Draft Rules
• Draft order was selected at random.
• Player salaries based on 2009 salaries. For those involved in arbitration cases at the time of the draft, the midpoint between what the player wanted and what the team was offering was taken. Players with one-plus year of service time but not eligible for arbitration were given 10 percent raises from their 2008 salaries; those with two-plus were given 15 percent. Those with zero-plus were given the 2009 minimum of $400,000.
• Seeding for the tournament will be based on payroll -- No. 1 payroll vs. No. 4 payroll; No. 2 vs. No. 3.
• Each team must carry 11 pitchers.
• Each will act as a National League team -- so, no DH.
The economy is impacting everyone, baseball included. Teams are looking to build more cost-conscious rosters. But how? Is it doable? Are there enough talented, relatively inexpensive players to build a competitive roster for, say, $40 million, which is roughly the payroll the San Diego Padres hope to operate at in 2009?
Well, ESPN.com put four of its experts on the case.
Over a recent five-day stretch, Steve Phillips of "Baseball Tonight," Buster Olney of ESPN The Magazine, and ESPN.com's Jayson Stark and Rob Neyer drafted their own 25-man rosters.
All this week, we reveal their selections -- and their thoughts on each other's selections. On Monday, Feb. 9, the four teams will begin going head-to-head in seven-game series conducted by ImagineSports.com, which provides online simulation baseball games, using its Diamond Mind Baseball software.
One semifinal will take place on Monday, another on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the winners will face off to determine a champion. Then, on Thursday, Feb. 12, our ultimate general manager will pit his budget-conscious team against the deep-pocketed New York Yankees in a seven-game series.