"Floaters" Discussion

[Leones]

Even though the floaters are going to be mostly decided by the PEBA owners I would like to add my two cents to the mix, specifically about the scouting issue. One of the aspects of PEBA that I was most looking forward to, along with the great participation of the owners that is present here, was being able to utilize scouts in an online league. The dilemma of choosing whether to invest a lot into scouting at the cost of passing up a free agent that could help the team out now is something that is present in baseball, but not in most OOTP leagues.

I believe choosing to go in a direction where potential ratings are no longer displayed would certainly hurt this aspect of the game. It is certainly not realistic for scouts to change minute details about their ratings of players from week to week, but it is even less realistic to only be offered text scouting reports of players. In real life scouts use numbers, specifically a 20-80 scale in increments of 5 (here's an example for Justin Smoak), with ratings for both present and future. I think that eliminating this aspect of scouting because of the too precise nature of talent changes would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

In fact, the leagues that lean most in the stats-only direction still usually have potential ratings, but they do not have current ones (These are the "Talent-only" leagues you will see if you browse the OOTP forum). This is to make it more realistic, so you judge players current ability on how they are performing, but to keep the realism of using potentials as well. Without potential ratings someone such as Tim Beckham, who had a pretty mediocre first season in Rookie Ball, would not be thought of as a stud prospect in a hypothetical online league. So, while I would be in favor of keeping both current and potentials, I feel current ratings, rather than potential ratings should be the first to go.

That all being said I certainly think it would be more realistic for the scouting scale to be narrowed. A 1-20 system would be roughly equivalent to the 20-80 scale that we observe in real life and should result in less minute talent changes.

On the subject of the other two floaters I am ambivalent about changing to 3 days a week. For the injury system I believe that we should wait until we have a better grasp of the injury system in OOTP X to go ahead with a CP driven change.

Alright does anyone have any other thoughts about the changes that were proposed? I just wanted to get my thoughts out there about the scouting system and see if anyone else wants to share their reasons for supporting/opposing the changes.

[Alan Ehlers]

I am making a seperate thread because this is the one floater I am passionate about and want everyone to vote yes. I think it makes the game more fun and it will help the season flow better and we can play more with 3 sims. Everyone vote yes

[Evas]

I completely agree. Please everyone, vote YES on 3 sims per week.

[Maulers]

While I'm not adverse to going up to 3 sims a week, we should be mindful of the tremendous amount of work each sim is for John. As he detailed in a thread somewhere a couple of weeks ago, it basically wipes out his entire night. I'm very hesitant to ask John to take on even more responsibility and time on our behalf.

[John]

Every year there is a wide variety of opinions on the floaters. In some cases owners have particularly strong opinions for or against. That's fine with me; the whole idea behind the floaters is to spark thought and opinion.

What I would caution against, though, is getting overly worked up over any one proposal (and that's not directed at anyone in particular; just a general statement). There's a tendency to extrapolate the very worst when presented with a change. While most of the responses I receive are measured, there will always be one or two predicting doom and gloom if "Floater X" gets passed.

My response is it's never as bad as you think. Learning to be flexible is a good thing. And frankly, it's a good thing that we don't always get what we want. I know, that seems odd to say, doesn't it? Think about it, though: if we never get challenged, we never grow. I like to look at change and challenge as necessary for my personal growth. With that outlook, enacting a floater that I may not favor doesn't rattle me too badly. I figure I can roll with the punches no matter what.

None of this has any bearing on any of the three floaters being proposed; it's just my general philosophy when faced with the prospect of a change I may or may not favor (both in the PEBA and in life).

Regarding the floaters, you're welcome to discuss them here. I only ask that you avoid arguing over them. If you have an opinion, state it clearly and politely. Don't be offended if others have different opinions from you; that's part and parcel with the democratic process. As long as no one is trying to bully their opinion on anyone else, this discussion is welcome.

@ Noel: Make sure you email me your formal floater preferences so that I have an official record of them.

EDIT: No need for separate topics for each floater. Please keep the discussion to one thread.

