Holy Cap!

The salary cap (either version) shouldn't be that hard to understand. Perhaps Zach and I are partially guilty of a confused presentation of our ideas. It is my wish to remedy any confusion with this post.

As it stands, there is a somewhat massive imbalance of talent in the league. This also leaves the better teams with vast amounts of resources to acquire future talent (see: Offseason 2008-09, Connor trades Harang, Ankiel, McGowan and Cabrera to acquire Matt Wieters).

A worse-off team than mine may not have been able to pay the price to move up and get Wieters.

The salary cap, by definition, gives each team the same amount of resources to acquire and accumulate talent. Each team will (eventually) have $260 with which pay their players. No more, no less.

Usually, salaries are established at the league's creation through an open auction. Since we did a snake draft instead, we currently have no player salaries. There are a couple of ways to remedy this problem:

1) Determine player salaries based on PECOTA projections (Zach's proposal)*
2) Determine player salaries based on past-season performance (Connor's proposal)

After we initially set salaries by either of these methods, my proposal is that prices would be set by the market going forward. We would agree on a rate for salary inflation (say, $3/year), and if the owner of Torii Hunter was willing to pay $15 for Torii Hunter in 2008 but is not willing to pay $18 in 2009, Hunter can be cut. Hunter will then be bid on and auctioned off. His salary will be determined by the prevailing market price (say, $12).

This obviously gives more value to young, cheap players that can be picked up off of free agents for $1 and experience a modest price increase each season, creating a good chance that they will overperform their salary for many years. But you aren't going to win a league with a bunch of $1 rookies (Zach's apparent strategy for this season notwithstanding).

If you still have questions, I encourage you to go through the Google Doc emailed out by Zach. I'm still not 100% done with my proposal, but most of the meat should be on there. If you're unable to view the Doc, let Zach know.


*While setting these prices retroactively is something of a tricky subject leaving it impossible to be completely fair to everyone, I can't justify the logic of setting retroactive prices using projections of the future. This could be particularly cruel to the managers that this new system was meant to most help, given the gaudy PECOTA projections for some young players currently on under-performing (is that the correct PC lingo?) teams.... Thus, my opposition to Zach's sub-idea.


Addendum: There are no "picks" under this system (also, there are no "picks" under the current system). There is only "cap space". It's just like every other major professional sport except baseball. e.g., The Panthers have $20 million in cap space. Therefore, they sign Player A at $8 million, Player B at $4 million, Player C at $5 million, and Player D at $3 million. You might even say that these players are "auctioned" on the open market and the highest-bidding team wins the player. Yeah, it costs money to sign Peyton Manning, but with it comes the benefit of Peyton Manning's production.

Message to Lance: Wrap it up!

DC now has an HIV/AIDS rate that rivals that of Africa's.

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=77642

Geithner...

Does anyone else feel like Tim Geithner could learn something from the level of detail that Connor and Zach are offering to "fix" a "broken" system?

Salary Cap

I have e-mailed everybody a copy of my proposed salary cap idea, current player salaries and a team by team breakdown of player salaries. I also posted this on Google Docs for everyone to see (I apologize if I sent multiple e-mails. Google kept saying their server was down but then it sent the invites anyway. )

Comment back on here and let me know if the general idea sounds good. If so, we can work on editing the rules throughout the season and implement it next offseason.

Team Dollar Values

These are the 2009 BP PFM (Baseball Prospectus Player Forecast Manager) results for the current dollar value of each player's team:

Steve - 276
Zach - 283
Lance - 351
Markham - 289
Matt - 268
Connor - 259
Bick - 191
Eric - 183
Andy S - 133
Elliot - 153
JRoss - 234
Nick - 261
Jamie - 178
Kyle - 224

If we switched to mine and Connor's salary cap idea, this would be how much you are paying for your team. This was using a 260 dollar salary cap, and right now the average team salary is 235. Is anyone else interested in a salary cap idea?

how are the draft dollars at the end of the year calculated?

also (copied from our Yahoo League forum):

ake note I don't expect to be in the bottom 5 again this year, but after having been there 3 years I think this is only fair to help the turn-around. 

Officially motioning the following things.... 

1) Reverse, line-order draft to replace the draft dollars. While the idea of the draft dollars is nice, some people just don't want to or can't take the time to play the system. The top 5 teams from last year benefited the most this offseason and that's BS. We're here to help the bottom not make this a league for 5 people. The picks, like draft dollars are tradeable, but only after they have been announced. 

2) Bottom 5 people are reverse order 1-5 on waiver priority at the start of the next year (6-end would stay the same order as it was previously). This allows anyone who isn't in the draft or other prospects to head to those bottom teams. Just a little more advantage. 

3) Trades themselves take only 5 vetos (1/3 of the league) unless another 3rd party "likes" the trade and posts as such. In that case 1 additional person is required for each person who likes it. Off season as well. 

