Online game costs too much

It should not take 10 tries to learn how to autodraft. maybe 2. and if you're talking $100m or $80m, not even that as you can build a winning team from the free agent pool in any such league. Check out this post, great stuff!

Here comes the punch line ...

My first two teams were standard, best practices type autodrafts with all the usual handwringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth. How I managed to win rings with performances like Travis "Two and Sixteen" Blackley is beyond me.

Then I started reading the posts about how everything is wrong with the SOM autodraft and how unfair it all is that you can't get the guys you want. HAL's replacement picks are inadequate. The draft should serpentine. You should have three deep proxy picks. The draft should be like the one at joeblow'sbaseball.com.

So here's what I did. I drafted the 11 pitchers ranked by worst WHIPs priced at 0.50. Then I drafted the 14 fifty-cent hitters ranked by worst OPS. I got all of them ! Then, I sat out the waiver process. Then, I waited until just before the season started and drafted my full team from the FA pool. I did this three separate times with neutral and pitcher friendly type ballparks. The results have been beyond surprising.

But surely this wouldn't work with a LH specialty park like Progressive ?? My fourth attempt is the one from my previous post. EVERY player on that team was picked from the FA pool after every other manager completed their autodraft and waivers. I did get a little lucky that there wasn't like four other Progressive teams. However, I wouldn't have wasted a credit trying if I didn't see from the other three attempts that it looked like it would be pretty doable. I was actually looking forward to trying out some new guys for a change. Instead, I probably drafted my strongest Progressive team to date (of course, we'll have to see what HAL says - peace be upon him).

So, to bring this full circle. I would have loved getting Hamilton, Moss, Fielder and/or Snider with Headley, Zobrist and/or Laroche. But the truth is I really didn't care because there is a gigantic number of options which all lead to the same place.

What I.strether is talking about is the value is good for him. But that means little to anyone other than him. His opinion is that its worth the price. My opinion is that it is not. My thinking is that if som priced it lower i would buy more teams. I would spend more money over all if the price was lower. If the price was 10.00 i would be less reticent in joining leagues where im less sure i would have fun playing. Or to join a league when my confidence is less strong. I have bought 4 teams so far with 2 being autodrafts and 1 being a multi frwnchise draft and one being a live draft.

You' need to improve your reading, Scott. I explained quite well (in numerous posts) and quite incisively why SOM is a good value, period, not just for me. If you disagree with my arguments, you really should actually address
them instead of making such inaccurate, unsupported statements.

You claim you don't like spending the SOM cost of 31-37 cents a day--which Is an excellent value (not just for me)--when you have to "spend 10-30 minutes a day checking losing box scores each day." So, you are actually doing what you inaccurately accused me of; you are judging the cost and value of SOM based on your own personal experience, not it's cost and value outside of it. To evaluate its actual cost and value, you need to compare SOM's price and value to other values of similar cost.

So I will ask again--since it is germane to this discussion--that question I asked you before:

Since you don't consider SOM a good deal at 31-37 cents a day, what is a better deal out there for 31-37 cents a day?

I look forward to your answer. But, considering you probably know there are few better deals out there, I won't hold my breath...

It should not take 10 tries to learn how to autodraft. maybe 2. and if you're talking $100m or $80m, not even that as you can build a winning team from the free agent pool in any such league. Check out this post, great stuff!

Here comes the punch line ...

My first two teams were standard, best practices type autodrafts with all the usual handwringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth. How I managed to win rings with performances like Travis "Two and Sixteen" Blackley is beyond me.

Then I started reading the posts about how everything is wrong with the SOM autodraft and how unfair it all is that you can't get the guys you want. HAL's replacement picks are inadequate. The draft should serpentine. You should have three deep proxy picks. The draft should be like the one at joeblow'sbaseball.com.

