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Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Feb 20, 2020 20:22:00 GMT -5
We've been discussing changing the settings to try and level the playing field somewhat. Some proposals make the season more random (which helps weak teams). Some proposals make weaker teams better. Here's what I can come up with.
Policy changes that make things more random:
1. Increase injury frequency. This increases the randomness of the season and hurts better teams more than weaker ones. I hate this idea (because injuries simply make everything less fun, even if they're totally realistic and achieve the end.
2. Crank up talent change randomness. Make it more likely that Carl Holmes suddenly takes a big step back, and more likely that some random dude is going to become Carl Holmes. Not specifically a fan, but it would work.
3. Add more teams to the playoffs. This makes things more random by giving more teams a shot at making a run.
4. Make playoff series shorter. This makes the results more random which helps the weaker teams.
Policy changes that make worse teams better:
1. Increasing the talent pool of the draft by increasing the number of generated rounds. While this lifts all boats, the teams most aided by the change are the ones drafting the highest, as they receive the largest percent of the draft talent entering the league.
2. Lower the slot bonus baseline. This helps the teams at the top of the draft the most. I don't particularly like this as I don't think it's a very big skew; even if we did away with signing bonuses it would be at most a $5-10 million dollar shift. And I don't really want to do it.
3. Crank up visiting gate share. This basically makes it less valuable to be a successful team because you don't retain all of the gate income. Right now the 20% visitor gate revenue costs the top teams about $10M a year and benefits the worst teams about $5.5M per year. If we cranked it up to 50% it would be an additional $8.5M swing for the worst team and about a $15M swing against the top team.
4. Make young players need more years to hit free agency. This basically extends how long teams get to retain players at low wages, which helps bad teams most because 1) they're more likely to have good young players and 2) they're less likely to sign their stud prospects when they hit the market. Subtle downside, it will raise the cost of players in free agency, as teams will have more money to spend there. I'd ballpark that all post-arbitration salaries would go up by about 10-15%.
5. Luxury Tax. This basically takes a percent of the amount spent over the average payroll away and gives it to the teams with lower payrolls.
6. Revenue Sharing. Every team pays a percentage of their income into a common pool, and then 1/32 of that income is given to every team.
7. Adding more teams to the playoffs. This gives smaller teams access to additional playoff revenue.
8. Dropping the pool of international free agents (amateur and otherwise). This is an area that costs money (favors big teams) and allows the acquisition of talent without losing non-money resources (through trades or compensation). Its existence is far more an asset to rich teams than poor. That said, I hate this idea.
Policy considerations that help average teams make the jump:
1. Completely flat lottery for all non-playoff teams. Every non-playoff team has a 1 in 20 chance for the #1 overall pick, the #2 pick and so on. Decreases the benefit for tanking and increases the benefit for teams trying to be competitive but falling short.
Out of Left Field, but Worth Considering:
Re-write the compensation rules. What if we simply cranked these up to 11? What if losing a Jorge Taylor to free agency meant that you got the #1 overall pick as compensation (assuming another team signed him)? What if signing a Jorge Taylor inflicted a comparably greater penalty on the signing team? On on hand, the penalty would decrease free agent activity, but in turn would mean an increased chance for the original team to re-sign their player as the price fell. Obviously this would be a lot of work to do (paging the Rules Committee) but it would be worth considering.
Anyhow, food for thought.
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Post by Commish_Ron on Feb 20, 2020 21:18:35 GMT -5
A couple other thoughts that have been mentioned (I am not endorsing these, just documenting):
Salary Cap Budget floor Contraction
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Post by earlweaver on Feb 21, 2020 0:50:53 GMT -5
I love the idea of more playoff teams. As i've said before, i feel like the old NHL system of 4 divisions, with 4 teams in each division making the playoffs is awesome. 1 vs 4, 2 v3. Winners play in a division final. Division winners to the LCS, and then the World Series. Half the teams in the league still don't make the playoffs. Created playoff rivalries inside the division.
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Post by Arizona_PBL on Feb 21, 2020 9:28:42 GMT -5
An increase in the luxury tax would be a definite plus.
