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Subject: Pulling it all together - How to start the season Posted by: The Pink Pimp - [36423223] Thu, Mar 15, 23:05 Now that I'm back from Mardi Gras, I've had a few weeks to review the upcoming season and I see some storm clouds on the horizon. The game this year will be fundamentaly different than last and if you start out on the wrong foot it will be hard to catch up. A lot of great posts have been made that cover various aspects of how to draft, rotate pitchers, and the like. Madman has been particularly prolific, insightful, and helpful and I'd like to nominate him as this season's first Guru Jr. Eventually, I'll get to my ideas which you will find are not exactally new. Rather my plan of action is a synthesis of information gleaned from previous posts, smallworld revelations, a few hunches, and an attempt to try to figure out what is going to happen. But before I get into my views, I'd like to post a collection of links to previous posts that should give any newcomers or returning Gurupies the information they need to get rolling this season: Pitcher Trade Strategy -- A Comprehensive Intro. - A Madman post 2/15 Baseball Changes - A post by Don Mathis about changes to this years game 2/26 Overall Draft Strategies - A Madman post on various draft tactics 2/26 Smallworld Pitching Statistics, Part I - Madman again 2/20 Pitching Statistics, Part II - Madman continues his opus 3/06 Pitching Stastics, Part III - Madman delves even deeper into the topic 3/11 Smallworld Pricing Model Surprise - Madman exposes CRITICAL info on hitters pricing 3/09 Madman's graph of the Hitter price disparity in SWP/$ that was detailed above and finally, Who is being bought in SW - Richard's post that sampled team compositions as of 3/09 Don Mathis detailed the changes to us and the chief ones were the reduction of pitcher price gains by about 80% "The sensitivity of the pitching market will be decreased, so that a "Randro" rotation which might have netted you half a million SWD or more on a single day last year will probably make you about $100,000 SWD this year." and the separation of the hitter market from the pitcher market. "we're continuing that quest for balance this year by introducing completely separate markets and price changes for hitters and pitchers. Hitters' prices will change based on how often they are traded relative to all other hitters only, and pitchers' prices will change based on how often they are traded relative to all other pitchers only." My opinion is that the combined effect of these changes will greatly alter the character of the game. Randro has been slain as the principal money earning engine of the game, even though it may still be the best earning trade in the pitcher market. But a new monster has been born, the cheap, unowned fielder who goes on a hot streak. Since you can only earn 20% of what you could last year on Pitcher trades the logical place to look for increased gains is in the hitters. And since the hitters now have their own market the potential for money earning is HUGE. Last year we saw Adam Kennedy (Kennedy's 2000 price & point history) skyrocket from $1.13 million to over $4 million in a month. Does the new market split mean that his price would have risen even higher this year? Perhaps a little but what stoped the buy-ins was that Kennedy became expensive vs. the other 2nd basemen. What will change this year is that his price change would have occurred in a much shorter time span Without the pitcher buys to dilute his gains Kennedy would have shot up at rates that might make your head spin. Perhaps the gains he experienced on 4/6 of $320 and 4/7 of $660 are indicitive of what type of gains a hitters only market will produce. (If you recall last year Smallworld changed the price gain formula on 4/08) Terrance Long ( His 2000 Price and Point history ) appeared on the scene and jumped from $500 to $2,500 in a month. This year his ascent would be even faster, maybe a week or two before his low price was driven high enough so that managers stopped buying him. The general point is this: This year cheap fielders who become popular will rise in dollars much faster than last year So fast in fact that you may not have a few weeks to decide to hop on the train. If you aren't there when the train leaves the station you are going to miss the best part of the gains. That means that you must have hitter trades on hand to get onto, and off of, the hitter trains that occur. Unfortunately for those who like to pit their strategy against the reality of the masses driven market, it will become neccessary to follow the hordes of lemmings as they stampede from one emerging cheapie to another. Will the extra points you'll get from holding Kendall at Catcher really mean anything compared to all the dollars he'll lose (accelerated this year on the way down as well by the hitters only market) and the dollars you didn't gain by jumping ship to the consensus cheapie in time to catch the train? The masses will drive this market and soon enough a new complaint will be heard, "We have to draft all the hot position players just to stay even with the lemmings!" What are you going to do? Sit on the sidelines while players in the field