So here's what I did. I drafted the 11 pitchers ranked by worst WHIPs priced at 0.50. Then I drafted the 14 fifty-cent hitters ranked by worst OPS. I got all of them ! Then, I sat out the waiver process. Then, I waited until just before the season started and drafted my full team from the FA pool. I did this three separate times with neutral and pitcher friendly type ballparks. The results have been beyond surprising.

But surely this wouldn't work with a LH specialty park like Progressive ?? My fourth attempt is the one from my previous post. EVERY player on that team was picked from the FA pool after every other manager completed their autodraft and waivers. I did get a little lucky that there wasn't like four other Progressive teams. However, I wouldn't have wasted a credit trying if I didn't see from the other three attempts that it looked like it would be pretty doable. I was actually looking forward to trying out some new guys for a change. Instead, I probably drafted my strongest Progressive team to date (of course, we'll have to see what HAL says - peace be upon him).

So, to bring this full circle. I would have loved getting Hamilton, Moss, Fielder and/or Snider with Headley, Zobrist and/or Laroche. But the truth is I really didn't care because there is a gigantic number of options which all lead to the same place.

Agree 100%-There is no problem with the autodraft. You can build a winning team with a blank draft.

So I will ask again--since it is germane to this discussion--that question I asked you before:

Since you don't consider SOM a good deal at 31-37 cents a day, what is a better deal out there for 31-37 cents a day?

I look forward to your answer. But, considering you probably know there are few better deals out there, I won't hold my breath...

Ok Im not sure the confusion so lets try again.

Lets say you like coffee. so you go buy a coffee each day for 37 cents. But then you notice that only one out of 5 coffees you buy tastes good. The one that tastes good you enjoy, but the other 4 you spit out and continue on with your day. You tell a friend that you stopped buying coffee because 4 out of 5 times you buy it you don't enjoy the taste and spit it out.

Your friend answers, yeah but dude its a great deal, you are only spending 37 cents a day on it. What other beverage can you buy for 37 cents a day? So you say to your friend, I understand that but its not 37 cents a day its actually 4 days with a bad taste in my mouth and 1 day of and enjoyable tasty drink. So why would I spend 37 cents a day on something I don't enjoy. If I could spend 8 cents then I might consider it because then I can buy 5 cups of coffee at once and have at least one be a good cup of coffee each day and it costs me 40 cents. Now that would be a deal because even buying it 5 times is less expensive than a can of coke for 99 cents.

If you enjoy spending 20.00 on a team in online strat then its a value to you. But if it takes you five times, (80.00 to 100.00) to enjoy online strat because you suck and only 1 out of 5 teams is successful, and you are of the opinion that having a sucky team is a waste of 20.00 (some don't), then it's not of value to you.

For you the question is, Is 37 cents a day a good buy to play a season of online strat? If no, prove it by giving a comparison to other things out there. So I should answer that as well so to be more thorough.

If I go to a movie it costs me 12.00 (if I don't get ripped off by buying popcorn) for 2 hrs of entertainment. Strat, if I have a competitive team (which so far is 1 of 4 teams), I spend approx. 15 min a day on (10 min usually, occasionally longer if I get an injury).

the calculation is this way

Strat
15 x 52 = 780 minutes for $80.00 (didn't enjoy the 3 teams that didn't compete)

Movie
780/120 = 6.5 x 12 = $78.00

of the last 10 movies I saw I didnt enjoy one of them so to adjust...

78.00 x 10% = 7.80.. 78.00 + 7.80 = 85.80

so the outcome is very similar and who thinks 12.00 for a movie is a good deal? And at least with a movie you can get up and walk out after 20min and get a refund or credit if you didn't enjoy the movie. I don't think you can ask strat for a refund after a 10-30 start to your season.

In conclusion, strat would be better off for someone like me to have the ability to fool around with it, tinker with different types of drafts, salary caps, etc to learn the ins and outs of online strat at a cheap price because at 20.00 a pop to do this it would definitely be too expensive.

Scott.

