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Earlier versions of OOTP: Commissioner's Corner Want to run an online league? Want to learn about the 'ins' and 'outs' of being a commish? This is the place!

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Old 01-29-2009, 10:05 AM   #1
Jaxxvain
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Ideas for league parity...

What ideas do you guys have to create league parity.

Specifically I want to have a league that one owner does not win 10 out of 12 seasons. I don't specifically want to punish an owner for success, but perhaps provide more of a reasonable challenge.

Also, I don't want cellar dwellers to get stuck there.

I have a few ideas on the subject, but I want to hear some other views before posting them.
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Old 01-29-2009, 02:05 PM   #2
yajeflow
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in all seriousness...

get better owners. the pirates are bad because they have made poor decisions. the braves were very bad in the 80s for this reason, too. once they moved aaron out of a real position of importance to a 'promotion' in title only, they started winning. there should be 'brain sharing' instead of 'revenue sharing'.

i've been in a FPS Pro league where everyone had to operate at the lowest common denominator. it was so staggeringly slanted towards the bottom teams that it took no effort at all to become a winner at some point. just do nothing except sit back and have teams toss you players, draft picks and then wipe your bum.
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Old 01-29-2009, 05:18 PM   #3
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There is some truth to the idea that better owners are necessary. Before you can address it, though, you really need to figure out WHY you don't have league parity, though.

Are teams at the top making so much money that they can simply continue to buy their way to more talent? - Maybe you need to tighten finances a bit so teams have to make tougher choices on who to sign

Are teams at the top the teams that are most active? - Maybe you need to replace inactive owners with ones who are active

Are teams at the bottom seeing all their high end draft picks go to waste? - Maybe you need to reduce the frequency of talent changes so that prospects drafted earlier are less likely to lose their high talents

Are teams at the top simply making smarter moves compared to teams at the bottom? - Maybe you need to get some smarter GM's for the bad teams, but maybe you need to find ways for teams to talk about strategy more so that your owners are a bit closer to each other in terms of experience.

I'm sure there are other reasons you don't have parity, as well as other solutions to the ones I posted here, but there really isn't a blanket statement "If you do this, you won't have this problem" that applies to all leagues. Utlimately, there are just too many variables in terms of league settings and GM's to say that. I think the one thing that is true in any league, however, is that inactive owners will never perform as well as active ones. If you've got a high percentage of inactive owners - it would behoove you to figure out why.
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Old 01-29-2009, 06:32 PM   #4
Jaxxvain
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Originally Posted by fhomess View Post
There is some truth to the idea that better owners are necessary. Before you can address it, though, you really need to figure out WHY you don't have league parity, though.

Are teams at the top making so much money that they can simply continue to buy their way to more talent? - Maybe you need to tighten finances a bit so teams have to make tougher choices on who to sign

Are teams at the top the teams that are most active? - Maybe you need to replace inactive owners with ones who are active

Are teams at the bottom seeing all their high end draft picks go to waste? - Maybe you need to reduce the frequency of talent changes so that prospects drafted earlier are less likely to lose their high talents

Are teams at the top simply making smarter moves compared to teams at the bottom? - Maybe you need to get some smarter GM's for the bad teams, but maybe you need to find ways for teams to talk about strategy more so that your owners are a bit closer to each other in terms of experience.

I'm sure there are other reasons you don't have parity, as well as other solutions to the ones I posted here, but there really isn't a blanket statement "If you do this, you won't have this problem" that applies to all leagues. Utlimately, there are just too many variables in terms of league settings and GM's to say that. I think the one thing that is true in any league, however, is that inactive owners will never perform as well as active ones. If you've got a high percentage of inactive owners - it would behoove you to figure out why.
I don't even have a league yet. I am trying to design one, that will offer parity. It will challenge the "good" GMs and assist the bad GMs. I think a lot of what you talked about above is self-fulfilling. Bad GMs and inactive GMs run the team in the ground, lose interest and move on. New owners, unless they are really, really good, can not over come the handicap that the previous owner placed on them. Then they lose interest and become inactive. Conversely, good GMs and active GMs get less and less challenge from the new owners.

