average advanced scouting budget when i joined MG was 14.  now it's down to 2.  it's a lot easier to dominate when the average owner is playing with a $171M budget- when i'm going against $183M budgets it's a bit trickier.  for every bit of the game that gradually gets solved, it becomes harder to pull a playoff team out of thin air.

So you invented 0 ADV?

Did you not notice I was at 0 two seasons before you joined?

i did notice, and am extremely proud of you for that.

originality isn't the point.  point is that owners who were spending on advanced were shooting themselves in the foot.  i wasn't.  back then you were the only other person at 0, now > 80% of the league is.  fewer people shooting themselves in the foot makes it harder to stay above .500 forever and ever.

Posted by deanod on 8/7/2012 1:20:00 PM (view original):
i did notice, and am extremely proud of you for that.

originality isn't the point.  point is that owners who were spending on advanced were shooting themselves in the foot.  i wasn't.  back then you were the only other person at 0, now > 80% of the league is.  fewer people shooting themselves in the foot makes it harder to stay above .500 forever and ever.

So maybe they weren't "mirroring" your budget and just happened to notice I was running a 0 ADV?

Anyway, my point is that no one is "inventing" anything wrt budgeting.    I went to 0 because I started noticing pretty standard development patterns around S3-S4.    I held off on going to 0 for a couple of seasons to make sure that I wasn't overlooking something.   And then I went straight to it.   But I'm sure some clown running 145m payrolls got there in S3 of some world. 

And when people starting asking why/how of 0 ADV, I told them.   And there you have it.

Posted by MikeT23 on 8/7/2012 1:24:00 PM (view original):

Posted by deanod on 8/7/2012 1:20:00 PM (view original):
i did notice, and am extremely proud of you for that.

originality isn't the point.  point is that owners who were spending on advanced were shooting themselves in the foot.  i wasn't.  back then you were the only other person at 0, now > 80% of the league is.  fewer people shooting themselves in the foot makes it harder to stay above .500 forever and ever.

So maybe they weren't "mirroring" your budget and just happened to notice I was running a 0 ADV?

maybe, if you want to argue pointless semantics and argue that some level of imitation was implied in "mirroring"

Posted by MikeT23 on 8/7/2012 1:32:00 PM (view original):
Anyway, my point is that no one is "inventing" anything wrt budgeting.    I went to 0 because I started noticing pretty standard development patterns around S3-S4.    I held off on going to 0 for a couple of seasons to make sure that I wasn't overlooking something.   And then I went straight to it.   But I'm sure some clown running 145m payrolls got there in S3 of some world. 

And when people starting asking why/how of 0 ADV, I told them.   And there you have it.

right.  but if one strategy is successful for you, and then everybody else starts doing it, then it's no longer giving you a leg up on the competition.

you seem hung up on "who first thought of 0 adv" which doesn't really matter here.

YOU brought up 0 ADV.   Which YOU seemed to think was your big advantage.

no, it wasn't my big advantage.  it was just a nice advantage that was easy to point out as an example.

my big advantage is finding undervalued players.  if everybody starts evaluating players as i do, then we might have serious issues.

Ok, Billy Beane.

there are other advantages that are gone too.  can't keep my farm system stocked via IFA anymore.  used to get some great values there that are now gone since like 25% of the league has 30M+ prospect payrolls these days.  and being unable to trade is killer.  of course losing the rape opportunities hurts, but not even being able to get off a fair trade makes it really hard to balance my team.

I invented screaming Friday

I think the last sentence is key, stoney.   People eventually realized that just handing you what you needed when you'd post "Need a power hitting COF" was really stupid.    If you have designs on winning it all, you quit giving players to the owner who is winning it all.

I wish the guy that has won .474 % of the WS would join the mentor list!!