As crazystengel said, it's possible to compete with a team that isn't cookie-cutter.  I'm in 5th place (in the entire League) in one of my OL teams.  Sadly, I'm 3rd in my division (behind one uniquely built team that has the best record in the league, and one complete cookie with HoJo/Bip/etc) but I only have two players who would be remotely thought of as cookie 2001 Pedro and 68 McDaniel (who I picked up on the WW because my set-up guy just wasn't even close to worthwhile).  I have three guys who have been chosen less than 10 times by Performance History, and 6 2015 players on the team.  You can have success with outside-the-box teams and unchosen guys, just takes a lot more thought and intent to actual manage the team.

Posted by kelly1 on 11/21/2015 8:36:00 AM (view original):

Uncleal

 

Thanks for the references, but I do understand Normalization, I made a terminology error.

 

The norm I was taking about is not the normalization that equalizes real life performance across seasons, it is the standard deviation of actual performance in simulations from the normalized stats.  What I see is that cookies have a higher positive deviation from their Normalized values.  My suggestion is that rather than basing their prices on popularity, their performance be adjusted so that all players have a more uniform standard deviation from their Normalized stats.

 

crazystengal & elguapo22

 

Point taken.

I agree with kelly 1.  A periodic adjustment to the mean would spread across all salary ranges equally.  Popularity based will likely lead to continuous salary increases of players that naturally fit better into $80mil leagues, while decreasing the salary of all other players.  The David Segui example posted earlier is a good one.  Of course there are issues with mean based also if the sample size of a player chosen is too small.  For example if a player was chosen only once during the update period and performed far better than normal, the salary would be adjusted too much.  That player would never be chosen again and would be stuck at that new salary.


That said, I'd easily choose popularity based updates as proposed over doing nothing.

I agree with jmiss and Kelly. Perhaps WIS can create two separate player pricing formats...one with the dynamic pricing option and one with the fixed pricing (with perhaps a once per year adjustment). Theme creators can choose which pricing format they want to use when they create the league and users can join one of two Open Leagues with either one or the other pricing structure. Might be worth doing that at least in the interim. I'd be curious to see which pricing structure turns out to be more popular. This would be smart from a business strategy for WIS. If they want a game that generates money and keeps the community happy the best proof in the pudding so to speak might be to allow for both pricing strategies and see which one is more popular. Perhaps they will find that having both is the best way to go. Or maybe one can be scrapped.

Um, cookies are such because they provide more value than cost, not because they "have a higher positive deviation from their normalized values" whatever that means.

Posted by uncleal on 11/21/2015 3:37:00 PM (view original):
Um, cookies are such because they provide more value than cost, not because they "have a higher positive deviation from their normalized values" whatever that means.

Yes, cookies provide more value than cost.  This proposal would change the cost based on popularity.  My suggestion is to align the value (i.e. performance) with the cost.  Players with similar cost should provide similar performance.  If the desire is to eliminate cookies then adjusting their performance to better align with other players having similar stats (and cost) should provide the same affect as raising their cost, without the complications created when salaries change.   

But maybe I've missed the point and the primary intention is not to eliminate cookies, but rather to modify (enhance?) the process of building a team by adding a time based variable that must be considered along with the current factors, and change the nature of (but probably not eliminate) cookies as a by-product.  

Posted by ArlenWilliam on 11/20/2015 3:25:00 PM (view original):
One may note:

1. A baseball league is not meant to operate thoroughly by the natural economy. It is a league formed in the interest of game competition over financial competition.

2. Monopoly is almost always the result of special favors given to big business by government (e.g., GE, IBM for just two of very many) and government's corrupt mega-financiers (very, very many examples, maybe the most famous, J.D. Rockefeller). collectivism does this worse

3. It is the place of government to be detached from the business world, and not in league with the interests of the super-wealthy (1% of 1% of 1%... who invest to stay off the "wealthiest persons" lists) but to set sensible, minimalist regulations to prevent monopoly and undue oligopoly, and to allow opportunity in an otherwise very lightly touched or untouched free market. collectivism does the opposite

Marxists wield their term "capitalism" like a hammer and sickle, implying that free enterprise is never free but dictated by financiers, then they take advantage of any such corruption in order to gain power -- most often working closely with it. That kind of (crony) capitalism is not America's founders', nor for that matter, Adam Smith's version of free enterprise and the market guarded at the edges to be free. (See what Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson tried to preserve and OTOH, what Lincoln called his greater enemy; also the work of Coolidge, our last great president so far. For more of an ideological villain on this key matter among our founders, see Hamilton.)

Another may note:

1. This is not a market. I want a price, that i may buy or not buy. I do not want to have to decide Should i wait til tomorrow when the price may be lower, Should i jump on this wagon ere it slopes to the moon

Kelly,

You are talking about changing game play.  While I can understand what you are saying, this would require a major programming change and I doubt they want to do that.  Also, changing gameplay will not change the existence of cookies.  Over time, those that play this game a lot will eventually find the players that perform the best relative to salary, regardless of how the game is programmed.   By forcing the salaries to align with the popularity of the players (i.e., salary will start to align with performance), only then will we get something close to an equilibrium.