Check most online leagues, and you will see teams that are making the playoffs every year AND have a top farm system. It becomes perpetual, too easy for the GM to maintain the good team, for many reasons, some due to shortcomings in the game, some due to good things in the game.

I want to try and create parity, even if it is forced (to some degree). I think there are a few of these good GMs that would actually welcome the additional challenge. I just don't know how far to go. I don't want to just make a rule that says if you win 100 games or the world series you lose your first round pick, or something weird like that. I would rather fine tune some things to help even out "chance" of success for the league as a whole.
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Old 01-29-2009, 07:23 PM   #5
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  • Disallow draft pick trading.
  • Allow new GM's to buy out contracts when taking over a team.
  • Trade review board to review trades for balance and competitiveness.
  • Disallow programs like increasing stadium size using cash dollars.
  • Reset fan interest to 50 after each season for teams under 50.
  • Award budget dollars, not cash, for participation in the league (voting for All Stars, post-season awards, for news articles about your team and league).
  • Salary cap.
  • Equalized media contracts
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Old 01-29-2009, 09:04 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Raidergoo View Post
  • Disallow draft pick trading.
  • Allow new GM's to buy out contracts when taking over a team.
  • Trade review board to review trades for balance and competitiveness.
  • Disallow programs like increasing stadium size using cash dollars.
  • Reset fan interest to 50 after each season for teams under 50.
  • Award budget dollars, not cash, for participation in the league (voting for All Stars, post-season awards, for news articles about your team and league).
  • Salary cap.
  • Equalized media contracts
Most of these are in our league rules.
We capped stadium sizes.
Wipe any on hand cash over 80 mil at the end of each season.
No participation awards, some seasons are slower than others but participation is strong
3 sims without an export and you get an email. Inactive owners are replaced
Recruit lots of Beta testers and moderators into your league (I just lucked out)
Obviously fair commish, I've never been concerned about the actions of any of our commissioners
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Old 01-29-2009, 09:30 PM   #7
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One thing that you should be careful of is that there is already very little incentive to try and win if you are a middle of the pack team. If you can't make the playoffs you are better off losing rather than being competitive. The more you penalize the good teams the less incentive there is to be a good team unless you are a true contender.

Unlike real life there is no pressure to win (ie fan and owner demands) there's only the pride factor to motivate a GM. The difference in winning 70 games vs 80 games is a lower draft pick, so why bother trying to win those extra 10?

Having GM's who decide to go the "rebuild route", instead of winning those extra 10 games, has a lot to do with imbalance. It only makes it easier on the top teams to stay at the top because they can keep beating the re-builders. They only have to worry about the other elite teams and the odd re-builder who is lucky enough to finally see their prospects hitting their prime. They don't have to worry about that 75 to 85 win team that might get lucky, because that owner is more tempted to sell and get better draft picks.

Basically, I don't think you want to penalize people too much for winning and you want to encourage people to try to win instead of rebuild.

Also, you don't want to take all the fun out of the league either (ie trading draft picks)
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Old 01-30-2009, 02:14 PM   #8
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I'm totally against parity. I'm pretty sure most of Raidergoo's rules would wreck our league, as the current GM's would all quit. (We do have a salary cap.)

If you put the work into a team, you win. There's no penalty for winning.
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Old 01-30-2009, 03:18 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Solonor View Post
I'm totally against parity. I'm pretty sure most of Raidergoo's rules would wreck our league, as the current GM's would all quit. (We do have a salary cap.)