are shooting up in price like bamboo? You'll do what you have to, cave in to the lemming mentality and go train hopping. Now that we know what the monster is, let's see how we can best structure our teams to take advantage of it. PITCHERS:Luckily for us Smallworld has helped us decide what to do in the Pitching department. By reducing the gains, and losses, possible for pitchers by 80%, Smallworld has freed us to do what we always wanted to on the mound. This year it will be safe to manage your pitchers purely based on points rather than on dollars. Gone are the days of chasing cheapies! No need to hop on Yan, or Schoney, or Bere since they won't go up much at all now. Also, there is little or no need to jump ship from Kile, or Ankiel, after they post a bad game. The dollar loss will be only 20% of what it was last year and you can ride that out if you really believe in the pitcher. Your choices will come down on how best to rotate your pitchers. I'm not going to cover pitcher rotation strategies here because Madman's thread does it so well. One thing we need to be aware of is that the points for pitching have been changed with Strikeouts going down from 5 to 3 points and the blown save penalty has been eliminated. Madman shows the effects of the pitching scoring changes in his first Pitching thread. Madman states that the end result of the change in scoring is: "In other words, this scoring change increases the risks of negative performances, and simultaneously decreases the chance of exceptional ones. Specifically, you're going to run about a 4% higher chance of a negative point outing, and a 4% lower chance of a 90+ point outing. This is ignoring the obvious influence that you can have on these statistics by choosing good quality or bad quality pitchers." Clearly we now all have a 4% higher reason to fear the dreaded negative outing and in my opinion this factor, coupled with the relativley small sums of money to be made on emerging pitchers, will drive a flight to quality on the pitching staffs of many managers. But how much should we pay for this quality? How much money is too much when put into pitching? Before we answer that question let's see what we're going to have left over after we draft our hitters. HITTERS:Here is where Smallworld is throwing us a major league curveball. The pricing model for hitters is way different this year. If you haven't already read Madman's thread on changes to the pricing model do it now. Perhaps the key point is that "All hitters that would have scored 2300 or more SWP last season with this year's formula are priced higher by $1.2-1.5m per player." This means that while the hitting studs are affordable this year you will pay a premium for them in terms of SWP/$. Now is the part when I want to stop writing because it is going to be harder to explain what I'm getting at from here on out. Let's all remember that this year the money is in the cheap unowned fielder who goes on a hot streak. This is the exact opposite of holding a high priced stud. Perhaps the worst hitting studs you can own are those that are relativley widely held. Players like A-rod, Kendall, Griffey, and particularly Furcal are risky drafts because the odds are that at least one cheapie will rise to the top 25 list (where the lemmings are sure to notice him) at which point they will dump the high priced player and pick up the cheap hot fielder. If you own a high priced stud like this you have two choices, Ride it out and suffer some substantial $ losses, or jump ship with the lemmings and hop on the cheapie. In my opinion, drafting a widley held hitting stud is one of the worst possible mistakes you can make at the start of the season. You know the stud will drop in value as soon as a cheapie emerges. Why not just start with a cheapie, wait for a selloff of your stud to occur, and then pick up the stud at his newly reduced price? If you have the foresight to draft the right cheapie you will even enjoy some nice gains as the lemmings run up his price. All Jimmy Rollins or Rico Brogna have to do to be huge gainers is make the top 25 list at their positions in the first week. Pure lemming fever will do the rest. Stud infielders are particularly vulnerable to getting undersold. The lower number of total starters in the infield make it easier for a cheapie to crack the top 25 list than it is for a cheap outfielder to get into his top 25 given that there are three times as many starters at his position. One of the worst things for us about the change from earning dollars primarily with pitcher trades to earning dollars via hitting trains is that we have nowhere near enough trades to do it with. Last year managing 5 pitching slots with 3 trades per week while trying to make cash was nearly impossible. This year we have the even more difficult task of managing 8 hitter slots with only 3 trades. If you start off with high priced studs that you will be forced to sell then you will be putting yourself in the hole when it comes to hitter trades used. Hitter trades are what we are all going to want more of (anybody know if Moderator Mike is in town?) so we have to conserve them and hoard them at every opportunity.One way to conserve hitter trades is to purposely avoid drafting players that