Lets say you like coffee. so you go buy a coffee each day for 37 cents. But then you notice that only one out of 5 coffees you buy tastes good. The one that tastes good you enjoy, but the other 4 you spit out and continue on with your day. You tell a friend that you stopped buying coffee because 4 out of 5 times you buy it you don't enjoy the taste and spit it out.

Your friend answers, yeah but dude its a great deal, you are only spending 37 cents a day on it. What other beverage can you buy for 37 cents a day? So you say to your friend, I understand that but its not 37 cents a day its actually 4 days with a bad taste in my mouth and 1 day of and enjoyable tasty drink. So why would I spend 37 cents a day on something I don't enjoy. If I could spend 8 cents then I might consider it because then I can buy 5 cups of coffee at once and have at least one be a good cup of coffee each day and it costs me 40 cents. Now that would be a deal because even buying it 5 times is less expensive than a can of coke for 99 cents.

If you enjoy spending 20.00 on a team in online strat then its a value to you. But if it takes you five times, (80.00 to 100.00) to enjoy online strat because you suck and only 1 out of 5 teams is successful, and you are of the opinion that having a sucky team is a waste of 20.00 (some don't), then it's not of value to you.

Scott, this is both an inapt comparison and one that further proves that your arguments are based on your personal experience, not facts that would relate to most (if not all) strat users. First, you can't compare coffee that is bad 4 out of 5 times to a product (SOM) that does not vary daily in the services it renders to you...you are not losing because Strat is daily altering what it gives you. Secondly, if SOM isn't worth 31-37 cents a day to you because "you suck" or because "only one out of times you are successful," then that is due to your own personal experience, not SOM's actual value in relation to other values of similar cost. If you want to prove that SOM is a bad value outside of your own experience/personal opinion, you need to do so by relating it to values of similar cost.

For you the question is, Is 37 cents a day a good buy to play a season of online strat? If no, prove it by giving a comparison to other things out there. So I should answer that as well so to be more thorough.

If I go to a movie it costs me 12.00 (if I don't get ripped off by buying popcorn) for 2 hrs of entertainment. Strat, if I have a competitive team (which so far is 1 of 4 teams), I spend approx. 15 min a day on (10 min usually, occasionally longer if I get an injury).

the calculation is this way

Strat
15 x 52 = 780 minutes for $80.00 (didn't enjoy the 3 teams that didn't compete)

Movie
780/120 = 6.5 x 12 = $78.00

of the last 10 movies I saw I didnt enjoy one of them so to adjust...

78.00 x 10% = 7.80.. 78.00 + 7.80 = 85.80

so the outcome is very similar and who thinks 12.00 for a movie is a good deal? And at least with a movie you can get up and walk out after 20min and get a refund or credit if you didn't enjoy the movie. I don't think you can ask strat for a refund after a 10-30 start to your season.

In conclusion, strat would be better off for someone like me to have the ability to fool around with it, tinker with different types of drafts, salary caps, etc to learn the ins and outs of online strat at a cheap price because at 20.00 a pop to do this it would definitely be too expensive.

You also fail to aptly compare SOM to a value of similar cost here. First of all, you keep basing your comparisons on your own experience/personal opinion. When you earlier misspoke and inaccurately accused me of basing my arguments on personal opinion, you did make one correct observation: if a point is merely based on personal opinion, it is only relevant to that person, not anyone else. So your movie/SOM comparison based on your personal experience/opinion is really only relevant to you, it does not successfully or accurately represent or diminish SOM's value.

Also, your attempts at mathematical support also fail. You only factor in the minutes of your actual interaction with SOM, not all the services it provides you every day, such as games facilitated and run, and drafts run on many days, so you are misrepresenting the provided services in your calculations. And you can manipulate your calculations using your own non-mathematical personal experience all you want; it doesn't make a 6-9 dollar movie a "12-dollar movie," nor does it make a "12-dollar" movie an accurate comparison to SOM's cost and/or value.

So, in conclusion, you still haven't shown that SOM is a bad value for anyone else but you. If you want to actually do so, you actually have to compare it to another value of approximately 31-37 cents a day--without relying on your personal experience/opinion--and show why that comparison makes it a bad value for most people, not just for you.

