Pretty Good Drafting?

I tell you what, I think it is smarter to not make any moves than to make as many as I see some guys make.

This was from your original post, Radagast, and it was what I was responding to. You argue that it makes more sense to make no moves than the many moves you've seen "some guys make," regardless of what cards those managers were "dealt." This is what I argued against in my earlier posts and what Phenomenal argued against in the posts above. The problem with your argument is you allow no contingency for the particular cards a manager has. If many of a manager's players have hit on lousy cards, then of course he should replace them with other cards once he has ascertained (or surmised with great probability) that those cards are lousy...and he might have to replace THOSE cards if they turn out to be lousy. This process required for success in this situation would require many moves. And yet, based on your argument above, you think it would be better for the manager to stand pat with his crappy cards then to make the many moves needed to give him a winning team with mostly good cards....which just isn't logical.

Making few moves (if dealt mostly good cards) can lead to a winning Mystery Games season, and making many moves--even as many as you've seen guys make-- (if poor cards require it) can also lead to a winning Mystery Games season; however neither approach is inherently better than the other.

With the auto drafts, there certainly are better drafting methods that lead to more success. But even the best drafters are dealt bad cards at times. How you analyze the cards and the moves you make are the difference between someone who got bad cards ending up with a bad team or changing that into a .500 or good team.

When I first started, I would study the moves the top players made or didn't make in my leagues. It's too bad we don't have the winning %'s of owners right now. That would be great to know for newcomers who wanted to study how the best do it. In the long run, those who analyze the cards and try to make smart drops early seem to win a little more. But part of the fun in the mystery game is that the same owners don't win all the time.

I will probably make about 100 moves in the mystery tourney yet (though it's early) I might win by not making a single move in a keeper league I am in. But if I think I can improve, I will make a move for a benchwarmer because you never know when you need a key pinch hit or that last pitcher in an extra inning game.

I am really hoping that the mystery tourney has shown more owners that it can be fun to make moves during the season and be able to change your team for the better. That's why I like it better than other leagues. Have fun!

I think in the 60s game it's a little easier to stand pat, especially with no DH. There just aren't many hitters that are worth picking up unless you need a 1st baseman or an outfield 4 with a plus arm, or you're willing to drop a decent player in order to hit on a chance at one or two good years. The 70s and 90s have a lot of players in the pool that can help a team and the 80s has a smaller pool but a good amount of high value cheap seasons.

In his 70s league thisisdan's team is 73-80 and missed the playoffs without making any moves. He had really bad relief pitching that could have been upgraded and played Briggs and Singleton all season with horrible stats vs lefties. It's easy to pick up a right-handed hitter as a platoon. Starting pitching was weak with two ERAs over 4 in the Astrodome.

I made 35 in season moves and about 40 total and won our division and have the 2nd best record in the league. The division or wild card may have been his for the taking with a few moves since the league was well balanced with no team running away with anything. I'm glad he stood pat.

I've seen it quite a bit where teams get off to a great start and fall back to the pack if they stand pat while others are improving but I've also seen a lot of good players thrown away (by myself as well) early too. I think overall I have a good record of recognizing good cards but sometimes making a move that could hurt you is necessary in order to move move up in the standings. When it doesn't work out it can end a season but the season was likely over anyway without trying.

With my 4 tournament teams, I am averaging 35-40 moves per team (and keep in mind that 3 of those teams are still active). The team that finished was 82-80. Of the 3 that are still playing, my 70s team has the inside track for the wildcard, with the division title still possible, and my 80s team is 50-43. my 90s team has been rather putrid, but I attribute that in part to my own stupidity: the 90s is my worst of the 4 games, and for some reason I decided using a stadium I was unfamiliar with in the 90s game was a good idea... it wasn't.

I do not consider myself a "top" manager in this game: I'm pleasantly surprised that I have been able to hover around the top 30% in the tourney standings for most of the time. And I am well aware that the fact that I do more transactions than the average manager means the potential is greater for me to sabotage my own season. But I like being a "wheel 'em and deal 'em" GM and manager, and others seem to as well.

