The surprisingly Deep S84 Vegas (draft pending)

[Shindigs 1,772]

Expectations

So when I drafted Jimmy and James last season, I did not think either would still be here this season. Also because of how long last season was I for some reason though that both Al and Hugh would have time to hit 200 TPE as well. I knew our backup goalie Cory was aiming to stay down this season and be our starter. So the expectations were that we'd go into this draft with a 0/1/1 Roster consisting of Juan Ceson (who at the time still refused to earn or apply TPE) and Cory, now known as "Unbeaten Goalie" after the S83 campaign he just had as our backup.

 

Outcome

Well, turns out when the season isn't 12 flipping weeks long. Then those expectations end up being wrong, James also lost his login information and it took a week to get it back. Making him miss updating once this season, which meant that at the cut-off he had 199 TPE. Well actually he didn't, cause he had his driving exam that week so it slipped his mind. But he would have, if that wasn't the case. Jimmy let everyone know in a PC answer that he was going to stay down. As someone who has been around the league for a while, I respect whatever plans he may have for his player's career. After talking to him about it, they make sense for what he wants to do. So all of a sudden we're going into the draft with a 3F/2D/1G setup. That's actually realistically more than a lot of the teams will have AFTER the draft.

 

What does it mean?!

No, not double rainbow all across the sky. That meme is older than half the league at this point. But it does mean that even with us not picking until 20th in this draft, we're actually in a very strong position to compete again. Which I'll be honest, wasn't something I expected. I was thinking this would just be a draft for us to pickup some steady earners that would make up the core for our next push in S85. But trying to project pre-draft and with how deep I think this draft will be for producing players. I think we'll have the most players on roster of any team after it. And since so many of them are returning members, I think we might also have the highest TPE team. Which I really wasn't planning on when I was trying to project where we'd be this season. But then I am a pessimist, so that makes sense.

 

Who do I expect will join us?

It's hard to predict who will do the best in the draft, on waivers and then in retaining and developing said players. But I certainly expect Mexico to be one of the more stacked teams, I blame respect Cole a lot and he has plenty of GM experience from other leagues as well as the JST. He knows how to run a LR so I don't see retention being an issue either. Oh, and Justin just happened to leave him with about 4 million picks this draft, as well as a retained player. Philly also has some very, very good retained players as well as a balanced pick pool. Masu should be able to put together a very potent team this season, making for a conference of death in the West with arguably 3 of the stronger contenders all being in it. But keeping history in mind I can tell you that at least one team that looks like they won't be deep enough, will end up surprising everyone and becoming too good to ignore.