While ideal, it would be hard to organize leagues by experience level. There are some owners that have been in worlds 50+ seasons. Some of those worlds would be ideal for new players, but you can't just ask the experienced owner to leave his team that he has invested 15 real life years into.

Anthony Ishida - 25th round pick/college guy/no DITR

Posted by damag on 3/24/2020 7:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by opie100 on 3/24/2020 5:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Frewilley on 3/24/2020 4:23:00 PM (view original):
Why is it that owners complain when a rookie owner trades a prospect for a veteran you would think you know what your getting in a veteran but rookies r unknown

Generally speaking, if you have a decent scouting budget for a given category, you have a pretty good sense of where those players are going to end up, barring injury or sustained bad coaches. Prospects are more valuable than their equivalent $6M veteran because of the cheaper seasons that owner will get out of that player at league minimum, then at arbitration -- also because vets over 30 will start to deteriorate. Top draft picks and high signing bonus IFAs are often unrealistically likely to be successful (not because of where they are picked, but because high-priced scouts are unrealistically accurate).

Savvy veteran owners like to prey on new owners that don't know yet that their prospects are often worth more than the aging all-star vet. That's why worlds should be better organized by experience level.

I can't +1 this enough

Yep. I was going to say the same thing, but it was so well stated already that I just left it alone.

Posted by strikeout26 on 3/24/2020 7:40:00 PM (view original):
Anthony Ishida - 25th round pick/college guy/no DITR

I would be curious what the college scouting budget was that season for that franchise. It seems like the odds of this happening are greater with lower budgets and fewer scouted players.

Posted by strikeout26 on 3/24/2020 7:37:00 PM (view original):
While ideal, it would be hard to organize leagues by experience level. There are some owners that have been in worlds 50+ seasons. Some of those worlds would be ideal for new players, but you can't just ask the experienced owner to leave his team that he has invested 15 real life years into.

The biggest issue once owners have played the game long enough to really get player evaluation is they become more interested in worlds where they can take the most advantage. It's naturally more fun to win. But I think you'd keep newer HBD players around longer if they cut their teeth against opponents of similar skill levels.

Worlds with higher owner performance requirements result in a trade reviewal process that's easier on the rest of the world, because you don't end up with deals between 120-season vets and 9-season "rookies", or career .580 and .460 win% that are often veto-worthy after a closer look. High volume traders benefit from owner fatigue, where the volume of reasonable deals obfuscates their occasional 3-1 vet-newb deal. Anyway, I digress.

I just get bored and tend to move around a lot. Except for my Tacoma team in Pine Tar. That's my favorite world/team by far. (Of course)

Posted by opie100 on 3/25/2020 12:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by strikeout26 on 3/24/2020 7:37:00 PM (view original):
While ideal, it would be hard to organize leagues by experience level. There are some owners that have been in worlds 50+ seasons. Some of those worlds would be ideal for new players, but you can't just ask the experienced owner to leave his team that he has invested 15 real life years into.

The biggest issue once owners have played the game long enough to really get player evaluation is they become more interested in worlds where they can take the most advantage. It's naturally more fun to win. But I think you'd keep newer HBD players around longer if they cut their teeth against opponents of similar skill levels.

Worlds with higher owner performance requirements result in a trade reviewal process that's easier on the rest of the world, because you don't end up with deals between 120-season vets and 9-season "rookies", or career .580 and .460 win% that are often veto-worthy after a closer look. High volume traders benefit from owner fatigue, where the volume of reasonable deals obfuscates their occasional 3-1 vet-newb deal. Anyway, I digress.

I agree with your whole take on it. I'm just not sure how you would implement worlds based on skill level/experience.

The "balanced" but highly advantageous trade capitalizes on two truisms about this game: first, that it is a money management game at its core; second, that full player evaluation is the most important thing for an owner to learn.
It's Belichick 101 - never pay market value for a player. (In the NFL, due to skill level of players, comp value for a top free agent is a third round pick. Draft well and you literally get the same player five years younger and cheaper.)

My beef with it is that it circumvents the natural draft cycle for a superior team. The owner who takes advantage of these trades never has a premium draft pick but never has to suffer for it. He never has to really bother with the draft - or spending on it - because his team employs other teams' top prospects. Which also gives him a big advantage in the IFA market.

Posted by opie100 on 3/24/2020 11:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by strikeout26 on 3/24/2020 7:40:00 PM (view original):
Anthony Ishida - 25th round pick/college guy/no DITR

I would be curious what the college scouting budget was that season for that franchise. It seems like the odds of this happening are greater with lower budgets and fewer scouted players.

