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+---- Thread: *Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft (/showthread.php?tid=30864)
*Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - StadiumGambler - 03-19-2021
So this is going to be a bit more of an OOC article, similar to my analysis of draft destinations, rambling about Saleem Spence's draft position and the overall nature of this league and its drafting policy.
So I'm sure there was at least one person outside of the Portland LR and ISFL war rooms who looked at the draft as it descended into Round 2 and approached Round 3 and thought to themselves "How the FUCK is Saleem Spence still on the board? This guys the TPE leader and has 50 million in the banks, hes practically guaranteed to be kinda sorta good at minimum, why is no one drafting him?". What could have possibly been going on here? Did StadiumGambler tell every team to shove it except Sarasota? Is StadiumGambler a member of the alt-right Stonemason Illuminati? Is StadiumGambler an alt of a banned user like Zamir? Is a hot dog a sandwich? Well, lets get into some ramblings about what may have happened here.
First of all, I'm pretty sure Baltimore would've taken me had I not mentioned to their scouts that I didn't want to play there. I have no quarrel with anyone on the Hawks, I talked about this in an article about how Baltimore got sympathy from me for how their whole situation went, and I did think it was a bit shitty that there were people just laughing at the team because of their ineptitude and dislike of people like Jiggly and whoever else in Baltimore is a meme user. I would be interested in playing there if I were a first time sim sports guy with no idea of what I'm getting into, as I literally bought a copy of Madden 18 just so I could rebuild the 0-16 Browns, and would see this Baltimore thing as a chance to be a turnaround anchor guy. However, this is my 3rd sim league, and I've only been on one title winner, one junior league title winner, and a raft of nation vs nation wins deemed sorta irrelevant within the context of their leagues. In an ideal world, I step into a team thats either good or about to be good, to maximize the amount of chances I have at hoisting the Ultimus Trophy. Thats the primary thing that matters to me with the career of Saleem Spence.
Baltimore's actually in an even worse position than I thought when initially reviewing them, because I had assumed they were either picking up a Quarterback in this draft or trading for someone in the Season 26 or 27 class whos a ways along. Skywalker is inactive and aging and will probably be unproductive after this next year even on a good team. And they might be stuck with him for a while, or they rush their forced pick Gimmy Jarappolo along to ISFL starting at 400ish TPE or something. Either way, I can see Season 29 to 31 or 32 being some tough times for Baltimore. It can become good later if the GMs are great and hit every pick, yes, and I do hope that Baltimore sees some success again (hopefully not at the direct expense of the team I play for). But again, I want to maximise my chances at a ring, and Baltimore is a few dead seasons for a shot that MAAAAAAAYBE I end up on a winner, as opposed to a team also near the bottom of last season's standings like Philly or Austin or Berlin who likely just need a couple spikes of TPE to their younger players and they're in business, or a team like Orange County who just had things go super wrong for them for whatever reason. (Plus for all we know Baltimore isn't done selling yet and might be losing guys that still have productive years in front of them to either FA or trades, making the rebuild a little bit closer to deep cleansing.)
So Sarasota's a fit for the team I want, but that still doesn't answer the question of why 12 other teams (and Sarasota themselves with their first 2 picks) passed on me? Well I have a couple theories for that.
Theory one is, one thing you hear on occasion during these draft streams when people explain the picks is that "we liked them based on how cool they were in our team Discord." Well I rejected every team invite to a Discord, because I'm in a lot of Smash Bros and other video game related Discords and I might run out of room. Plus chatting in a half dozen Discords that I probably won't end up staying long-term in seems counterproductive. This also may have tied into why I went 34th in the DSFL draft as well, as it seems GMs value these little interactions they have with the rookies before draft.
