This is just for personal curiosity. Its game 130 and there is no way you are making the playoffs (10 games out, something like that). Do you tank for a better draft pick or do you try to play spoiler and keep your W-L record up?

For me, I personally try to win every game unless I'm resting guys for the playoffs. I just have no idea if this is the norm across most worlds or if I'm just crazy for shooting myself in the foot.

This is gonna sound arrogant, but if I'm 10 games out with 32 to go I've been "tanking" all season. That said, my way of "tanking" is:

1. Put together the best team I can with a salary budget that allows me to bid for high-priced INTLs, and that doesn't start the arb clock for my top prospects, and then
2. Win every game I can with that team, all season long, even once I clear my MWR.

Depends on the definition of tanking. If it's late in the season and I'm mathematically out of it, I'll certainly give the AAA guys a shot to see what they can do. Usually they do better and I start winning.

Posted by dedelman on 8/16/2023 11:38:00 AM (view original):
This is gonna sound arrogant, but if I'm 10 games out with 32 to go I've been "tanking" all season. That said, my way of "tanking" is:

1. Put together the best team I can with a salary budget that allows me to bid for high-priced INTLs, and that doesn't start the arb clock for my top prospects, and then
2. Win every game I can with that team, all season long, even once I clear my MWR.

i'm in a league right now with no MWR. guy has lost 100+ games for 10 straight seasons, maybe more. it's a show of ****.

Posted by hockey1984 on 8/16/2023 11:07:00 AM (view original):
This is just for personal curiosity. Its game 130 and there is no way you are making the playoffs (10 games out, something like that). Do you tank for a better draft pick or do you try to play spoiler and keep your W-L record up?

For me, I personally try to win every game unless I'm resting guys for the playoffs. I just have no idea if this is the norm across most worlds or if I'm just crazy for shooting myself in the foot.

I would think the number of positions you might gain in draft position would be minimal with that amount of time left in the season. Just play it out. No need to tank. That damage has already been done.

I would agree with what dedelman said. You set your team at the beginning of the season. What you hope to accomplish is based on your budget, and you assign your players based on that budget.

It is real hard to flip a switch and just start losing intentionally. The game plays out its results long term. You have to do something like bury all your best players and replace them with AA nobodies.

When you see someone flat out tanking, they're trying hard. You have to break the game for a team to have a win percentage below .400. You're playing AA players, out of position (LF at SS is a classic move), and letting your pitchers get beat to death (70+ starts is cute).

I’ll be totally honest, it’s been 50+ seasons since I have gone into game 1 thinking anything other then ‘I’m going to make the playoffs’

part of this is because I never do ints so there is only so much you can spend on the draft, coaches and prospects. Usually lends between 90-100 mill for salaries.

so I guess ‘tanking’ is when I start trying to trade my older guys and bring my younger guys up.

Like damag said, it's hard to lose intentionally. I don't know how reigny does it. He's the master at losing. At least he'll be in the WIS record books when all is said and done.

I'm going against the grain here -- regular season records matter to me. They matter for my personal record where im shooting to get to .600. They also matter when I judge other owners's record. I'd likely try to win every game so I don't make my winning percentage suffer.

However, a 32 game period is a drop in the bucket so if if you really think the pick value is there, go for it.

My only other frame of thought for this is I think the 16th pick in the draft is by far more valuable then the 17th. So if I was on the cusp I might try to lose a few to cross that threshold.

A little off subject, but the best part of this game, in my opinion, is the record keeping. Many other competitors of hbd clear stats after X amount of time. The fact that they keep stats for owners and players for as long as they do is what makes me continue to play this game. When you pull up an owner's page, there are 8 owner stats that can be immediately seen. I think all eight of these are important. I don't think they are the most important eight owner stats as average tenure is very important to me, but I do think all eight are important.

It is one of the more interesting things about the game to me. The very thing you describe is fun to me. Take a look at an owner's card, has he won a title? Has he won multiple titles? Is he in that elite group of owners that have won a title in ten percent of his seasons? What is his floor season? What is his best season? What is his career wining pct.? Has he played in Moonlight, Coop, or other highly competitive worlds with competition and parity? How often does he make the playoffs?

I get really intrigued when I see that .575+ and you start to dig into the how he got there. Did he do it by using the cookie cutter rebuild/contend strategy? If so, to me, this is no different than the .800 winning pct. gridiron player that does the exact same thing that everyone else does -- get a decent QB and red shirt in year 1, rinse and repeat to the point where every season you're running a 5th year senior QB that has the ability to throw 50+ TDs and no ints. To me, that's fine, but it's not any fun. Anyone can do that in gridiron just like anyone can run 20 million dollar payrolls in hbd, load up on scouting for four or five seasons and tank. By year 5, you have a handful of mlb ready superstars, then you can flip the script and start spending $100 million a season payroll. Again, im not communicating that I have any issue with the strat. Im just communicating im not impressed by it. It's easy. Where I get impressed is where an owner is able to sustain 95+ wins almost every season with little to no tanking years and little to no $120 million dollar payroll seasons. This is what's impressive to me. I have only seen a handful of owners do it and even some of them end up being unimpressive as well once you look at their trade history and see that, often times, they got there by fleecing owners in trades. Or, even worse, they have an average tenure per world of less than 5 seasons. This tells me they're cherry picking/widow hunting.

I, as well, feel it's fine that we disagree, but I do feel that the game would hold less value without those player cards.

Well said tlow. I completely agree. Running 120 mill payroll in Weaver is not nearly and doing well is not nearly as interesting to me as 90 mill in Rickey and trying to keep the sustained success through a variety of strategies.

That's another thing about hbd that I like -- lots of ways to have success. Some are more difficult to perfect than others, but having the options is nice.

Posted by hockey1984 on 8/21/2023 10:59:00 AM (view original):
My only other frame of thought for this is I think the 16th pick in the draft is by far more valuable then the 17th. So if I was on the cusp I might try to lose a few to cross that threshold.

Totally agree. That 16th pick is so much more valuable than the 17th. If I was on that cusp, i might try to maneuver to get to 16.