Alternate Names/Accounts

3. Getting both Ruth and Bonds in an auto draft is extremely rare, and to be first in waivers on top of that won't happen more than once in a hundred leagues or so Id guess, if that often.

I was last in waivers in that league, not first. But yes, I definitely lucked out there regardless.

I have a .598 winning pct. at 200 million caps. And won the championship every time...

Ok...it was only 1 team.

Salt, you hit the nail on the head with austinmdavidson or whatever he calls himself in any given league. This clown creates a thread about tanking and then posts a league ID that he claims to be in as an example of tanking, yet austinmdavidson does not appear on the manager list in that league. So clearly he is playing under a different name there as well, and who knows how many other of the proliferation of new names/accounts he may be responsible for.

The thing is the better managers who play a lot get copied all the time. That's just to be expected and comes with the territory. If this guy stuck around under one name and was successful, it would come to the attention of people like myself who would then take an inventory of his draft tendencies and use them against him. Then his lofty .572 winning pct. would come crashing down to earth, and he might not even be able to reach .500 over the long run.

I am singularly unimpressed with this person(a) and his bragging about his .572 winning pct while engaging in what is essentially subterfuge in opening at least two new accounts and probably many more.

Salt, you hit the nail on the head with austinmdavidson or whatever he calls himself in any given league. This clown creates a thread about tanking and then posts a league ID that he claims to be in as an example of tanking, yet austinmdavidson does not appear on the manager list in that league. So clearly he is playing under a different name there as well, and who knows how many other of the proliferation of new names/accounts he may be responsible for.

The thing is the better managers who play a lot get copied all the time. That's just to be expected and comes with the territory. If this guy stuck around under one name and was successful, it would come to the attention of people like myself who would then take an inventory of his draft tendencies and use them against him. Then his lofty .572 winning pct. would come crashing down to earth, and he might not even be able to reach .500 over the long run.

I am singularly unimpressed with this person(a) and his bragging about his .572 winning pct while engaging in what is essentially subterfuge in opening at least two new accounts and probably many more.

Oh my! Too bad Salty already claimed that handle because I think it would be a much better fit for you!

You might want to double check that tanking thread, I am very much in the league I linked. Right there at the very top, in fact!

You can call it bragging if you want, but someone has to speak out for the legitimately new people who are freakishly good at the game yet being disparaged as veterans in disguise. It's a cross I guess I'll have to bear.

P.S. Salty, it turns out this thread IS about me after all!

Like, my handle is literally my full name lol. You don't think that suggests this is my first account?

I'm also "austin" on stratfanforum and, well, Austin Davidson in all my draft leagues.

/places dunce cap on The Last Druid

Now go be embarrassed about your terrible posting and antisocial behavior and come back when you are ready to apologize for cyber bullying and slandering me! You should be more like Salty, who graciously congratulated me on my accomplishment instead of allowing it to fill him with envy and resentment or rageposting a verifiably false claim that I had outted myself as an alt in another thread.

As to the broader theory being discussed here, I have no trouble believing people do multiple accounts because you do get that deal on your first two teams, so that's a clear incentive. But this idea that managers are doing it because they're being thwarted in drafts doesn't really scan to me.

The theory as I understand it is: a manager is good enough to put together a great team. So good that other managers take notice and start copying him. At which point he is totally paralyzed, because he could only figure out how to do the one great team, and if he doesn't get those specific players he has no idea who to replace them with and is basically helpless. So he starts a new account, but for some reason the other managers don't continue to copy his previous success in the absence of his old account, so he gets access to all his favorite players again. Do I have that right?

What if...and hear me out on this...some new players are actually just good? Just asking questions folks.

What if...and hear me out on this...some new players are actually just good? Just asking questions folks.

There are some simple reasons why this isn't very likely although obviously possible:
1. Newer players have no idea how others draft their cards- so the chances of them having a good auto draft strategy right off the bat is highly unlikely- this would be magnified by the fact that at higher caps there is a premium on certain players.
2. Newer players would not usually get that salary does not match performance and know which cards it tends to poorly reflect on and which positively reflect on.
3. Platoon options- only intuitive to some degree- some of this is experiential
4. Pitching- while its not random- there is definitely a large 'Hal' factor involved. You could have the 4 top starters and still get utterly lit up- no matter what park you are in -- or conversely those same 4 pitchers might really do well.
5. Building on 4-- as has gone on for numerous discussions here: BLACK BOX STATS-- while everyone has a different take on the black box, Im pretty sure at this point we all agree that it exists and affects the game. This tends to randomize some of the results, making it even tougher for newer players to know which players tend to over or under perform.