Now, to me, I feel as a former (admittedly ill-fated and disastrous) SHL GM that you just need to chat up the junior league GMs to get your base idea of what they're like in a Discord and if they'll be disruptive and etc, and I think guys like SouthPaw and zeagle would've spoken of me as a good guy. I have no idea if anyone outside of Arizona or other teams with Portland guys in their war room knew what I was about on the Discord, and there's always the risk you take of getting a sim league vet, then finding out oooops they're toxic, team ruined and everyone wants trades. I think I'm a good LR guy, but I am a mild/medium autist and don't always know how I come off to others, so maybe there's a vague outside chance a Portland guy is annoyed by me and isn't saying it, and was like "Yeah he's a good earner, but lets get a guy we're sure is going to be a good LR influence, and we'll have a decent player we're happy with.". Or maybe I just straight up flubbed my DM exchanges with various scouts through the league and didn't realize how I did it. (semi-related: Jiggly posted an article a while back talking about testing FA, and mentioned that no one seems to really think Jiggly's a bad LR influence aside from up-jumped people on the forums. Perhaps there's a possibility a lot of people are annoyed by Jiggly and simply don't say shit about it, and thus Jiggly is left none the wiser that doing x thing is annoying as fuck and they should stop doing that forever. In which case, I feel for Jiggly because I've been there before many times in my giant meme of a Smash Bros career, doing things like calling shotgun on car trips and saying stuff I think is funny that I find out well after the fact bugs the shit out of people.)
But okay, setting that aside, another low-key reason I fell is that two teams, I believe San Jose and Arizona, never contacted me. Arizona is understandable cause they have a lot of Portland personnel, and the leadership there knows what I'm about most likely (plus I think they had a set WR room). San Jose was probably them feeling set with Ty Hood and the other guys and didn't bother to contact (at least I'm pretty sure they didn't contact, although maybe I missed or forgot about a DM.) So those two were probably always out.
But the biggest reason, I suspect, is that I'm not willing to change out of WR. I would maybe consider going Tight End or Fullback/Running Back later in my career if it was the only way to stay on a championship-caliber roster, but I intend to stick with WR, and one theme that kept cropping up in my reviews of the ASFC/NSFC draft needs was that over half the league seemed to need long term Front 7 help. Secondary is also valued to teams, even if they have a strong set one, I guess being able to run dime packages or certain things to guard against that Tecmo Super Bowl Run n' Shoot formation you see produce some effective plays sometimes is important.
I feel that if I had agreed to every team to change positions to whatever they wanted to fit me into, I would've gone Top 10 for sure, probably Top 5. However, being at WR, teams had other fish to fry. And thats completely understandable. So why didn't I agree to position switch? Because honestly writing media is easier with a Wide Receiver. I went over my creation process a bit in DMs with a bunch of people, but the big thing I looked at is, I want offense because offense is easier and funner to write about, I can't do Quarterback otherwise every veteran will say lmao bad idea we have three rookies a year like you who think they'll be Patty Mahomes and they either have to get talked out of it or go IA. I can't do Tight End because I was told we had a glut of Tight Ends (and with hindsight, good thing I didn't because Tight Ends are far less valuable in the ISFL compared to IRL. We got no George Kittles or Travis Kelces here I think). I can't do Offensive Line for the same reasons I didn't want to do defense over offense. So that leaves Running Back or Wide Receiver. Maybe I could've flexed my player backstory a bit to cover both roles, but I was happy being a physical receiver and figured WR would be more useful anyways, as I was hoping the league was like NFL and favoured passing over running (which it kinda does, albeit in a different fashion than the NFL.). So now I'm in Wideout, and with the media narrative I'm constructed, I feel that I'm hemmed into the position for better or worse.
But then I can hear people say okay so you're a WR, but if Quick / Cowabunga / Chunt / Sam the Onion Man don't end up wanting to change either, why were you the 5th one off? You've got more TPE than all of them and have built up a big dick bankroll, what gives?
Well, I feel Baltimore would've wanted to take Quick over me due to prior connections, and they took Chunt over me for reasons mentioned up above (plus I hear that Chunt's user is a nice person, so in general Baltimore may have taken Chunt to be sure they get someone they want and someone who wants to be there). I might've gone over Busch Goose if I was willing to be super-flexible about position changing and wanted to play for Baltimore, but who knows.
I know Joey K was an important part of the Austin culture before so him getting picked where he did made perfect sense for everyone concerned. Sam the Onion Man might've had Orange County connects, idk, but if he didn't, I'm guessing either Sam's user was open to a position switch, or Orange County felt he had a higher floor than I did, with him being a veteran they'd know of and me being a first-time create who came in with a full head of steam that might bust early (and I'm sure previous drafts have horror stories of the 250 TPE guy with a big bankroll who disappeared like a camper in a Jason Voorhees movie after reaching 350ish TPE or so and was never seen again except in DSFL statsheets.)