I really also really like the idea of adding two additional WC teams.
talent change randomness...is it possible to increase the chance of diamond in the roughs while not having an established player take steps back?
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Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Feb 21, 2020 11:43:40 GMT -5
An increase in the luxury tax would be a definite plus. I really also really like the idea of adding two additional WC teams. talent change randomness...is it possible to increase the chance of diamond in the roughs while not having an established player take steps back? I believe that talent change randomness does both; it makes sudden changes in player ability more common, which affects things in both directions. One thing I'll bring up as far as the extra playoff teams goes (even though this got shot down before): The biggest downside of adding playoff teams is that it basically removes the bye. As long as six teams make the playoffs per conference, you have four teams in the first round and two byes. Once you add two teams to get eight, you don't have a bye anymore, you have the #1 and #2 teams playing the #7 and #8 teams. And while this is a pretty lopsided matchup (let's say that the #1/2 teams have a 70% chance of winning the series), that 70% is a lot worse than the 100% chance of making the next round that the bye gave them. And though I'm in favor of extra playoff teams, I'm against penalizing the #1 and #2. My proposal was to try and balance it. Basically, have every single game be a home game for the favored team. Believe it or not, giving the #1 seed home field advantage in every game until the World Series ultimately gives them about the same chance of making the World Series as having the bye did (that 3% per game really adds up). For whatever it's worth.
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Post by David_ExposGM on Feb 21, 2020 11:58:57 GMT -5
After reviewing the Slack discussion that rolled by the other day, and the information above, I'll toss in 2c... First, some preamble...It will be interesting to see if we can even come close to concensus on any proposal as wrangling opinions and perspectives is always a challenge. As is specifically defining the issue about which teams need the help and why. Defining a good/not as good GM is difficult. There will always be good and bad GM's and Teams, along with strategies that some might totally embrace but others would consider a horrible one. Contraction has been mentioned before. Curious to know what the criteria would be for that idea. Contracting a "bad GM" or a "bad team"? Either way, not a fan.'s are good/bad/require purging. That last one seems extreme. That said, there will always be "good" and "not as good" GM's in any league as there will always be several differnt ways to tackle their individual challenges (and we won't necessarily agree with their choices). From my Expos perspective, assuming I am semi-competent as a GM and my franchise is not targeted for contraction (Hahaha), I view the challenge almost strictly as a " how to raise my budget" issue. While I think I had it to $82-Million at one point recently, I simply cannot seem to move the needle off of (in the case of this season $79-Million). In fact, while I was projected a couple of times this season to hit $80-Million next season, I end the season projecting $79 again. And I whole-hearted embrace the FACT that the worst budget can turn into a decent one. I just have been struggling with making that happen. - I have been slightly in the red (a suggestion) at the end of the season...
- I have been well into the green at the end of the season...
- I benefit annually from luxury tax dispersals of course...
- My owner has taken a ton of money...
- My owner has taken just a small amount of money...
- I honestly do not recall a time when I acheived the "cash maximum" of 10-Million when rolling over seasons (because of the various reasons above)...
- While I know the impact is never instant, I have actually had a freakish division win a couple of season ago, which moved the needle a tiny bit, but could not be sustained...
- I have manipulated ticket prices...
- I have signed popular players to hopefully put fans in the stands...
- I have kept "Captain" traits on the roster (when I likely shouldn't have, but...)
- I have traded away my "best" talent (which of course is relative, so the return is not 5-star) to hopefully recycle with some ounger talent...
- I also feel I have milked every drop out of the "marginal" players that I can fit into my roster...
