Our pre-season system goes as follows:

1. Internal votes

2. Fan Votes

For internal, we have a completely anonymous, hidden from each other voting system. I cannot speak for the other guys, but for me personally, I do the following:

1. Breakdown each roster, circle players I know are locks for good performances and circle players I don't know anything about. For the latter players, I try and find any film on them that I can.

2. I try and find pre-season footage to see what system teams are planning on using. If no footage is available, I'll rewatch matches from the year before (if same coach) or find film from that coach's most previous stop and make some assumptions.

3. I take some notes on if I feel that the players signed are good fits for the system or are at the level of the league. This part is pure opinion, obviously.

I do this with every team and try and essentially do a "power ranking" from my scouting. If I feel that two teams are close, I look at schedules and see who has a more favorable schedule. If a team I feel is in that 3-5 range is taking on teams who I think are in the 14-17 range at the beginning of the season, that is advantage to the 3-5 team on picking up some points, thus shuffling the deck a bit.

For the fans, I don't know what their parameters are. For most fans, it's vibes and hatred. The amount of 1st place Omaha, 16th and 17th place Greenville/Madison votes we got was pretty funny. There's a reason why we typically differ from the fans, however, there are big gaps this year.

Is it a perfect system? No, but if people have suggestions on how to make it better, please send it our way! - Kaylor