Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I had a big old crusty post 1/2 written up that rambled about what the pricing change from ATG8-->9 looked like and what individual players or classes of them had their "value" drastically change. This is hopefully shorter.

There are just innumerable changes or at least killer values now. Finding that marginal utility, or at least riding it for the 162, seems more uncanny than ever. I mean, Leftfield, RIghtfield? Who are you going to play? Take a core archetype in the game's history: "small" ball, how many new sub $6 mil studs are there now? Yeah, Tommy Davis got destroyed and tons of other guys, but when 1/2 the pool goes up and 1/2 goes down, that can't be ignored!

ATG of early days had Chance and Meusel, but regardless or archetype who's in the new aristocracy?

-bazillion 3B - previously the most overpriced position
-Nemo Leibold
-Miller Huggins (lost a mil?)
-Eddie Mathew
-1.99 Tony Fernandez '86--- the new Bobby Wallace?
-what happened to pitching prices??? particularly the $4-8mil guys.
-'01 Randy Johnson

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On the macro changes, I'm encouraged by the chaos in middle-tier pitching pricing as I hope it lower league ERA but idk. The top-end price jump is stunning and for me, even further incentivizes the slight savings Aces like Randy, or K. Brown9.86 of ATG8---if they still exist, but there's still the aforementioned '01 Randy...

Fernandez’s ‘85 is the 1.99 one. His 86 is 5.39.

I’m not sure about pitching, either. Doesn’t initially reveal mich of a difference, it I’m not using entirely the same strategy because I have not dove in on elite closers due to price, so comparing ERAs does work so well because my pitching staff looks much different than an ATG staff.

so far, I like the AT9 pricing.
the value of the super relievers in ATG8 was way too low, even with the new super rules.
With ATG8 There were a whole bunch of 4-8 mill pitchers that were over-priced and almost never used. ATG9 addresses that.
the obvious amazing bargains of AT8 are now up-priced. not a bad thing, the demand was huge.

The new pricing has certainly shaken things up. I suspect the rumors are true that Joe the Jet ratings were used for the new pricing, which means that those of us who PayPal Joe $$$ aren't getting much for our investment. This makes it more challenging (= fun) to find the values. My impressions are that platoons are now en vogue and defense - after being devalued in the last few repricings- is again very important. My first Barnstormers team is royally sucking, but I don't feel so bad since the usual Finals suspects are also struggling (Last Druid 73rd place !!!). I'm carefully monitoring the leaders - Riggo Drill and BruceF to see what I can steal from them. All in all, I think the new pricing is a benefit until normalization occurs and the new values are identified.

I know no one wants to give up good value guys but some price drops are so surprising. Brouhard? Kaat?!?!?! Sambito?

Even discounting fringe "strategy" guys like the platoons who may be subject to a categorical trend in pricing, some excellent bargains who seemed fairly popular in ATG8 went down in price..... Aristocracy indeed, new or otherwise.

On the other end of the spectrum, you had clunky cards lose whole millions like '02 Guerrero which has always been a seriously capped (limited) but favorite card of mine. I went with it, '87 Trammel and 48 HR '04 Beltre for my Barnstormer1. Beltre $8.5mil to $7.38?!? seemed extreme. But extreme is the wrod for a lot of other 3Bmen price drops. That team is filled with ~ player that saw a big drop so it's suspect if it'll be a good team...

Bline, you're probably right it was simply woefully overpriced SPs in older versions. Still, soooo many pitchers thus changes.

nels52 wrote:I know no one wants to give up good value guys but some price drops are so surprising. Brouhard? Kaat?!?!?! Sambito?

Even discounting fringe "strategy" guys like the platoons who may be subject to a categorical trend in pricing, some excellent bargains who seemed fairly popular in ATG8 went down in price..... Aristocracy indeed, new or otherwise.
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Absolutely agree. But hey, no pricing will ever be optimized. So many assumptions have to be made in order for the pricing/relative value to be deterministic--such as
- ratio of average L/R matchups
- ballpark effects
- salary cap

to name just a few. I think we'd all be happier with lower expectations--just click the heels three times and say "There's no perfect pricing"

After all, part of the fun is finding those values. And with the number of players, everyone will find their fits, deciding where to make compromises.Jet's ratings are great, but they are still not going to be contextually perfect. League makeup, your own lineup and pitching tendencies, etc. For instance, all the best values at an OF position around 6M may be +2 arms. Maybe one of them is OK--but you do three of them, in a pitcher's park, and maybe it is a disaster.

Or all things considered, in a pitcher's park, I'd rather have a pitcher with more GBAs than another pitcher with no GBAs, all other things equal. Or maybe I have Scherzer and he is a prime value because I am in Hilltop and everyone else is in Petco. I just think whatever the pricing is--at least it is the field we all have to play on.