Has 2006 killed off the "Old Guard"??

[Jerlins]

J-Pav,

I am not implying the old guard does not understand the difference. They do indeed, they keep winning don't they? What I'm saying is that extra edge they have by identifying and correctly placing incorrect priced players in pre-drafts, frenzies, etc, is no longer there, so perhaps the gap is not as wide. Most, if not all of these folks are still winning, so the skill is still there. I'm having trouble thinking they are winning because the roll of the dice is falling their way. For those that are not, well, perhaps their skill was in fact identifying and choosing bargain players moreso than constructing a championship caliber team. It doen't make them any less a player, it just makes them have to do a little more work instead of just selecting their bargain players and sitting back waiting for the season to start.

[J-Pav]

[color=darkblue:05a121bcd2]I am not implying the old guard does not understand the difference. They do indeed, they keep winning don't they? [/color:05a121bcd2]

If you're going by ratings points, then yes, because the guys with recognizable names tend to play a lot and generate more points because of it. However, if you're going by winning pct, then no, because the winning pct's are shrinking back to .500.

[color=darkblue:05a121bcd2]What I'm saying is that extra edge they have by identifying and correctly placing incorrect priced players in pre-drafts, frenzies, etc, is no longer there, so perhaps the gap is not as wide. [/color:05a121bcd2]

That's correct and I agree. To me "extra edge" equates with skill. Less skill is required, hence, the gap is not as wide. In a separate post, I would spend the time to argue that the single greatest example of SOM skill (in the past) was the draft priority. The more you played, the better you understood who to take where and your winning pct would benefit somewhat proportionately. You can argue the underpriced value of a 2003 Feliz card all you want, but EVERYONE already knew he was a bargain. It wasn't an old guard "card analyzer's super secret pick." What everyone [i:05a121bcd2]didn't[/i:05a121bcd2] know was how low could you go with him on the draft card and expect to get him. Against me, you better have him higher than third. Most managers wouldn't allow themselves to do that, and I often got him with a number two or three pick (Dubose was often #1 by the way). So I would forfeit a high pick for a two dollar guy and get away with it, because that choice [i:05a121bcd2]disproportionately[/i:05a121bcd2] benefitted my team, relative to the pack. An even [i:05a121bcd2]more skillful[/i:05a121bcd2] manager might even take him #1.

[color=darkblue:05a121bcd2]Most, if not all of these folks are still winning, so the skill is still there. [/color:05a121bcd2]

But again, at a highly reduced rate (based on winning pct's).

[color=darkblue:05a121bcd2]I'm having trouble thinking they are winning because the roll of the dice is falling their way. For those that are not, well, perhaps their skill was in fact identifying and choosing bargain players moreso than constructing a championship caliber team. [/color:05a121bcd2]

A .520 manager is getting 84 wins. A .550 manager gets 89 wins. If the random acts of HAL theory holds that the same team will perform +/- 8 wins in simulated multiple seasons, and 84 wins is only three better than .500, then how do you conclude that what we're seeing (so far) is anything [i:05a121bcd2]other[/i:05a121bcd2] than coin flips?

Now, if at the end of the card season, the same folks you're used to seeing are more or less the top managers, i.e. .520 now defines "top manager," then the best managers are just getting a smaller slice of pie for their skill contributions. The question is, how small a slice does it have to be to get defined as coin flip results? .520? .510? .501? (Remember, tossing 100 fair coins [i:05a121bcd2]rarely[/i:05a121bcd2] yields 50 heads.)

[color=darkblue:05a121bcd2]It doen't make them any less a player, it just makes them have to do a little more work instead of just selecting their bargain players and sitting back waiting for the season to start.[/color:05a121bcd2]

A. What do you define as "work" in this game that a top manager doesn't already know and do?

B. What makes you think that "just selecting their bargain players and sitting back waiting for the season to start" defines [i:05a121bcd2]any[/i:05a121bcd2] of the better managers from the past?

You'd think from reading your post that SOM was as simple as ABC before the 2006 season arrived. In 2005, there were 1800 managers with posted ratings. Only 187 managers had two CHAMPS seasons or more. So if you define "top manager" as someone who won at least two finals, then you just eliminated 90% (1,613 managers to be specific) of the field from consideration. How do 90% of managers "not get it" if all it required was "doing a little more work" as you say?

Yeah, I'm being a little contentious, but that's because I'm stuck here posting on a Friday night when I'd rather be doing just about anything else right now.

