A Journey To Discovery Through Bad Choices: A PT Draft Video Dynasty

[John C]

Hello.

A few of you may remember me. Most, though, have never seen this name until now (if you even looked at the name to start…if not, you probably did just now, so thank you for putting a name to the type). I’ve been around since OOTP2 (get off my lawn), and had been a very active participant in online leagues. I ran one of the most ambitious leagues out there back with OOTP4/5, a league that had 100+ years played out before anyone took over (the American Baseball League). This was back when that actually took considerable effort, and the OOTPAlmanac was a thing. (Though I couldn’t use the one that was really insane, because I didn’t have all the HTML pages. That still chaps my arse whenever I think about it, which is just now.)

I have also been a member of the beta team for over a decade, though more often as a writer for OOTP, or other places, like Operation Sports, GMGames, or whatever else was out there that wanted my nonsense. But life, a loss of interest in baseball (thanks, three true outcomes!) and a waning interest in writing (I do a podcast for a basketball league I’m in, and did one for MLBPro back in the day) caused me to lose most of my interest in OOTP. I did Perfect Team for a bit, because I like opening packs of cards…but it rarely held my interest for too long.

Now, though, two things have caused me to this moment (the one you are reading about, if you’ve made it this far):

1) Watching KevinGohD videos on the YouTube. He’s a MLB The Show player, and does Battle Royale tournaments that drive him nuts…but they’re also crazy fun to watch. (For me, at least.)
2) Perfect Draft’s existence.
(Well, OOTPGo would be a third, I guess, though I’ve had that for a while. I guess it being formally released, combined with my iPad Pro, make it a third.)

Perfect Draft is a perfect mental exercise in futility for me. It’s a great way to start the day, drafting teams that become ill-fitting by Round 9. It’s a way of saying, “Well, I got at least one mistake out of the way today. So now I have confidence I won’t totally screw today up.” I participate in a few daily; one in the morning, one at night, and then if I have time in between, I get in there.

I was doing a draft the other day, and I thought, well, why not do a dynasty of this? Then I thought, because I don’t want to write it all down, take screenshots, etc. That sounds like work.

But then I thought, why not do videos that likely won’t be edited ever? (Actually, I’ll edit them, as practice for videos I make for my students; I’m a 5/6 Social Studies teacher, and they like poorly-constructed videos. So this is right up my alley.)

And now, here you and I are.

I’ll be posting videos…probably hot right off the Zoom, for you to potentially enjoy or at least tolerate. I’ll try to keep them to 20 minutes (shorter if I do edit them and take out load times and such). I’ll start each video by going over the previous draft that I recorded, and how that went, and then do a draft.

If you like this, comment. Give me challenges. Offer suggestions. I’d like for this to be interactive.

If nothing else, may this be an affirmation that, if you think you’re bad at Perfect Draft, well…there’s someone likely doing it worse, and recording it for you to feel better about yourself.

I hope you enjoy.

OOTP Perfect Draft Dynasty Playlist

[John C]

Ep 0 (7.5.21): The Mulligan (37:52)

This one is long (37:52) because I went over a team that finished 2nd in a 64-team tournament, despite having a RD of +4 (173-169). Postseason series are high variance, and PD is no different.

(Note: I did not go over this tournament in Ep 1, which will be posted shortly, because I expected to just trash this video. But whatever, it’s here. It’s crazy long with weird audio, so you might want to skip it anyway. But if you’re a masochist, go for it.)

[John C]

Ep 1 (7/7/21): Six Degrees of Second Basemen (27:28)

A comment I made in Round 1 showed itself to be true, and I wonder if this is a trend you’re seeing. Also, I forget I drafted Willie McGee, and ran into two other issues that are created because of the differences between OOTP on Windows, and OOTPGo.

(I will record episodes on full OOTP in the future.)

Recorded Tournaments Won: 0/1 (one in progress)

[John C]

Ep 2 (7/8/21): Chris Archer, Staff Ace

Things started off badly, continued badly, and then got worse. But Pop Lloyd makes an appearance…only to show up as a bug (in the next video, which I just recorded

[John C]

So this is a very interesting bug. I didn’t catch it in the moment in my next video (which will go up later this morning); I just figured I was a total idiot.

I believe this is just a cosmetic bug. But Pop Lloyd morphed into Dennis Eckersley, shortstop. Really, really strange.

Here’s a video outlining the bug.

Dennis Eckersley, Vagabond Shortstop

[John C]

Ep 3 (7/8/21): Eck Steals Pop’s Identity, A Team Starts Poorly, Ends Quite Well, I Hope

Some really strange stuff at the beginning of this video; I thought I made a total screwup. Turns out it was a bug. Then my most recent draft, which started pretty poorly, but ended, I think/hope, quite well.

[John C]

This one got started with a bang. Seriously, I couldn’t have imagined a better start than this one.

After that, it’s went well…but I definitely feel like the draft will load you up at certain positions. At least, it’s a pattern I think I’m noticing.

How did this draft go, in your opinion? Where did I screw up? I’d love to know your thoughts!

Episode 4 - Jackie & The Chicken

[John C]

Episode 5: Can you spare a third basemen?

This was a laughable disaster.