you know you will have to sell in the first two weeks. WHAT I PLAN TO DO IS THIS: I will draft low priced relatively unowned cheapies at every fielding position and give them at least a week to see if they can catch the eyes of the lemmings. I will try my best to save up at least 6 hitter trades before I start swapping out my drafted cheapies for hitter trains. IF I'M VERY LUCKY, 3 or 4 of my drafted cheapies will actually BECOME trains and that will mean $6 million in the bank in the first two or three weeks all at no cost in hitter trades. Before returning to the pitchers, let me review the reasons that I will draft all cheapies in the field. #1: Stud hitters are overpriced in terms of SWP/$ #2: Widely held studs, even those moderately priced, will have downward pressure applied to their price as soon as a cheapie emerges at their position. #3: The dollar losses of the studs will be much larger and much faster than last year due to the splitting of the pitcher and hitter markets. #4: Avoiding dollar losses to studs would mean using trades early (a bad idea.) #5: Increasing the number of cheapies that I draft increases the possible number of trains that I can catch right out of the gate (a good idea.) #6: Catching the trains of low priced, relatively unowned, hot fielders is the fastest way to make money in the hitter's market. Now that I've decided that the way I want to start the season is with 8 train potential cheapies in the field, I know that I'll have a lot of dollars left over for pitchers And I intend to use those dollars to buy high quality starters and closers. My plan with the pitchers is to select all quality and then just let them ride barring injury while I stockpile pitching trades. Owning Pedro, Randy, Brown, Koch, and some other $4 to $5 million dollar quality pitcher is a real possibility. Those are players that I can let ride. The amount of opening drafts of Pedro tells me that I'll be in for a price letdown after his first start but since its only going to be 20% of what it would be last year why worry!? So here is where all of the preseason info has led me #1: Draft a full squad of train potential cheapies in the field. #2: Draft quality studs to pitch, even overpaying for them in terms of SWP/$ #3: Let everybody ride for a week if I can. #4: Start using my hitter trades to get onto some key trains while continuing to save my pitcher trades. #5 Keep doing number 4 until I need to sell a good pitcher to raise cash or until I run out of hitter trades. That's as far as I care to plan it out. I think that doing this will give me the best chance to start the season on the right foot. As I promised in the beginning, not much of this is really new, except for my prediction that we'll be complaining about having to trade into the hitting trains, but at least all the great background insights of the preseason threads are all in one place more or less where newcomers and returnees alike can find them. Props to Madman, Richard, Guru, Don, Roo, Species, Steve H, Sludge, Tim G, Perm Dude, J Kaye, HooeyPooey, Wammie, Walk, Ender and many others for the contributions they made to the discusions on the threads. Good luck to all. Oh yeah, I almost forgot feel free to fire away at my strategy. :-) | ||||||
| 43 | Motley Crue ID: 101010298 Wed, Mar 21, 07:35 |
This is a fantastic thread--everyone who wants to start off the season well ought to read it. I don't have much to add to it, but I will say that I made my roster up last week before reading what Pink Pimp had to say. My roster has 2 stud P's, 3 mid-priced starting P's, and a mix of rookies/second-year guys (Branyan, Rollins) and cheap veterans (Juan Gonzalez, Todd Walker) in the field. I didn't bank much money because I didn't think I would need to trade into MORE expensive players at any position. This thread has caused me to rethink that part of my strategy. I suppose that $3M in the bank could make a world of difference if (for example) Rollins starts off very poorly. With that kind of change lying around I could upgrade him to just about any low-priced train. I will likely sell one of my starting studs to accomplish this. Likewise, I consider having Juan Gonzalez a good investment for the points he is likely to create, but also because he is expensive enough that a trade into just about any moneytrain will be possible. Nice job putting together an essay based heavily on statistics and research, but that doesn't sound like a doctoral dissertation, Double-P. Not that I don't appreciate the efforts of the rest of you guys, but some of you come up with some stuff that makes my head spin around and around. I second Madman for Guru, Jr., by the way. //MC | |||||
| 44 | jumpball ID: 33050298 Wed, Mar 21, 07:45 |
Re: posts 25 and 31 I agree with Madman in that I expect the overall price changes to see a 30% reducation. We've all noticed that the initial prices for all the players are lower to start the season. What would be the purpose of increasing the price change algorithm on top of that? | |||||
| 45 | perk9600 ID: 392451913 Wed, Mar 21, 10:27 |
PP right on with this one, I already drafted several teams and was just thinking of doing what you were saying tonight when I got home from work. I think it is possible to draft a really good team with the cheapy fielders and then still have lots of money in the bank. Great thread and I also feel MADMAN should be guru jr. Best of luck. -perk | |||||
