Competitive balance discussion

[Maddox]

I spent $5 in beta but that has been it. I still like my main team but they faltered last season. My second team just got moved up to silver and it has had no money spent on it. It is a theme team though (all Cardinals) so it will never be competitive at the top levels.

Neither team even has a Diamond yet, as the diamonds I would like to have are all too expensive. I had roughly 8500 PP last night and spent them on two Gold Historical pitchers, replacing Rich Hill and pushing Wainwright to long relief in the bullpen.

If I settle into the gold division with both teams with so little money spent then that would be fine with me.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Maddox

Neither team even has a Diamond yet, as the diamonds I would like to have are all too expensive. I had roughly 8500 PP last night and spent them on two Gold Historical pitchers, replacing Rich Hill and pushing Wainwright to long relief in the bullpen.

I think that is a good call. I am finding better Gold than diamonds. Even the Verlander Gold seems better than his diamond card.

[Maddox]

Originally Posted by daves

I think that is a good call. I am finding better Gold than diamonds. Even the Verlander Gold seems better than his diamond card.

Yeah, I kind of like seeing how far I can get with no Diamonds. I am sure that will eventually have some but I am not sure when.


My team is kind of morphing itself into a historical team, at least on the offensive side.

[huskerdan25]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Look at the best teams in your league. They will mostly look like this:

C Posey/Grandal
1B Goldschmidt/Freeman
2B Altuve/Ramirez
3B Arenado/Rendon
SS Lindor
LF Yelich
CF Trout
RF Betts
DH J.D. Martinez

SP deGrom
SP Sale
SP Kershaw
SP Syndergaard
SP MLB2018 diamond
CL Treinen/Diaz/Doolittle
RP Minter/MLB2018 diamond starter

Of course, there are exceptions, especially for some coveted historical cards such as Randy Johnson. But for the most part, this is the team you need if you want to play with the big boys.

Edit: I forgot to add the standard DH.

My team looks nothing like this except for 3 players (Arenado, Lindor and Grandal) and I'm glad. Just won the B251 league and getting promoted to Silver. Mostly historical studs. Here is my lineup:

C Grandal/Realmuto
1B Lou Gehrig
2B Trevor Story
3B Nolan Arenado
SS Francisco Lindor
LF Babe Ruth
CF Tris Speaker/Rickey Henderson
RF Hank Aaron
DH Stan Musial

SP Kevin Brown
SP James Paxton
SP Wilbur Wood
SP Patrick Corbin
SP Kyle Freeland

CL Billy Wagner

So there are a few that are common across the more competitive teams but I have a lot of great historical stars and I did not get any via the auction process. All but a couple of gold cards via standard packs. I spent some money to buy gold packs but ended up getting some of the same players (I must have gotten Trevor Story 5 times) and I ended up just selling those cards back for 1000pp and getting standard packs. So, I think I was probably just very lucky to get so many of the historical cards in the standard packs but now I have a team I think that can complete at the higher levels. We'll see now that my team will be in a silver league after getting promoted.

I love having the team mostly historical stars, not modern. Lindor and Story have been solid but Arenado not so much so. But the historical stars are all performed very well.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Maddox

I spent $5 in beta but that has been it. I still like my main team but they faltered last season. My second team just got moved up to silver and it has had no money spent on it. It is a theme team though (all Cardinals) so it will never be competitive at the top levels.

Neither team even has a Diamond yet, as the diamonds I would like to have are all too expensive. I had roughly 8500 PP last night and spent them on two Gold Historical pitchers, replacing Rich Hill and pushing Wainwright to long relief in the bullpen.

If I settle into the gold division with both teams with so little money spent then that would be fine with me.

Gold is where my all Dodger team has currently topped out at

[shockenawe]

Originally Posted by daves

Good idea, but temptation was too great. Spent $15 and $20 on two teams. Looking at other teams, more was spent (their choice).

I have a team in the diamond league without spending a dime. I'm going to guess I won't be promoted again and might get demoted, but we will see how the week goes. Point is that you can be competitive without spending any money.