4) Offseason trades take just as long to go through as season trades (unless 1/3 of the people are in the same place... aka chatroom, phone conference, etc, etc). That keeps people from calling everyone last minute because they HAVE TO make a trade. 


I don't care if we take part of this, but we need to have 1-3 I think for this league to become more fair as a keepers league.

In Defense of the Auction Draft

Now that the draft is over, I wanted to defend the auction style. Remember, the purpose of the auction draft was to distribute dollars in order of finish - I decided to see how the draft might have worked out, assuming no one traded any draft dollars. I also took out any players drafted for $1.

To Kyle: Wieters and Billy Butler (and 15$ for remaining players bid at $1)
To Jamie: N. Feliz and Mark Lowe (and 25$ remaining)
To Nick: Cahill and Willis (and 6$ remaining)
To JR: Hanson (and 9$ remaining)
To Andy S: LaPorta (0$ remaining)
To Elliot: Tillman (11$ remaining)
To Eric: Tazawa (36$ remaining)
To Bick: Brett Wallace (32$ remaining)
To Connor: Lars Anderson (51$ remaining)
To Matt: E Andrus (33$ remaining)
To Andrew: Gil Meche (12$ remaining)
To Lance: Homer Bailey (8$ remaining)
To Zach: R Soriano (0$ remaining)
To Steve: K Gregg and JR Towles (9$ remaining)

Players at $1:

Cabrera, Asdrubal
Cabrera, Daniel
Dickerson, Chirs
Gallagher, Sean
Griffey, Jr., Ken
Napoli, Mike
Ross, Cody
Ross, David
Sheffield. Gary
Weeks, Rickie
Wigginton, Ty
Zito, Barry


As you can see, if people had valued their draft dollars appropriately, then the result would have been similar to a snake draft. Perhaps a good way to get an auction draft to work is to not allow the trading of draft dollars. Some managers took adavantage of others who did not appropriately understand the value of their draft dollars - we're fantasy baseball players, not saints.

Infinite Loops

I think this is Steves Methodology for infinite loops (incase people were confused about how results were determined...steve conform or deny this...im sure you didnt think like this step by step, but in the end i think you chose the results based on this method) :

Algorythm:
1) List each Free Agent followed by each bid made for said Free Agent and the priority assigned per bid.
2) Identify the infinite loop. Only consider the top X bids, where X is the number of Free agents involved in the loop.
3) Find the person(lets call him Bidder A) with the most draft dollars and the Free Agent that he bid as his current top priority.
a) go through the truncated list of X bids and look for any other #1 priority bids for the Free Agent.
b) If any are found, lower Bidder A's bid to that amount and go to (d). If not, go to (c)
c) Continue to go through the list, until the highest priority is found. Lower Bidder A's amount to that priority's bid amount and go to (d)
d) Bidder A gets said Free Agent for his updated bid price
e) Bidder A loses all dd's if his team reaches the max and has offered nobody as a replacement for any future Free Agent bids.
4) Repeat step 3 until infinite loop is gone.

Example:
* Steve has the most money and wants Feliz as his number 1 priority...Zach bid for Feliz as a Priority 2 at 382 so Steve gets Feliz for 383. Steve now has Feliz and 356 DD's.
* JRoss has the most money and wants Cahill as his number 1 priority...Lance bid for Cahill as a Priority 1 at 366 so JRoss gets Cahill for 367. JRoss now has Cahill and 76 DD's.
* Zach has the most money and wants Hanson as his number 1 priority...Lance bid for Hanson as a Priority 2 at 366 so Zach gets Tilllman for 367. Zach now has Tillman and 17 DD's. (Steve has me getting him for 357...either way the draft is the same so it doesnt matter...he just overlooked Lance's bid for Hanson of 366 and only considered his own at 356)

The rest is just whoever bid the most I think....I doubt this matters at all since we probably wont be doing this style anymore, but just incase we decide to do this way again alteast we have a written out way of deciding infinte loops.

In other news, I am pretty stoked about giving up 4 waiver spots and getting Hanson in return.

Another Trade Completed

To Velocirocktors d.b.a. Furcal's Offer Sheet: Nate McLouth (OF, PIT)

To Athens Blizzard: Christopher Davis (1B/3B, TEX)


By the way, Steve, kudos on coming up with the idea for this blog. There have definitely never been this many offseason trades (and by "offseason trades", I of course mean thinly veiled attempts to screw Kyle's team)

PLUS League

Because we are never able to get together all at once to communicate, this is the only way I can see a Plus League working: everyone who is interested, send me a check for how much you feel like you want to pay (not cash! just check). I will communicate this to people who don't do the blog. The total cost is $125. If I receive at least $100, I'll put in the difference myself and upgrade us on my credit card. If one person puts in a lot more than anyone else and I have more than $100, I'll call that person and ask for a check for less while I put in some money to even things out.

