Skill or Chance?

[MARCPELLETIER]

[quote:f8105be00d]Those extra baserunners are getting stranded for a reason, and it certainly does not appear to be coming from the tight defense.

My initial impression, though I may be entirely wrong, is that there are more gbAs in the pitcher's card in this set as opposed to last year's, running some rough numbers, the avergae GDPs last year in my leagues was around 135 per team in a season. [/quote:f8105be00d]

Great reflection. Makes sense.

[DavidRis]

I think Lucky is dead on about micro-managing. I really see the difference when I have the time to spend looking at my team each night and changing the line-up for the team/park I'm playing. But I do understand JPavs fustrations as sometimes it does feel too much like chance. However, the Cleveland example from last year does ring true, showing that in the end, being at the top of the a leaderboard (slg, obp, era) only puts you in position to contend...so, as lucky said, it comes down to a handful of games that you adjusted your coaching too, like those important division games, and ethier won or lost. (they add up!)

BTW....awesome team Geek! (speed) Bet that one was fun to win with!!
:D


Ris

[geekor]

Cummings,

you may have hit the nail on the head.

Wether people agree or not, some of lucky's talks about DP's made me make a team of all hitter having positive clutch and under 10 dp's. It ended up being my ONLY 03 team to win a title, beating out Cristano.

There was never enough personel (compared to 03) to sucussfully draft a team like that in the 05 set. Still, just looking at the cards, it would be impossible in this set again.

Trying to make a team of all low DP guys is neigh impossible in itself. The guys with low DP's all are walk/HR guys, with barely any hits on them, let alone speed.

In my rambling (sorry no good with words when I'm sneaking this is in between jobs at work) is that there are no real "complete" players, save for a handful. If a player is good at hitting, with speed and obp, he usually has bad clutch and bad dp's. A good slugger, with low dp's, good ob has bad speed and usually not that many hits. Only Arod is really a complete hitter. Trying to put together a team of all low DP guys would cost 50+ mil for it to be effective.

So yes, besides pitchers, there are much much more DP's on the hitters card as well beign used. If DP's are up across the board, it could be a very good reason why offenses ar enot working. There is nothing that can be solved about that other then wait for next year :P

[rgimbel]

how many dp chances does a card have to have to be considered low

[ArrylT]

I would say 10 for previous years - but have been using 15 for 06.

[geekor]

That also focus's back on why SLG seems to be more prevelant in winning teams this year. Many of the guys who have good OBP and low DP's are the strikeout a lot guys who have lots and lots of SLG. So if you have the guys with low dp's and at least ok obp, usually they come with more power, in lue of singles.

I wish I could get a team of the right personel to see if this is true, but since I can't, and only 1 credit left am not going to try, I'll leave it up to someone else.

btw, yes before under 10 was considered good for low dp's on a hitter, but with this set I have been settleing for under 15.... sucks I know. :?

[MARCPELLETIER]

I really can't understand that argument (see title). It's been defended by people that I really like, by friends---to the extent that this word is appropriate for a web community.

This argument frustrates me because I have a big ego, I have to admit. :lol: :P But also because it appears to me as a too-easy excuse :cry:

To be honest, what I see through out 2006 is the same owners making the same decisions and repeating the SAME errors again, and again, and again.

Let's be imaginative, for cris'sake. Try new things. Experiment.

Consider for example the Tour. There has been 1 team so far dominating the Tour. Have a look at it:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=3312

This team is heading towards 110+ wins, in reach of breaking all records for a Tour event. This team has the traditional pitching strategy for its stadium (too bad the teams in his division didn't adjust----YOU HAVE TO ADJUST YOUR TEAM AGAINST EXTREME TEAMS IN YOUR DIVISION, OTHERWISE THEY WILL BLOW UP YOUR TEAM). But have a look at the bench. Not a single player under 1 million. Granted, this is a 100-million league, but honestly, how many among you would have had the guts to go with not a single player under 1 million, with platoons all over the place? The answer is easy: none of you tried (except for cristano last year. As far as I could see, no regular members of the board go with expensive bench). Everyone is going with cheap bench because that is the common wisdom (including from me). But perhaps common wisdow is wrong here. It took about 50 years for baseball to realize how bad the bunting strategy is---it might take a few years before bad common wisdom in strat become unravelled.

That is the price to pay when you have the same owners making the same decisions and repeating the SAME again, and again, and again.

Same is true about the so-called "secret formula" by J-Pav, according to whom the winningest strategy is to spend around 32M on pitching and 48M on offense. I have no doubt that all teams that J-Pav have looked into showed this balance---no doubt because everybody is going after this balance. Yet, I've been the champ of my first Tour team (90 wins) by spending 22M on my pitching. Finished first in offense, 11th in pitching. I have currently a team running with the title in the second Tour team first in offense and dead last in pitching---another 90+win team. To be succesful in an all-oriented offensive team is still clearly feasible, if you can have a good draft. Yet, I see everyone going with balanced teams. Of course, balanced teams might very well be successful, but if the right players aren't there, you can also outspend in offense (for an offensive-oriented stadium) and still be succesful.

The same owners making the same decisions and repeating the SAME errors again, and again, and again.

Also, as I have said in the skill or chance thread, I see my own experience as a clear proof that skills are at work. There are five/six Teams that I didn't monitor (because of personal life, of extra credits, or because these teams were used for beta-testing). These teams played around 82-80. Teams I monitor closely average 91-71. This is after 10 teams, and I showed a smilar effect last year (16 teams). I don't know how big the sample you need, but to me, this is clearly not the result of chance.

This is not to say that I will always be sucessful, obviously. You need to have a lot of things going your way to have a succesful team---a good draft, a good strategy that fits the league you are in---even, yes, some bit of luck----and a good dose of skill.

[Stoney18]

Lucky, thanks for the advice. I've found myself in that same mode of tweaking something that was .500 ball instead of trying new approaches.

[J-Pav]

[b:1dfc1e2346]Marcus[/b:1dfc1e2346]:

Here's [b:1dfc1e2346]maligned[/b:1dfc1e2346] from the LOTO threads on his tour team:

[color=darkblue:1dfc1e2346]Assmeriten...I wouldn't hide in fear. The other Strat teams I've finished or have now are a mixed bag...91-71, 87-75, 79-83, 75-87, 14-19. Everything went perfectly for me in our Tour league...I think I got something like 22 of the 25 guys I requested during the autodraft. In a 100M league, it's normally a battle to fill out a roster you're happy with. I got a once-in-a-lifetime sort of team. [/color:1dfc1e2346]

Skill or chance? The discussion might be/is getting tired, but it's a valid question nonetheless.

I think deep down we all might be at least a little afraid we might be kidding ourselves...

[JPGator]

Rather than continue to watch both sides in this debate eye each other warily as they circle the championship trophy in the middle, why not propose a solution that would render the question moot? If at a minimum the game engine/mechanics provided a simple numeric tally which told you at the end of each game how many of the head-to-head decisions, i.e., the batter/pitcher die roll, were won by each team, that could go a long way in showing how much luck contributed to each team that game. If this could be kept as a running tally, then at the end of the year you could see which teams were the simple majority leaders on head-to-head rolls and whether that correlated to the ones that also were advancing to the playoffs.

Full blown die-roll by die-roll results would give even more feedback and would further reduce uncertainty to what is luck and what isn't. Of course, this opinion is from probably coming from a bored .480 winning percentage manager who's simply waiting for the USA's World Cup game to begin this afternoon. :wink: