07 A different game?

[J-Pav]

[b:8fbfe2d3cc]Geekor[/b:8fbfe2d3cc]:

There are still strategies geared toward pure pitchers parks, pure hitters parks and neutral parks.

I think it's way too early to judge what's working and what isn't. Obviously I made that very same mistake early last year. So while I see some of what you're saying with regard to run differential, I also see other things cropping up as exploitable.

Remember too, we are ever marching toward statistical parity with player pricing, so the slice of available pie continues to diminish. And lucky or unlucky rolls may be misleading our perceptions this early on.

While I've always accepted wide ranges of player performance as part of the game, I am a little shocked to see certain guys (Halladay comes to mind) really stretching the outliers to both sides. I used to pay up for consistency, but now I'm wondering if the "all 5s" strategy isn't the way to go, simply because it's a more forgiving strategy. Having your high dollar stud/studs puke out on you can really harsh one's mellow.

[Coffeeholic]

[b:a7744e8967]Geekor[/b:a7744e8967] I've also mulled over the run differential disparity, and for some time now have been wonderring about this and it's relationship to bullpen effectiveness and blown saves. I've had numerous dis-appointing teams from '05 & '06 which had positive run differential, equal to or better than that of teams which finished with better records then mine.

For example, my team finishes at .500%, 10 games behind the division leader. Both of us have a +60 run differential. Yet my $5.00mil+ closer blows 20 of 50 save opportuniites, while the division leaders similararily priced closer only blows 10 of 50 saves.

[b:a7744e8967]J-Pav[/b:a7744e8967] Could you elaborate on your comment: "It took me more than three fourths of the card season to realize that '06 had much less to do with the player cards and everything to do with the ballparks."

I also felt the frustration of my properly construced team falling prey to improperly constructed teams. Of alarming note to me was the amount of times a team of mine could be similararily dominated by hard RHP, then reverse RHP, then Hard LHP, and finally Reverse LHP??? :?

[J-Pav]

[b:f9169890a1]Coffee[/b:f9169890a1]:

I started [i:f9169890a1]Skill or Chance?[/i:f9169890a1] to create discussion and vent frustration at playing .500 ball against unproven competition. Although I didn't actually believe it would hold true to the end myself, I was curious to see if the final player standings (by ratings points) might reveal we were closer to flipping coins than we actually thought.

The final player rankings confirmed that the same guys (more or less) who won in the past continue to win (skill/experience). Even as the self-appointed chief whiner in [i:f9169890a1]Skill or Chance?[/i:f9169890a1], I still came out with a better than one in six chance of winning a ring in any given league. [b:f9169890a1]PBTR[/b:f9169890a1] and [b:f9169890a1]cristano[/b:f9169890a1] (fellow Old Guard members) along with [b:f9169890a1]stevep[/b:f9169890a1], [b:f9169890a1]C2[/b:f9169890a1] and [b:f9169890a1]Jerlins[/b:f9169890a1] were at around one in four or better. There are several others as well that I didn't have an opportunity to compete against. [b:f9169890a1]Mcsoupy[/b:f9169890a1] had an off the charts 40% chance of winning it all in any league he played in. This is not chance.

As I played each of the above listed managers throughout the year, it only too late became apparent to me that they pretty much only played the extreme parks, and were doing so from the very beginning. I was swimming into the current trying to decipher Petco, when HAL only cared about Ameriquest, Safeco, PNC and Minute Maid. The final manager rankings proved (to me at least) that an experienced manager in the right three or four ballparks could easily play .550+ ball on a consistent basis, while even allowing for experimental teams to weigh them down some.

So there's me, pouring over cards like a madman, wondering what the hell it was I could be missing, when all the while it was the forest for the trees thing. All I had to do was build a six lefty slugger team in Safeco and I was off to the races.

The adventure seeker in me wanted to "figure out" the other ballpark situations, so in a sense I don't mind losing if I'm learning. In the end though, all I learned was that free credits came more from ballpark selection than anything else.

See you in Tour Event I League I where we begin to prove our '07 mettle!

GL!

[b:f9169890a1]J[/b:f9169890a1]

:D :D :D

[HUDAMAN]

Interesting discussion. Once I 'got it' in '06, I was very successful, although I got a very late start on the set, didn't start playing again until September of last year.

I managed to do really well in Safeco, Cell, PNC, and had a great home record when luck of the draw put me at Tropicana (the OTHER juice box).

When I first started playing back in '02, there were really three ways to get great value out of teams (and that is ultimately what this is all about, buying wins at the the cheapest possible price).

1. Find a card that was not valued correctly.
2. Change the value of a card by playing in a particular park.
3. Change the value of the card by playing your opponents lineup.

Early on, everyone knew which cards to buy to maximize 1. That was easy, those cards were overvalued regardless of park. By the time I came back for '06, that door was closed much tighter than it was in '02, so the way to win was to use #2. THAT is the reason that successful managers gravitated towards extreme parks. It's much simpler to squeeze value out of particular cards in an extreme park.

Ultimately, it ended up requiring more skill to win fewer games because #1 was eliminated. Number 2 has now been reduced for '07, so #3 is going to become WAY more important this year. Removing #1 and #2 is going to give the appearance that more luck is involved in the game, when it fact, it is simply a different 'skill' that will be rewarded more this year. Those that have it will do well. Those who relied strictly on #1 and #2 will gravitate even closer to .500.