[Rudel.Dietrich]

Nevermind just checked my e-mail

[klewis]

My thoughts on 3 sims per week. I participate in two leagues including this one. This league lets me soak in the experience and atmosphere due to the pacing of it. So I like the current pacing. I can certainly understand the advantages of more sims. As I mentioned before, teams looking to rebuild may be looking at 2+ real life years just to make a turnaround.

The slow pacing of the league also kinda promotes a win now attitude. For example, I traded away some young prospects (Felix Ortega and Martin Martinez) for relatively young proven players. A very small incentive/reasoning to doing this was because I did not want to wait 1-1.5 real life years just to see how they pan out. Imagine drafting a 18 year old and waiting 2 years to see him arrive to PEBA. PEBA is fortunate to have a low turnover rate, but fact remains that it is very hard to predict how real life dictates our OOTP playing time years from now.

So I can certainly see both sides of the argument. I'm fairly neutral. I also take into consideration that John's doing most of the work so that would be hard on him also. I would go for a compromise. For example, speed up the offseason by adding more weekly sims or simming greater chunks per sim. Another compromise would be to go a 2-3-2-3 sim month schedule (2 sims first week, 3 sims second week, and so forth). I actually rather do that than go 3-3-3-3.

In the end, I'm fine whatever direction the league goes. I'd prefer to stay with a 2 per week sim format or 2-3-2-3 format. Speeding up the offseason is fine by me also. Another point about increased sims is that it gives us less opportunity to write or earn CP. I'd probably write less if we do more sims. I usually use non-sim nights to write and check out the league. More sims means I'll be shifting my focus to lineup settings and farm system maintenance.

I agree with others that on the injury floater. Since OOTP X has changes to the injury system, I think I rather wait to see the changes in OOTP X than make changes outside of the game. Also, I'd be more interested in using CP to reduce the likeliness of injury rather than reducing injury time. Of course such a proposal requires a delicate balance. For example, a guy with a severe knee injury should not be able to fully reduce his likeliness to injury his knee again. But for minor injuries, it would be nice to send players to a "strengthening and conditioning" program in the offseason. This would reduce their hidden arm/leg/back/etc. injury number. But as mentioned before, let's hope OOTP X fixes this issue and we don't have to resort to external means.

Now for the big topic: ratings. I tend to agree that 1-100 system reveals too much. Now sure where to start but here goes:

1. I am for the elimination of stars. I feel the stars system makes us bias against certain players. I think in PEBA stars are based relative to their position and not the overall player base? So players that play 1B or corner outfield may have be perceived to have lower value due to the star systems. For example, one of my outfielders was a 3.5 star rated outfielder at RF. When I moved him to LF, he became 4 stars. Obviously, his ratings did not change... only the player base relative to his position changed. I think the elimination of stars would make it more fun for trading. Often times, stars influence our biasness when it comes to trade.

2. I am against eliminating the potential system. I like the potential system because it gives me a rough idea of where the players stand when it comes to the amateur draft. Also as Noel stated, scouts potentially rate players all the time. I think often times, I see leagues that offer the opposite system (show talent but not current ratings). I think a talent-only system is more realistic than a current rating only system. I would rather show potential with no current ratings than show only current ratings with no potential. If we rely on stats, who needs current ratings anyway. I think that's why some leagues do this. You have this 35 year old pitcher. He was great last year. With no current ratings displayed, do you risk signing him knowing he is a year older? This is where your "GMing skills" and philosophy comes into play.

3. Changing the ratings scale. I am for this. The current scale gives us too much information and just like with stars, can skew our biased views. I think most leagues offer more information when it comes to current ratings and then obsecure the potential ratings. For example, my other league is 1-10 current/other raings and 1-5 potential. I am not sure what system I like more. A talent-only system or the aforementioned system where potential ratings are on a smaller scale than current ratings. Both have their merits. I probably prefer a 20-80 scale or 1-20 scale best.

On a side note, when I first came to PEBA I had throw out my old ways of thinking when it came to ratings. Previously in leagues where ratings were 1-10, I was trained that hitters with 7+ contact were good hitters. In PEBA, you can have a good hitter where scouts rate him in the mid-50s for contact. Same thing for pitching. You need at least 6's to be a decent or solid starter. In PEBA, a pitcher rated in the 50's could be solid. It certainly took a while to adjust.