So I can see and understand the logic of taking all those people ahead of me, and even a lot of the other 30 picks probably made more sense to the teams than taking a guy like me who they might not need and might be worried about long-term. And honestly, I'm not that broken up about being picked 31st, especially because Sarasota's a good place and I know I'll probably get on real well with Frost based on a shared mutual like for weeby stuff. I will try like hell to give the adorable and ever-loyal Raphtalia Chan a run for her money on that TPE leaderboard, but I might get screwed by predictions or I might burn out on media before being able to afford the 8th season of equipment, who knows. And of course there is always the chance things randomly fall apart for the whole team in Sarasota and then they have to work out a deal that sends me out for a return only slightly better than what they traded to pick me. And of course there is a chance of me getting a health issue and busting due to inactivity (I think this is about the only way I'll truly bust. I'm always a Discord ping away and really have no reason to ghost the league randomly, so I should be at the very least capable of making predictions and asking around for Fantasy picks.). So I guess we let it play out and see where it goes.
But for what its worth, even if after all of this you look at this draft and are like "Yeah but it was still a mistake to pick you 31st though.", its important to remember that much like actual IRL drafting, this drafting stuff is not an exact science. For one thing, if this were IRL Spence would be booed off the stage if he were drafted ahead of Chunt, maybe Cowabunga, and maybe Luke Quick. Spence would be derided by some as a Combine beast with all show and no go, and valuing him as a high 1st round selection would be vaguely comparable to peak stupid Al Davis Oakland Raiders drafting logic of "HES A PHYSICAL BEAST AND WE NEED ONE, JUST WIN BABY!"
And even within the context of sim sports, well, I came from the SHL, and I was part of their Season 46 Reddit draft class (roughly equivalent to the ISFL Season 22 draft class in terms of league importance). I was picked 11th overall with my guy, Forward Nick Brain, and went on to earn 2183 TPE, which is Top 15 all-time, and would be Top 10 with better prediction and fantasy luck, not to mention if I had joined after the J trading deadline instead of the regular Reddit recruitment post. So clearly I had to be the best player available, setting aside general sim RNG where a guy can outperform another guy despite a 200 TPE difference. But I wasn't a consensus #1 overall pick pre-draft, not even a consensus #1 forward, nor should I have been. So what happened to the 10 picks made ahead of me?
1 and 2: Both sorta busted, became good enough to hold down a pro roster spot but not good enough to achieve the star potential they had with their first creates
3, 4, 5 and 6: All generally achieved star potential, albeit a couple with different teams
7: Sorta busted, good enough to be serviceable but missed out on stardom
8: Was sort of a lesser pick drafted on positional need but went on to be sorta good
9: Complete bust, and they (Hamilton) owned picks 1 and 2. Had they not discovered a way to break the league's sim engine to pieces this would've been a cataclysmic fuck-up of a draft for them, (although they did trade 1 and 2 pre-bust for a good return)
10: re-create who went IA eventually, but was good enough for a depth role and has bounced around the league I think
And then I got picked, and if you looked at all the data pre-draft, you could justify picking me over MAYBE 2 of the guys picked ahead. Just like a real draft, you go in with good intentions, and then you get a guy who doesn't develop like he did before the draft. It happens. And it could happen to my guy Spence for reasons outside of my control and then Baltimore, Austin, and Orange County look like geniuses. Not to mention I made a pick myself as SHL GM at 10th overall in Season 50 that looked good for a while before busting and ghosting the league. It happens.
So what is the takeaway from all this? Well, I guess if you're a Season 29 rookie reading this, and care solely about big-dick story-defining draft position, don't be awkward, be personable, always be open to a position switch, accept any Discord invitations and chat up the people there, don't care where you end up at first, and just try to be all you can be. If you want to be inflexible on position though, that's okay, you'll still end up being valued for what you can bring to the table at that position by an ISFL GM if you stick with it.
And if you're one of the people wondering what ISFL GMs were thinking passing up a high TPE guy with 50 million in the bank, well, they have their reasons, and their picks might still work out for them in the end. Let it play out and see where it goes, then throw tomatoes at past GMs for their drafting inadequacies in toxic media fashion around Season 35 or so and get paid mucho dinero for it. IDK, I've rambled on enough for this to be considered topical hopefully, and in the end that is what really matters about this piece.
At any rate, I don't want anyone ahead of me to bust because of spite, and I wish them all the best and hope they all become quality players, especially if they end up on my team. If you're an ISFL GM reading this, I can maybe understand why you passed on me and there are no hard feelings from my part. I'm ready to keep writing media and establishing a legacy of success for Spence, and hopefully I do the double in Season 28 and 29 of Ultimini win with Portland into Ultimus win with Sarasota.
