HYA Draft Rules

For ALL Age Groups

Administration: An HYA Board Member or other HYA Board designated coordinator will run the draft. The Draft Coordinator is in charge of keeping the Master Draft Grid, and collecting all Team Rosters at the end of the draft.  (Draft Grids and Team Rosters must be turned into the HYA League President – president@hopewellbaseball.org  as quickly as possible after the draft.)

The intent of drafting Recreation Teams is to have all teams equally distributed with talent to promote the Hopewell Family atmosphere.  Please keep in mind that scores are not recorded in any Hopewell Recreational game to encourage Coaches to rotate their kids and develop ALL of the kids baseball ability and baseball IQ. The Hopewell Advanced Baseball program is where the Hopewell Baseball Family combines together to teach advanced baseball skills and win State Championships.

1. The draft order will be set based on the lowest overall combined score of the two frozen players on each team. 1^st Draft Choice will be awarded to the lowest team, 2^nd Draft Choice will be awarded to the 2^nd lowest team, etc…   Last Draft Choice will be awarded to the highest team.
2. Head Coach plus one Assistant Coaches child will be frozen, meaning their assessment outcome will determine what round each player is automatically selected for their given team. Frozen Players are NOT ELIGIBLE to be drafted by any team. ALL Other Players are eligible to be drafted by any team.

NOTE: If the Head Coach or Assistant Coach has twin or triplets all siblings are frozen in their respective assessment positions

3. Any team who has two players frozen in the first round will have those two players selected as their first and second round draft pick and their 3rd and 4th round draft position will move to the last pick in the 3rd and 4^th rounds. They will also receive the last overall rated player.

Ex: If Team A’s Head Coach and Asst Coach children are both assessed as 1st round picks and they have the 5^th pick in a 10 team league their first pick (5th overall) will be the higher assessed first round pick.  Their second pick (16th overall) will be the other frozen player.  Their 3rd pick will be the last pick in the 3rd round (they will be skipped when their normal pick position arrives in the 3rd round and they will instead have the last pick in the 3rd round (30th overall). Their 4th pick will be the last pick in the 4th round (they will be skipped when their normal pick position arrives in the 4th round and they will instead have the last pick in the 4th round (40thoverall).  In the 5th round, they will resume their normal draft position following the serpentine order.  If there are multiple teams in one league with 2 frozen players in the first round the team with highest draft position will be last in the 3rd round, the 2nd team will have the next to last pick etc. They will then receive the last overall rated player from the draft. If two teams, the highest starting score will receive the last player and the second would receive the second to last player.

4. Frozen players will be identified and placed in a "draft round" based on the Skill Assessment Ratings sheets. All Frozen players will be placed on the Draft Grid prior to any other player selections. In scenarios where more than one player has the same score pushing them to the next round, a locked player will always be considered in the higher round.
5. Known Pitchers, AllStars, and Ex-Travel Team players must be identified & discussed by the coaches before 1st round picks are made. The purpose is to identify pitching and advanced talent & attempt to distribute this talent evenly as possible throughout appropriate age groups.
6. In multiple age group leagues, all players will be combined during the draft ... i.e., do not separate age groups during the draft process. (the 12’s are not required to be drafted before 11’s, etc.). NOTE: 6U/5U National league exception below.
7. For players that did not participate in the Skill Assessments, and where no coach has any information regarding their playing ability ... these players names will be placed in a "hat" and become "hat" picks. After all the "known" players are drafted, the next team to select will pick one of these names out of the hat. This will continue until all hat picks are selected. You are NOT allowed to select a Hat Pick prior to the completion of drafting the “known” players. Hat picks can not be traded under any scenario. For players who aren't frozen, the should be placed in the draft grid in an agreed upon round by all coaches and given an average score based on the assessment of other players in that round. 

NOTE: ANY FROZEN PLAYERS not participating in Skill Assessments will be assigned as a 1^st Round PICK

