Outstanding.......Anything that has the potential to slow the pace of the Joss, Brown, Johnson (dead ball era pitchers), in our leagues will be very welcome. It has gotten to the point that if you do not draft the certain cookie pitchers you can not win. Many of us like to mix it up, but know that when we do, we will probably lose. THIS CAN POSSIBLY CHANGE ALL THAT. Suggestion..... do not allow the theme league option of having the pricing left to the discretion of the commish. The guys that like the win all the time via the cookie approach (who commish many of the leagues), will probably go the old way and too few good theme leagues will get to enjoy the new process.

I think the simplest solution to the price changes on teams in a league that has not yet filled is to have two salaries posted for the team: the actual salary and the floating salary. The first is the salary of the team when it was entered. Whenever a price modification takes place, the owner can see if his players' aggregate salary went up or down. The owner reserves the option to retain his current salary or to allow the salary to change according to the latest fluctuation. 

For example, in a $100m theme league, my team's salary is $99,950,000. While the league is filling, salaries fluctuate, and my team is now at $99,700,000. I now can change my salary to the lower figure and upgrade a player on my roster before the league fills. All this does is add a variable that increases the competitiveness of the league. Any owner who does not want to mess with it does not have to. If salaries go over the cap, the owner simply leaves his team at the base amount. There is no unfairness because every owner has the option of keeping his original salary or opting for the new one. It is a simple change technologically, too.

Another thing to consider is whether teams should still be forced to leave a league in order to change its lineup. The top DFS leagues do not do this. Once you enter your team it stays in its league while you retain the option of making player changes. If WIS makes this change, all you would have to do is show the most recent price change for each player and allow teams to swap players accordingly. The change to dynamic pricing may warrant this change to also take place.

I think it is important that all teams in a league that has not filled should receive a sitemail whenever a price fluctuation occurs. This is especially important when the league is about to fill up and there is little time between the fluctuation and the finalizing of the league. It would be a little unfair if a league fills one hour after a fluctuation event and only one or two owners had the opportunity to make changes because they happened to be on the site at that time. It might be necessary to disallow changes to any leagues that fill less than 24 hours after a price fluctuation.

The proverbial opening of " the can of worms". The freak-a-nomics of this are endless. There are many many problems and glitches with the current system. Why do people think that this won't continue.. The infrequent use of certain players is not always based on 'over pricing'. Players of certain eras,and part-time players simply are not preferred by sim-league owners and will never be. Why should their prices diminish creating value in things we don't covet or like? Also some players are used a lot simply because they are popular, not because they are underpriced.  People don't use players priced over 14mil much because of the popularity of lower and mid-level cap levels, not because their pricing is incorrect, Why should their prices fall? Veteran players will know the the old values and immediately spot and identify a new cookie when they see it. whereas poor unsuspecting rookies will fall victim to this, once again chasing them away from this site.  To paraphrase the Geico commercial......Why are we trying to hide behind the chainsaws when we can simply get in the running car.  The reality is that 20% of the players are getting 80% of the use.  We've identified the cookies, Why not just adjust only their prices without skewing the whole thing.

Posted by crimsonblue on 11/18/2015 10:02:00 AM (view original):
The proverbial opening of " the can of worms". The freak-a-nomics of this are endless. There are many many problems and glitches with the current system. Why do people think that this won't continue.. The infrequent use of certain players is not always based on 'over pricing'. Players of certain eras,and part-time players simply are not preferred by sim-league owners and will never be. Why should their prices diminish creating value in things we don't covet or like? Also some players are used a lot simply because they are popular, not because they are underpriced.  People don't use players priced over 14mil much because of the popularity of lower and mid-level cap levels, not because their pricing is incorrect, Why should their prices fall? Veteran players will know the the old values and immediately spot and identify a new cookie when they see it. whereas poor unsuspecting rookies will fall victim to this, once again chasing them away from this site.  To paraphrase the Geico commercial......Why are we trying to hide behind the chainsaws when we can simply get in the running car.  The reality is that 20% of the players are getting 80% of the use.  We've identified the cookies, Why not just adjust only their prices without skewing the whole thing.

Then there will just be a new batch of "underpriced" (since underpriced is not a static concept but a relative one) players that remains static until........... the prices change again. This automates that process while letting it be based on usage (i.e. "popularity") which, by and large, IS based on performance vs. salary (since this is a game in which people are often trying to win).

I agree that something needs to be done to prevent higher salary players from becoming unrealistically priced, however. As others have noted in this thread, '21 Ruth is not inaccurately priced, he's just really really good.

