Monthly Contest "Rigging"

This thread has flipped my thinking on this topic. Even though I'm in one of the contest-themed leagues for October, I wondered even as I was joining how I felt about it - and if winning the contest that way was a tainted victory. Now that I've heard the various arguments, I've realized that not only is SOM unlikely to make a rule against a contest-themed league, it's probably their objective to get multiple contest-themed leagues going. It's way better for them if there are whole leagues formed around the contest, rather than just a smattering of owners in various leagues trying to win it. And, if there are one or more entire leagues trying to win the contest, it is actually making it more competitive, not less - since there are 12, or 24, or 36+ owners going for the credits, rather than a smaller number. I suspect if you look back at months where there were not any contest-themed leagues going, you'll see the same owners winning the credits each month - yes, because they're good players, but also because there was less competition.

As far as how fun or strategic either approach is... that depends on your preferences, but participating in a league aimed at maximizing pitcher Ks has been fun, and there was quite a bit of strategy involved in picking players and setting up the team, since the 11 other teams were trying to do the same thing. So sure, the league parameters helped maximize the Ks, but I still had to out-do 11 other owners, win more than half my games, and lead everyone in Ks. And, if there were other contest-themed leagues going at the same time, there would be even more competition.

I’m going to finish (likely) second behind CirrhoticLiver in the September Challenge, so I’ll throw in a two cent piece here.

Regarding the “Spirit of the Contest”…

Your opinions will probably differ, but in my opinion anything that circumvents the incentive for a team to win the championship damages the integrity of the entire league. Individual teams should not be able to win credits without competing to win their respective leagues.

The only way to achieve this desired outcome is that the challenge winner must present a CHAMPIONSHIP team:

1. This will prevent leagues from creating “league rules” whereby six plus teams can finish one through six in a monthly challenge.

2. This will prevent individual managers from collecting 25 plus monthly challenge credits in a calendar year.

3. It also adds an element of surprise, in that you can inadvertently win challenge credits when all you were trying to do was win a ring, and you find yourself in the top three for the monthly category.

Going one step further, it is also my opinion that the record books should only include championship teams (and players from championship teams). Managers looking through the record books would be better served if the team with the most losses was a championship team, not some garbage heap that a manager put together just to make it in the record books for most losses.

Most of the record book categories are filled with terrible teams in order to simply have a category record. We would learn so much more by seeing how much a category can actually bear, because the team still had to win a ring while going for the record. Further, stronger team building insights would abound from this.

I’m not sure if this rubs against the “grow the game” mentality, but to me it makes more sense than the current format.

I second that motion!

I’m going to finish (likely) second behind CirrhoticLiver in the September Challenge, so I’ll throw in a two cent piece here.

Regarding the “Spirit of the Contest”…

Your opinions will probably differ, but in my opinion anything that circumvents the incentive for a team to win the championship damages the integrity of the entire league. Individual teams should not be able to win credits without competing to win their respective leagues.

The only way to achieve this desired outcome is that the challenge winner must present a CHAMPIONSHIP team:

1. This will prevent leagues from creating “league rules” whereby six plus teams can finish one through six in a monthly challenge.

2. This will prevent individual managers from collecting 25 plus monthly challenge credits in a calendar year.

3. It also adds an element of surprise, in that you can inadvertently win challenge credits when all you were trying to do was win a ring, and you find yourself in the top three for the monthly category.

Going one step further, it is also my opinion that the record books should only include championship teams (and players from championship teams). Managers looking through the record books would be better served if the team with the most losses was a championship team, not some garbage heap that a manager put together just to make it in the record books for most losses.

Most of the record book categories are filled with terrible teams in order to simply have a category record. We would learn so much more by seeing how much a category can actually bear, because the team still had to win a ring while going for the record. Further, stronger team building insights would abound from this.

I’m not sure if this rubs against the “grow the game” mentality, but to me it makes more sense than the current format.

I disagree here. If someone had the most steals or most homeruns or walks or whatever that’s the record regardless of the teams performance. If someone wants to build a team around a certain aspect of the game who cares if they throw away a team that they paid for. I do it from time to time and I think it’s a lot of fun building a team for the most walks or homeruns or whatever. I know I’m not going to win the championship most likely but at that point I don’t care if I do either.

As for the monthly contest…… I’ve never really tried for them and I can see why rigging a league for that could bother some people. The difference is to me that the record books is only for auto leagues not leagues built around a gimmick.


With that being said if a rule change was made regarding the record books or the monthly challenge I wouldn’t mind too much one way or the other.

If someone wants to build a team around a certain aspect of the game who cares if they throw away a team that they paid for.

The other eleven teams in that league.

If someone wants to build a team around a certain aspect of the game who cares if they throw away a team that they paid for.

The other eleven teams in that league.

Idk I’ve been in plenty of leagues with bad teams. I’ve never been mad at the other owner because their team isn’t good. Intentionally tanking I could see a case for , but my intention when building a team was never to lose as many games as possible. I’ve also built teams to get the most strikeouts possible and the most walks possible that were both around the 90 win mark. It’s their money if they want to build a team full of people named Bob it wouldn’t bother me

You MUST have a winning record to be eligible for the contests (kudos to Strat for that by the way), so building a team for a contest does not mean tanking a season, players vying for the monthly contests should be doing everything they can to finish above .500.

Whereas, building a team to get in the record books, could result in a team being total crap and thereby skewing the league results.

Six teams from a category theme league could still finish 1-6 then.

Question still here. I like transparency. And I note that you do seem to earn a lot of credits through the monthly challenge program.

To wit. (Completed months only. )
August. 1St place
July. 1st place
June. 1st and 2nd place
May 1st and 2nd place
April. 2nd place
March. 2nd place (and 4th)
February. 1st place
January. No place
December. 8th place (with the free credit randomizer)
November. 1st and 3rd
October. 1st place
September. 3rd place
August. 1st and 3rd place

So 36 credits earned. Please don’t take this the wrong way. But it seems that for the past year you have dominated the monthly challenge. Is the objection that there is someone else trying for the monthly challenges now? Admittedly doing it differently than you do.

He has four rings, five playoff losses and seven no playoffs. He’s playing to win AND to win additional credits. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone the chance to go for a five credit season.

But it also remains my belief that you should never be incentivized to NOT win championships.