Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

in which the object is to LOSE the most games?

Thinking that this might be lots of fun... worst team is the winner, next to last team is the runner up. Maybe we could get SOM to award these teams the free credits rather than the actual playoff winners.

Share your thoughts as well as your willingness to participate.

1) Coffeeholic
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I was a part of one of these a long time ago. Strat was able to award credits to the worst teams.

What are the parameters? I can make the worst team by just drafting all 50 centers. So do you have to spend a certain amount and maintain a certain roster value throughout the season?

Ed

I would be interested if there were minimum values for players on the roster.... like hitters and sp's at 5 mill plus and RP only at 2 mill plus. Higher would be better. No interest in seeing who can get the worst .50 guys. Would also want a diamond dope draft rather than auto draft. Best guess is you'll go a different route but throwing them out there.

I'm really wide open for any ideas that you guys might have... I'm all for throwing shite against the wall to see what sticks.

How about $80 mil, no DH (standard autodraft), with no players under $3mil?

Maybe a requirement that each manager can leave no more that $.05 mil unspent?

I'm totally in on this. Key is to have parameters that make tanking a challenge. Here are some suggestions for league rules to work from - only a suggestion please modify as you wish:

$80m cap - teams must spend at least $79.9m
SP minimum of $3m
RP minimum of $1m
Position player minimum at $3m

Problems arise with the fact that $80m/25 players = $3.2m. Would be good to find a way to introduce a little more variation. Could do so by raising the cap, or by prescribing something more along the lines of: 2 players at $1m, 2 players at $2m, 2 players at $8m, etc...

But there's no point in forcing someone to spend $8 on a player is he isn't forced to be in the starting lineup, but that would be difficult to regulate, so having a minimum salary across the board might make more sense.

Losing is harder than it seems!

Couple thoughts - I was part of this ages ago, but in that version there were no limitations, so Paul Zuvella and Bud Weiser were consensus 1st round selections.

- Contract SOM first to make sure they can do the proper credit assignments
- Set minimums to $2.5M for position players and SP - gives a little more flexibility around the 80M cap
- Have a 2 round live board draft so everyone gets their firstworst choices - would be interesting to see how guys prioritize.

Some good ideas floating around... thanks guys!

I did some basic math based upon the # of players available, and it appears that if we impose the following salary structure to a $80mil league it should work:

All hitters and SPs must be priced between $2.75 and $3.50 mil; (228 position players & 168 SPs available)

Pure RPs (because of scarcity) should be between $2.50 and $3.50 (56 pure RPs available)... with a limit of 3 pure RP's per team.

Total team salary must not be below $79.50 (that'll leave a little play just in case).

If we go with a 20% drop penalty that and impose that minimum of $79.50 mil, that should keep managers from continually dropping players to worsen their teams.

As for a live draft for the first few picks... well... I love live drafts, but it will probably be tough enough to just find 12 guys to sign on without the stipulation of a live draft.

As for pitching staff make up, I've already mentioned the 3 pure RP limit, but I'm also thinking that we should some how avoid scenarios that allow us to "hide" SPs. Any ideas on this?

But please, feel free to contradict me on any of these postulations.

If we go with a 20% drop penalty that and impose that minimum of $79.50 mil, that should keep managers from continually dropping players to worsen their teams.

What this would actually do is eliminate any roster drops after season starts. Drop one 2.5 mil player and your .50 wiggle room is gone unless you can hit that 79.5 on the nose. Is that the intended effect?

Not wanting to be a party pooper but you did ask for opinions/advice. Just pointing out a possible issue. How much fun can the league be if you basically can make no changes once the season starts?

Are you going to call someone on the carpet if they have multiple starting pitchers at your max value and then never start them? Sort of reverse strategy of the technique of stashing a .50 pure starter to satisfy the minimum 5 starter rule.

And of course ditto for loading lineup with Zuvella types with benches of the most expensive players rules allow. Tie up as much of your salary as possible with players who will never see the light of day.