Which can be a problem, if you're trying to attract people to progs. Some are hard to fill, especially if a franchise is going through a RL decade of awfulness. I'd rather err on the side of someone tanking to keep the league full and running, than have to wait forever to find someone willing to take on that team with no playoff hope for at least 5 seasons.

Posted by just4me on 9/22/2022 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/22/2022 12:58:00 PM (view original):
It's a fine line though. I certainly see what you're saying and agree in principle. But what if there is a legitimately crappy team that can't win more than 50 games in a particular season (which does happen in progs)? I just won 22 games in the Early Icon league with the Indians. I dropped to 4th in the draft order because I didn't hit the minimum, which is fine - but there was no way I was coming close to the minimum with the roster I had.

Teams like that may desperately need the stud at the top of the draft to become mildly competitive, but in your scenario, it'll likely go to a team that's already got a stronger roster.

I can only speak for the formula I put together, but legitimate crappy teams are still weighted by their expected performance, so if it's legitimately a team that is realistically expected to win 20 games (and the strength of schedule is weighed into the formula), then if you won 22, you'd probably pick in the top 5 picks (depending on how everyone else did relative to their expectations, and they'd have higher expectations based on how often they would play that very weak team).

In the current league using the most up to date version of the formula, we've had a handful of teams with extremely low salaries (defined as more than 20% below the league average). More than half of those extreme low salaried teams have picked in the top 5 draft spots in those respective seasons with ~90% of those teams picking in the top half of the draft.

But yes, occasionally you'll see a 115+ win team pick in the top 5, as well.

This was the thought experiment that went into the schedule weighting adjustment that was implemented a few seasons back:

Suppose you have a 24 team league and 23 teams in the league hav salaries of $80,000,000 and 1 team has a salary of $40,000,000. How do you accurately project the $40m team's expected wins? The rest of the league is easy and will be fairly accurate given their relative salaries. But the $40m team will assuredly be over-projected (41 wins). Do we really think that team will win 41 games? I mean, I won 85 in an OL with a $50m team, but I also had AAA and drafted with that in mind. Without AAA and at $40m, how many do I really think I could win. I think, at an absolute best, 48, and that's if everything goes right. 48 wins would be a draft score of 17.28. Or a top pick for sure. But aside from an absolute best case, is 41 wins a reasonable expectation? After alot of thought, I came away with no. a $40m team only playing $80m teams would be hard pressed to realistically win 41 games. So, I used the same schedule-weighing formula to determine the %+/- and add the %+/- to an exponent against the expected wins formula. Doing that here, this team is now expected to win 34 games. Which seemed much more reasonable.

All draft order options are flawed if we're being honest. There is no perfect way to do it...even random is ridiculous. I'm not a fan of formulas - the truth is they are flawed, but they are flawed differently than lotteries. Even the formulas based on salary are flawed as they punish people unfairly for having depth. Maybe you prefer those flaws and that's fine, but to pretend they aren't flawed is wrong.

I play in leagues with formulas and I play in leagues with lotteries and will continue to do so...I just don't pretend that one is better than the other. I took over a bad team in a league with some version of a formula. I had the worst team AND I get to pick last. Whatever...I knew what I was signing up for, but let's not pretend that the formula made the team/league attractive somehow. I took the team in spite of it because the league format will allow me to replenish the talent after "tanking" (what I really mean is being bad with no hope of getting better) for several seasons. Somehow people think that is better than lotteries...I don't see how it's better than a lottery.

On another note more related to the post, I won a WS with a position player catching 17 games. Not ideal, but I wanted to make sure the C I did have was 100% for the playoffs and I tried to be selective which teams I played the position player at C against.

Posted by slashtc on 9/22/2022 2:52:00 PM (view original):
All draft order options are flawed if we're being honest. There is no perfect way to do it...even random is ridiculous. I'm not a fan of formulas - the truth is they are flawed, but they are flawed differently than lotteries. Even the formulas based on salary are flawed as they punish people unfairly for having depth. Maybe you prefer those flaws and that's fine, but to pretend they aren't flawed is wrong.

I play in leagues with formulas and I play in leagues with lotteries and will continue to do so...I just don't pretend that one is better than the other. I took over a bad team in a league with some version of a formula. I had the worst team AND I get to pick last. Whatever...I knew what I was signing up for, but let's not pretend that the formula made the team/league attractive somehow. I took the team in spite of it because the league format will allow me to replenish the talent after "tanking" (what I really mean is being bad with no hope of getting better) for several seasons. Somehow people think that is better than lotteries...I don't see how it's better than a lottery.

It's a cost-benefit analysis: that decision to carry depth/bloat for the current season in a way that negatively impacts their draft position, but helps them in the future more than they perceive eliminating that excess will improve their draft outlook. It's a decision to carry depth or future value above the perceived value of the difference in picks.

I don't think it's a flaw, but more of a positive feature that gives owners better control of their team outlook.

