It’s been a long and anxious wait, but the 2024 Major League Pickleball Draft is taking place next Tuesday, April 2 at 6 p.m. ET.
It’s very different from all of the previous drafts because this is an auction draft. Don’t worry, we’ve got all the draft logistics covered for you.
Typically when we talk strategy, it revolves around what order to draft, in terms of gender. Do you draft a dominant left-side guy first? Do you get one of the highest level women and then follow that up with another woman to have the best women’s team?
The most common gender order in the last draft was MFFM (Male, Female, Female, Male) or FFMM. The gender order strategy is still very much in play even though this time around it’s an auction draft.
There is a ton of added strategy in having each draft slot auctioned off. Just a reminder: the auction part is for each draft slot. General Managers need to be thinking about where they want to make their first pick, who they are targeting, etc…
A snake draft is much easier for GMs because they know their draft slots and they have an idea of who they can target around that pick. In this scenario, they’ll need to figure out who they are targeting out of the entire field while also not overpaying for a draft slot and not missing…