| 46 | Strike One ID: 271552014 Wed, Mar 21, 17:08 | before i read all of the responses i would just like to inform those who haven't noticed yet...the season starts on sunday. we will get 3 pitcher trades on tuesday so before we know it we should have 6 pitcher trades banked. as far as hitters are concerned we'll have 3-4 games to analyse our hitters before we get 3 hitter trades on thursday, so we should be able to have about 5 hitter trades to work with by the end of the week. so i believe a lack of trades early on will be a non-factor. | |||||
| 47 | slar ID: 357252920 Wed, Mar 21, 17:46 | Just to clarify Strike One's post, the season starts NEXT Sunday, April 1. | |||||
| 48 | perk9600 ID: 392451913 Thu, Mar 22, 07:33 |
I was doing some thinking about this yesterday and something occured to me that I want to throw out here. Pimp raised the point that cheapies should be rising fast early on in the game and it was mentioned that all the late comers drafting full teams would dilute the rise of any one cheapie due to all those trades taking place. I have two questions regarding this. 1. Do we know for sure that an initial draft counts as a trade in terms of raising a players value. All our trades now mean nothing so why would it matter if i started a team a week into the season and drafted a full team? 2. My second point is why I feel that even if new teams coming in affects prices it will not dilute cheapie price rises, but actually facilitate it. Let us look at this from the perspective of someone who is entirly new to the smallworld game. They have 50 mil for 14 players which is essentially 3.5 mil per player. Well every team will either have Pedro or RJ so now they have 40 mil for 13 guys or 3.00 mil per. In addition to this each team will probably draft either an Arod or a Helton or some other big thumper because they will want the star name. SO they now have somewhere around 33 mil for the remaining 12 guys which is around 2.75 per player. So assuming they add some mid range players in order to fill out their roster they are going to not just want, but need really cheap players to balance out the expensive ones they signed. They will go looking for the best(highest SWP/game) guy who is around a mil or less and just about all the new arrivals will jump on him. My example comes from hockey were I started a league at work. Many of my coworkers came on and they all picked up Steve Reinprect because he was around a mil and had high swp numbers. During the early season he shot up in value and as he didn't maintain the high production he has slowly tailed off to lower prices. basically what I am saying is that with a limited budget the masses are going to be forced to search for bargains. In my opinion all the new teams coming in will actually help the cheapies to rise, because more than likely many newbies will jump on the same player(like a rollins or maybe a soriano) and thus exagerate their price rise. Best Wishes Have a good day -perk | |||||
| 49 | Motley Crue ID: 101010298 Thu, Mar 22, 11:13 | The general trend in SW sports seems to be that buys due to new teams are discounted when the overall price change is determined by the SW Braintrust. So, if my memory is correct, the managers entering teams a few days late will have little to no effect on player prices. I think this is something that was proven on the boards a long time ago by one of the Gurupie number-crunchers with lots of free time on his hands. ; ) | |||||
| 50 | perk9600 ID: 392451913 Thu, Mar 22, 11:34 | Okay thanks. | |||||
| 51 | Madman ID: 29246911 Thu, Mar 22, 11:35 |
perk9600 1. Yes, as much as we can know anything. 2. The reason draft buys dilute price movements is that for any single cheap hitter, there will be 8 additional buys. Let's say that 100% of the managers in the game are trading for Reinprect. Further, 100% of the managers draft Reinprect. His price increase will be LESS with drafts than without. The reason? All the OTHER buys that a team has to do to fill out the remaining positions. | |||||
| 52 | perk9600 ID: 392451913 Thu, Mar 22, 11:44 |
I totally understand that madman, I hadn't considered that aspect of it. Oh well it was a good theory though. Best Wishes -perk | |||||
| 53 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Mar 23, 14:40 |
