All of this is wrong, IMO.
- I'm not proposing setting the base salary higher than 80M — I'm rejecting the concept of a base salary.
- Who is "we"? Existing players? This is the wrong framing to think about attracting new players from. To your point, this is why I recommend high cap leagues to new players.
- 80M is not centered, cap-wise. The midway point between the highest and lowest caps available is 147.5M.
- Your point about shifting caps rather than players is a short term view. Yes, that would happen (as it should), but then the market begins to self-regulate in the new (correct) state.
Without a base salary level set, there’s no way to set salaries to begin with. It’s just a shot in the dark. We have historical usage and performance data that can serve as a relative baseline, but relative to what? Each other, sure... but that doesn’t tell us anything about a price point. There has to be a set baseline value for at team/league level or there is no way to even begin setting a salary structure in place. It could work in theory
only if aside from being untethered from a baseline, OLs weren’t $80m, but also floated to the point relative to where realism and all-stars were still useable, but this would be a constantly changing target as salaries would continuously drive upwards towards high cap usage of players like we already have seen. It would just create an unmanageable mess.
“We” in that context is the collective “we” of site management, existing players, and new players. Management, as they want the most engagement and re-engagement, existing players because we want new players to come back, and new players because the sim needs to make sense or there’s no point. It’s why I also disagree with shifting a new user’s first experience into higher caps. Yes, the limited player pool will help in some regards, but not enough to overcome the biggest hurdle for new players which is the lack of perceived realism. The farther from $70m you get, the more of a problem that becomes. It’s already enough of a challenge at $80m explaining why Bonds and Arod aren’t hitting 70 and 50 HRs, at $180m trying to explain why they aren’t hitting 30 and 25 is going to be a harder pill to swallow. It adds to the complexity of the matchups. It’s easier on a learning scale to see normalization work at realistic levels and then grow into quality of matchups than to take both at once. the goal here is to drive engagement across the board, but especially in retaining new owners. The closer to a realistic experience players get on their first try, the more likely they’ll try again. Seeing Bonds hit 40-50 or Maddux with 2.40 ERA is easier to grasp historically than Bonds hitting 25 and Maddux putting up a 4.35 because in their mind Bonds was already facing Johnson and Maddux etc... Maddux was facing Bonds and Gwynn etc... the historic aspect of of normalization and relative greatness hasn’t been fully exposed. And on retaining new users, I think $60m would be a better option to start out as they’d get those realistic results still, and their stars will play like stars. They may not be able to afford as many all-stars, but they can still grab 1-2, and those they get will play like all-stars. They’ll feel better about their players performance and feel like they grasped more of the game since it’s not so widely divergent from real life or expectations, while still getting to see the effects of normalization when they see guys like 1900 Donlin hit 35 HRs compared to his 10 in RL. This will allow for an easier exposure to these concepts before also subjecting them to relative greatness.
$80m
is centered cap-wise around performance. A true center would be closer to $70m. $80m is at the low end of the mid-caps (<$80m=low cap, $80-120m =mid-cap, >$120m=high cap), so it’s below the true average cap point, but that’s mostly meaningless since the high cap range is extends almost infinitely in terms of functional utility). It’s also not about the average cap price, but about player performance. Which ties into the last point, as well as into the points previously on perceived value.
The dollar value itself is meaningless and it absolutely will gravitate to where we are now, it’s not just a short term view. It’s literally the equivalent of inflation. Prices increase but value hasn’t changed. There would be nothing different other than the price tag attached to the player. But leagues and players would be setup the same as now but with higher totals so that they play the same as the current caps do. The market will adjust to equilibrium between a players value and perceived value regardless of the baseline price-level. You can’t just make up numbers out of thin air or out of perceived relativity.
My point about Joss was that he wasn’t even a bargain once you factored in defense, but everyone used him anyway because they perceived relative value out of him. He was priced appropriately relative to others. If he continues to be used the way he was then his price goes up and the perception of his value changes. He was never more valuable, just perceived to be. Once that perception changes he’ll find a balance between real value and perceived value. Which solves the cookie problem, not the value problem. The current base salaries account for the value problem. But nobody likes facing the same players over and over and over again.
Dynamic pricing creates equilibrium between the real value and the perceived value. It doesn’t show a players true value. But most of your points aren’t about dynamic pricing, but just pricing in general. Wholesale increasing salaries, or selectively increasing better players salaries to limit use, doesn’t create equilibrium between real and perceived value.
12/27/2020 5:34 PM (edited)