My final note is that I'd like to see more parity. As discussed before, I'm sure we will head towards that due to revenue sharing and having more years removed from the "Big Bang". So this comment is more of a general comment than a "we need to make rules to promote parity" type of comment. Reasons why I like parity is because it keeps all owners involved. It also gives owners hope for each season that anything can happen. It's also more satisfying when you maintained a dynasty knowing you did it in a parity-based league. I understand that having unique markets and circumstances give a certain flair and fingerprint to the league. I'd love to keep this charm. But I still feel bad for teams like Tempe and London. How do you tell two separate, well-respected owners that for one reason or another Owner A gets $120 million to play with but Owner B gets only $40 million to play with. I know that the owners already knew what they were getting into when they signed up for the team.... but still I feel bad when I see a hard working owner contribute a lot to the league but get less cards dealt to them.

I'm not sure how owners feel about that. I apologize if it struck a wrong nerve. Personally, I do not how to feel. My team is in about the $80 million range so I'm in a fairly good situation. So from my team's perspective, I have no problem with the current situation. It's in my nature though to think about the "little guys" so that's why you always see me bring up topics like this :) But I'm not sure how those like Tempe, Kentucky, and London feel. Do you find it fun to be up against the challenge? Or do you find it frustrating?

[Cole]

For me - the issue I'm passionate about is the first one - the ratings. I like the idea of having 1-10 Ratings for Potential, Positional, Speed, Personality, etc. --- however, for Current Ratings, I'd like to go with 1-5 to add to the "fog" of not knowing exactly what a players current ability is. I definitely would like the 1-100 ratings to change - as a new GM, this was truly the things I didn't like the most about the PEBA (I know, I had to find something), I was pleasantly surprised when I read the email about floaters today. But anyways - yeah, I like 1-10 ratings for everything except current ratings (Control/Stuff/Movement for SP's) and (Con, Gap, Pow, Eye, K for Hitters).

As for the sims thing - I think 3 sims per week would allow things to progress quicker and build a history faster which could be a good thing - BUT, what I think makes the league special is all of the writing, blogging, websites, etc. for all the teams and there would not be nearly as much time to do this if we went to 3 sims per week. I know I havent been involved much yet due to excessive workload at work until tax day but I do plan to put out either an article or a podcast for each sim. This is do-able with 2 sims per week, with 3, it becomes more of a tall task. Plus - I know John probably doesn't want us to worry about this aspect, but I really don't want to increase his workload doing 3 sims per week.

CP for injuries - I vote no to this b/c I believe that the injury model in OOTPX is going to be vastly improved. If OOTPX disapoints then maybe we can revisit this next year.

[klewis]

It would be interesting if we reduce or lower the scale on current ratings. I wonder how that impacts Winter Ball. Without ratings or a lower scale, it may be hard to judge who is a good candidate for Winter Ball. Then again, I am sure we can find a work around for that.

[Steel Dragons]

IMO the amount of sims we run a week should be 100% the choice of how many John wants to run. I actually used to be in a league(using a different game) where the commissioner just decided to go away without telling anyone. Since we had a good group of owners I said I'd give it a shot but didn't have time to run 3 sims per week. After about 2 weeks half the league was complaining that it was going too slow. Being the competitor I am, I gave in to the challenge but after about 4 months I got burned out from all the work.

It was a good experience because I didn't realize how much work the commissioners actually put in. I figured that they just processed the trades and pressed "the sim button". It's actually like a second job. With the amount of work John puts in it might even be a 3rd and 4th job also. Take today for example, we received a mailing that consisted of 2715 words. How many owners actually take the time to write 2715 word articles about anything? I know there are some, but it's not many.

Bottom line from where I sit is that there are plenty of leagues that run 2 sims and plenty that run 3. Unlike settings changes where it's a matter of taking 2 seconds to move a slider, the amount of sims run should be contingent upon the amount of time the commissioner has to run them. Sure I could handle 3 sims a week but if it's at the expense of the quality of the league or John's social life then it's not worth it.