Posted by just4me on 9/22/2022 3:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by slashtc on 9/22/2022 2:52:00 PM (view original):
All draft order options are flawed if we're being honest. There is no perfect way to do it...even random is ridiculous. I'm not a fan of formulas - the truth is they are flawed, but they are flawed differently than lotteries. Even the formulas based on salary are flawed as they punish people unfairly for having depth. Maybe you prefer those flaws and that's fine, but to pretend they aren't flawed is wrong.

I play in leagues with formulas and I play in leagues with lotteries and will continue to do so...I just don't pretend that one is better than the other. I took over a bad team in a league with some version of a formula. I had the worst team AND I get to pick last. Whatever...I knew what I was signing up for, but let's not pretend that the formula made the team/league attractive somehow. I took the team in spite of it because the league format will allow me to replenish the talent after "tanking" (what I really mean is being bad with no hope of getting better) for several seasons. Somehow people think that is better than lotteries...I don't see how it's better than a lottery.

It's a cost-benefit analysis: that decision to carry depth/bloat for the current season in a way that negatively impacts their draft position, but helps them in the future more than they perceive eliminating that excess will improve their draft outlook. It's a decision to carry depth or future value above the perceived value of the difference in picks.

I don't think it's a flaw, but more of a positive feature that gives owners better control of their team outlook.

I mean that's a nice spin and all. You should be a politician. You can call it whatever you want; it doesn't make it any fairer than any other system in reality. They can all be manipulated to get the desired result with some planning just like the lotteries can be. People will find ways to take advantage of flaws in the system.

I’d challenge anyone to join my league and manipulate your team to get a top pick.

no one is saying one system is perfect vs another, and it’s obviously subjective, but I think you can absolutely talk to the benefits of one vs another. If you are fine with 12 teams winning 40 games because Greg Maddux and Barry bonds are rookies, then continue playing lottery leagues. You’re also gonna see a lot of questionable managing decisions and it’s up to you and your league if you’re gonna go down the “they’re tanking/cheating” discussions. I’d rather have teams that should win 50-60 games do everything they can to try to win 60-70 in order to get bonds/Maddux.

Are there flaws in the formula? Sure. You can’t just phone it in, you’ve gotta actively manage your teams and you’ve gotta pay attention to guys in the draft that may otherwise be overlooked. (As an example, in 1974 having Joe Torre may be better than having Jim Wynn as the value/$ may benefit Torre). I believe the passion of the owners in the league are greater in formula leagues (not just mine, but in others I’ve been in) because of the choices you need to make. You can’t just draft 2000 innings and 8000 PA without considering the consequences (we do have an owner who does that, but understands that their picks will be hurt because of the depth they keep).

all formulas are different too, so don’t join one and make a judgment on all. The J4M formula is much more in-depth and takes strength of schedule, avg salary for all 162 games (any trades are reflected on the formula immediately). Others just take wins/salary. All have benefits and disadvantages.

If you wanna look around at the formula in practice, here’s our live standings, updated 3 times a day after each game. It’s still early, so teams will move around a lot as teams that started hot fall back, and teams that got off to a bad start pick it up.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1320FAuv4ScCIrr75knzi9gV8DVgisemktRg-1oMR_4Y/edit

Posted by chargingryno on 9/23/2022 10:24:00 AM (view original):
I’d challenge anyone to join my league and manipulate your team to get a top pick.

no one is saying one system is perfect vs another, and it’s obviously subjective, but I think you can absolutely talk to the benefits of one vs another. If you are fine with 12 teams winning 40 games because Greg Maddux and Barry bonds are rookies, then continue playing lottery leagues. You’re also gonna see a lot of questionable managing decisions and it’s up to you and your league if you’re gonna go down the “they’re tanking/cheating” discussions. I’d rather have teams that should win 50-60 games do everything they can to try to win 60-70 in order to get bonds/Maddux.

Are there flaws in the formula? Sure. You can’t just phone it in, you’ve gotta actively manage your teams and you’ve gotta pay attention to guys in the draft that may otherwise be overlooked. (As an example, in 1974 having Joe Torre may be better than having Jim Wynn as the value/$ may benefit Torre). I believe the passion of the owners in the league are greater in formula leagues (not just mine, but in others I’ve been in) because of the choices you need to make. You can’t just draft 2000 innings and 8000 PA without considering the consequences (we do have an owner who does that, but understands that their picks will be hurt because of the depth they keep).

all formulas are different too, so don’t join one and make a judgment on all. The J4M formula is much more in-depth and takes strength of schedule, avg salary for all 162 games (any trades are reflected on the formula immediately). Others just take wins/salary. All have benefits and disadvantages.

That's my point though bro. They ALL have benefits and disadvantages. It's not any better than any other system because they are ALL flawed. All the formula leagues do is reward people for building a team the way the formula builder thinks is best. That's it.

Ryno's league is pretty awesome. Aiming for a top pick is fun. I bet it's very rewarding to get a top pick too.

Never once did he say I cannot play my DH at C.