The Draft

Draft Day

When. Sat, Sep 5 - 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET. Order. Set by the Draft Order Lottery (below).

Draft Order Lottery

When. Mon, Aug 17 - 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET. Where. Google Meet - optional: join to watch the order come out live.

This year's draft selection order is set by a weighted "Draft Order Lottery." The lottery produces a full 1-12 order; in that order, each manager will select their teams' draft slot.

Our lottery works similarly to the NBA draft lottery. There are 180 balls in total. Each returning team receives between 24 down to 6 balls depending on their finish in last year's playoff brackets. Our 2 new teams will receive 15 balls for neutral 1/12 odds. When we run the lottery, each ball selected locks in a team's slot, and since a team can only win one spot, once it's drawn its remaining balls leave the drum. As every team is drawn the drum shrinks and everyone left sees their chances rise. For this reason, the odds/percentages pictured below apply to the 1st pick only. Each later pull is recalculated on a smaller drum.

Unlike the NBA's draft lottery, our lottery rewards winners instead of tankers. Better finish = better odds, so there's a reason to compete to the final week in both the championship and consolation brackets. However, the odds are very flat/forgiving, resulting in high run-to-run variance that rewards teams with weaker odds. Feel free to run simulations of the lottery yourself either below or in the "Draft Lottery" page! We'll run the official lottery together on Google Meets later in August.

Next Season's Lottery

Everything above sets this year's draft order. Going forward, the lottery re-runs every year off that season's final standings, so the odds shift annually. If everyone returns, all 12 teams are simply ranked by finish and take an even ladder from 26 down to 4 - better finish, more balls, better odds at the #1 pick. Any new manager who joins gets neutral odds - a flat 1-in-12 (15 balls) - and the returning teams rank by finish around them, reshuffling the board for everyone.