Keeping trades down in online leagues

[sixfour210]

Something I would implement in my online league to keep trading down would be to reduce the fan interest meter by however many people are included in the trade for both teams involved.

For example, if Tampa Bay trades 3 players to Boston for 2 players, both teams would lose 5 fan interest points.

This is somewhat realistic especially for rebuilding teams. The more moves fans notice, the less interested they are because their noticeable players will be traded away. Even if a team gains some good talent, some fans will lose interest if too many moves are made. Think about back before free agency where players didn't switch teams as much; attendance soared. Now, where players play with 5 teams in 3 years, fans lose their interest.

I think it's a great idea to not only keep activity down but to also make GMs really think about what moves they want to make because too many moves will hurt your team. If you make one great trade, your fan interest will temporarily be lowered but if you start winning, it will rise even higher. But if you keep making moves, the fans will lose interest. Also, the larger the deal, the more fans you lose.

Let me know what you all think.

[drprestwood]

Don't like it.
What if a team trades a prospect for an established player that could help them win a pennant?

[Cuss16]

this is a great idea, especially since my league has no minor league.

[Skipaway]

Teams trading for star players should get boosts not penalties.

Perhaps you can create a more complicated system. Something like:

15 points for 5 gold stars
7 points for 4 gold stars
3 points for 3 gold stars
1 point for 2 gold stars

5 points for top 10 prospects
3 points for top 50 prospects
1 point for top 100 prospects

Just apply the differences in points to fan interest.

It surely feels more realistic. However, it might not reduce the number of trades.

[DHS23]

Ok, so now in regards to Skipaway's post.

What if you trade for a top 100 prospect who is putting up a .335 average with 35 homers?

[sixfour210]

I figure if you trade a prospect for an established player, you will gain more fan interest than lost over the course of the year.

Basically, the poorer teams lose more for bad trades (which is true in MLB) and the better teams will still see their increases.

I really like the idea of making GMs think twice before shelling out all of their players for 25 new ones. That's not realistic and there needs to be some (uncomplicated) way to penalize GMs for making superfluous trades. I tried the procedure with a computer simmed league and at the end of the season, teams actually had very realistic attendance figures as opposed to Tampa Bay bringing in 2,000,000 fans in 2003 which wouldn't happen if they traded away talent.

[[WWBL]Batboy]

I could not disagree more!

Originally posted by sixfour210
I think it's a great idea to not only keep activity down

I understand wanting realism, but in an online league the idea is to have active owners.

Originally posted by sixfour210
but to also make GMs really think about what moves they want to make because too many moves will hurt your team.

Says who?
If the team already stinks how could lots of trades make them worse?

It also depends on who the owner is and what kind of trades are made.
But that as a genral rule is FALSE.

Originally posted by sixfour210
If you make one great trade, your fan interest will temporarily be lowered

Why?
If Boston got A-Rod do you think fan interest would go down?
I don't. Even if they lost Nomar, which the city loves, and Manny. I think interest would go up.
Everybody would want to see if A-Rod was the answer.
The same should happen in Texas. Boston would have been giving Texas money along with Manny which means they could have traded for or signed better pitching. The fans would have shown up there to see what happened.

Originally posted by sixfour210
Also, the larger the deal, the more fans you lose.

Why?
In a 2 year period Seattle lost Randy Johnson (traded), Ken Griffey (traded) and A-Rod (FA) (Which I would have been mad at as a fan. I would rather trade a guy than lose him to FA and get nothing in return, at least you got something for the guy before he hit the road if you traded him. So if you choose to go this route you should add the FA factor in too.) And the next season, after losing A-Rod, they were chasing the best record in MLB history.


If owners want to be active, I say let them be active. At least you have owners making deals. Many leagues would kill for what you are trying to stop or slow down. I understand trying to be realistic but would this rule make it fun for my owners.

It's an online sim league. I'm not saying you can't have realism but you have to figure out for yourself would this be fun for my owners or make things harder on them (or am I making rules that I understand and owners really don't; keep it simple. But most important keep it fun and keep it fair. The larger clubs in your league will already have an advantage don't make it impossible to improve the smaller clubs).

[Wander]

I totally agree with Batboy!!!!!!!

[sixfour210]

Originally posted by [WWBL]Batboy
I understand wanting realism, but in an online league the idea is to have active owners.

That's not my idea. I'd rather keep the realism than to have owners who constantly trade players every week.


Says who?
If the team already stinks how could lots of trades make them worse?

It shows that the team is giving up and looking to be successful down the road. Fans will leave because they know the team is not trying to be competitive anymore.


Why?
If Boston got A-Rod do you think fan interest would go down?
I don't. Even if they lost Nomar, which the city loves, and Manny. I think interest would go up.
Everybody would want to see if A-Rod was the answer.
The same should happen in Texas. Boston would have been giving Texas money along with Manny which means they could have traded for or signed better pitching. The fans would have shown up there to see what happened.

You don't think Boston would lose fans if Nomar left Boston? In every city, there are people who go to games just to see one player. If they are traded, they'll stop going to as many games. However, they may start to go back again once the team starts winning.


Why?
In a 2 year period Seattle lost Randy Johnson (traded), Ken Griffey (traded) and A-Rod (FA) (Which I would have been mad at as a fan. I would rather trade a guy than lose him to FA and get nothing in return, at least you got something for the guy before he hit the road if you traded him. So if you choose to go this route you should add the FA factor in too.) And the next season, after losing A-Rod, they were chasing the best record in MLB history.