Tom, can we get an example, with numbers, showing how these adjustments would work?  There's already testing being done and data that has accumulated, correct?  Can we see some kind of example of how player salaries would actually be affected by user-generated data already gathered in testing phase?

In the last data set generated, how often was '08 Joss used and what would his new salary be if a price increase was implemented?  What about other popular cookie players like '92 Bip Roberts or '89 Howard Johnson.  And maybe examples of how moderately or rarely used players are affected.  Show us the spectrum of what could occur.  Maybe seeing how the salaries would actually change will help curb some of the wild guesses and allay some possibly unnecessary apprehension about this idea.

This is a minor point, but could be significant for at least one of the theme leagues I'm in. It has to do with the adjustment for $200K players. There are well over a thousand $200K players in the database, but I would guess that only a couple hundred of them are ever used. This only reflects the fact that just a couple hundred of them are worth close to $200K, whereas most of the others might average out at a true value of $100K, if that.

Under the dynamic pricing proposal, the relatively few players currently worth their $200K salaries will jump up in price, and those worth well under $200K won't change. IMO, this will have the effect of over-inflating values for a small percentage of $200K players, and will at least somewhat skew the overall salary structure.

Furthermore, in leagues with AAA players, $200K players are typically drafted simply as placeholders. Many times, perhaps the majority of the time, they are never actually used by the owners that draft them. The fact that these $200K players are frequently drafted only reflects on drafting strategy for AAA leagues, not the value of the players. I would suggest exempting players with a $200K salary from the dynamic pricing plan.

How about this. much less often then every 2 weeks increase the salaries of the top 50 or so players by a modest amount. Give pennies to the bottom 10-20% that never get used. Leave most salaries unchanged. Limit the number of increments a player can get. and be prepared for fundamental strategies to change (remember the fatigue strategy?).

I think that every two weeks is way to much ,, maybe just go threw and redo all the players salaries ,,witch is way over do ,,, also i think that they should give every team and pay out increase a few times each league so you can save it and go get a player just like the trading dead line ...also they have not ever increased the cap witch is something that should be done as well .. and being a fan and enjoying the free team for fun will these teams also mess up the increase of salaries?? because i do not think that would be fair ..

Just a general point, expecting the site to do anything that might frustrate new users is unrealistic. This is a business, so complicating the choices of salary schemes or sending teams back to the draft center due to salary adjustments is only going to hurt the experience for the new user. If you can't come to this site and simply select your players and get started, then it's too complicated, and folks will not become repeat customers.

Whatever route you take, make sure the new user experience is kept at the forefront. You've got a business to run.

As Bull Moose points out, long-delayed upgrades and updates might make the simulation more accurate and reliable, and so easier for newcomers to understand and play. If done correctly, they also could change the dynamics of individual player performance. Instead, top priority goes to adding a layer of frivolous complexity and increased chance. Frequently changing values based on popularity, as opposed to real-life performance or effectiveness in the sim, makes WIS more explicitly a gambling site as opposed to an historical reconstruction/hobby.

Ironically, this proposal comes as Fan Duel suspends operations, at least temporarily, in New York, its largest market, because of legal questions raised there and echoed in Washington. Depending on that outcome, WIS and its customers might expect increased scrutiny from the relevant gambling and taxation agencies.

If the perceived problem is "cookies" in open leagues _ that is, products whose value becomes apparent to frequent customers _ drop the OL salary cap to $70 million next year, raise it to $90 million in 2017 and so on. BTW, I haven't observed another business where a small but vocal contingent of customers complain that they know too much about what they are buying. Of course, that won't be a concern once you're trying to operate multiple teams under different pricing structures. 

"As the commonly used 200K players get bumped up in price, new 200K cookies will be used, then those guys will get bumped up and so on. No 200K players will ever see a salary drop. This obviously presents a problem."

I believe this to be a non issue...The current 200K 'cookies' will go up by the maximum adjustment, and then get instantly 'not used'...Then, since they are 'not used', they will drop back down when the next adjustment happens...Meanwhile, lots of current 200K-215K guys will drop down to 200K, creating a new set of 'cookies'...This cycle will just repeat over 'n over...No big deal IMHO...


DBP

Most of the perceived problems with dynamic pricing are based on, or increased by, price changes occurring every two weeks. If a league takes two months to fill and there are eight price changes during that time, there will be issues. But if there is only one, it is not an issue. Everyone in the league will have time to make changes o their roster after the price change and all will be on the same playing field. It will not be too complex for beginners and the cookie problem will go away. I think the first decision that should be made is to change the pricing changes from every two weeks to once a month or once every two months. Then let's relook at the perceived problems that will remain. The smartest way to do this is to fix one problem at a time and assess after each one.