Gotta agree with burnsy. My San Diego team in in the LCS for the second time in two years with less then 90 wins. Meanwhile in WIB, my 100 win Souix Lookout team got bumped in the wildcard round.

I'm way guilty of this. Portland in 7Yankees7 had 3 straight playoff appearances before I took them over. They had a lot of good parts. I hacked that roster apart (as has been detailed in these Forums). Made bad trades to free up salary. Bad idea. That team still has some pieces but I am probably wrecked for the next few seasons. 

So why wreck and rebuild? Because I do it in fantasy baseball all the time and can turn it around very easily. This is a whole different game. I learned my lesson.

So in mauer I inherited a big payroll with a lot of aging players. But the team seems somewhat competitive. So I am going with it. No big rush to sell off players. Just let them play and see if I can make a run.

Anyone who's played HBD enough knows that to be true.  Of my 6 WS winners, I was only the best team once.    And I've had the best team at least that many times and failed in the playoffs. 

I think the attitude exists because of a lack of understanding with the game. I admit that I did this once. But it occurred over 7 years ago when I started in American Pastime. I had no clue what I was doing at that point and dismantled a playoff team which resulted in mediocrity for 7 seasons.

I've only taken on three teams since I've felt like I know what I am doing and they each required a different approach. One was a mismanaged middle of the pack team where I made a couple key trades and we won the WS in my first season. Another was a perennial playoff team where I just made minor tweaks and won 6 of the next 7 division titles. The last was an overpaid crap team with little talent at any level. This was the only one where the complete overhaul made sense.

I've been rebuilding my team in Major Leagues for 25 seasons now, it never ends. Maybe it isn't the best way to go. I took a team in Hardball Central, I think they won 75 or so games, I trashed the team at the ML level as much as I could because there were some really bad contracts IMO. So, I tried to make deals that made sense for both right now and down the line. I would up winning about the same amount of games and was able to dump some bad deals. I hope to compete the season after next without a complete teardown which is what I have always done.

Since a lot of talk is about contracts - and getting rid of them, one thing I failed to consider was this: If you are paying a young player $350K and he's giving you $7,000,000 of production, that is ideal. If you are paying a player $10,000,000 and he's giving you $7,000,000 of production, that isn't as ideal. But it isn't a loss. Its still the same result. You still get that production. Does it restrict where you can spend elsewhere? Certainly. There's a $9.65 million swing there.

If you rid yourself of that $10 million contract and replace it with a $4 million FA contract (which appears to usually give you about $4 million of production  - or less), then hey! Wee! You gave yourself $6 million more dollars - but you still are left with $4 million in production where as before you had $7 million. This gets you no closer to a title IMO.

Any player over 30 needs to be released. My #1 rule. Always.

Since pitchers can hold their value into late 30s/early 40s, that seems smart.   Might explain this:

Championships

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If a guy under contract can still produce, no matter his age, and you can reasonably project that he should continue producing through the end of his contract, then he should stay.  Unless you're getting a younger like for like replacement 

It seems to me that this game is about player valuation. 

Figure out who's actually worth paying, and how much their performance is worth.  And then staying on the right side of that equation, avoiding paying players who are not playing up to or above their contracts.

The main idea behind "Moneyball" is finding market inefficiency.  When too many owners start playing the same way, a certain set of players becomes undervalued, and that's where you find cheap performance.

When everyone starts getting rid of veterans at age 30, bingo.

Moneyball world is dead.

I was guilty of this in my first experience with HBD oh so long ago. I tanked it up big time. Although I did enjoy the ill-begotten fruits of that labor, I came to realize that winning by tanking is actually not as satisfying as winning by building a team fairly.

If I remember correctly, I think my mentality was that I was keeping the team anyway, so why not some short term pain for long term gain?

This guy is a perfect example of the failure of the whole 'over 30, and expensive so dump him' mentality...

Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Alexander Capra

At first look, I saw an aging, potentially injury prone guy who has an expensive contract. I wanted to dump him immediately. But a lot of what I read in the forums gave me pause. So I look at Capra this way - 1) Can my team contend? I think so (but I am still new to all this). 2) Can I afford him? Yes. 3) has he been productive? 1.017 OPS with 176 runs created last year - so, yeah.

So why would I really get rid of him? How much would it cost in the FA market to get a replacement for that production? Probably the same salary plus the loss of a draft pick. How hard would it be to get that production via trade? Pretty costly there as well.

Most of all - why do I need to get rid of him now? He's still productive. I can delay that decision until he isn't.

Posted by damag on 3/14/2015 9:35:00 AM (view original):
It seems to me that this game is about player valuation. 

Figure out who's actually worth paying, and how much their performance is worth.  And then staying on the right side of that equation, avoiding paying players who are not playing up to or above their contracts.

The main idea behind "Moneyball" is finding market inefficiency.  When too many owners start playing the same way, a certain set of players becomes undervalued, and that's where you find cheap performance.

When everyone starts getting rid of veterans at age 30, bingo.

I've noticed that with Riley a lot. The IFA market is a logjam of buyers and the draft is reasonable but not insane but everyone seems to want to ditch their 30+ guys. Especially position players. Now, trying to get fair deal in free agency or a trade is another story but that's all the fun.

I think it's a guy that has less than ten seasons experience.  They want to have a top 3 draft pick for the next eleven seasons so they put on blast 'IM TRADING EVERYONE'.  Chances are, they dont even know who or what they are trading away and are getting in return