They've got a ready-made tie-in being owned by the same people as the NFBC fantasy baseball site. I'd love to see them leverage that for advertisting (he says as a person who plays a lot of both...)

I, too, discovered this from MLB related advertising back in fall of 2000 (second username was created in March 2001 and I no longer remember my original username to look it up - it was tied into my college email, so don't have access to that either), either directly on mlb.com, or around the CDM Fantasy baseball leagues when USA Today was promoting them (funny that they are both under one roof today). That's where I spent alot of time back then and how I ended up over here.

On a somewhat related note to advertising and updating the sim, back when I ran the "Must Win Lineup" Tourney from Twitter, A couple of the notable names from the field also came on to a podcast I work with to talk about their teams and the tourney. Both of these guys, Ben Shpigel and Marc Carig, used to play SLB here, and have both stopped. Not to put words in their mouths, but from my conversations with them, they indicated they loved WIS and SLB, but it got stale at the OL level with the similar deadball pitching staffs (dynamic pricing should help here). If I recall correctly, Ben still plays HBD, but having "ambassadors," if you will, that enjoy this game and talk about it positively when they do discuss it would be a boon to the site and game, as well.

Both of these guys, Ben Shpigel and Marc Carig, used to play SLB here, and have both stopped. Not to put words in their mouths, but from my conversations with them, they indicated they loved WIS and SLB, but it got stale at the OL level with the similar deadball pitching staffs

I never understood people who try sim baseball, play only OLs, and then get bored and leave. Go to the classifieds, there are tons of great theme leagues. There are tons of great progressives. Newbies start with OLs the same way babies start with baby food. It would be weird if a person ate only baby food after growing up, while complaining that baby food is boring. A smidgen of imagination and a sense of adventure is required here, ha ha.

so AAA players have been eliminated why did this happen

See adlorenz's post on page 4 of this thread.

So It seems from what i have read by only one post and one paragraph that this (logical consumer based) decision is driven by the desire to retain new players or rookies as AAA would add more complications to an already steep learning curve ... I like the 6 AAA posiiton players but you can have the 2 AAA Pitchers

I started playing here 11 months ago.

In the beginning, I didn't understand ML'ers for quite some time. Did not know they were real players. Assumed they were players of lesser value than those I drafted.

I didn't use them for the longest time. Didn't understand the trades. Didn't understand why trades were made involving them by others.

After reading many articles here in the forum and then having an understanding of them, I really hate that old timers take advantage of newbies. I don't like that it's a pretty significant part of strategy (I see some teams draft only 6-7 600 PA guys) when creating a team. Even more-so that merely judging talent to create a team. Any game that has it's rules more important to success than judging talent will never survive long term.

I'm glad they are gone.

Any game that has it's rules more important to success than judging talent will never survive long term.

While I agree with Adam that this game needs change to survive, I think it's silly to undermine the success of this game so far. This game has survived for 20+ years and the last 5 or so without any updates.

The amount of owners taking advantage of newbies in OL is a very very very small fraction of the player base. It's not something that runs rampant.

Judging talent/drafting a good team is 1000x more important than the random AAA you get/got during an OL. Nobody won a WS because of AAA.

Posted by Funksteady1 on 2/22/2021 12:09:00 PM (view original):
I did like the AAA players. For me it was like the surprise in a cereal box or in the chocolate egg... First thing I did when an OL had started was to check out what WIS Santa had dropped at the base of my baseball team tree.... There was usually at least one or two that would prove useful to the team and I even liked some of the funky names, a few come to mind, Jesus Walker, Thomas Jefferson, Pete Parker... I never did rely on them, never used one to wave a real player. Very rarely bothered to use the charts to find out real identity, I did enjoy the mystery part of it. So yeah, I will miss them, but then again, I'm ok with trying something new. What I'm not as ok with is that the owners/customers never had a saying in the matter, I remember back when WIS still owned WIS, how the devs would always consider owners/customers' suggestions and inputs, how relevant update that would impact drafting and playing strategies would be discussed at length in the forum and how we'd be given time to adjust to the changes.
This update has an important impact on drafting strategies but it wasn't announced at all in notices or release notes. Many players don't follow the forum threads regularly, I can go weeks without checking them, I was lucky that I did this time, before entering leagues with current teams I have sitting in the draft center.
Changes are welcomed, but we, the paying players, should be consulted, our inputs matter, the game has come a long way from what it was when I first joined in 2004 and all important changes had been discussed between devs and players in this forum.
I would have liked to see a vote on this, or that this present discussion happened BEFORE the change was announced.

Well, to be fair, adlorenz DID ask around in the forums before he made this decision. It WAS the feedback of several highly knowledgeable veterans that suggested these changes. First it was changing the numbers on the recommended page (IPs, and PAs), now it’s this.

So while it wasn’t a complete democracy with a vote and all, the representatives that peruse the forums daily and play a ton of teams kinda decided on this.