And with all that, my budget makes my annual struggle not to lose 100 any given season. Specific thoughts on some of the suggestions (and I'll try to be brief):Generally something that has an effect on all teams (negatively or positively) by definition will not help the worse off or really shrink the budget gap, which is my focus. So I will just cherry pick some of the items, not answer all. Salary Cap: While that would limit the haves, likely raise the bar for the middle of the pack teams (a good thing), I am not sure it would truly move the needle that much for teams without the budget capacity to afford multiple decent players. Contraction: Too contentious. Injuries: In my experience from feedback in several leagues (including this one) Low=Fun and anything above that gets ugly. And again, does not specifically target have nots. TCR: Would certainly introduce randomness, but not a specific solution. More playoff teams: Similar argument to a salary cap. Increasing Draft Pool: Did we not just do this, in conjunction with an annual purge? More years to FA: Deviates from real life, so would be perceived as complicated. Flat lottery for all non-playoff teams: Worst teams could be unlucky and even worse off. Re-writing COMP rules: Yikes! Specific solutions I think may actually HELP the have nots:Visiting Gate: While this would shrink the revenue gap annually (a good thing), I am not sure of the annual affect on making budgets rise? But it's a game setting, so no work once set (also a good thing)! A 50% ratio might be a little much, but going from 20% to 33% would at elast accomplish something and is an acceptable option. Luxury Tax: This does target teams that choose to have a high payroll and redistributes funding. While it does not specifically target the lowest budgets in an inversely proportional way, it does benefit the lower third-ish of budgets (good). 50% might be too high, but I could live with a suggestion of dropping the soft cap bar (120% as per the rules) a notch to 110% and raising the penalty slightly to (again) 33%. Again a game setting, so once set no more work required (good). There could be other, more complicated, more manual/outside the game suggestions (budget floors), but my personal preference is always simple and in-game, which is why I would stay away from them. I think a small tweak to the GATE and TAX structure would be least intrusive (the big fish likely wouldn't even feel it) and would certainly redistribute the wealth. Hopefully combined with some shrewd GM management, it may even shrink the highest to lowest budget gap??? By the way, that gap - again, my focus - is $284,000,000 to $79,000,000, as I'm sure you all know. That is simply too large. Whatever we do decide, I suggest giving time to observe the effects. We have made several changes already to PBL and constant tweaks just make it a challenge to trace any unintended consequences should they arise. Hope that helps forward the discussion?
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Post by MetDaMeats on Feb 21, 2020 13:16:46 GMT -5
Increasing Draft Pool: Did we not just do this, in conjunction with an annual purge? Nope. We specifically did not do this. See this thread where I make the case (at length) why doing so would allow for a better draft class for teams with higher picks, and you disagree. The poll was reasonably close though. Since the vote, we've had one draft that was better than usual (2052) and one that was absolutely abysmal (2053). 1st round picks couldn't be given away in this year's draft.
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Post by Commish_Ron on Feb 21, 2020 16:38:42 GMT -5
Just one comment on Contraction. IF we ever considered that (big if), it would be done by not back filling GMs. Most definitely not by kicking people out of the league.
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Post by David_ExposGM on Feb 21, 2020 18:45:23 GMT -5
Increasing Draft Pool: Did we not just do this, in conjunction with an annual purge? Nope. We specifically did not do this. See this thread where I make the case (at length) why doing so would allow for a better draft class for teams with higher picks, and you disagree. The poll was reasonably close though. Since the vote, we've had one draft that was better than usual (2052) and one that was absolutely abysmal (2053). 1st round picks couldn't be given away in this year's draft. I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out.
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Post by Mac_Yankees GM on Feb 22, 2020 17:09:47 GMT -5
I have a question about IFA. Aren't we using the old system where a team can spend as much money as they have available and their only penalty is that can't spend more than 500k the next season.
I am pretty certain OOTP20 supports the current real life system where every team has an equal amount of money and teams can deal for additional IFA bucks from another team.
That might level the playing field some for those signings.
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Post by BlueJaysGM_Fin on Feb 22, 2020 19:57:38 GMT -5
I have a question about IFA. Aren't we using the old system where a team can spend as much money as they have available and their only penalty is that can't spend more than 500k the next season. I am pretty certain OOTP20 supports the current real life system where every team has an equal amount of money and teams can deal for additional IFA bucks from another team. That might level the playing field some for those signings. I would echo this point. I’ve seen teams spend up to $13M on one player and not many small market teams can do that. Evening out the playing field raises the opportunity the small market teams get talent via this avenue as well. To be clear I am not supporting this because I am a small market team. I just think this is a good way to go about sharing talent in the league among teams to even it out a bit.
