Posted by MikeT23 on 9/28/2010 12:37:00 PM (view original):
The key to this game is acquiring assets.

If you're dominating, or just being highly competitive year in/year out, good owners will figure out how you're doing it.   And they won't help you continue to do it.  Your plan is sound.   But most good owners aren't going to send you the 12th pick in the draft for your 29 y/o making 8m for the next 2 seasons.

when people trade they worry about their team. people dont turn down trades that make their team better just because it might help the other team in some way.  Anyways, I wouldnt turn down any trade that I thought makes my team better (barring the team possibly being in my division or something) so I dont see why others would.  oh well, I dont need other's approval for this..it will work.  hell, it already has in 2 worlds...procuring top end talent year after year after year.  trading or not....if I just continue doing that I will be competitive. 

ok, well ill get back to you in 5 seasons so you can see how i'm doing when I am a perennial contender :-)

Then why start a thread?

And assuming that people will crawl all over themselves to get at your players is...well...about as narrow sighted as thinking cash in trades doesn't add to someone's overall cap.

Posted by deathinahole on 9/28/2010 12:48:00 PM (view original):
Then why start a thread?

And assuming that people will crawl all over themselves to get at your players is...well...about as narrow sighted as thinking cash in trades doesn't add to someone's overall cap.

lol, yeah, who wouldnt want a perennial all star catcher under the age of 30.

.500 winning percentage. Looks like you have the strategy down to a science!

This strat can work, in a retarded world like Foxx. But in the average private world you probably won't be able to find the overhwleming success you are dreaming of.

im done with my explanations...id like to hear if others have a certain payroll structure they tend to follow.

No no. We're all wrong.

That's why he started the thread. To ask the question, then point out how stupid we are.

Posted by a3morey on 9/28/2010 12:47:00 PM (view original):
ok, well ill get back to you in 5 seasons so you can see how i'm doing when I am a perennial contender :-)

Seriously, I've been there. 

I built one of my teams with a lot of young talent . . . high-priced IFA's, and some very good (and somewhat lucky) drafting,  I pretty much had the same idea as you . . . bring in another one or two quality prospects into the system to develop, let the old guys roll-out as the new guys roll-in to the ML roster, and I can go on forever.

It's just not that simple.  It's not a sustainable strategy.  You need to be VERY lucky to make it work, i.e. have just the right replacement getting ready to roll-in while you deal the guy he's replacing.  But if you have a stretch of seasons where the top IFA coming into the world, or your first round draft pick is either a LF or RP, then the house of cards comes tumbling down.

my general strategy is that I try to make the playoffs every year.  Meaning I don't play the boom-bust cycle, I try to reload and be competitive every year.  That means I won't have high draft pickss

I've found that drafting in the 20s every year isn't going to re-plenish the MLB team with stars or generate trade bait to acquire talent.  So I count on the IFA marked to re-stock my system.  So I'm going 20 prospect and high teens IFA.  I tend to go mid-teens HS, low college, just because I prefer the slow to the majors arc of the HS guys.

20 training of course.  I'm a zero Advance guy at this point becuase I don't do much trading (especially for young prospects).  Medical tends to stay high, but I will trend it down if I see a player payroll need.

On the payroll side, when possible I like to buy flexibility by front-loading my contracts with bonuses.  If I don't get a big name in the FA market, I will grab the scraps, and put all the money of a 3-year deal (well up to $10M) into bonus.  It serves the goals of not having me sit on excess money this year, makes the guy a more attractive trade piece later, and gives me more payroll flexibility next year (i.e. that "$4M" worth of bullpen guy is only making $1M next year).

I'm also very disciplined about FA bidding.  I won't get into a bidding war over a "must have" guy.  If he gets bid up, I move on.  So I tend to not end up with studs, but I don't have albatross contracts either.

Note my strategy will rarely (if ever) produce a dominant 100 win team, but will win 80-90 games 90% of the time.

Posted by a3morey on 9/28/2010 12:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/28/2010 12:37:00 PM (view original):
The key to this game is acquiring assets.

If you're dominating, or just being highly competitive year in/year out, good owners will figure out how you're doing it.   And they won't help you continue to do it.  Your plan is sound.   But most good owners aren't going to send you the 12th pick in the draft for your 29 y/o making 8m for the next 2 seasons.

when people trade they worry about their team. people dont turn down trades that make their team better just because it might help the other team in some way.  Anyways, I wouldnt turn down any trade that I thought makes my team better (barring the team possibly being in my division or something) so I dont see why others would.  oh well, I dont need other's approval for this..it will work.  hell, it already has in 2 worlds...procuring top end talent year after year after year.  trading or not....if I just continue doing that I will be competitive. 

Only morons only worry about their team.   At the end of the day, I have to beat the guy I'm trading with in addition to the rest of the world.   If you're sitting on 58m payroll and a pile of guys going into arb3, I'm not bailing you out by taking them and handing you my top prospects.   Because, as soon as I do that, you can continue with your low payroll/high IFA strategy.   This will keep me from getting that stud IFA.   Why would I want to do that?

