A new observation!

Been playing this online thing since it started on TSN and in the past one of the ways to having a winning team was to do minimal player drops and keep team cash value as close to your original bankroll as possible which was common knowledge. However with this set in many of my leagues I have seen teams running away with their divisions that have made multiple player swaps and drops including my latest league where the manager has swapped out 16 players and is still best record in the league. Could it be if its not working fix it at all costs could be the new norm? Is anyone else seeing this in their leagues?

I don't think anything has changed. To me, the acceptance of the absolute that dropping players was inherently opposed to putting together a winning team was always bad advice. There are no absolutes in SOMO when it comes to how to win. Of course you can drop players and win. I also play a lot of mystery card, so I may be a little more open to dropping players than guys who just play 200x. Even after saying all that, dropping players at a cost of 20% is usually not the road most travelled when it comes to putting together a winning team. If you know what you are doing and/or you don't believe your team as constituted will win, go for it. However, I still believe the majority of the teams that make adds/drops at 20%, and especially those that make a large number of adds/drops at 20%, come out on the losing end of the waiver wire.

That has always been my thinking Jerry but found it really odd how some teams are winning with over half or almost half their roster swapped out in my last few leagues. Not going to be trying it myself as I feel that kind of strategy on my part would result in a instant nose dive to the worst record in the league haha

Eh, I feel in extreme instances, changes can make a difference, either via trade, or the drop penalty.

if your not paying much attention to your league, and see that a team is only 4 games ahead of you, with 32 to play, and they are in a lefty park, with all lefty or switch hitters... you go out and drop two of your righty killer righty pitchers for a balanced lefty, and a lefty that kills lefties, not caring about the other two teams in your division cause they suck... and drop two more righty hitters for a lefty bat and a switch hitter...

right there is 17% or so of your roster getting dropped just to deal with one team and could very easily make up that few game difference in the standings...

Just a example of how it could work quite easily.

say same said team dropped to players earlier cause they just weren't right for the park, or, cause they were on a 15 game inj, and its at the cutoff time... now we re at 25% of your roster..

Hey Michael, Always great to see others from the distant past still adding insight on the boards. Not many of us left by the looks of things. You know me I love a good trade but alas seems most here do not bother seeking deals anymore either due to time or interest in working out deals so drops are the norm. Personally it seems too much a gamble to be dropping salary unless you are talking the cheapo guys under 2 mil but I seen the big dollar guys getting dropped quite regularly lately and the managers teams still rolling on. Either they are really good at taking a calculated risk or should be headed to Vegas with the luck they are showing haha. Thanks for the input!

Links to these teams would be helpful to analyze why they won.

Not many of us left by the looks of things. You know me I love a good trade but alas seems most here do not bother seeking deals anymore either due to time or interest in working out deals so drops are the norm.

A key part of that problem is most trades people send these days are lopsided ones benefiting the sender. The sender is usually trying to pull one over on the receiver or he significantly weighs the trade in his favor. I don't want to be a cliche' and laud the "good old days," but it did seem like people used to work harder to make the trade offers fair and beneficial to both sides. While around 1/4 of my trade offers sent to me used to be fair, only about 1/12 are now. That not only leads to less trades made in itself, it causes people to bypass fair trade offers they just assume are more bad ones.

There's obviously nothing inherently wrong with sending trade offers weighed in one's favor. However every time one does that, he contributes to our current atmosphere of distrust in trade offers.

A key part of that problem is most trades people send these days are lopsided ones benefiting the sender. The sender is usually trying to pull one over on the receiver or he significantly weighs the trade in his favor. I don't want to be a cliche' and laud the "good old days," but it did seem like people used to work harder to make the trade offers fair and beneficial to both sides.

Again, I don't think much has changed. I was complaining about it many years ago. Complaining is a waste of effort, so I decided to be positive(unlike me) and make counteroffers if called for. I have made some trades through my counters to ridiculously bad initial offers and I don't waste my time complaining about some of the horrendous, poorly(if at all) thought out offers that sometimes land in my mail.
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I don't complain about any trades to me, either. Complaining about individual offers wasn't the point of my post. I, too, send counteroffers, usually more to my advantage than the senders was to him. I just noted how the majority of current (last 2-3 yrs) trade offers--our experiences are obviously different--have been pretty poor. And that does lead to many people thinking accepting a trade not clearly weighted in his benefit is not a good idea. Considering how few trades I've seen made in the last few years, that sentiment is common.

I always cut and switch. Doesn't matter if it's Mystery Card set or normal sets with 20% penalties. I recall my first four SOM teams - $80 mil caps - were all in the $50-60 mil range in salary at the end of the season due to my cutting. I made the playoffs in all of those leagues. Those were all in the now abolished 2005 season set.