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Post by Arizona_PBL on Feb 22, 2020 21:57:36 GMT -5
An increase in the luxury tax would be a definite plus. I really also really like the idea of adding two additional WC teams. talent change randomness...is it possible to increase the chance of diamond in the roughs while not having an established player take steps back? I believe that talent change randomness does both; it makes sudden changes in player ability more common, which affects things in both directions. One thing I'll bring up as far as the extra playoff teams goes (even though this got shot down before): The biggest downside of adding playoff teams is that it basically removes the bye. As long as six teams make the playoffs per conference, you have four teams in the first round and two byes. Once you add two teams to get eight, you don't have a bye anymore, you have the #1 and #2 teams playing the #7 and #8 teams. And while this is a pretty lopsided matchup (let's say that the #1/2 teams have a 70% chance of winning the series), that 70% is a lot worse than the 100% chance of making the next round that the bye gave them. And though I'm in favor of extra playoff teams, I'm against penalizing the #1 and #2. My proposal was to try and balance it. Basically, have every single game be a home game for the favored team. Believe it or not, giving the #1 seed home field advantage in every game until the World Series ultimately gives them about the same chance of making the World Series as having the bye did (that 3% per game really adds up). For whatever it's worth. cant we simply add another playoff round? the four WC teams (if we add two) play, the two winners then bring us to 6 and use the same format we have now
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Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Feb 23, 2020 10:52:25 GMT -5
As a reference comment on David's proposals:
A bump to visiting team getting 33% would be worth an estimated extra $3.7M for the lowest teams and a penalty of $6.5M for the best.
I'm less certain of the math for the luxury tax, but I'm ballparking it around $5M extra for the low teams and a penalty of $13M for the best.
If my math is loosely accurate (as I hope that it is), these two proposals would probably bring the lowest team to about $88M budget (assuming that the owner let the extra money into budget instead of stealing it) and the top budget would drop to maybe $264M (again, assuming a direct revenue to budget translation). To keep with David's reference point of the gap between the top and bottom budgets, you'd be going from 28% to 33%.
So a fairly modest change, but pretty easy to implement.
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Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Feb 24, 2020 8:59:35 GMT -5
Beware of yourself lad. Here be numbers!
So, I decided that this whole discussion was a little abstract without numbers. So I grabbed every budget/season between 2030 and 2052 (inclusive) to try and learn the probabilities we were looking at with the relationship between budgets and playoffs. After some experimenting it looks like percentage of the league budget mean is the best predictor (though it's pretty close honestly). I would have loved to keep it in whole numbers, but the league average budget has been anywhere from $110 million to $160 million in that timeframe so a budget of $160M means wildly different things in different years. So percentage of the average was the best bet.
Remember, 37.5% playoffs is the league average; we let 12 teams in out of 32.
140% or higher of League Average: 47 teams out of 61, 77.0%, 3 years out of 4 130% to 140% of League Average: 23 teams out of 35, 65.7%, 2 years out of 3 120% to 130% of League Average: 33 teams out of 65, 50.8%, 1 year out of 2 110% to 120% of League Average: 40 teams out of 91, 44.0%, 4 years out of 9 100% to 110% of League Average: 40 teams out of 92, 43.5%, 4 years out of 9 90% to 100% of League Average: 45 teams out of 121, 37.2%, 3 years out of 8 80% to 90% of League Average: 25 teams out of 91, 27.5%, 3 years out of 11 70% to 80% of League Average: 11 teams out of 68, 16.2%, 1 year out of 6 60% to 70% of League Average: 8 teams out of 56, 14.3%, 1 year out of 7 60% or lower of League Average: 4 teams out of 56, 7.1%, 1 year out of 14
So. Once you're north of 40% above league average (40% may not sound like much, but above 40% right now is above $224M) you have almost double the chance of an average team to make the playoffs. It's not a sure thing by a long shot, but it's still a big advantage. Even at just below average you have about a normal chance of making the playoffs. But once you get below 90% the odds drop pretty brutally. By 70-80% you're at less than half the chances of an average team. And by lower than 60% you average making the playoffs once every 14 years.