Well what it really means is that experienced players no longer get an extra 5-7M to play with (the cost it would take to replace the 50-100 innings plus a reasonable bench) vs the newer players that don't even know that AAA exist, let alone how to plan a team around having them.

It also means no more fleecing new players in AAA trades.

AAA aren't going away, they'll just be in theme leagues, and there will be more than enough theme leagues that use them for everyone to enjoy AAA if they want.

I find this a useful change overall. I have no skin in the game, as I don't play open leagues, but if I did it would certainly be to my advantage to have them available.

The other useful change I think I could find would be more of a 2 part fix to help open leagues out.
We can all agree dynamic pricing was implemented terribly and is very broken as it sits now. Undoing it now until something better comes along would also be beneficial. I didn't play for over 10 years, and came back to join an open league, only to find that many of the more popular players had been artificially inflated and didn't necessarily represent their true value. It wasn't until I got back on the forum that I understood why a players that used to be 6M were now 8M, and that it wasn't a uniform increase in prices. My first team finished around .500, and that was with prior experience, once I realized I couldn't really trust any of the prices, it became a lot easier to build a team properly.

Once Dynamic prices takes off, it can be there in open leagues, and an option for Theme Leagues to have on or off, that way everyone gets the best of both worlds.

While closing the AAA loophole does help level the playing field, I think these other suggestions will level it even more and help out newer players without even giving up much to the more experienced players.

I’ve probably said this 4-5 times now in various forums but i don’t remember where.

The reason I advocated for the riddance of AAA players is because, in my experience, newbs draft TOO MANY innings, not too little. Same with PAs. So while there’s a dropoff in quality between veteran owners and new players, it also double whammies when including AAA.

I went back into an OL and drafted 490 PAs at nearly every position knowing I can play my AAA regularly in the 1st half, and save enough PAs for the post transaction deadline AND an entire playoff run.

I got over 100 ABs of .377 batting average out of one of my AAA, and another one hit over .300, while at Dodger Stadium. This isn’t fair to other players. The random draw doesn’t put people on an even playing ground.

I know area51man won’t even draft a 1B and/or a RF, knowing there’d be AAA.

These are strategies that new players don’t even think to come up with after their 1st 100 teams. I don’t want new players coming in, losing 120 games and leaving. It’d be way more fun when a knew player goes 83-79 and sneaks into the WC, even though they’re way more likely to lose 90 games.

That, along with their favorite players underperforming bc of some OL only veteran playing cookie-ball, knowing players get an extra 10% PAs and pitches thrown, and playing AAA to keep them fresh rather than having to throw out a 200k scrub every once in awhile, is why I don’t want AAA in open leagues.

Champ leagues are fine however.

For the record, I’ve referred dozens of people here and most have quit before their first season was finished. A couple played out their first or even a second, but only 3-5 of them have stuck around beyond their first few teams. I’m pretty sure a couple even have unused teams from 6-packs... all of these referrals are people I know in real life: friends, family, coworkers... and they communicate their thoughts and feelings about why it didn’t stick here and why they still play the same yahoo fantasy baseball league we’ve been in for 20 years... or why HBD or OOTP was more for them... I wish more would stick around.

I send pitch count spreadsheets and explain AAA and WW in every league where new owners are present. I run the bounties, which encourage experienced owners to run teams outside the meta and with builds that AAA won’t help with.

I’m passionate about WIS and SLB in particular, and want it to succeed and to appeal to as many people as possible. I was here for the pre- Fox golden age and post-Fox catastrophe, and remember what it was like when new players were the norm.

There’s a ton of players here who’ve done everything they can to support new owners and make it as easy as possible for them to acclimate to, and understand, the nuances here and stay long term. these forums are filled with examples and many of them reference examples that are no longer with us due to forum updates clearing out old posts.

I don’t think I speak for just myself when I say that the majority of long time owners here want to see growth and new owners stay and would support changes to make that happen. I don’t think it’s fair to discount our views just because we stayed when others left or to say we’ve lost our joy for the game or for the different aspects (e.g., AAA).

I think we understand these things have a role and a place and you can still play with those tools in theme leagues, but OL are pitched as the place for new owners to get their feet on the ground. Why make the entry league more challenging than it needs to be and with tools that directly contradict the team building advice or baseball common-sense (no full time players, tanking positions altogether, etc) if you use them most effectively.

I also think most of the reaction against this change is overblown and reactionary, that contrarian’s post from a couple pages back sums it up well, and that Adam has done a great job explaining the thought process behind the decision and made clear that if this doesn’t have the intended effect, it’s reversible.

Yes, I think this is a good decision and will have a positive impact on retention. Though, my recommendations were for real names, reset salaries from dynamic pricing and re-implement with only OL/CL uses impacting price, and lower salary cap for OL. Long term, this outside the box solution, might be better than my suggestions (though I think the dynamic pricing ones still need to be implemented).

(I need to stop posting from my phone at night. These posts just seem to go on and on...)