I think this is a good idea and would be in favor of the every 2 week update for Open Leagues but NOT for Theme Leagues or Progressives.

2 pricing structures are really needed since they are completely different types of Leagues.

A simple 1 year update on player pricing for Theme Leagues and Progressives would be enough. You could take the "average dynamic price for the year" of each player, with a cap on the amount of the price change of say 10-15% up or down. Then make that the new price of players for the entire next year for Theme Leagues and Progressives. This price update could be done when the new players for the next season are added to the database. Everyone would then know when prices will change and plan accordingly. In addition to that, with a cap of 10-15% pricing change, commissioners in progressives would/could adjust Team Salary Caps to keep their Leagues in-line with the price change of players, if they wanted to. A 1 year change on player pricing would only affect a Progressive League about every 5-6 seasons of play depending on downtime in-between seasons. Theme Leagues could also plan around the pricing change knowing it was coming at a specific time.

I refuse to enter a league where the rules are subject to change. that includes player salaries. Do all the work to draft an economical team and then it gets wiped out, no thanks. Salaries should be frozen when the league is created. 
Other than that I like the idea of dynamic salaries but think they should change less often and by small increments. 2 weeks and 10% is way too much. It may take a few iterations but salaries will eventually catch up (or down) to where they belong. and we'll benefit by having a much larger player pool.

I don't think every 2 weeks for open leagues is too often and this is why. Once the usual cookies get too high priced they will become nearly undraftable. When that happens their price will come back down and eventually they will become priced where they should be based on how they perform. That is what they are trying to accomplish and it is time, way over due, for that to happen.

Keep in mind there are WAY more players that are NOT cookies than that are. A ton of players. They will become ever increasingly cheaper the less they are used.

I am curious about a related salary issue. AAA players are based on real player records. The different levels of AAA, below average, average, above average, way above average and "random" are all based on relatively well defined salary ranges. Each of these categories has separate ranges for hitters, starting pitchers and relief pitchers.

What will happen when market value salary adjustments are applied. Will the player records in the various AAA levels be frozen? Or will those on the fringes of salary limits float between levels?

I think either solution is viable as long as lock ins, etc. are the same as they are for drafted players. I'd like to know which solution is contemplated, but given the long term commitment of WIS to maintain the "mystery" of AAA I would settle for knowing that the issue has be addressed. I doubt that whatever is done will remain a mystery for long.

If it up for a vote? I go for updating once per month & a max change of 5%.

Also each league should lock their salaries at the time of founding.

Posted by jeff4noles on 11/17/2015 2:03:00 PM (view original):
Any word on the update in 2012 that never occurred

I was just coming by to post the same thing. I am so glad that we're getting Dynamic Salaries instead of the 2012 Update. Dynamic Salaries are going to help out those of us that only play progressive so much. Way to go WiS!!

I don't think dynamic pricing is a good idea.  I think updating the player salaries about once a year would be better.

I like bagchucker's suggestion above - that the salaries be renegotiated based on historical SIM success, not popularity. That way the cookies that always seem to perform well for whatever reason will see their salaries rise. One of the biggest complaints I see in my leagues' message boards are players severely underperforming - the foremost reason I see people losing interest in their teams. There are a lot of reasons for that, of course, but the expectation is that if you spend $12MM on a pitcher he should perform better than a $7MM pitcher, despite the various factors that may arise such as home field, strength of division, etc. But they too often don't, which in part nullifies owners' skill in creating a team under a salary cap. Yes, it's a lot of fun when a player overplays for you, but if I spend $8.5MM on '75 Joe Morgan, I expect that he'll hit better than .250.

Relief pitchers are a great example. I've found that it really doesn't matter if I spend $4MM or $2.5MM on the relief pitcher because it's a craps shoot as to how they'll perform. When, truthfully, since $4MM is at the top of the range for RPs, and assigned generally to the elite ones, they should perform much more reliably. By adjusting salaries based on SIM performance, while at the same time adjusting the salaries of those who generally overperform, you'll be getting a much more true picture of players all across the league at all positions.

If the salaries were based on SIM performance, and updated every few months - that makes sense. Then, you're actually increasing the challenge of drafting strategy, because when owners gravitate toward cookies, they'll be paying more for them, forcing the decision of whether to continue to use them and weaken the rest of their team, or change focus and use salary cap room to strengthen the rest of their team (thus strengthening the rest of the pool by making cookies less attractive). The goal of the salary cap is to challenge owners to build the best team with the money available. The luck of the draw is important when it comes to the actual simulations, but I'd like to see the results lean more heavily toward drafting skill than luck. I think this would help.

