Posted by redcped on 8/29/2019 10:20:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ozomatli on 8/29/2019 9:30:00 PM (view original):
I believe it's the same owner. I was made aware of this a few days ago (thanks tigerrott!). Unfortunately, there's not a ton we can do at this point.

I do see a path where we set some global minimums for PAs and IP, but it's a slippery slope. We would have to be careful not to "coach" at all. Curious to hear everyone's thoughts

I would think that if an owner had a valid strategic reason for trying to cut IP or PA below a "global minimum," perhaps they would have to provide ozomatli with their explanation in advance for approval. He could have discretion to agree with the reasoning.

I would think we would actually want to avoid doing this. I don't think it's reasonable to ask ozomatli or anyone else to be put in that position. If we decide to use minimums, I think they have to be non-negotiable.

Personally I like it just to give less knowledgeable owners like me a starting point when trying to figure out how many IP's is too little or too much. If anything, it evens the field a slight bit. I would not likely go to the minimum, but would not draft 1600 IP's if the minimum is 1200. Would likely stay in the 1250-1400 range based on quality and ballpark....

I haven't played enough or developed the analytic capability yet to answer an important question in this, but maybe others have advanced it further. I know there's a penalty in diminished performance from fatigue, but I have no way to correlate it with the added ability I get from spending my money on fewer innings with higher quality.

Here's a simple example of what I'm aiming at. Let's say I have $50M to spend on pitching. I decide to go with 1400 IP, which is $35,714 per inning. If I go with 1350 IP, then I'm spending $37,037 per inning. If I go down to 1300, I'm spending $38,461 per inning.

Is there a way to quantify how much better the $38,461/IP pitcher is than the others but accounting for him pitching at at an average of 90 fatigue instead of 100? Is he still a better pitcher?

I believe some people have intuited that it's worth having the $38K pitcher going at less than 100 often than to have the $35K pitcher at 100, and others have drawn the opposite conclusion. Not sure there's any actual data to support either theory, but I'm sure anecdotally the people pushing the innings limit have experienced enough success to believe the fatigue hit is worth it.

I'm sure the Moneyball guys could figure this out.

red - I tried to find that sweet spot last year and bombed majorly. My $130M team lost 130 games and killed me in the tournament because I only drafted 1250 or so IP. I thought since they were all really high-quality innings and I was in a pitchers park, I could make it work with some micromanaging. I was so wrong. There comes a point where you just need the innings, regardless of quality.

There's a team in my $70M league that's on an L24 that drafted 1,083 innings.

The thing is, I can make an argument for drafting that few. It's not a great argument, but it goes:

I think in a $70M league I can get away with 1275 IP. I'll play in Petco, and I'll assume that most of the other owners will choose extreme pitcher's parks like I am, so I'll end up averaging playing in parks that are around 0.85, and 0.85*1275=1084.

Now I'm not super comfortable with any of those assumptions, but it is possible that a reasonable person could be. The biggest problem in this case is that the team that has 1,083 IP is not playing at Petco. They're playing at Shibe.

I don't know if the issue is people who are used to drafting for open leagues where there's AAA and the waiver wire, or what. But, while I never would've thought that an IP minimum was needed for this tourney, perhaps it is for the first round. Unfortunately that would prevent someone from reasonably attempting something as laid out in my argument above, but perhaps it's worth it in order to weed out the 150 loss teams.

Posted by Jtpsops on 8/30/2019 11:41:00 AM (view original):
red - I tried to find that sweet spot last year and bombed majorly. My $130M team lost 130 games and killed me in the tournament because I only drafted 1250 or so IP. I thought since they were all really high-quality innings and I was in a pitchers park, I could make it work with some micromanaging. I was so wrong. There comes a point where you just need the innings, regardless of quality.

And this is my point, that you and I do our best guessing and then test it out. Sometimes it might work, depending on the league and a variety of factors (the ballparks and owners in your league, for sure).

I would actually propose a test league if we can find enough folks willing to throw away a season's cost. Everyone would use the same park (maybe even the same hitters??) and have the same pitching budget but a different innings total. Maybe you stagger them at intervals of 25 (1100, 1125, 1150, etc.) or something like that.

Then you get at least one set of data correlating pitching performance with innings drafted. It would be a small sample with lots of "noise" but you'd possibly identify the sweet spot range.

If we do it, just go with Contrarian's formula which is fine enough: MIN IP = 1200 + 2.5*(X-70) where X is the league salary cap, in millions.

That said, I foresee one negative repercussion: If a minimum IP is given, some owners will force themselves to manage as close as possible to that value because they think it's the right answer, even though they would normally draft many more innings. The problem here is that the pitchers they choose and management style may put them in death spiral anyway. So instead of having one or two teams in the tournament in a huge death spiral, we'd have several teams in lesser, but still significant death spirals.
This is totally my opinion of course. I'm fine either way.

I have similar concerns jmissirlis.

Would probably recommend that we use some very direct language like:
"The IP minimums should not be considered 'recommendations.' Nor should they be considered a safe amount of IP for that salary cap. In fact it is quite likely that if you draft only the minimum IP, you will suffer pitching staff fatigue and will be unable to field a competitive team.

Rather the IP minimums should be interpreted as 'anything below this and your team is going to be an absolute train wreck, distorting the overall competitiveness of the league and the WISC.' "

I like this suggestion, and I like the formula. I never get close to the minimum, but clearly others have.

If you interpret the variable cap league as a 160M league (which is more or less the average), then I'm under the proposed minimum IP in that league, and I'm doing fine fatigue wise. I'm not winning as many as I'd like, but not bc of fatigue.

Enjoying the discussion so far. Only thing I'll add for now is that I want to avoid any kind of manual exception process, both for fairness reasons but also because it could potentially be a time-suck on my end.

Posted by contrarian23 on 8/30/2019 1:54:00 PM (view original):
I have similar concerns jmissirlis.

Would probably recommend that we use some very direct language like:
"The IP minimums should not be considered 'recommendations.' Nor should they be considered a safe amount of IP for that salary cap. In fact it is quite likely that if you draft only the minimum IP, you will suffer pitching staff fatigue and will be unable to field a competitive team.

Rather the IP minimums should be interpreted as 'anything below this and your team is going to be an absolute train wreck, distorting the overall competitiveness of the league and the WISC.' "

I like this verbiage in conjunction with your formula. Thanks for figuring out something reasonable that can be considered going forward.

Posted by brianjw on 8/30/2019 2:33:00 PM (view original):
If you interpret the variable cap league as a 160M league (which is more or less the average), then I'm under the proposed minimum IP in that league, and I'm doing fine fatigue wise. I'm not winning as many as I'd like, but not bc of fatigue.

Good point... my formula is crude and should be pressure tested by others. Maybe above a certain cap the minimum is just 1400 or something.

I'd be fine with an IP minimum, but at the same time, there will always be some owners who just don't know how to put together a good pitching staff.

I definitely don't want bad teams distorting win totals, but this is the WIS Championship. The best owners will figure it out and the 96th ranked owner will completely suck regardless. That's just the price you pay for such a huge field of owners, IMO.

Yes go with the recommended formula. Consider it a rule, we all know why it exists, and draft accordingly.