Mr Baseball World wrote:How do the price changes show a lack of understanding of how and why we play?
Why most of us play, is to try and win. Even in a theme concept like Charlie's recently posted awesome "all clutch" team the goal is usually winning. Sure some teams are set up to primarily try and break records, or a "team theme" is attempted in a non themed league, but with few exceptions no one is plunking down their $20 bucks for 2 months of "I wanna use 25 guys named Larry"
Most of us don't have a bunch of active teams going at one time.
We don't veer too far off the beaten path.
We get comfortable with certain cards and certain parks, and even unfortunately imo with certain caps.
Few play across all caps...and this as much as anything holds us all back...Holds us back from learning more, really understanding more, and of course from playing more...which goes along way towards helping us learn more.
Most agree smaller caps like 80m are much more likely to be filled with small ball type teams and stadiums.
The bigger the cap the more the Home run becomes relevant.
Many of these price changes are tied into the bp Hr.
BUT.
What does raising the bp HR accomplish in a practical sense? It doesn't impact higher cap leagues much, but it does impact smaller caps leagues quite a bit. So what we had was Ryne Sandberg 2L 8.24m seldom used in smaller caps already, especially where F. Frisch 7.63m would often be a top choice, and now we have that same rarely used Sandberg card at almost 10m (9.74) and the Frisch card down to just above 7m... Even it you could set up your team and park to get reasonably solid numbers from Sandberg would you spend 2.67 more knowing there will probably be 70% rh pitching and 50-75% small ball type parks? Who would you use? My prediction is that Sandberg card has been priced out of smaller caps.
Same with Rickey....10M+ for a 15 game risk that's very ball park dependent... in smaller caps knowing our comfort zone is low bp type parks there? How often would you use him?
Yet Bowa...Larry Bowa down to his lowest ever at 2m...he's often used when at 3.37 and is a winner... and he becomes absolute gold in 80m...and that's just 4 names, I can site two dozen more examples, of players being priced out of smaller caps, but I'll just answer my own question
"What have we accomplished with these price changes?"
We've made it that much harder to win with big bats in smaller caps, pushing smaller caps even farther into small ball than they already are.
And being creatures of habit this creates an ever bigger reluctance to move away from our comfort zone. Because once we play with Bowa and Frisch in 80m at 2m and 7m, we don't know what to do with Rickey and Sandberg each costing around 10m...and we won't move up in caps....leading to even less play across caps than ever....and as we try and become specialists in an even smaller niche, leagues fill slower...growth which needs to come mostly from our existing community, shrinks, because the perceived difference between small caps and even a little bigger cap becomes...ummm uncomfortable for many.
Pitching?
Most would agree, while we "could" set up leagues geared towards dead ball type pitching numbers we simply do not.
Hitting "the way we choose to play" rules the day.
No pitcher, not one, not even the dreaded Murray card or the mispriced Higbe card or the usually sweet value of the Kaat card should have gone up...none of them. I'll ask again, "raise the price of some pitchers to serve what point"?
In higher cap leagues it has little impact so again this price change affects smaller caps only...so why raise pitching there? To create more offense?????
To some degree it's a catch-22 because if pitching costs less we "might" spend more on hitting, probably would, but why? because that's how we choose to play. Knowing this, there was certainly, absolutely no reason under the sun to raise the price on any pitchers...none.
Keep in mind the Eck card...Now up to
6.68 for an
R1...Absolute insanity....Why??? Well first let's look at how effective any and all R1s are set up to be....R1 = after 1 inning he's potentially fatigued, therefore should be used only in the 9th...Yet the game doesn't allow for "1 inning not before the 9th" the game states "1-2 innings max, not before the 8th".
The game is set up for R1s to fail... it allows many 8th inning entrances, often creating fatigue by the 9th (if not sooner) and faster than you could say "poor bullpen settings" the guy you spent 6.68 on or any R1 for that matter has blown your save, especially because fatigue "hits" aren't just singles anymore ....
Every R1 until better bp controls are available should have come "down" in price imho.
Tue Jul 08, 2014 9:54 am