I don't mind a new approach, though for my leagues, my biggest concern with the proposal as it stands is changing salaries once a league's already started. I think there would have to be a way to lock in a salary structure for a league once it's established.

There may have to be safeguards against hacking the system by drafting players and then pulling teams before leagues begin. (Pardon if that's already been referenced one way or another.)

again, two weeks way too often....I can't imagine the snafu's that could occur on a regular basis.  But, if we do it here we must assign the league number and free team to the commishioners posting the league.  If it fails the free team associated with it goes away but the salary structure would stay the same dispite how often you upadate players salaries......I also can't imagine the amount of computer space it would take  for WIS to maintain all the different salaries that all the different leagues have going at the same time....they will be spread out quite a bit....Tournament of Champions also would become fluid as are the AAA players mentioned above.  Can't imagine those are going to be fair a great deal of time.  I suppose many leagues will just go to higher or uncapped parameters.  So just adjust the players salaries once a year based on use and performance and let us play.....oh 2012 Update? 

Posted by pruman1992 on 11/17/2015 6:36:00 PM (view original):
I do not remember see this in your explanation so I need to ask: Will you increase the $80 million proportionate to the players increase or do you think this would negate the value of the change.

The net change of all players in the data base will be zero, so there's no reason to think the $80M would change. In fact, changing it would defeat the entire purpose of dynamic pricing.

Posted by 0soup4u on 11/17/2015 6:29:00 PM (view original):
Being an older person, I naturally don't like change. I'll be an active participant on WIS regardless of the rules, but this plan worries me. I hope that the people advocating for this change are right, and this doesn't end up hurting the business rather than helping.

I definitely agree with the consensus that the proposed adjustments are too large and too frequent. Assuming that I understand correctly, a player's salary could double within a period of less than 5 months, which just seems crazy to me. That will make drafting teams like searching for airfares--frustrating at best, or a nightmare at worst. I strongly believe that the adjustments should be much more gradual, both in time frames and percentages.

Assuming that this change is made, I'm hoping that you incorporate a way for users to see the history of changes in a player's salary, or at least a trending indicator of some sort.

A player's salary could double in under 4 months.  But I doubt that would happen very often.  I can't really think of anybody that I'd keep drafting after a 40-50% price hike, so way before you get to double it's going to stop climbing.

I'll add that we want more than elimination or mitigation of cookies.

We want Jake Arrieta and Zack Greinke 2015 to pitch as well as Addie Joss and Mordecai Brown 1908, give or take.

I've played a grand total of 1 OL out of 581 seasons, so am only commenting on theme and progressive leagues.
- 2 weeks is too frequent. Longer time frame would mean fewer cap headaches (bouncing teams, redrafting, etc.), and the longer time frame would make it harder to manipulate the system. How about 2x/year? Do it when new players come out and on MLB Opening Day. Leagues starting around those times would know it's coming as they fill, and especially for Opening Day it might generate a little more anticipation.
- Giving commissioners the option to use fixed or dynamic pricing solves many of the theme issues. Because progs only have a handful or extremely popular players in any draft, I think concerns there are overblown and would be further minimized with longer price-change timeframes.
- I don't see an issue for progs that use salary to determine draft order (my preferred system). The rules would have to add a line about whether the salary used is determined when submitted via keeper lists or when the league is full and ready to draft, to account for changes in the interim.
- All teams in a league have to be on the same salary scale. Period. Losing a playoff because my opponent got Joss for $10M and had enough to draft Kimbrel while I paid $11.3M for Joss and settled for Okajima would drive me out of the game.
- The disparity between OL and Theme/Progressive leagues (# of leagues and player pool utilized) has to be addressed. Whatever the effects of 10% bumps for cheap cookies is, it will be on a different scale from what happens to the high-end Williams/Ruth/Bonds seasons.
- I wonder whether it would make more sense to eliminate the complexity of dynamic pricing. Instead update the entire pricing data base once per year, and use the programming time saved to making other improvements. If Joss' salary gets bumped too high and sits there for a year, so be it.

Most important will be follow through. As noted by a few posters, there's skepticism based on updates that were promised years ago and not delivered (and more importantly were just ignored, rather than addressed through a post saying the updates would not happen). It's reasonable for long-term players to fear that there will be an update implemented, and when bugs are discovered they take years to be addressed.

This is a much needed adjustment! I'm looking forward to its implementation