Interesting tidbit; the four playoff teams that got in below 60% mean budget are all in the last five years. The 2051 Astros, the 2050 Expos, the 2048 Cardinals and the 2051 Warhounds.
For reference, here's the current distribution of league budgets for comparison.
140%+: Yankees, Reds, Nationals (108, 106, 97 wins), 3 for 3 playoffs, two byes 130-140%: Padres, Rockies, Athletics, Dodgers (109, 96, 89, 60 wins), 3 for 4 playoffs, one bye 120-130%: Indians (95 wins), 1 for 1 playoffs 110-120%: Giants, Pirates, Rangers (108, 86, 61 wins), 1 for 3 playoffs, one bye 100-110%: Royals, White Sox, Orioles, Braves (105, 104, 78, 68 wins), 2 for 4 playoffs 90-100%: Rays (74 wins), 0 for 1 playoffs 80-90%: Phillies, Mets, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Cardinals, Twins (89, 72, 72, 65, 64, 61 wins), 1 for 6 playoffs 70-80%: Cubs, Astros, Tigers (72, 68, 63 wins), 0 for 3 playoffs 60-70%: Warhounds, Mariners, Angels, Brewers, Marlins (92, 88, 82, 80, 52 wins), 1 for 5 playoffs Below 60%: Blue Jays, Expos (65, 57 wins), 0 for 2 playoffs
Shout out to my 60-70% league average budget crew, and the overall outstanding year they had under the circumstances!
And to be clear, the Blue Jays and Expos are 50% and 49% of the average team budget right now.
Obviously a budget doesn't buy you everything (there are plenty of teams below 500 with high budgets), but it's hard to miss the fact that teams with below league average budgets went 2 for 17 for the playoffs this year. Historically that's a fluke (historically 1 in 4, or 23.7% is expected), but still.
It's absolutely true that some of this is a little illusory. Part of having a big budget is being successful in the past, so better GMs are more likely to have big budgets. So this trend isn't just the relationships of budgets to playoffs, but also skill to playoffs (because again, higher budget teams are more likely to have better GMs).
That said. If we're talking about trying to "level the playing field", it would probably help to have some idea of what we're aiming at. For example, if it was decided that less than a 15% chance at the playoffs is unacceptably low, we'd probably want to yank some levers to move the lowest budget to no less than 75% of the league average.
David would no doubt point out about the possibility of unintended consequences and that's absolutely true. In 2042 the league average budget was $110 million. It jumped by $10 million a year for three straight years and at the moment sits at just under $160 million. What did we do to jack the budgets up so high (and increase the disparity between the top and the bottom)? Did we jump to a new version? Did we allow ticket prices above $40 (I mean, I know we did, but I don't know if this was the cause)? I don't know. But while I think that this is a good discussion (and I encourage reference to the above stats), manipulating these budget sliders is guaranteed to have side effects we haven't considered yet.
Just my 27 and a half cents.
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Post by Sean_RedsGM on Feb 24, 2020 9:51:24 GMT -5
I have a question about IFA. Aren't we using the old system where a team can spend as much money as they have available and their only penalty is that can't spend more than 500k the next season. I am pretty certain OOTP20 supports the current real life system where every team has an equal amount of money and teams can deal for additional IFA bucks from another team. That might level the playing field some for those signings. I would echo this point. I’ve seen teams spend up to $13M on one player and not many small market teams can do that. Evening out the playing field raises the opportunity the small market teams get talent via this avenue as well. To be clear I am not supporting this because I am a small market team. I just think this is a good way to go about sharing talent in the league among teams to even it out a bit. Mets...small market...lmao I think this overall topic should be discussed further. The con is that you have a crapshoot on players getting multiple $5 mil offers, so it's just random who they sign with.
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