ATG9 - Net Reduction in Salaries

Nap Lajoie at 10.64 is the not the most underpriced card in the set. Trying picking him and losing him 30 games a season and see what that does for your 80 million team. At 12.89 million he would never again be used at 80 million and probably not at 100 million. For the most part this is a fool’s errand as there are so many parks the players who play the most games and pay for statistical data to find the most underpriced players relative to a park, and then analyze a league to get the most underpriced players to play at a park relative to the league would be at a huge advantage for a couple of months, everyone would notice the trend and then everyone will copy, top players get mad again that their "secrets" are known and the process will begin again.

I did a study of all the 2019 Barnstormer 100 million Small ball teams that won their division in Barnstormers - I came up with 22 teams exactly one used Nap Lajoie at 10.64 million(not Riggo who used the 8.78 version). None used Joe Morgan at all any card, None used Joe Dimaggio (any card), 7 did use the 8.78 Lajoie, and I don’t think that is a highly desired card and 4 used the 6.55 Honus Wagner (Riggo was one use and he also had Lajoie, obviously a big leg up), what stuck in my mind was the fact Honus was able to go 159 games on Riggo’s team, normally if you get an injury for 15 games a couple of times your playoff chances are severly reduced, which is why the 10.64 is not used on winning teams, they don’t want to put 10% of their cap into a player who might miss 30 games.
Ashburn was used 5 times, no one used the Tommy Davis 4.34 card, Joe Kelley, who does not make your list was one of the most popular of the winning teams at 6 teams, I surmise since he cannot be injured your system may not account properly for the fact the average player can get 162 games out of him. 4 people used the Cristano stalwart Bobby Wallace.

The pitchers most frequently used were King SIlver and Sandy Koufax at 6 each. Maddux and Alexander were 6 each, Pedro any card was on two of the teams and Pinero was on only two of the teams for a combined 11-14 record. Gil Heridia was on one team he was 1-11, on Hitmen's team that had Pinero at 6-8 but got bailed out by Doug Brocall who despite having an ERA @ 5.24 in Forbes in relief one full point over the team average, was able to save 23 of 28 games. Atley was also on one of the playoff teams.

Nap Lajoie at 10.64 is the not the most underpriced card in the set. Trying picking him and losing him 30 games a season and see what that does for your 80 million team...

I suggest you are conflating risk management with overall value. The injury risk is a concern, but something that can be managed given quality subs. I assume a player with <600 AB willl miss about 15 games, but there's a lot of variance. For example, here's a team where '94 Jeff Bagwell missed 40 games. He was healthy for postseason and the team won the championship.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1514994

IMO, many managers over-focus on downside risk. Try using Lajoie and see what happens when he plays 159+ games and bangs out 270 hits. You will be a convert!

..., Joe Kelley, who does not make your list was one of the most popular of the winning teams at 6 teams,

Kelley is a specialized card. His overall value is around average, but he is highly desirable specifically for deadball parks.

Il évaluait les prix des FC. Davis est LF.

Ne parle pas francais

I think the top priority is Jorge Orta--has to go to .60!
And Kirk Rueter that scoundrel certainly worth adding another 100K to that puppy!

Seriously,
1. I think the top priority is limiting player usage via a progressively scaled system once they reach 120% or something--declining performance (maybe pitcher lookups like is done with POW for pitchers) plus increased injury chance. Am tired of saying Gates Brown who? 67 ABs in ATG outslugging the Iron Horse? I know that would create another pricing and valuation challenge. Sutter 400 innings?

2. Not sure how or why Riggo's pricing is better, but it does seem right in most cases. So a methodology would be good to know--not the specifics of course as you use it to value players--but is it deterministic based on the card simulation? or stochastic based on usage statistics?

And I agree with TLD--there are priorities in the set for repricing that would help the game.
But trying to perfect all pricing--I don't know.
First, perfection is an impossibility so the focus should be on getting the outliers inside the distribution of "normal". I think Charlie made that point concretely. Value depends on exploiting the underpriced advantage. There is no absolute anyway.

Second, with a player pool so large, even with perfect pricing --it may sap the actual interesting thing about the ATG game. I don't like the drastic swings, but a few 100k here and there makes it an interesting journey constructing a team.

Either way, I'm not a big dog in this, just offering two cents.
Awesome work and thanks for sharing it. You're a great competitor and player.
Frank(ie)

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Methodology
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I drop all of the player data into a spreadsheet and come up with a combined rating for each card based up...

Value an best position
Batting Runs
Fielding Runs
Speed
Expected usage

That gives an overall rating (measured in runs) for each card. Then I start making adjustments for cards that may have significantly more value based upon the way they may be used - e.g., platoon specialists like Kal Daniels, or cards that with exceptional value in specific parks (like '73 Dave Johnson).

That's an over-simplification, but you get the idea. To be clear, I am not suggesting these are "perfect" salaries*, but they do represent MASSIVE improvement over the current state of ATG salaries.

Way back when TSN managed the product, I priced several sets of players. It is a very time-consuming exercise, so I "retired." They guy who took over after me was also able to produce relatively accurate and consistent salaries (although I did have some arguments with his rating system, but that's another story). That was over a decade ago and I'm not sure where the ATG8 salaries came from, but they're pretty broke.

To give you an idea of how unfair ATG8 salaries are, I had a winning percentage of ~.530 in ATG3 (which I priced), however, for ATG8, my Win% since I rated the cards is .590+.

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* RE: "perfection" of salaries - there will always be arguments over card rating system, values changed based upon the environment in which they are used (salary cap, ballparks, team construction), and subjectivity. Leveraging those factors is the whole point of the game, but you do want to start out with a salary structure that is relatively neutral in a neutral environment

All I can say is "no wonder I can't beat you"!

SteveF--haha no kidding right?

Riggo--fair points. You made a compelling case.