roster. If they are brought up any time after the beginning of the break, they can be held as a FARM player but of course could be activated if their owner wanted to start their salary clock.

    2. If the player is activated in April, the same 30 days (you don’t want to have to activate a player if he is only up for a week or two and then sent down) applies. But if they are activated in May or any time later in the year, they can be retained as a FARM player until the following year.

    September roster expansion must be dealt with because you don’t want unowned minor leaguers up for just a month to be added as free agents when they should be in the minor league draft the following April. We assign all September free agents a $25 retention salary (25S13) which keeps that from happening.

    Okay, we have everything now except the procedures to get your draft order. What I do not want to use is the lazy worst-to-first route. You want all the teams in your league to manage their roster as best they can. Sure, they may be in rebuilding mode, but they should still have an “active” roster, because if even one team's roster is filled with DL and ML players and not accumulating stats, they are distorting the stats in categories where the teams fighting to cash are trying for more points. You don’t want that to affect your league's pennant race.

    What you should do is give the first pick in next year’s minor league draft (always held after opening day, which hopefully your auction is as well but a player must be clearly defined as to whether he is actually in the major leagues or in the minors) to the team that is the first team not to cash in your league. So if you pay four places, that would be the team that finishes in fifth place.

    In a 12-team league, then your draft order would be 5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-4-3-2-1.

    Next week, we will look at trading minor league draft picks. {jcomments on}