[J-Pav]

As an aside and merciful end to this rant, I'm wondering if the veterans are leaving SOM 200X because these boards have to be the only place in the world where someone new can go to get completely authoritative sounding but actually useless advice from someone else who has no clue whatsoever what they are talking about. (Not directed at [b:4a1cbcf0be]Jerlins[/b:4a1cbcf0be], by the way, just a generalized random rant on the low quality of things I'm seeing on the boards overall).

What the newbs of 2006 aren't seeing are the incredible baseball related/SOM discussions of the past years. I guess everything's been all talked out and all that's left is the starting 2B recommendations of some bored .480 win pct manager.

:roll:

[Jerlins]

You make some excellent points J-Pav, and yes, probably the truest is the lack of discussion on the boards.

I had NEVER played strat til one day I bumped into the site and checked it out, loving baseball and games as I do. My very first strat experience was in 03 and I entered a league with Big, ET, and Cristano of all folks. I don't know how, mostly luck I guess, but I finished over .500, never even knowing what a strat card was. But, the competitiveness in me wanted to be a student of the game, so I read, and read some more, from some very knowledgable folks, including yourself. I found myself reading the newbie tips over and over. And I learned, both from their (your) knowledge and from my mistakes. So yes, its unfortunate the boards have slowed to a crawl.

I didn't have player disks, I didn't subscribe to Joe the Jet, I didn't know bargains (if there was such a thing in 05), I just absorbed. I was asked to join a vets league and declined cuz frankly, I knew I wasn't in the same league as most of them. Finally, after some more playoffs, a couple of championships, and a hell of a winning %, I was asked once again to join a vets league, so I said what the heck, I have a credit to burn. I made the finals, finishing ahead of a very impressive list, some of who you mentioned earlier. All this, without ever having seen a strat card in my life.

I guess what took me to respond to this thread to begin with, was the feeling I felt insulted. A while back, on the old boards, someone began a thread, "So and so, autoleague whore". The person he was referring to was and is, a very respected player of this game. The subject was just tired of the crap that was involved in private leagues, and decided for himself to do the autoleagues only. I found it insulting to him, as well as the newer players, including myself, some of who are sharp and excellent players. I said to myself, my my, this guy is one pompous you know what. He thinks because he plays in a vet's league he is somehow above both the target of the thread and the newer players, including me. So now here we have another thread, different in nature, but at the same time similar in some respects.

I think it IS possible some of these so called newbies are competitive, and to mention that it just HAS to be the roll of the dice is not fair to them. Some of them are very sharp, and very good! Give them some credit!

[LMBombers]

The statement that J-Pav made about vets having lower winning pct and 2006 bringing those pcts back down to .500 made me look at the top rated players from 2005 vs 2006. There are very few top rated 2005 players with a pct over .530. They look about the same for 2006 to me. If they are lower at all it might be .515 in 06 vs .520 in 05. I find it hard to believe that such a small difference in winning pct would make a vet play less.

I also agree with Jerlins about many of the new players being very sharp players. If you played SOM a lot as a kid, like I did and many others I am sure, then it won't take you long to find success in this game.

I don't know J-Pav's stats in 06 vs 05 or earlier but I would guess he is not doing as well as in the past and is trying to find reasons to convince himself that it can't just be his managerial skills. :wink: Why else would he start such a thread? :P

In any event this has been an interesting discussion.

[J-Pav]

Actually, I'm doing about the same as I started last year, with one ugly outlier team destroying my overall win pct. Not really worried about it. I started the thread largely because the best winning percentages (in the past) show up early, when the SOM CPAs identify the mispricings. Then things tend to even out as more players learn the basic strategies of the new card set.

This year, everyone is already so close to .500 that it made me wonder. What will it look like at the end of the year?

Yes, there are plenty of sharp new players. We were all new to it once. I'm not trying to insult anybody or what they bring to the game. All I'm saying is that experience with the game, like in any endeavor, should equate to more wins than what (for right now) appears to be approaching chance.

[b:c826223ac9]LM[/b:c826223ac9], the stats you're looking at for mgr win pct's are skewed by year end when guys are burning credits with "go for records" teams and experimental teams. Virtually all the better players have hovered around .550 in the past before dropping down by the end of the year. .550 is interesting because it's just at the very edge of randomness (when the margin of error is +/- 8 wins). .520 is much closer to approaching coin flips.

Is it chance? That's why I started the thread. I enjoy hearing the discussion. Interesting how heated it's becoming, yet no one has stepped forward to say "it's skill, and here's why..."