NOTE: See section 9.a. for detail on the last round of the draft 

8. The draft order will be a "serpentine" process. The draft begins with Team #1, and continues to the end of the 1st round. The last team in the 1st round will select a player, and will get the 1st pick in the 2nd round (e.g., if there are 5 teams, the order would be 1,2,3,4,5, 5,4,3,2,1, 1,2,3,4,5 ... etc.). The draft continues in this manner until all players are selected.
   1. The team with the #1 overall pick (or lowest team number available) will receive the very last pick in the draft, regardless of how many players are in the Last Round (ie, the Last Round will CONCLUDE with the #1 team (or lowest # available) receiving the final player). For example, if there are 4 9/10u players remaining after Round 10, Teams 1 thru 4 will receive picks in Round 11, with Team 4 selecting 1st. It’s possible these will be “hat” picks 
9. In the event of a +2 Roster Size Exception...For excess players over and above the +2 Roster size, Volunteers will be solicited to take the extra player(s).
   1. +2 Roster Size Exception...If any excess players are remaining after volunteers are identified, the team with the #1 overall pick (or lowest team number available) will receive the very last pick in the draft, regardless of how many players are in the Last Round (ie, the Last Round will CONCLUDE with the #1 team (or lowest # available) receiving the final player). For example, if there are 4 9/10u players remaining after Round 11, Teams 1 thru 4 will receive picks in Round 12, with Team 4 selecting 1st. It’s possible these will be “hat” picks
10. Siblings (yes, even triplets) MUST be drafted onto the same team, unless otherwise requested by the parents. NOTE: 6U/5U National league exception below.
11. ALL TRADES must be completed in the round where the player is drafted and must be approved by all coaches. The player being traded for could be from a different round.
12. As players are added to leagues AFTER the draft, a Placement Committee will place players onto teams.  Players that register after the draft are not automatically placed on the next team in the serpentine, but this method will be used if all other things are equal.

The Draft Coordinator is responsible for the accuracy of the draft, and the Master Draft Grid is the OFFICIAL GRID.  Make sure all coaches agree with the Master Grid prior to their leaving the draft.

THREE LOCKED PLAYERS ADD-ON

NOTE: Starting Spring 2020 only one head and asst coach can be locked. The two locked players rule is still in effect from below.

Only one assistant coach can be locked until all teams have a defined head and assistant coach to reach the optimum number of teams outlined by the board. Once the coaching staff has been completely defined, and prio to the draft, one additional player can be locked.

This system is not supposed to be a pre-draft. It is designed to be a system where coaches can get their neighbors, classmates, close friends or prior team-mates that gelled/would like to be on the same team again locked in prior to the draft. If the board feels the system is being abused in an age group, we will go back to only one locked assistant coach.

Because this is not designed to be a pre-draft, any parent who you want to lock on your team must request it using the new form ‘Request a coach’ form under Parent forms on the website (Direct link http://assn.la/UserForm.asp?RegID=135664&org=HOPEWELLBASEBALL.ORG). The head coach must also submit the locked player request to the board prior to assessments being started. NO player can be locked once assessments have started. This includes primary assistant coaches.

Three Locked Players

 If a team has less than 6 (Sum of draft rounds; 1, 2 ,3)  as their total number of rated rounds for locked players they will:

• Drop one round for 5. Last two picks in the 5^th round. Pick last in the 6th round.
• Drop one round for 4. First pick would be in the 5th round and two picks would be made at the end of the 6th round. Must take lowest overall rated player in the draft.

NOTE: Total draft round total cannot be less than 4 for three locked players.

Two Locked Players

If both are number one picks, the team will select last in the third and fourth rounds and must take lowest overall rated player in the draft.

No team can lock more than two first round rated players from the current assessment or All-Star Mustang players from the previous season.

Draft Violation

If after assessments, a team’s locked player totals are in violation of any of the minimum rules defined here, locked players must be returned to the draft until the team is no longer in violation.

If more than one team meets any criteria requiring the selection of the last overall player or last selection in a round, the highest total accumulated score of drafted players would draft last in the round or get the lowest player first. If more than two teams, they would be ordered using the same criteria.

Additional Notes

• If an added locked player falls in the first round, they will be placed back in the draft. 
• We may drop the top and bottom scores for all players in a league if we see inconsistencies with scoring. We will review all scores for blatant irregularities between coaches players vs other players and other coaches scores to determine if this is required. The idea is for all coaches to score all players accurately to the best of their abilities.
• Added locked players will be highlighted on the assessment and draft grids.
• If the board for any reason believes a player was recruited to be locked on a team, that player will be placed back in the draft and that team will only be allowed the two original locked players.

The lowest rated player must be an assessed player and not a hat pick.

6U/5U Spring Only Rules

Locked player rules do not apply to 6U American Spring league. Only two locked players are allowed in this league, Head and Asst coach, and they must have assessed in the top 10 in the prior Fall season or been a 5U Mustang the prior Summer All-Star season.

Only 6U age players for the current spring season are elgible for the 6U American league. Players rated in the top 45 after the 6U assessments are eligible to be drafted into the 6U American league. All other 6U players will be placed in the National league.

Siblings do not automatically get drafted onto the same team/league in the 6U/5U age group.

The 6U National league draft will start with 6U players not drafted into the American league. It will then transition to 5U players moved up to 6U/5U National on previous Fall season and coaches recommendations. The final selections will come from any remaining 5U players that were moved up after Minor league assessment.

The draft order will be reset for the 6U/5U National league at the conclusion of each step.

• 6U draft completed
• Draft order reset
• 5U National draft completed
• Draft order reset
• 5U Minor move-ups drafted

Good Luck!

HYA Board of Directors

hyaboard@HopewellBaseball.org

Revised  1/18/2019