Scott,
If you directed this much time and energy into making your teams better, you'd probably enjoy it more

As always stevef you put a smile on my face.

Now to answer...

All people who state that strat is valuable at 37 cents a day are stating an opinion. You say that at 20.00 its a good deal. Even if you compare it to other things to show objectivity its still an opinion no? There are others that might state that at 80.00 strat is a good deal but you might disagree because becomes expensive when compared to other things.

Your objectivity is vieled in an underlining opinion because you must compare strat to other ways of spending money. This comparason involves your opinion. You must make a judgement on the value of others things compared with strat. You will look on other things you or others do with their money, give it a value, and compare it to strat.

You might use objectivity in the comparason by only selecting other things that compare to strat perhaps such things as movies, going out to dinner, playing a video game etc (as these things are also spending money for enjoyment) but the comparason is still clothed in a value judgement and here is why...

You say to give examples of other things at a comparable cost of 37 cents a day. Which means that to you think that nothing else compares to it for value for the money you spend on it.....

Hmmm.... I think im starting to understand perhaps what you are meaning now.....



You are stating, forget whether you enjoy it just look at all the things people in general do with their money and compare it to strat for cost and time spent doing these activities.

Meaning if you compare strat to any other example it pulls ahead in a time/cost analysis.

For example:

Cost of movie: 12.00 --- time spent: 2 hours--- result: 10 cents a minute
Cost of dinner: 40.00 ---time spent: 90 min.--- result: 44 cents a minute
Cost of baseball card box: 60.00---time spent: 4hrs--- result 25 cents a minute
Cost of strat: 20.00---time spent: 810 min.--- result 0.02 cents per minute

But still using a cost/time analysis you still need to judge how much time the average person playing strat online. I used 15 min. a day for 54 days.

So if the point is comparing time spent for amount of money paid strat is a great value objectively speaking. But i must return to the point that value is obviously an opinion in that for a person who doent like games of baseball would value start as expensive no matter what the price is and aperson who really enjoys strat online may think 20.00 is cheap. but i get the point you are making.

Scott.

Scott,

Nothing you said in this last post directly addressed the points I effectively made against your positions in your previous post. So, you're no longer debating the issue, you are just continuing to shout out your views...and failing to support them with your unsound "mathematics." If you do directly address my previous posts, instead of merely misrepresenting them, I will gladly continue to debate you. But if you just want to vent and ramble, I will just make these final statements and let my previous posts stand as my positions on the matter:

In my previous posts, including my ones debating you, I have effectively shown these three things:
1. SOM online is a good value at 31-37 cents a day and others would have difficulty finding a better value at the same cost.
2. You are clearly unable to come up with a better value than SOM at that approximate cost.
3. You have yet to show how SOM is a bad value outside of your personal opinion/experience, so your stance is only relevant to you.

Also, there is such thing as objectivity; value is not (as you say) just personal opinion. Yes, value does take personal opinions into account, but it is also dependent on objective facts and realities applicable to all. Without that objectivity, value isn't value...but merely "personal value."

Finally, you mentioned confusion in a previous post, and you truly do have me confused...as well as bewildered. You have stated in various posts that the autodraft sucks and doesn't reflect true ability in SOM; you have bemoaned how online SOM is a poor version of "real" SOM, and you keep griping how it's too expensive...and yet you keep paying for the product. If you truly find SOM online deficient and expensive, you truly need to ask yourself why you're still here.

Answer your own question so i understand what you mean.

What are the things that or activities that when compared to strat shows that strat is a good value at 20.00?

Scott.

Ps my last post was in agreement to you in that compared to other activities strat is cheap for the amount of time spent.

Nice try, Scott, but that's not my question...it's yours. So as I said in my last post, address the cogent points I made against your arguments--including answering my question I asked you--and I'll gladly debate you and answer that question. Otherwise, my last post effectively cleared up the matter and finalized our debate.