I think it's sort of funny that having played for three years and having won plenty of championships, that it comes across as sour grapes because I haven't won a championship with one of my first four teams this year. That's fine if you want to believe that. But please don't imply that I can't construct a team because I'm "old school" and can't win without player mispricings, while the newbs are somehow "cutting edge."

If you want to be cutting edge, then talk about it [i:c826223ac9]before[/i:c826223ac9] your team starts. Tell us (the community), what you're going to do, then go do it and prove it.

In 03, [b:c826223ac9]Riggo[/b:c826223ac9] talked about and selected an all righty line-up before anyone would dare go more than six righties. The discussion was phenomenal. (And I very much miss his posts on how to win in Petco).

In 04, [b:c826223ac9]Marcus[/b:c826223ac9] talked about and selected super cheap match up starters, which won again and again. I miss his posts on how to win in Coors.

In 05, I trotted out The Secret Formula, somewhat because I hate the "help my team" posts, but more so because guys like [b:c826223ac9]Riggo[/b:c826223ac9] and [b:c826223ac9]Marcus[/b:c826223ac9] were so generous with their thoughts in the past that led to such interesting discussions (for all the community).

The old dream team threads were the very best of 03 and 04, but last year it died at the gate. Maybe the Tour has people playing it close to the vest nowadays, and that's a shame in my opinion.

Maybe that's the real frustration, not only for myself, but for the cast of characters that are leaving the game. I feel like I'm enjoying the game less, and I just simply miss it.

I'm hoping that a thread will come along to breath some life back into the process that Richard Feynman describes as "the joy of finding things out."

[b:c826223ac9]Jerlins[/b:c826223ac9], I apologize if you felt insulted (by me), that's not my intent. I just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking.

For now I've got to go defend myself over in the other thread...

[J-Pav]

[b:48ba4f0afb]Aray:[/b:48ba4f0afb]

Thx for the love.

It's not that I mind people (newbs [i:48ba4f0afb]or[/i:48ba4f0afb] vets) asking for help in the form of help my team, it's the "drop player A for player B" responses that annoy me. It doesn't teach anybody anything about learning the game. All the fun discussion of the past revolved around the "what ifs..."

I'm lost between threads, but somewhere [b:48ba4f0afb]Marcus[/b:48ba4f0afb] said we should go back to experimenting. I agree. What I'm frustrated by, is watching [b:48ba4f0afb]ederific[/b:48ba4f0afb] go first in pitching and third in runs scored but finish 81-81. Now maybe that's an outlier, HAL on the haterade. But then it happened again in my second league, to me. Your team construction is simply score more and surrender less. When you do precisely that, but fail (in wins), then I think it's valid to ask "why?" What type of "experimental" team overcomes scoring more, surrendering less, but not winning?

I called it [i:48ba4f0afb]Skill or Chance?[/i:48ba4f0afb] to generate discussion. I could've called it "What type of "experimental" team overcomes scoring more, surrendering less, but not winning?" but that's more non-confrontational, and less fun.

You and [b:48ba4f0afb]Marcus[/b:48ba4f0afb] are probably right though, it's now down to series by series management. The autopilot days are numbered.

[bkoron]

IMHO bargains and busts are good for the game, and pricing every player accurately is not. Searching for bargains and avoiding busts is a huge part of the fun.

For obvious reasons, I'm not a beta-tester anymore, but I'll offer this free suggestion anyway. After they get the prices fixed as accurately as they can, they should take a randomizer to them, and distort them by x% in each direction, leaving a lot at 0%, a lot at +/- 10%, a few at +/- 20%, and even some at +/- 30%.

The other solution would be pricing by demand, but that doesn't work in a game with a one-year shelf-life. ATG would be another story.

~BK 8)

[LMBombers]

[quote:982bbc99f1="bkoron"]After they get the prices fixed as accurately as they can, they should take a randomizer to them, and distort them by x% in each direction, leaving a lot at 0%, a lot at +/- 10%, a few at +/- 20%, and even some at +/- 30%.[/quote:982bbc99f1]

That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. That handicaps newcomers even more and gives great advantage to those of us who play a lot of teams. I want to win by putting a better team together and not by knowing which players are artificially priced lower than they should be. That is like knowing what pitch the pitcher is going to throw next.

The best managers will win on a level playing field almost all the time. Luck certainly plays a part sometimes but skill beats luck in the long run.