Yes, and even though Seattle won 12 more games in 2000 than in 1999, they drew 2,000 LESS fans. How do you explain that? Maybe because they traded away a lot of their players and the fans were less interested. But when they started to lessen the trades and started winning big, their attendance rose a ton. That's what this system does.


If owners want to be active, I say let them be active. At least you have owners making deals. Many leagues would kill for what you are trying to stop or slow down. I understand trying to be realistic but would this rule make it fun for my owners.

It's an online sim league. I'm not saying you can't have realism but you have to figure out for yourself would this be fun for my owners or make things harder on them (or am I making rules that I understand and owners really don't; keep it simple. But most important keep it fun and keep it fair. The larger clubs in your league will already have an advantage don't make it impossible to improve the smaller clubs).

It's called a challenge. If I run a league, it will be more of a challenge than other leagues just like in real life. It may take several years for a team like the Brewers to become a winning franchise in real life, but in the game, it's fairly easy to turn them arond in 2 years.

[mad0die]

I would say that the majority of people are not going to be interested in having a fan interest penalty for trading. As trading is one of the most fun parts of on-line OOTP that you simply can not experience solo. I would expect most of the feeback you get to be along those lines. However, I'm sure you can find a niche of people who feel the same way as you about trading.

[[WWBL]Batboy]

Originally posted by sixfour210
You don't think Boston would lose fans if Nomar left Boston? In every city, there are people who go to games just to see one player. If they are traded, they'll stop going to as many games. However, they may start to go back again once the team starts winning.

Lose fans?
Maybe. But don't you think that would have been off set by those wanting to see the AL MVP?

But what you're saying is if I have a team in a playoff race and one of my starters goes down my team would take a hit for making a trade to try and stay in the race. But if I sat on my hands and did nothing to try and make up for that lose I stay the same?

Don't you think the fans would be happy the team tried to stay in the playoffs instead off just sitting there and doing nothing except waiting for next season or hoping the the current staff could carry it?


How do I explain 2000 less fans in 2000 than in 1999 in Seattle?
A new stadium in '99 everyone already saw it and in '00 didn't need to go again?
Ticket prices went up?
Safeco is a baseball only stadium I'd bet it seats less than the Kingdom did. And Safsco didn't open up until after the All-Star break in '99. So half the games where in a larger staduim in '99.

[redmarkYankees]

Originally posted by mad0die
I would say that the majority of people are not going to be interested in having a fan interest penalty for trading. As trading is one of the most fun parts of on-line OOTP that you simply can not experience solo.

I think that's a key point. If an online league is reduced to glancing at a website, downloading a league file and reviewing some box scores every few days to see how you did, waiting for the years to roll by so that your prospects can mature and bring success, you might as well be playing solo and getting more involved in the game.

I think any system that wants to tie fan interest to trading has to account for boosts when signing big name players and decreases should be linked to the quality, not quantity, of players lost vs players gained. In the end of course, that's what the game does anyway, as trades which help your team increase attendances, trades which damage your team reduce them.

The basic 'quantity-led' mechanism described would penalise a team which traded 3 or 4 average players for a superstar, rather than vice versa. Just doesn't sound justifiable, IMO.

[Crackerjack]

Why penalize for trading?

Just like the real MLB, everyone has opinions on how a trade turns out. Example: Tigers traded Jeff Weaver, I thought it was stupid...weaver was gonna be our ace. Now where he is he?

[IatricSB]

Originally posted by Wander
I totally agree with Batboy!!!!!!!

[John Wayne Voice]
That's [WWBL]Batboy to you pilgrim
[/John Wayne Voice]

[IatricSB]

Originally posted by Crackerjack
Example: Tigers traded Jeff Weaver, I thought it was stupid...weaver was gonna be our ace. Now where he is he?

Los Angeles

[Oakjefferson]

Originally posted by sixfour210
I think it's a great idea to not only keep activity down

is this supposed to be a good thing?

[LivnLegend]

Want to help keep trading realistic?

- Don't allow draft picks to be traded
- Join a historical or fictional league rather than a "brand new real roster league with a fantasy draft!"
- Don't join a league run by teenagers and their buddies

[This Is Not Here]

Try what I did in the OCBL, every team has 3 franchise players (league appoints a pitcher and a position player, team chooses the 3rd). If the team deals one of those franchise players, they are heavily penalized in loyalty and interest.

This way they can trade all the Clay Bellingers, Jeff Fryes, Joe McEwings they want. However, it will curve those deals that lead to Barry Bonds and Greg Maddux traded four times in a season.

[sporr]

We have no-trade clauses for the top players in Baseball Maelstrom. It has worked out pretty well to keep the best players from switching teams several times per year. However, there is a general ebb and flow to trading in an online league. We've had seasons where trading gets pretty crazy and other years where there are barely any trades at all.

[sixfour210]

Originally posted by mad0die
I would say that the majority of people are not going to be interested in having a fan interest penalty for trading. As trading is one of the most fun parts of on-line OOTP that you simply can not experience solo. I would expect most of the feeback you get to be along those lines. However, I'm sure you can find a niche of people who feel the same way as you about trading.

And with my coming league primarily being a solo league, I won't mind if only a couple people are interested in my idea.