If there is one thing that this tournament has done for me, it's been to expose me to a lot of managers, and consequently a lot of different styles of running a team. I haven't seen a "wrong" way yet: I have seen a number of ways of doing things I would not be comfortable with, or think are not the best methods to use... but they aren't "wrong", just different. It is frankly foolish to think that one method trumps all others in this game, because unlike HAL, we aren't robots or computers. Besides, if all of us approached this game with the same tendencies and preferences... how boring would that be???

I am going to try something for my own sake in the near future for a non-tournament team: I am going to make myself stand pat with a roster until at least game 50, unless I get a specific injury reveal. It's going to be like what I imagine going through substance abuse withdrawal is (on a much, much, much less important scale)... because I am a transaction addict.

Yes, I too wish SOM kept track of our winning percentages, titles and times made the playoffs. I look forward to seeing you guys in a Mystery League soon. I am really excited for the live drafting.

Congratulations to the guys who are doing well in the Mystery Tournament, no matter how you did it. I don't think 25 moves is outrageous if that's what it takes. I just choose to stand pat until I know for a fact a player is on a bad year and even then I make sure there is a good chance I can get someone with a high probability of doing better! One thing I do is adjust my lineup quite frequently based on what I have learned. Good luck the rest of the way fellas.

I confess I'm conservative about dumping players; I probably average about ten moves per team.

Which set you play should influence how many moves you make. For example, the 90s offers fewer injury reveals (stupid multiple HBP+injury results!).

It is thrilling to make some key moves to turn around a team. However, it's a sick feeling when you later realize a move (or moves) you made hurt your team. Some of the best "moves" I have made are would-be moves where I didn't pull the trigger.

However, the most satisfying moves of all are picking up a player that someone dumped but shouldn't have. I'll do a lot of research before attempting this, but it can still backfire.

Being active or conservative can both work (or not if poorly managed). The only absolute I offer is once you determine you have a good card for a player, never cut him simply because he is underperforming.

Extreme example:
I guess after looking at one of my current teams I am of the mind that you should be making moves. Like Condor said, probably a little impatience, curiosity and the grass looking a little greener. I just grabbed a precarious hold on the second best record and I think my team is surging, going 34-20 after starting 20-25. My roster is valued at $64,140,000, which is an amazing $10,000,000 less than any other team in the league and $13,000,000 less than nine of them. Even with the few players cut by others, three guys in my starting line ups have been cut by other teams. I have cut more players(48) than ten of the teams in the league combined.
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1121750
Granted, this is an extreme example. I am not saying that it's the right way to go, but it seems to be working here. For my fellow impatient friends, I try to look at my players stats before cutting him. I have wanted to jettison a pitcher or two with a bad record and a 4.10 ERA, only to look at the league stats and see that he is in the top twenty in league ERA. Finally, I do think you can tell a good deal about some cards in a very short period of time. The slant on some cards makes it easier to see what is going on and if you combine this with the new pitcher/hitter card roll stats I think that you have a > 50% chance of identifying a bad card and even if you keep the card in question there is no guarantee you will end up with the good card. It could be somewhere in the middle. Of course mistakes happen when dealing with a small sample size, but IMO more times than not, you have just cut a bad or mediocre card. One aspect to patience that has not been mentioned is that the best FA's and lower cut penalties are available earlier, not later. Of course, judicious use of the FA wire is the best, but the longer you wait the less players are available and the closer it gets to being a higher penalty when you do make a move.
I just cut RJ after one start in the Tourney.
6.0 5 7 6 8 5 0(15/16)(4 BB's/2 K's vs LH)
After that start, the chances of having the bad card sky rocketed from the 20% chance of having it before that start. In a competitive situation like the Tourney where every win/loss matters, I am going to let him fly. I guess I maybe should give him another shot, but I did not. Someone picked him up and gave him ten more shots before cutting him.
54.2 57 41 50 63 6.75
Honestly, with that card it baffles me how you could give him ten starts with those results before letting him go. To me, that is an example of "bad" patience. Like has been said above, no right or wrong way-just get the good cards any way you can as soon as you can.