I think it really depends on the world. I think a3morey is going to screw himself over with that strategy in Happy Jack. He seems to have the ability to get to about 31M in prospect budget. This is good except for the fact that Pittsburgh and Salt Lake seem to have the ability to get to 30 and 32M respectively. That wouldn't be so bad, but Columbus, St. Louis, and Oklahoma City all appear to be able to go over 40M. There's 6 or 7 more teams with 20M in prospects who could conceivably get to 25M or so. This makes the odds of a3morey landing a stud IFA almost 0 as they would have to miss the three teams with much more prospect budget completely and beat Pitt and SLC in a crapshoot where they will all likely be offering about the same contract. Add the fact that the teams with 20ish in prospects will be vulturing the mid-tier prospects and it doesn't seem like the value is there in IFA.

I had a similar plan and budgeted 20M in prospects, but after seeing what everybody else budgeted, I used up the cap space I had to pick up 3 Type A's and trade for a 20M "albatross" of a guy that is still very productive, but just isn't worth the contract anymore. I think that was a better use of budget then trying to roll the dice and hope I can outbid the tankers.

On the other hand, in No Quitters (which I think is a bit more of a balanced league, with less turnover, and thus, less tanking, then Happy Jack), I employed that strategy and was able to get to 29M in prospects, which is 2nd-most in the league. I lost the bidding on the first stud IFA, but I'm pretty sure that nobody can outbid me, so as long as I'm able to see one more stud IFA (probably about a 50/50 shot) it will turn out to be a good strategy.

I think it's like poker: if everybody else at the table is chasing straight and flush draws, it pays to play tighter and more conservatively. If everybody else is really tight, you can play loose and bully people. Generally, doing the opposite of everybody else is fairly effective game theory.

The problem is that 90% of HBD owners have thought of this strategy.   Who wouldn't want a good team with a low payroll and a ton of prospects?

Posted by torrone on 9/28/2010 10:18:00 AM (view original):
How many think ADV Scouting is a waste of $$?

More than the number that used to.  I don't put any money into advanced scouting, but I also don't trade for young players because of it (I don't do much trading anyway).  If you're going to use advanced scouting, I think you need at least 15MM.  If you put 10MM in advanced scouting, your projected totals aren't going to be very reliable.  But I can get unreliable projected totals by putting 0 in advanced scouting.  So I choose to use that 15-20MM elsewhere.  But if you love to trade, it's worth investing in it.

Posted by jtrinsey on 9/28/2010 2:12:00 PM (view original):
I think it really depends on the world. I think a3morey is going to screw himself over with that strategy in Happy Jack. He seems to have the ability to get to about 31M in prospect budget. This is good except for the fact that Pittsburgh and Salt Lake seem to have the ability to get to 30 and 32M respectively. That wouldn't be so bad, but Columbus, St. Louis, and Oklahoma City all appear to be able to go over 40M. There's 6 or 7 more teams with 20M in prospects who could conceivably get to 25M or so. This makes the odds of a3morey landing a stud IFA almost 0 as they would have to miss the three teams with much more prospect budget completely and beat Pitt and SLC in a crapshoot where they will all likely be offering about the same contract. Add the fact that the teams with 20ish in prospects will be vulturing the mid-tier prospects and it doesn't seem like the value is there in IFA.

I had a similar plan and budgeted 20M in prospects, but after seeing what everybody else budgeted, I used up the cap space I had to pick up 3 Type A's and trade for a 20M "albatross" of a guy that is still very productive, but just isn't worth the contract anymore. I think that was a better use of budget then trying to roll the dice and hope I can outbid the tankers.

On the other hand, in No Quitters (which I think is a bit more of a balanced league, with less turnover, and thus, less tanking, then Happy Jack), I employed that strategy and was able to get to 29M in prospects, which is 2nd-most in the league. I lost the bidding on the first stud IFA, but I'm pretty sure that nobody can outbid me, so as long as I'm able to see one more stud IFA (probably about a 50/50 shot) it will turn out to be a good strategy.

I think it's like poker: if everybody else at the table is chasing straight and flush draws, it pays to play tighter and more conservatively. If everybody else is really tight, you can play loose and bully people. Generally, doing the opposite of everybody else is fairly effective game theory.

Good points.

To condense what this post is saying, one way to succeed is to zig when everybody else is zagging. 

If a number of owners are positioning themselves to chase the high-price IFA's, then you're probably not going to dominate the IFA market just because that's your strategy, too.  You need to position yourself to be flexible to go in a different direction if there's going to be less competition for a different kind of resource, such as going after college draftees if most everybody else is chasing the high school kids.

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/28/2010 6:57:00 AM (view original):

Everything except medical and training changes.   And even medical is subject to change if I get too old as a team.

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