New Pricing Committee

There is another online baseball sim which contains a live draft and it changes the pricing every six months. One very knowledgable person is in charge of the repricing and he does a very good, but not perfect job, of changing prices. He is at least aware of the cheap values and he eliminates them to create new challenges. It is like playing a new game every six months. If cheap pitching is dominating, he eliminates them. If excellent fielders are dominating, he jacks up their price. Eventually, the sim became a game of balance between hitting and pitching.

It would not hurt for Stratomatic to make this a major priority after the draft. It could be done with a committee of three knowledgable veterans who know the game. The community could choose them and the repricing could be automatic every six months. This would give the community more ownership of the game and free the Stratomatic employees to work on other projects.

Of course, people will still complain, but the complaints make interesting bulletin board talk. The game will never be perfect, but it can improve.

Not sure I like the idea of handing pricing over to any group of people who are playing the game. No matter how "good" and "honest" they are there is always going to be the element of looking out for their own interests in keeping prices of cards they like low. Even if they resist that you are still dependent on their opinions of what cards are good and what cards are not. I would question the validity of resulting pricing even if I were on this committee.

Pricing needs to be formula based or usage based, not opinion based.

I agree, but if you formula base it or usage base it, then you have to get Stratomatic involved. If they were more involved, then i would not have to make suggestions like this. If nothing happens, then the game does not evolve. Owners get bored and the game dies.We have been playing the same game for basically what, three years plus?

I'm a free market guy for the most part, but I'm not so sure such an ever changing strategy for pricing is the answer. I mean if nobody uses Ruth's card is it less valuable in relation to the inherent nature of the game, being simulation based on dice probability?

If my house doesn't get any bites at 200K then I'm a fool for not lowering the asking price, b/c my goal is to sell the house. It's still a house, but it's virtually worth nothing to me if my intention is to sell it and I can't (assuming I'm not living in it b/c I moved to the newly purchased house). Plus it is judged in relation to other houses which is subjective based upon needs income etc. All incomes are not equal.

Salary caps are equal, even if strategy is not.

So Ruth's card is still Ruth's card, it is still arguably the best hitters card to have, if nobody every played strat again from this day forward it is still the same card and still arguably the best in relation to the card set. So if his card doesn't get used much for 4 months are we suggesting lowering it's price just b/c of low demand/usage, even though it is still X amount of production more valuable than the next best cards below it?

I mean at 200mil there is a reason why Andruw Jones and Tim Salmon are almost always FA for the whole season, now if they were 5-6mil cards one MIGHT platoon them, but their cards are still their cards, which are cards that offer limited advantages or production v. all those other OFs that almost always get used instead of them.

I hope I made that sensible.

I usually follow and agree with you Fudu. But somewhere in there you lost me.

I usually follow and agree with you Fudu. But somewhere in there you lost me.

He went from Kudlow to Cramer and back again.
In case that didn't make sense:
Kudlow
Cramer

I’m not in favor of periodic price changes. However, I’m not vehemently opposed to a one-time tweak if the community overwhelmingly wants one.

The major complaints I hear are:
“Jim Edmonds, Cesar Cedeno, Joe Morgan, Alex Rodriguez, Robbie Alomar etc is not worth his salary.” Most of these type players are excellent defensively and in many cases have a lot of their value tied to OBP. It is harder to casually peruse your team’s stat line and see the benefits these guys provide to your team. We want a guy who costs 9-10m to bat .350 with power like John Beckwith and they don't all do that. Edmonds and others have different values that, totaled against Beckwith's defense and other values, price them in that neighborhood.

“Everybody uses the same players, so make them pay more for those popular players.” I would guess that, with Joe Sewell for example, since his 2.12 card's primary position is SS, his 3e49 SS rating is what his price is based on, when he actually would be used more either at 3b or DH. Sewell's 2.12 or 1.86 card is popular as an offensive value. So, before long, Joe Sewell will have a salary of 6m? Look, as FUDU said above, the cards are the cards. Is Sewell worth 6m just because he gets used more? I realize that something's value is based on what someone is willing to pay. However, it is incorrect to assume that a good’s market price measures its economic value. Same for Strat cards and trying to price them based on usage.


I’m sure there is a defensive metric in the pricing model that probably weighs defense and possibly OBP a little heavier than some in the community must want it. That’s the reason most of the time Edmonds’ stat line is not what we think a 9m CF should produce. Also, some high $$ SPs that are a little too free with the longball could possibly be downgraded a little, since they don't produce as well in our offense-dominant climate. But then, if you put them in Petco, they are suddenly bargains.

I’m not completely opposed to a tweak, if needed, but I’m not in favor of changing salaries every so often based on usage. Current pricing is based on a model, weighing the various values of speed, defense, power, and many other variables. We could possibly change the way the model weighs some of these attributes, like maybe a slight downgrade of defense, etc, but don’t base it on usage, IMO. Too subjective.

I want "Mystery Pricing". I put new values on players. No one else knows the new prices.

Fill out a draft card over the cap for your league because you don't know the card pricing? Oopsie, HAL starts dowgrading players on your draft card to get you under the cap.

I will sell the new price info on a card by card basis, 10% to SOM and 90% to charity. It would be the feature that generates the most revenue and goodwill for SOM.

Is anybody with me?!?!?

I agree with Andy.

Tweak the pricing model, for all players. Maybe we as a community place a greater relative value on offense that generates runs (that we can easily measure) vs defensive prowess that prevents runs (and is nearly impossible to measure).

Allowing a blue ribbon panel to selectively juggle the prices up or down, simply because some players are far more popular than others, is not the answer.

Andy,

I seriously doubt any card in a market-based pricing system is going to triple in value. What needs to be fixed are the outrageous errors. The following are my opinions only, I'm sure others have different opinions. (That's why I favor a market-based pricing system; it makes the prices a collective effort rather than the opinions of one (as now) or a few (by committee).

Overpriced high-end SP: Saberhagen 89, Randy Jones, Smoltz, Gooden 85, Doc White, Hippo Vaughn, Carl Mays, Hideo Nomo. All these guys should come down .75 MM or more.

Other overpriced SP: Bart Colon, Mario Soto, Jack McDowell, Sabathia

Overpriced relievers: Trevor Hoffman 98, Nen, Smoltz (does our pricing expert have a man-crush?)

Overpriced hitters - Speaker 12, Eddie Collins 14, Honus 08, Sisler 20, Cobb 11 (small-ball stars who have been bypassed by the influx of mashers), Vlad Guerrero, Eddie Mathews 59, Maris, Bresnahan 03, Darrell Porter 79, John McGraw, Fisk, Paul Waner 27, Yaz 67.

Again, these are my own opinions. Many of these cards are recent additions to the set; I am not sure why they were given prices that seem so out of line with established cards. There are also relatively insignificant cards lower down in the set like Jim Maloney who should be adjusted downward.

The issue with which cards should be adjusted upward is more complex. There should be a bias favoring low-end players, since a popular and effective strategy in moderate caps is to have a few stars and fill in with low-priced cards who are good values and platoons. Even so, Kirby Higbe is at least a million too low; compare his card to the George Earnshaw card in the mid-4's. There are others. But whichever low-priced cards a committee raises, a portion of the community is going to be outraged that their favorite bargain is a bargain no more. Once more, tieing the card prices to usage is going to eliminate a lot of moaning.