I am a relative newbie to whatif baseball but even I know that some players, like Tony Phillips '93 and Bob Caruthers '86, are indisputably underpriced.

I would advocate for a free market component to be added to how the pricing of these players is done, so that, if a player is chosen more frequently than average, his price goes up, while if a player is chosen less frequently than average, his price goes down. The market could be recalibrated every time new seasons are added or major changes to the game are implemented.

I believe that the market would be fairly sophisticated -- I have a great deal of respect for the intelligence of the people who play this game. And I'm not advocating that this component be the overriding factor in the pricing formula, or even a major one -- I'm just suggesting that it should be *a* compenent.

One argument against such a free market component would be that well-known players (and more recent players) would be overvalued because those are the names that come to mind when drafting a team. So Mickey Mantle might be overpriced and Reb Russell might be underpriced. But wouldn't that reward people who are able to select the underpriced and obscure? It seems to me that there should be a reward for that skill.

Thoughts?

Maybe they could make a league that does auction style drafting much like some fantasy baseball leagues are run.

Thats an interesting idea, but the big flaw is that not all players who are chosen often are misspriced. Some players are simply unique and fit an owners needs/wants, but they are priced fair. I think the best solution would be to price all the players accurately and leave it at that. Stolen bases, secondary postions, hitting pitchers, and A++ extremes are all underpriced, and "bad" fielders are way overpriced.

Are you talking about open leagues only? As boogerlips points out in many theme leagues you would get boned.

Every update someone finds a loop hole and eventually they close it.

This is a great idea for open leagues. I would love to play that game, so long as some rich guys don't manipulate the market.

Quote: Originally posted by Bilfert on 9/25/2009Are you talking about open leagues only? As boogerlips points out in many theme leagues you would get boned.

Every update someone finds a loop hole and eventually they close it.

An update, if only on some player(s) pricing, is long overdue.

Very interesting...I'm sure it's possible to compile the list of the top 26 used OL (full time seasons) players from each position, minus pitcher. The salary cap could be 100 M, with auction style drafting. There are obviously much more details, issues that need to be addressed, but the premise is legit.

i don't understand how this would work. i join an OL and i pay 6.5mil for Phillips. in the week before it fills his salary goes up to 6.7mil. is he grandfathered into my team at 6.5 so i'm allowed to go over?

what if he goes down to 6.3mil? then i would want to pull my team and readjust. constantly changing salaries + fixed cap = chaos.

Ain't gonna happen...This setup works, and we'll be getting a salary update sometime soon...

I know it ain't gonna happen. It's just pie-in-the-sky. jfranco, good point -- I would be for grandfathering, so that once you release your team into a league, that forms a contract between you and each player.

I think a big virtue of adding a free market component to open leagues would be that it might get some slugging back into this game. The strengthening consensus seems to be to build one's team around Bob Caruthers and his pre-WWI buddies as pitchers and Ozzie Smith and his ilk in the field (i.e., fast singles hitters who play good D). A free market system would add more variety in the teams one faces.

It would be difficult, but I really like the idea of demand based pricing. Prices would definitely be grandfathered in, and perhaps only adjusted once a year, when the new season's players are introduced. I think it would help with the complaint of so many instances of the same cookies getting used. They would become less and less of a value, causing people to look for different options.

Ideally, the pricing structure should make it where no one player is a better value than another. They do a good job of that now, but a demand-based price adjustment could help iron out a few of the anomalies.

Yeah, probably not going to happen, but I think it's worth at least exploring.

hows it going, fellas!

It ******* blows