This is definitely long overdue. It will be interesting to see at what point cookies aren't so tasty anymore. 

That said, I think it's entirely possible that certain players will see multiple 10% increases in salary before they start to become materially unpopular. It's not so much Joss because 10% for him is over $1.2 million which has a meaningful impact for lower cap leagues. Instead, it's the $3-5 million salary cookies who may still be popular even after 1-2 salary increases.

What I like even better is that as the dead ball pitchers become even more expensive and less likely to be used is that it will open up rosters to players who have strong normalized OBP/OPS for the cap level but can't be used effectively today because they hit more HR and proportionately fewer singles which doesn't work well against dead ball cookies. I'm a big Gene Tenace fan but it can be hard to use him because his BA/OBP/SLG are abysmal against dead ball pitchers. In the WIS Championship, I had '97 Bonds have a line something like .195/.265/.310 in a $110M cap league. Even in a slight pitchers park that shouldn't happen.

I've stayed away from lower caps for years because of cookie pitchers being able to shut down the power so easily and affordably. Also, I wonder if the strong pitchers from 1920-39 such as Vance, Grove, Gomez, and Hubbell will be used more often? There are some historically great seasons from these pitchers that don't work well in the sim because of the relative inability to shut down the long ball compared to the dead ball pitchers. Dynamic pricing should make them a more viable option.

And, I agree with a comment that I believe schwarze made earlier in terms of having player databases based on the date of the salary change. IMHO, once a league is set up with a league number then any owner who builds a team in that league should have the same salaries available to them.

Everyone on this thread understands that the deck is stacked with a certain number of marked cards. Play a few hands, watch what the veteran players do and pretty soon you too can spot which cards are marked. One can then play in the OLs and low cap leagues where this knowledge advantage is maximized, or in theme leagues which reduce the advantage and increase the relative effect of roster and game management. Of course, some players will just fold their cards and walk away, unwilling to play against a stacked deck.

Reducing the number of marked cards in the deck is an important goal, but it is likely to change player behavior in, perhaps, unexpected ways.

The only thing more long overdue than dynamic pricing, is the update promised in 2012, three years now....this move alone won't bring me back to the game. The promised update might.

As of 5 minutes ago, I did a quick perusal of available theme leagues.  This is the distribution by salary cap:

Under $100M - 15
$100-120M - 20
$120-159M - 7
$160M+ 18 (excluding 7 progressives)
Total available theme leagues - 60 (excluding the 7 progressives)

Obviously, I don't know how many open leagues are currently being filled. But 42% of the open theme leagues are at caps of $120 million or higher. This tells me that the more expensive players will be getting drafted in a fair number of leagues.

I'm not certain if two weeks is the correct frequency for updating salaries. But, I do know that the sim has become stale and needs a shake up. I have found that the people who tend to complain most about announced major changes are those whose playing strategy will be most hurt by them. It was this way when Admin made the long overdue change to pitcher fatigue that effectively eliminated the viability of the Long A strategy.

I agree with those who have said that the sim engine itself needs to be overhauled. It's clear that most deadfall pitchers can shut down HR power far too easily. As one example, the normalization for pitchers who either have HR/9+ of less than 100 in the deadfall era or who have HR/9+ over greater than 100 in modern times is not working. Let's compare the two best WHIP seasons of all time (min. 162 IP/162), 1913 Walter Johnson and 2000 Pedro Martinez. Johnson's HR/9# is 0.40 but his HR/9+ is 57, driven by his allowing an AL high 9 HR in approximately 346 IP. BTW, only two of those nine HR actually went over the fence on the fly. 2000 Pedro has HR/9+ of 171 and HR/9# of 0.49 driven by his allowing the fewest HR in the AL that year among those pitchers with at least 162 IP.

If you use '13 Johnson in the sim, he performs generally like a poor man's Robin Roberts at least outside of parks that are very negative for HR. 2000 Pedro will give up some HR but makes up for it with very low OAVG and relatively fewer 2B and 3B allowed. In a high cap league, '12 Johnson will usually outperform the '13 version primarily because of the better than league average HR/9. This is but one example and I know it's not directly connected to salaries. But, I would expect to see '13 Johnson's salary start to come down because most savvy owners won't use him at higher cap levels.

Interesting data and analysis on distribution of theme leagues, PQ.

Most salient thing I gain from it: Maybe this dynamic pricing revision will breathe more life into low-cap theme leagues!

They used to be a lot of fun -- yes, they actually tended to fill and get played out....

(I'm one of the dudes who get really tired of the incessant all-star games... most of the rest of said dudes just don't play SLB anymore.)