Featherheads brought up a good topic in league parity. When teams are finishing 70+ games out or when a team wins 106 games and finishes 20 games out, that's a serious problem. I understand that the scouting proposal is an attempt to help this long term, but does it really? If a PEBA team like Yuma is in the process of rebuilding, then they have all these draft picks and "who knows what they will be" prospects, meanwhile a win now team has already established players who you know exactly what they are. In order for a bad team to get better they need to make more adjustments then a good or in this case ridiculously dominating team. Making the game harder now seems to benefit the better teams more then the worse teams. That being said I don't really have any plans that would make it better other then wishing bad teams better luck in player development or possibly some of the better owners switching to bad teams when they open up. I don't see how much fun it can be when teams are locking up playoff spots in July.

[Evas]

1. Regarding the rating system, I think it is important to have a detailed numerical rating system. Whether that is 1-100 or 20-80, I don't really care. Either way this is how we get the information on our players. Real GM's have very detailed scouting reports, analysis of mechanics, opinions of coaches, their own first hand look at the players and hugely complicated analytical tools like Diamond View for the Indians. We have none of those things. The numerical system is OOTP's approximation of the sum of those things. If we don't have that, what do we have? A small sample size of stats and a few generic computer generated sentences? That is not enough. The scouts actually give us their in formation in the form of the ratings they give, just like real scouts that us the 20-80 system. The blurbs that they provide in the Scouting report mean very little compared to the actual ratings the scouts provide.

2. Regarding the Sims, I see both sides. Personally, I would really prefer to sim 3 times per week. I appreciate the thoughts about the decreased amount of articles and player commentaries, but I just don't know if 2 seasons per calendar year is enough. I see little benefit to developing young players if I won't see them blossom for 3 actual calendar years. That is just too far away. We need more throughput.

At the same time I certainly understand the point about over working John. He does a ridiculous amount already. If going to 3 sims a week would be a huge burden on him, I don't really think it is actually an option. So I guess I would ask John if it is REALLY not a problem to go to 3 sims a week for him, or would that actually be a huge burden. I don't want him to be a martyr.

3. I don't have a strong opinion on the injury issue, other than thinking if OOTPX is going to do a major injury revamp, there is little point in playing with the injury system now. But I don't really care much.

[klewis]

I agree John does a lot... more than any other commissioner I see do.

1. Answer emails and questions on the forum
2. Sim weeks
3. Check DFA lists
4. Check contracts signings are proper
5. Implement trades
6. Implement waiver wire requests
7. Post articles for us
8. Add Easter Eggs in said articles
9. Run test leagues behind the scenes to make sure changes are stable

I'm sure there are plenty of things I am missing. But that's a lot of stuff! So I can certainly see how 3 sims may get a little hectic.

[John]

What are we even voting on?

This afternoon I sent out a mailing with a list of three "floater" proposals for owners to vote on. Let me know if you didn't receive this and I'll send you a separate copy.

Sure I could handle 3 sims a week but if it's at the expense of the quality of the league or John's social life then it's not worth it.

"Social life"? What's this, now?

Regarding parity, I'll say the same thing I always say: increased parity is an inevitability. As we move further away from the Big Band and with the rules we've already adopted, parity is downhill and we're rolling towards it. In fact a greater concern for me - and one that was touched on recently by a few other owners - is reaching a point of too much parity. This too is an inevitability given our setup. Fortunately we're still a ways away from that, and I'm already drawing up plans for the day we arrive there. At any rate, if you're worried about parity: don't be. It's coming.

By the way, I'd like to compliment you all on the speed of your responses. Almost half the league has already mailed their votes in to me. Nice and snappy! With luck we'll be able to round up the rest of the votes this weekend and I can have the results to you early next week.

[Tyler]

Before I discuss my thoughts on the floaters, I'd like to ask about the reason behind this "for-sure" change:

Any player on your secondary roster, DL or DFA as of Sept. 1 is eligible for the playoffs. Previously players had to be on the active roster, DL or DFA to be eligible. This change expands eligibility to all players on the secondary roster.

I have no real opinion on it other than to be puzzled - this isn't the way it's done in MLB, is it? What is the reasoning behind this change?

Again - I don't mind. I'm just curious about the reasoning behind the change.

[John]

Yeah, it's the way they do it now. It wasn't the way they did it until just recently. They've been messing with those postseason rules like crazy over the last few years as teams figure out ways to exploit loopholes in the various systems.