My mailing address:

42 Pheasant Run
N. Granby, CT 06060

Trade completed

Connor send me all of his draft dollars (289) and in return we swap waiver spots.

Draft Dollars Correction

Steve messed up with my draft dollars in the e-mail...he said that i have 76 dd's left over, but that is how much i paid for andrus. I had 172 and then i bought andrus, so I actually have 96 DD's to spend this round.

Trade Completed?

I think Elliot and I have reached an agreement on a trade.

To Velociroctors: $150

To Aaron Burr All-Stars: Hong-Chih Kuo

Elliot, do you confirm?

Plus League

Nobody has posted in 24 hours...which obviously means that everyone is planning last minute trades and conspiracy plots for round 3. Anyway, to break the silence, I thouhgt I would once again propose the Plus League Idea. It would be fun...bobble head prizes or shirts...trophies etc. Plus, it cost less than what we will pay for stat tracker alone (and stat tracker is included in the plus league package). Last remember, I think we had like 5 people that were in, and then we had Kyle who makes enough in an hour to pay for the whole league but wont pony up the 9 bucks.

Its only 9 bucks....also, I will pay for anyone who wants me to in return for them giving me draft dollars/players (yes i know this is illegal, but it could cause an uproar amongst league members....so I want to be involved)

Trade Completed

I have completed the following trade with Jamie:

Jamie gets:

Randy Johnson
Juan Pierre
Ken Griffey, Jr.

I get:

$568 in draft dollars

Round 3

This is the third and final round. Nominations are:

Kyle Tommy Hanson $1
Lance Trevor Cahill $3
Zach Rafael Soriano $1
Connor Neftali Feliz $1 (drops Weeks)
Steve Gary Sheffield $1
Matt Sean Gallagher $1
Bick Kevin Gregg $1 (drops Willis)
Strniste Cody Ross $1
Nick Chris Tillman $3
Jonathan David Ross $1

Remember to e-mail your bids by midnight Thursday night ET.

Mistake

I never got $50 from Zach as part of the CC/Webb/$50 for Morrow/Scherzer!

To add to how bad I've been screwed this offseason.... 

Round 2 Results

Results of Round 2 were as follows:

Kyle Lars Anderson $172

Matt LaPorta $301

Lance Mark Lowe $11

J.R. Towles $2
Nick - -
Andy Strniste Daniel Cabrera $1
Zach Elvis Andrus $76
Connor Rickie Weeks $1
Matt Asdrubal Cabrera $1
Jonathan - -
Steve Ken Griffey, Jr. $1


The attached spreadsheet in the e-mail contains details. I also adjusted Lance's price for Butler in round 1 down to $2 due to a mistake I had made. Remember to get nominations in for the third and final round by midnight Saturday.

LF Average 1B

For Ordonez and Duechesher.  Willing to talk about few others... Ibanez, Carmona, Saunders, Miller to name a few names.

Trade Completed

I trade:

Javier Vazquez

Connor trades:

Milton Bradley (my man-crush, for anyone who reads Sox & Cocks)

Multiple bids

I just wanted to know if we can bid on more than one player in the final round?

Circular bids?

How are we handling it if for example Jonathan and I both bid on Lowe and Towels (example). Say I throw all my $$ on lowe and the rest on towles and he throws all his money on towles and lowe as next... but we're the only two to bid on these guys? Who gets who for how much?

March Madness Pick 'Em

OK, so after saying I didn't want to organize the tournament pick 'em, I decided that maybe I really wasn't that lazy. So here it is, feel free to join.

League Name: Keeper's League: NCAA Edition "Balls welcome, bats optional."
Group ID: 19127
Group Password: sirbigspur

See you at tip off.

Round 2

Hello league. Sorry for the delay in getting this out. My flight from Chicago last night into Hartford turned into a flight this morning to Boston followed by a frantic search for the one bus company that was willing to risk its passengers' lives in the storm. Believe me when I tell you that this is the first thing I'm doing now that I'm home; I have not unpacked or even kissed my mom.

The deadline is still midnight ET Thursday night to place your bids.

Kyle Mark Lowe $1
Lance Lars Anderson $1
Nick Matt LaPorta $2
Andy Strniste Daniel Cabrera $1
Zach Elvis Andris $1
Connor Rickie Weeks $1
Jonathan J.R. Towles $1
Steve Ken Griffey, Jr. $1
Matt Asdrubal Cabrera $1


No two managers shared a nomination this time.

NL Only

I've started up the 3rd annual usc nl only league.

The needed info to join is as follows:

League ID#: 125305
Password: gococks

March Madness

Does anyone want to do a yahoo bracket?

I think it'd be fun if everyone in this league did one together, but I have no interest in setting it up myself.