I have a guy that I drafted in the 19th round and my college scouting was $18M.

Player Profile: Herbert Calhoun - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Posted by joekendall on 3/25/2020 9:39:00 AM (view original):

Posted by opie100 on 3/24/2020 11:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by strikeout26 on 3/24/2020 7:40:00 PM (view original):
Anthony Ishida - 25th round pick/college guy/no DITR

I would be curious what the college scouting budget was that season for that franchise. It seems like the odds of this happening are greater with lower budgets and fewer scouted players.

I have a guy that I drafted in the 19th round and my college scouting was $18M.

Player Profile: Herbert Calhoun - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

I assume the 500 players on your board were gone by then -- I wonder how the dud-to-stud ratio compares between guys (a) not on the college board vs. (b) guys that are ??? or ??? ??? on the high school draft lists.

I'll add one more thing to the 'rookies trading for vets' talk before I leave it well enough alone.

Often times rookies don't know how good or how bad a veteran player is or how to evaluate it. I remember once I had a SS that had 50's for his batting stats across the board but was hitting .360 in his first 50 games and got a player of the week nod. This is a career guy that is under .250 avg and probably hovering .300 on base. I had him for his defensive abilities and the bat was a bonus. Lets say that a relativly new player wants a lead off guy and sees these amazing stats. Chances are I could fleece him for a top 10 pick or maybe even top 5 because the new owner doesn't know that Stats do not = ratings.

The other thing is a new owner could see a player that is decent (60's or 70's across the board in hitting) but not realize that those number for a 1B are not that great or that they could pick up a player like that on free agency.

The only reason I mention these things is I was guilty of them in my first few seasons. I traded away a good prospect for a LF who was in his 30's had a decent bat but I traded for him because he was cheap. My logic was I could spend the money elsewhere (not realizing those guys are a dime a dozen in free agency and the waiver wire).

Even as a vet it is so difficult to evaluate trades and determine what is fair and reasonable. Sometimes I walk away getting gold for garbage, sometimes the other way. And in the rare instance (which IMO is the best, because it builds trust between trade partners) both owners trading get exactly what they want.

Posted by opie100 on 3/21/2020 10:34:00 PM (view original):
Any long term success with three-pitch SPs?

This isn't my player, but one in a world I am in. He is a very good pitcher with 3 pitches.

Player Profile: Michael Suzuki - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

FWIW, my linear regression model with ERA as the outcome has a small but positive coefficient for P3, and very tiny negative coefficients for P4 and P5.

In other words, P3, P4, and P5 don’t have a huge effect on predicted ERA. It’s not a perfect model by any means, but I don’t think that they programmed 2 and 3-pitch pitchers to be “inconsistent” or significantly worse than 4-pitch pitchers, other than the fact that they miss out on 0.01 to 0.05 points in ERA.

IMO, the inconsistency observation is 1) partially true because higher ERA pitchers will actually have more variation because larger numbers vary more, and 2) confirmation bias.

Posted by lamps24 on 3/25/2020 1:51:00 PM (view original):
FWIW, my linear regression model with ERA as the outcome has a small but positive coefficient for P3, and very tiny negative coefficients for P4 and P5.

In other words, P3, P4, and P5 don’t have a huge effect on predicted ERA. It’s not a perfect model by any means, but I don’t think that they programmed 2 and 3-pitch pitchers to be “inconsistent” or significantly worse than 4-pitch pitchers, other than the fact that they miss out on 0.01 to 0.05 points in ERA.

IMO, the inconsistency observation is 1) partially true because higher ERA pitchers will actually have more variation because larger numbers vary more, and 2) confirmation bias.

So, I'll go on the other side of this then (because I love to Argue)

Danny Mullholland

Don't worry about the other seasons. Focus on SD in the NL (where baseballs go to die). He is by no means an elite pitcher. I had him as an SP3 to be honest. I figure the 3.90 ERA season is about where he belongs, but he was all over the place. 3.03, 3,33, 4,48, 4.40. The big thing here is there aren't too many seasons in the 'Middle' Other then the one 3.90 season there is nothing between a 3.50 ERA and a 4.20 ERA which is what I would expect.

Oddly enough too (I read every play by play) I always called him Danny 'One bad inning' Mullholland. Because it always seemed to happen. He would be dealing for 1-2 innings, then give up a 3 or 4 spot, then go back to pitching shutout ball.

One of the strangest players I have ever seen.

To work off of what Hockey was saying, Eduardo Johnson is essentially Mulholland with 5 pitches (None of them real good at all). He has been a model of consistency for me. I even gave him a long-term deal after arb because I knew what I was going to get from him every season.