I started out this Hoops season with a lot of cheapies on my roster, for many of the same reasons articulated above. Little price downside, hoping to catch early trains, etc. And if anything, I thought that there would be greater demand for very cheap players, because of the widespread desire (particularly from the casual manager) to own a few studs. Unfortunately, none of the "obvious" cheapies panned out very well. For Hoops managers, remember Desmond Mason, Najera, Mottola? But the real price movers early on came from the guys priced more like $3-4 million - like Fortson, Camby, & Brian Grant. Jermaine O'Neal worked out well, but many of the cheapies failed to perform well enough to catch attention. They were generally still good bargains for their price, but because they didn't show up near the top of the player rankings, they didn't get much attention. Granted, they didn't lose much value. But they didn't gain much either. The point is this: the big gainers early on will be the players with lower prices who appear near the top of the point rankings for their position. A $3m player ranked in the top 10 will do much better than a $500k player ranked around #25. This will be true even if the cheaper player offers more SWP/$m. Rank has its privileges. And very few managers will even look at SWP/$m. That doesn't mean that you should draft cheap. But just because a $500k player will be starting for his team, don't assume he will get early notice. There are 30 MLB teams, so somebody's starter won't rank any better than 30th. It won't matter how cheap that player is, he isn't going to gain much, because there will undoubtedly be someone ranked higher with a higher, but still very affordable, price tag. This is why it is critical to preserve some cash at the start. You need to be able to move from a $500k player to a $3m player (or two or three) without having to simultaneously sell a more expensive playter just to raise cash. This is especially true for most hitting positions, since to buy a shortstop (for example), you'll have only one player that can be sold. Outfield and pitcher slots offer more trading flexibility, since to buy a cheap outfield, you have a choice of 4 players to dump. I know this has been addressed above, but I think it's worth repeating. Most teams have a difficult time carrying a meaningful cash balance. But in many ways, trades are more precious than cash, and if having a few extra shekels in reserve can save a trade or two early on, that can pay huge dividends. | |||||
| 54 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Mar 23, 14:44 |
Different topic. I've seen some mention of waiting for a day to draft, in order to see the early price movers. That's a viable strategy. But to do that, you'll miss two days of points, because the first price change will be on the day after the first game, and if you wait until after that to draft, your roster won't accrue points until game #3. So taking that approach will concede Pedro's first start, for example. That alone might be a good reason not to wait. | |||||
| 55 | Madman ID: 29246911 Fri, Mar 23, 15:29 |
Guru Exactly! Do you have any records of popular draft picks last year? I'm confident enough in all this to not do serious statistical work with it (i.e., not enough time), but a few illustrations probably wouldn't hurt . . . ----------- Regarding the waiting strategy, the advantage of waiting is that you can see who is in the top 10 in each SWP category, so you could theoretically draft all trains. However, two days isn't long enough, IMO (that's one game per player). Plus, point scoring early is going to be more critical this year than in the past. Therefore, I don't think this strategy is effective anymore. | |||||
| 56 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Mar 23, 15:44 |
I don't have any data on popular picks from last season. But if memory serves, a few included: P: Ramon Martinez (who could forget!), Ankiel, Kile, Kip Wells C: Fick, Estalella (or was it Mirabelli?), and someone else whose name escapes me right now, Meluskey perhaps? No, I don't think he caught on until later. 1B: Durazo, Ortiz 2B: Kennedy 3B: Aramis Ramirez SS: Carlos Guillen OF: Bergeron, Chad Hermanson, Hammonds, Quinn - and it seems like there was at least one other who was reasonably popular, but I'm drawing a blank. Of these, Fick, Ortiz, Ramirez, & Guillen all started out as busts. Durazo was OK for awhile. Hammonds got injured immediately. Hermanson and Bergerson were uninspiring. Quinn was an early train, I think. Kennedy was probably the best pick of that crew. | |||||
| 57 | perk9600 ID: 392451913 Fri, Mar 23, 15:48 | Gur i think the name you were looking for at catcher is LeCroy from Min. | |||||
| 58 | blue hen ID: 34937217 Fri, Mar 23, 16:50 |
Some excellent points by everybody. I particularly like seeing Guru weigh in on this topic. I don't think I have ever come close to you in any sport since I started playing Smallworld. The popular Giants catcher was Estalella. I think Meluskey may have started the season in the minors or something, too. Same with Bergeron. Isringhausen was a pretty popular pick at the beginning of last year too. Also, let's not forget that two years ago, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Febles both rose up to about 3 million very quickly, living up to the hype. But that was weekly repricing. | |||||
| 59 | Madman ID: 29246911 Fri, Mar 23, 17:41 |