Have a nice day!
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - LB3737 - 03-19-2021
A hot is not a sandwich, it is just a hot dog
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - CLG Rampage - 03-19-2021
If it makes you feel any better, I had you at 3rd OA
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - katarn22 - 03-19-2021
(03-19-2021, 04:46 PM)LB3737 Wrote: A hot is not a sandwich, it is just a hot dog
https://cuberule.com/
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - mithrandir - 03-19-2021
You fell way further than I expected. A combo of a very strong wr class and not a lot of teams needing receivers. I'm sure you'll end up being a great value for Sarasota! I know there were more than one team trying to trade up and draft you before sarasota ended up doing so...
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - Memento Mori - 03-19-2021
Speaking from a personal perspective rather than on behalf of the OCO war room as a whole:
There were five really good receivers in this draft, yourself and the four you mentioned. We were one of the few teams to need a receiver. WR is generally not particularly sought-after, being a glamorous position lots of people want to play. The league as a whole isn't constantly desperate for receivers in the way they are for defensive linemen, for example. Because of that, we were happy to wait for our 3rd pick and pick from the remaining receivers. You probably go round 1 if you played defensive line, IMO.
At 23, you and Duilio were left. If Duilio had gone we'd have happily taken you at 23. Your analysis of why we picked Duilio is pretty much spot on - he's a really good LR fit and apart from a 6-week period where he was IA for IRL reasons has been a max earner holding various league jobs in this league for almost two years now.
When you were still there at our next pick, we considered taking you as well even though it'd be overkill, because you were so obviously the best player available. Several trade offers came in for the pick and we took Sarasota's offer. You came across really well in DMs so I wouldn't take it personally, I can only assume you fell due to playing wide receiver. I hope this doesn't get you down or anything because you seemed eager and enthusiastic when we spoke.
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - slate - 03-20-2021
The ISFL elites won't say it out loud, but the real reason you fell is that Frost has orchestrated a leaguewide conspiracy filled with bribery and shady dealings to ensure that Sarasota is the best team in the league. How else would the Ultimus winning team be able to get the two highest TPE players in the draft without a 1st round pick?
In all seriousness, Spence is going to be looked at as one of the all-time draft steals in a few seasons. I'm super happy to have you on the Sailfish regardless of whatever reasons other teams had for passing on you!
RE: Stream-of-consciousness ramblings on Saleem Spence and the Season 28 Draft - ReverendOReily - 03-20-2021
Just wanna echo what Mori said - I thought you and Duillio would both be excellent picks at 23, and I knew whichever direction we went, we would end up with an absolute unit of a WR. Throughout the draft there was a feeling of "how tf is StadiumGambler falling this far?" in our war room, and I guarantee you, that same line of thinking was in many other war rooms around the league. Bottom line, I want you to know that I think you're gonna be a great user in this league. I've never heard anyone say anything about you being a negative LR influence or anything along those lines, and believe me, I ask around.
StadiumGambler Wrote:Jiggly posted an article a while back talking about testing FA, and mentioned that no one seems to really think Jiggly's a bad LR influence aside from up-jumped people on the forums. Perhaps there's a possibility a lot of people are annoyed by Jiggly and simply don't say shit about it, and thus Jiggly is left none the wiser that doing x thing is annoying as fuck and they should stop doing that forever. In which case, I feel for Jiggly because I've been there before many times in my giant meme of a Smash Bros career, doing things like calling shotgun on car trips and saying stuff I think is funny that I find out well after the fact bugs the shit out of people.I am of the opinion that Jiggly gets dunked on far more frequently than anyone (who is just trying to innocently have fun in this league) deserves. However, Jiggly has not only tried to have innocent fun in this league. During my time on the site, Jiggly has often tried and succeeded in creating drama where there wasn't any/didn't need to be any. I can assure you, people have said something to Jiggly about doing this, and I don't think it's realistic to say it's an issue of Jiggly being none the wiser that his behavior causes issues in the league. I'm not saying any of this to villify Jiggly - I truly hope he's able to take a break from this league, come back, and enjoy it more than he ever has before. But in order to do that, I think he'll have to do some listening and recognize that it's more than just "up-jumped forum haters" that have an issue with his behavior.