There's more, but Ill leave the above part here.
PS- the thread again, was about 20-40 newer names Ive seen play in high cap leagues- some of which I have no doubt were actually new or relatively new player- and again, it was pretty clear to me for just the reasons Ive outlined above that they were actually new.
Im not drawing any specific conclusions based on a single person who may or may not be an outlier to what this post was about, bc thats not what I was referencing.

PPS- Salty has to do with my last name- and although Im sure some folks feel it fits my personality, Im only actually salty in regards to certain things- like being a principled human being, and not a bigoted schmuck- not that there is any of that going on in particular on this thread.

PPPS- Ive looked at your stadium choices - to be frank, those aren't the choices most newer players would come up with-- without already understanding how the game works- again, you could definitely be an outlier on understanding how SoM online works- it would be kind of crazy, given how long it takes most folks to get even some of this, but who knows- Im not that smart.

What if...and hear me out on this...some new players are actually just good? Just asking questions folks.

There are some simple reasons why this isn't very likely although obviously possible:
1. Newer players have no idea how others draft their cards- so the chances of them having a good auto draft strategy right off the bat is highly unlikely- this would be magnified by the fact that at higher caps there is a premium on certain players.
2. Newer players would not usually get that salary does not match performance and know which cards it tends to poorly reflect on and which positively reflect on.
3. Platoon options- only intuitive to some degree- some of this is experiential
4. Pitching- while its not random- there is definitely a large 'Hal' factor involved. You could have the 4 top starters and still get utterly lit up- no matter what park you are in -- or conversely those same 4 pitchers might really do well.
5. Building on 4-- as has gone on for numerous discussions here: BLACK BOX STATS-- while everyone has a different take on the black box, Im pretty sure at this point we all agree that it exists and affects the game. This tends to randomize some of the results, making it even tougher for newer players to know which players tend to over or under perform.

There's more, but Ill leave the above part here.
PS- the thread again, was about 20-40 newer names Ive seen play in high cap leagues- some of which I have no doubt were actually new or relatively new player- and again, it was pretty clear to me for just the reasons Ive outlined above that they were actually new.
Im not drawing any specific conclusions based on a single person who may or may not be an outlier to what this post was about, bc thats not what I was referencing.

PPS- Salty has to do with my last name- and although Im sure some folks feel it fits my personality, Im only actually salty in regards to certain things- like being a principled human being, and not a bigoted schmuck- not that there is any of that going on in particular on this thread.

PPPS- Ive looked at your stadium choices - to be frank, those aren't the choices most newer players would come up with-- without already understanding how the game works- again, you could definitely be an outlier on understanding how SoM online works- it would be kind of crazy, given how long it takes most folks to get even some of this, but who knows- Im not that smart.

I would not apply your moniker to you outside of the highly justifiable categories you mention, you have been very pleasant despite my acting silly about the OP.

Very interesting list. Speaking only for myself:

1. I taught myself to web scrape and assembled a database of 500 ATG9 leagues to see players' popularity at each cap. But at low caps, as long as you're valuing cards correctly, you can miss all your guys, take the next best guys, and you're still fine.
2. I mean this is the whole game. Convert the cards to wins and see which salaries don't match. Anyone who already has a good spreadsheet for their draft leagues can adapt it to ATG easily enough. Especially using all the great info already available on the boards. All credit (well lots of credit) to Marc Pelletier for my success honestly. He's a .560+ player and publicly detailed his entire system, anyone that follows it can achieve similar results. So I don't necessarily agree that veterans have a big advantage here.
3. Haven't found any efficient ones yet outside of high caps. But again it's just a question of accurately valuing cards. Anyone who can value a card in a full-time context is able to do the same in a platoon context.
4. The cards are the cards are the cards. Strat probably undervalues pitchers' contributions a bit compared to real life. But as long as you understand they determine only 10 rolls out of 27, there's no more luck involved than for hitters.
5. I don't follow and would like to know more.

PPPS- Ive looked at your stadium choices - to be frank, those aren't the choices most newer players would come up with-- without already understanding how the game works- again, you could definitely be an outlier on understanding how SoM online works- it would be kind of crazy, given how long it takes most folks to get even some of this, but who knows- Im not that smart.

Interesting, where do new players like to play?

I figure the salaries can't be set according to the most extreme parks, so the extreme parks create the most opportunities for arbitrage.

Beyond those I looked up the stadium groupings for the Tour, so I've been trying out parks from all groupings so I can have some experience in each one.

(I also used my database of 500 leagues to see which park groupings have done best at which caps.)

1. I taught myself to web scrape and assembled a database of 500 ATG9 leagues to see players' popularity at each cap. But at low caps, as long as you're valuing cards correctly, you can miss all your guys, take the next best guys, and you're still fine.

...and thus we have the answer which I alluded to earlier regarding what hacks people can use.