The only absolute I offer is once you determine you have a good card for a player, never cut him simply because he is underperforming.

I would say that this is an "almost" absolute. There are simply times when a player who does not have a truly "bad" card stinks up the joint, or even times when you have an injury reveal and know your player is on a good card, but he still stinks up the joint. It could be a bad marriage of player and stadium; it could be a bad marriage of player and other stadiums in your division; or the baseball gods may just not be smiling on you.
In any event, it is always a good idea to not assume that your competition is following coyote's sound advice. I spend as much time surfing the transactions page as I do on my own roster, because your opposing managers will make mistakes. We all misread cards and injury reveals, and we have all dropped guys we shouldn't have. Why not take try to take advantage?
I completely agree with durantjerrry, who is one of the top managers out there, that you can sometimes tell a whole lot about a card in a very short period of time. It takes experience, and trial and error, to learn when to hold and when to fold on a player. Where mistakes get made, and durantjerry alludes to this, is not taking into account your team and your league when you drop players.
For example, if your starting pitcher gets shelled in his first couple of outings, but those outings were against the top 2 hitting teams in the league and in Fenway Park and the Kingdome on the road... well, that might not be a good indication that your pitcher is on that one bad card. However, if through 2 or 3 starts your pitcher is getting lefties out regularly, but getting tattooed by righties, and his worst card is a 5L and much more lefty leaning than any of his other cards... well, it's a small sample size and no guarantee, but odds are decent that you have that bad card, and it's going to take playing against a team full of lefty hitters to maybe find out for sure... do you want to wait that long?
I have seen guys drop starting pitchers after getting shelled in their first outing or 2... when that team plays its home games in an extreme hitters park. Well, that is going to happen sometimes in a hitters park: no pitcher is going to match their card numbers while pitching his home games in 90s Coors or 80s Fulton County Stadium, for example. Conversely, I have seen guys hold a roster stable with multiple starters massively underperforming, or their stats and lefty/righty or strikeout/walk ratios completely mirroring their worst cards over half a season, to the point where I feel like I know their roster better than the actual manager does (and, like I said, I am no expert).
You can make too many changes... but you should never be afraid to make any changes. It's simply a matter of measuring the cost effectiveness of making a move, and learning to make and then trust your reads. Someone in an earlier post made a comparison to playing poker: as a poker player myself, I think that was an excellent comparison.

Interesting comments by the Conndor, most of which I agree with. However, I stand by my original statement to never cut someone who has a known good card. And if an absolute can be made "more absolute," then that's especially true for a pitcher since it's rare to discover for certain which year you have.

My favorite example of sticking with a known good card was in a 2008 season, so I definitely knew which card I had! My ace, Chad Billingsley, was horrible for well over half of the season. After game 109, he was 8-13 and had a 6.57 ERA; this was in a neutral ball park. However, his card was no worse than the day I drafted him, so I kept him. He finally got hot, and he helped me win the division and championship.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/254130

If this had been a mystery card set, I obviously should/would have cut him long ago--unless I knew for certain he had a good card.

Perhaps my best and worst example of me cutting or not cutting a particular pitcher was 90s Arthur Rhodes, who has one stinker year 1999. One season I cut him after 2 games and 2 innings, and sure enough he had 1999. I chose him again next season, and he went 19 games and 47 innings before I concluded he had the same stinker year (which he did).

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1109615
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1115224

So, while this suggests cutting sooner rather than later, I have cut many pitchers after a fair number of innings only to discover later that they had their best card (e.g., see Steve Avery in the last link).

CRA 25 12 4 0 180.1 206 69 38 84 3.44 1.35
EAS 1 0 1 0 6.0 10 7 1 3 10.50 1.83
In the interest of full disclosure(wish I had a player like that), my 70's team game 1 playoff is up against one of my discards. My 56 cuts did land me in the playoffs, but those 12 wins would look good on my squad