2000 in Review By, 19 days into the season, we will have accumulated enough hitter trades to change all of our hitters at least once. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to require all of our picks to perform well in the first 19 days. In actuality, we need many of them to perform better sooner than that . . . With that in mind, let's look at the 19 day price changes for the players the Guru mentioned. I'll skip the Japanese games, as well. This means that I'm looking at price changes from 4/3 to 4/22, basically. I'm also only going to look at hitters, since pitching trends will be markedly different this year. 1B - Durazo $1,950 on 4/3, he was $2,080 on 4/22, with a peak of $2,150 on 4/17. 2B - Kennedy $1130 on 4/3, he skyrocketed to $2,600 by 4/12, and was still climbing at $3,220 on 4/22. He eventually crested at $4,040 on 5/4 in the midst of a 13 game consecutive days streak. So much for the lemmings playing the schedule . . . 3B - Ramirez $1240 on 4/3, he rose to $1,570 on 4/8 on the strength of 1 good day (4/5) and heavy drafting. However, he quickly petered out, falling to $1,120 on 4/22, and hitting the minimum by the end of May. Guillen $650 on 4/3, he was a total bust. He peaked at $710 on 4/6, and hit the minimum on 4/10 and stayed there for quite awhile. Bergeron $1280 on 4/3, his price skied to $2000 by 4/7 and a peak of $2320 on 4/15. A series of rainouts, coupled with some mediocre preformances then led to large sell-offs, although no panic selling. By 4/22 he was down to $1,940, falling to a relative low of $1530 on 5/13. His price wouldn't really crash until July/Aug. Quinn His price was $1270 on 4/3, and increased consistently throughout April. A weak KC schedule, coupled with a series of bad point performances and the occassional benching almost started a run on his price by 4/30, but a 44-10-51 point stretch pushed his price to $3080 by 5/11. It stayed there until the market crash in late May and June when he got demoted. In total, he jumped from $1270 to $2480 by 4/22. Hermanson 2.95 on 4/3. He rose to a peack of 3.0 on 4/5. The market quickly crashed, however, pushing his price to 2.44 on 4/22. Hammonds He started off at 4.07 on 4/3. This was his peak, since he quickly popped his hamstring. Because of heavy drafting, he fell to 3.22 by the time of his comeback (ironically on 4/22 exactly). 1B -- Ortiz .530 on 4/3, despite some sporadic early PT, he climbed to .64 by 4/11. Back down to .540 on 4/22 and hit the minimum on 4/27. Fick He was stuck at the minimum all season long, so I don't think he was a popular draftee. LeCroy 1.47 on 4/3, hs price slowly rose to 1.7 on 4/20, where it crested and began a gradual descent to the price minimum. He's a case study in how a cheapie who's heavily drafted can have strong downward momentum. Estalella he cost 1.14 on 4/3 and peaked at 1.32 on 4/11, despite not having played the previous 2 days. Erratic PT dropped his price down to 1.04 by 4/22 and 0.91 by 5/2. He did rebound later on the strength of a single 83 point day. Conclusions In 2000, because of the Japan start, there were 6 price changes before most teams played. This caused the popular draft picks to go up in price early. However, once points started to be scored, the popularity of early draft picking almost looks irrelevant. As soon as 4/7, managers were clearly concentrating on the guys who had scored SWP. The relatively "bargains" of 4/3 were forgotten, and the new season had begun. Therefore, I think there is little reason to believe that our picks this year will actually become the money trains. Hopefully you'll get lucky with a Quinn and/or Kennedy. But one key is to avoid drafting mid-priced potential trains. Like Hammonds or Hermanson, they can backfire in a hurry. But if you draft very cheap, you won't lose much money, and you can upgrade to whoever eventually becomes a mid-priced train. | |||||
| 60 | Texas Flood ID: 12458220 Fri, Mar 23, 18:29 |
Madman, your post seems to contradict itslef or perhaps i just don't understand. from what i understand most of our cheapies did'nt work out last year and you seem to be advocating drafting cheapie hitters? i was looking strictly for undervalued players by postion with some upsdie value. i came up with petrick, burell, T.walker, boone, frucal, gonzo, lofton, everett and branyan. all for the low low price of 25,830. names and stats aside do you or anyone else think i am on the right track. i am thinking about a 50/50 split between pitching and hitting dollars. should we be spending less on hitting? | |||||
| 61 | Ender ID: 13443221 Fri, Mar 23, 19:18 |
I think Madman is saying that the cheapies won't work out for the most part, but you protect yourself from losses by drafting them. You also leave yourself some $$$ in the bank (unless you spend it all on pitching) to upgrade those cheapies to the real money making opportunities. With a little luck you may actually snag one or two productive players that you can hold. At some point however, you will need to move an unproductive sub $1 mill player to a $3+ mill productive player who is making $$$ too. If you don't have the $$$ to make the upgrade you are hosed. | |||||
| 62 | Texas Flood ID: 12458220 Fri, Mar 23, 19:52 | Ender, thanks for clearing that up. are we thinking of a cash reserve somewhere around 2.5-3.0? as i was playing with my roster i was thinking of downgrading one of my pitchers or outfielders so i could have more in reserve than the 1.090 i have now. | |||||
| 63 | Ender ID: 13443221 Fri, Mar 23, 20:02 |
That's a tough question IMO TF. There's a fine line between not having enough in the bank, and not having enough on the field. I would think $2 - $3 million is a nice target zone. I also think that's much easier said than done, too! :) Heck, I just finished my first team and only had 140K left over! Fortunately I consider this an experimental team anyway and it will likely look different a week from now. | |||||