[Weaseltail]

Originally Posted by shockenawe

I have a team in the diamond league without spending a dime.

Me too. But at this point I'm just a punching bag. I don't think it's possible to actually compete at higher levels without spending some decent money or getting really lucky with packs. Over a whole season, there's just not way my patchwork of silvers, golds, and a couple diamonds can stay anywhere close to most D-level teams with multiple perfect cards.

Eventually I'll get relegated to a league that fits my team, but right now most free teams are just fodder in the upper divisions.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Here are the Top 20 position players in my gold league. Some diversity would be nice.

Attachment 594183

but are those players actually performing up to standards? Seems like the 'top 20' report is just based off their card ratings, not their performance. If I pull that report for my current league, the top rated position player is actually only batting .111 (granted it's early, but he's not exactly tearing it up)

I like the 'top performances' report better... while that might show the same players as well, at least it's showing them performing well even if it's from just a single game

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by stl jason

but are those players actually performing up to standards? Seems like the 'top 20' report is just based off their card ratings, not their performance. If I pull that report for my current league, the top rated position player is actually only batting .111 (granted it's early, but he's not exactly tearing it up)

I like the 'top performances' report better... while that might show the same players as well, at least it's showing them performing well even if it's from just a single game

The players don't even have 100 at bats yet, so it is way too early to draw conclusions about performance from this season. But, as I said earlier in this thread, those two players made up 70% of the top 10 WAR totals among position players in two different gold leagues last season. You can check your league for career totals in all levels and you will see what I mean.


Just checked my Diamond .306 league: The top 20 career WAR among position players includes 11 Trouts and 4 Betts (75%). The top 10 is 4 Trout and 3 Betts (70%).


Basically, you either have Trout and Betts, or you can't afford Trout and Betts, or you are determined to go against the grain and try to win without Trout and Betts which means you pay at least double to get near-equivalent performance from a historical pair of outfielders.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The players don't even have 100 at bats yet, so it is way too early to draw conclusions about performance from this season. But, as I said earlier in this thread, those two players made up 70% of the top 10 WAR totals among position players in two different gold leagues last season. You can check your league for career totals in all levels and you will see what I mean.


Just checked my Diamond .306 league: The top 20 career WAR among position players includes 11 Trouts and 4 Betts (75%). The top 10 is 4 Trout and 3 Betts (70%).


Basically, you either have Trout and Betts, or you can't afford Trout and Betts, or you are determined to go against the grain and try to win without Trout and Betts which means you pay at least double to get near-equivalent performance from a historical pair of outfielders.

probably "helps" that my teams are still down in the silver leagues, so all of the Trouts, Betts et al have moved on to bigger and better leagues... here's a shot of the career batting for all levels sorted by WAR for the players in my current league (players 6 and 8 are two of my old timey team guys):

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by stl jason

probably "helps" that my teams are still down in the silver leagues, so all of the Trouts, Betts et al have moved on to bigger and better leagues... here's a shot of the career batting for all levels sorted by WAR for the players in my current league (players 6 and 8 are two of my old timey team guys):

Yes, this is a silver league, so option 2.

[NYY #23]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The players don't even have 100 at bats yet, so it is way too early to draw conclusions about performance from this season. But, as I said earlier in this thread, those two players made up 70% of the top 10 WAR totals among position players in two different gold leagues last season. You can check your league for career totals in all levels and you will see what I mean.


Just checked my Diamond .306 league: The top 20 career WAR among position players includes 11 Trouts and 4 Betts (75%). The top 10 is 4 Trout and 3 Betts (70%).


Basically, you either have Trout and Betts, or you can't afford Trout and Betts, or you are determined to go against the grain and try to win without Trout and Betts which means you pay at least double to get near-equivalent performance from a historical pair of outfielders.

My diamond league is similar - Trout/Betts make up 90% of top 10, 60% of top 20 with the Bonds, Ruth, Mays sprinkled in.