| 64 | Steve Biz ID: 462472320 Fri, Mar 23, 21:23 | I would say to start the season $6M+ in extra cash would be a better target. You made need to bump up several fielders in order to get all of the train players you want. | |||||
| 65 | Busa Bus ID: 52027230 Fri, Mar 23, 21:53 | As far as money I tend to agree with Ender, if you have 6 million in the bank, some of that should be in one of your weaker players. Generally, trains aren't exactly expensive, that's why everyone gets them. The few million(2-3) that you have should be used, yes to move to trains, but also to upgrade some of the cheap players that just don't pan out. | |||||
| 66 | Madman ID: 29246911 Fri, Mar 23, 22:06 |
TF Yeah, Ender's post is basically what I was thinking. It's not easy to predict before the season will begin who will be hot in the next 3 weeks. Cheapies (undervalued ones, at least), probably have as much of a chance at this as anyone. But you can't count on the fact that a player is very cheap to drive his price up. Once the season begins, the lemmings will flock to whomever hits the LEMDAR. As to how much money is the bank, I have no idea. $6m sould very nice. It also kind of depends on how you have your money distributed. Putting cash in an expensive OFer will allow you to trade him in to another OFer by using only 1 trade. But if you have your money totally in pitching, then this will require 2 trades. Even then, however, you might be able to time things so that you'll get the best of both worlds. There's really no one answer, here. But managers do tend to underestimate the power of flexibility. | |||||
| 67 | The Pink Pimp ID: 36423223 Fri, Mar 23, 22:41 |
I only have time for a short post tonight and I want to revisit a concept that was previously covered simply because it relates to the content of the most recent posts.. On the subject of which cheapies will become trains one thing can be said with confidence. Cheap infielders have a better chance than cheap outfielders. The LEMDAR last year was the top 25 list available by position to all managers on smallworlds site. To gain the attention of the masses an ultra cheapie like Soriano, Rollins, Ortiz, or Brogna only needs to be in the top 25 at his position. Obviously the higher up he is the better. Its easier for an infielder to make the top 25 than for an outfielder because the outfielder has to compete against three times as many players. Every team has 3 starting outfielders but only one starting player at each infield position. So thats the difference between competing against 84 players for a top 25 spot and competing against 28 players for a top 25 spot. (forgive me if I have the wrong number of teams but I do not follow the AL well enough to know offhand how many teams are there.) All other things being equal, which of course they won't be, an infielder has a better chance of making the top 25 Last year's run away draft success was Kennedy and I think a few players in this years infield have a decent chance to follow his example rather than that of Guillen. By the way, anybody remember making a cool million of Frank Menechino last year? That's all for tonight, should have known I couldn't keep it short. | |||||
| 68 | VIDevilRays ID: 508151619 Sat, Mar 24, 07:09 |
Hey Madman-I agree with you!:). I would worry less about what one has in the bank and more about flexibility. The ability to trade with minimal roster disruption I think is the key. While having loads of money in the bank is one way, there are other ways that can and should be contemplated. | |||||
| 69 | Eustacio ID: 51729258 Sat, Mar 24, 08:51 |
Very true VIDevilRays. I brought this idea up briefly in the Gurupie Chatroom a few nights ago, and I got some strange looks, but I'll toss it out here. I'm thinking about starting the season with 5 closers on my team, costing me about 13 million SWD. Then, I'll either leave a bunch of money in the bank or start out with some solid hitters that I can downgrade easily. My thinking on this is that since pitchers start out slowly (I believe there was a post on this somewhere), I can bank pitcher trades for awhile, ride the hitter trains, and be able to make 1-for-1 trades. Another variation might be to leave one slot for Pedro/Unit and ride the one that is going to make more money, based upon when the other one starts. | |||||
| 70 | Ender ID: 13443221 Sat, Mar 24, 10:59 |
Eustacio, I already have 1 team with the Pedro/4 closer setup. That's the first team I mentioned above (with only 140K free). I am not advocating it as THE strategy' It's just something that occurred to me. I can hold the 4 closers and rotate the 5th spot. By allowing enough money for Pedro I assure myself the ability to rotate into any pitcher I want. | |||||
| 71 | Madman ID: 29246911 Sun, Mar 25, 03:11 |
Eustacio I was just thinking about that, myself! Probably more like 3-4 closers, rather than 5. However, it's something to consider. Especially since Brown has now gone down for opening day (in all likelihood). The average start is shorter in April than later in the year. The typical start also shortens in Sept., probably a result of the rookie callups. | |||||
| 72 | esposo ID: 1211141614 Mon, Mar 26, 12:14 | with no blown save penalty C_losers might be a good buy | |||||
| 73 | Pond Scum ID: 54420321 Mon, Mar 26, 17:28 |
I am reversing my field on my initial conviction to hold $3MM plus to jump on trains. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on making big bucks really eaarly which I think will be an incredible trade-eater. Given the quality of team that can be bought with the prices this year, I am thinking that the best strategy is to get a good set of players with a track record and stick with them (barring injuries) while accumulating trades. Things tend to even out (see Madman's pitching threads) and real trends need some distance to perceive. It seems like the bulk of these posts encourage an excessive sense of urgency around trading on the LEMDAR while the smart money will be much more selective. Baseball is a long season and trades saved early can be used more skillfully later on, IMHO. Somebody please remind me of this when I'm tradeless in the first week... We need a Tradeholics thread ASAP!!! | |||||
| 74 | Ender ID: 13443221 Mon, Mar 26, 18:29 | Pond Scum, try the Ender's Game division. Burn all those trades as soon as you get 'em and get your fix. It'll be a weekly reminder of why you shouldn't go tradeless (trust me, I know, I drafted Kobe last week in the hoops version). | |||||
| 75 | Pond Scum ID: 54420321 Tue, Mar 27, 16:38 |
Ender, I thought that was a book review thread... Seriously, I wonder what the most valuable time during the season for trades is? Earlier is better because canny trading can lead to $'s that can be used the rest of the season. But later is better because real trends have sorted out from the flashes in the pan. I am thinking it's an inverted curve, lower for the first few weeks, higher through May, and slowly declining thereafter. That would mean accumulate for the first three weeks as much as possible, spend trades (net) through May, and spend 'em as you get 'em thereafter (keeping an injury cushion). | |||||
| 76 | Pond Scum ID: 54420321 Tue, Mar 27, 21:06 | This strategy would also mean that an early season cash cushion is less crucial and allow an upgrade or two to maximize points early. Keeping one expensive player to be "harvested" a few weeks in for a hot cheapie would allow for the cash to move elsewhere at that point. | |||||
| 77 | kahuna ID: 1252913 Thu, Mar 29, 13:42 | butt | |||||
| 78 | gibby88 ID: 50451220 Thu, Mar 29, 16:24 |
With the "elite" starters beginning to fall on opening day I , too, am beginning to look into the "closer strategy". Ender, your PJ + 4 closers seems decent....and as you say holding PJ allows one to go into other elite pitchers since his price is the highest. I am considering olding 2 million + in the bank to upgrade closers as needed.... We'll see.... Any A's fans have an update on how Izzy is looking @ closer? Thanks! | |||||
| 79 | Mark L ID: 534679 Fri, Mar 30, 22:50 | BUTT | |||||
| 80 | slimer ID: 2644430 Sun, Apr 01, 04:26 | butt....this doesn't belong on the second page | |||||
| 81 | Slow Stick ID: 193302410 Tue, Apr 24, 12:28 | butt for the new guy | |||||
| 82 | Strike One ID: 39252299 Tue, Apr 24, 19:58 | when i look back at how i started, i definetly had too many rookies/sleepers on my team. i would've used about half the trades moving into money trades as i did getting out of the players i had that didn't produce. | |||||
| 83 | Jereme Harder ID: 47082117 Mon, Jan 21, 2002, 17:09 |
Hi, I don't know if you can help me out with this or not but I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm in a fantasy baseball league and was looking for a site where I could get all last year's numbers (stats) based on the formula our league uses...the formula is HomeRuns times 10, RBI times 3, hits times 2, and Avg times itself. I was wondering if you could offer me any advice as to where I could find a site where I could key in the formula and get say maybe the top 200 based on that formula in the MLB last year. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Jereme Harer | |||||
| 84 | rockfish ID: 531038288 Mon, Jan 21, 2002, 19:03 |
well..i can't help except maybe get a electronic calculator. wow you dug deep for this thread to post in! last I heard the pimp turned a whiter shade of pale. '''''' | |||||
| 85 | rockfish ID: 531038288 Mon, Jan 21, 2002, 19:14 | and come hell or high water still conserving pitcher trades. :>/ | |||||
| 86 | smallwhirled Donor ID: 157582113 Thu, Jan 31, 2002, 19:45 | Come out of where you're hiding, Pink Pimp. | |||||
| 87 | quik_ag ID: 368423022 Fri, Feb 22, 2002, 18:49 | BUTT.. might be useful now | |||||
| 88 | Mr. Nice Guy ID: 421124113 Sun, Feb 24, 2002, 16:28 | Hitters are much more watered down now and pitchers are where to spend your money early on. | |||||
| 89 | Ender ID: 52438315 Mon, Mar 18, 2002, 08:54 | BUTT | |||||
| 90 | smallwhirled Donor ID: 29232811 Sat, Mar 23, 2002, 22:55 | back up to top | |||||
| 91 | june247 ID: 32332323 Sat, Mar 23, 2002, 23:46 | wow the pink pimp's back | |||||
| 92 | Ref ID: 121135289 Sat, Mar 30, 2002, 12:04 |
PP, great to see you again...uh I think :) I takes me the whole day to read your post--but it's good stuff as usual. | |||||
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