Only one surprise for me, Willie Wilson putting up 20 WAR, including 8 WAR in Gold.

[shockenawe]

Originally Posted by Weaseltail

Me too. But at this point I'm just a punching bag. I don't think it's possible to actually compete at higher levels without spending some decent money or getting really lucky with packs. Over a whole season, there's just not way my patchwork of silvers, golds, and a couple diamonds can stay anywhere close to most D-level teams with multiple perfect cards.

Eventually I'll get relegated to a league that fits my team, but right now most free teams are just fodder in the upper divisions.

Or you'll have to find ways to outsmart the meta teams by picking players with skills that are difficult for them to deal with. The good news is that the players you'd look for to counter the meta will likely come much cheaper than the cookie cutter players everyone else is using.That's what I'll be working on next.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by shockenawe

Or you'll have to find ways to outsmart the meta teams by picking players with skills that are difficult for them to deal with. The good news is that the players you'd look for to counter the meta will likely come much cheaper than the cookie cutter players everyone else is using.That's what I'll be working on next.

You can't outsmart Trout and Betts. You outsmart yourself by avoiding Trout and Betts.

[shockenawe]

Originally Posted by Orcin

You can't outsmart Trout and Betts. You outsmart yourself by avoiding Trout and Betts.

It's not about outsmarting yourself when you aren't going to put the money in the game. Maybe one day once I start saving up for bigger purchases, but for now, you have to make smart (cheap) purchases to keep your competitive if you are going the free to play route.

[Radsmats]

I'm just starting out and have a decent team ... my first bronze league season. The team in first has 17 Gold players, with the rest of his roster Silver and 15 Silver players in reserves. His worst player is his 5th string catcher, who rates 66 overall. Needless to say the league is entirely uncompetitive (although there's a pretty good race for second between teams that did not buy their entire roster). If there were a way to automatically start loaded teams at higher tiers it would be better. I can't imagine the owner who spent god knows how much will get much satisfaction out of kicking the stuffing out of the rest of us and for the rest of the league it's a wasted season.

[mess]

Originally Posted by Radsmats

I'm just starting out and have a decent team ... my first bronze league season. The team in first has 17 Gold players, with the rest of his roster Silver and 15 Silver players in reserves. His worst player is his 5th string catcher, who rates 66 overall. Needless to say the league is entirely uncompetitive (although there's a pretty good race for second between teams that did not buy their entire roster). If there were a way to automatically start loaded teams at higher tiers it would be better. I can't imagine the owner who spent god knows how much will get much satisfaction out of kicking the stuffing out of the rest of us and for the rest of the league it's a wasted season.

I know this isn't going to help you feel better...
but if he has 15 silver players on his reserve, he's just wasting PP. He should be selling those off and upgrading what he has already. He's managing his assets very poorly.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Radsmats

I'm just starting out and have a decent team ... my first bronze league season. The team in first has 17 Gold players, with the rest of his roster Silver and 15 Silver players in reserves. His worst player is his 5th string catcher, who rates 66 overall. Needless to say the league is entirely uncompetitive (although there's a pretty good race for second between teams that did not buy their entire roster). If there were a way to automatically start loaded teams at higher tiers it would be better. I can't imagine the owner who spent god knows how much will get much satisfaction out of kicking the stuffing out of the rest of us and for the rest of the league it's a wasted season.

I would claim that 110-win teams usually have a pretty good time.

[Radsmats]

I know this isn't going to help you feel better...
but if he has 15 silver players on his reserve, he's just wasting PP. He should be selling those off and upgrading what he has already. He's managing his assets very poorly.
He doesn't have to manage his assets until next year when he'll move up a league ... and it doesn't bother me that much it just seems stupid all around. It makes for a poor introduction to the game for those of us who didn't spend extra money and if some guy spent real money to dominate the bronze league then yeah, that would seem like a waste of assets.

[Radsmats]

Actually a 117-win pace so far, 32 games in. Second place is a two-way tie at .500. It's like grouse hunting with a howitzer.