If you put the work into a team, you win. There's no penalty for winning.
My sentiments exactly. I would rather put forth the effort to find owners who want to compete in a realistically uneven environment than work to create an artificially level playing field that strips away all the incentive to build a dynasty. Every team should have a chance to experience success, of course, but the joy is in the different paths each team takes to the top. Our league wouldn't be the same without those differences.
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:12 PM   #10
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we've got owners who all have different goals. some owners are trying to win titles. some are trying to build great minor league systems (we have trophies for each minor league, too). some are trying to make money and be the most profitable. we even have a team that is focused almost exclusively on ticketing price strategy and generating maximum revenues. we've got a team that treats the players as commodities, buying a guy at a low price and then quickly finding a better price for him elsewhere.

the league was created with an imbalance of talent, and an imbalance of loot. the 'goals' have sprung forth from this universe we plopped into. the point is...'winning' can mean many things. the team that 'won' the title lost $600,000K. to *me*, that wasn't worth it (i am the 'profit' guy).
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Old 01-30-2009, 06:09 PM   #11
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One thing that you should be careful of is that there is already very little incentive to try and win if you are a middle of the pack team. If you can't make the playoffs you are better off losing rather than being competitive. The more you penalize the good teams the less incentive there is to be a good team unless you are a true contender.
One way to get around this is to set up your league with a lower percentage of playoff teams. In a division of 8 teams and no wild cards, it's very hard to turn a cellar dwellar into a contender without going through a season or two in the middle of the pack first. I also believe that teams hold on to key players a little longer since they know it takes a little more effort to get to the top, but I think that depends a bit on the GM's involved.
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Old 01-30-2009, 07:47 PM   #12
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great discussion guys, I appreciate your input.

A couple of things that I am considering incorporating in my yet to be invented league...

1) No trading first round picks
Simple enough really, but not sure how strictly to enforce the dealing of these players AFTER they are drafted. Maybe a one year rule.

2) Salary cap
Though not fail safe, it definitely helps create some parity, and is useful in keeping player salaries somewhat "normalized" for lack of a better word.

3) No stadium improvements
All stadiums will be the same, all the time.

4) Equalized media contracts
This is per usual, unless the league is specifically designed to set up different challenges for different owners.

5) Lots of teams making playoffs
This is for fun after all. I think the active/accomplished GMs will still be motivated to win the division, and succeed in the playoffs, and the lesser GMs will be motivated to keep their teams in good shape to gain a better playoff seed, and have a chance to upset some big boys.

6) Promotion/Relegation
This is the part that will be quite unique about my league, and quite different from other relegation systems used in real life as well as some that are in the ootp community (wbh and eab). Essentially everyone could move, each year, depending on a bunch of things (not all hammered out yet) and everyone will play most of their games against relatively evenly matched opponents.

7) Free Agent compensation
This will have to be done manually, unless it gets fixed in OOTP 10. As for now it will not be run the same as the MLB. Teams will never lose a pick, but the team losing a player will gain a sandwich pick. The pick order for these picks will be determined by the teams relegation score.

8) Faster player development, less arbitration years
Not completely sure if this will help or not, but I want owners to have a chance to stick it out long enough to see their prospects make the bigs. I also want it hard for owners to keep dynasties together, and at the same time this may liven up the sometimes stale free agency period. Again, not sure how this will play out, might backfire.

Basically I have seen too many leagues were a majority of teams will never win, and some teams will never lose. Like I said before I don't want to penalize an owner for winning, but I want to challenge him to keep it up. And I want to give new owners, and yes even less "ootp savvy" owners hope to succeed as well.
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Old 12-08-2009, 05:04 PM   #13
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great discussion guys, I appreciate your input.


8) Faster player development, less arbitration years
Not completely sure if this will help or not, but I want owners to have a chance to stick it out long enough to see their prospects make the bigs. I also want it hard for owners to keep dynasties together, and at the same time this may liven up the sometimes stale free agency period. Again, not sure how this will play out, might backfire.
Does anyone have an experience or discussion on faster player development. Ideally I would like to see a guy get drafted in 2010, and be ML ready after 2 or 3 seasons in the minors.
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Old 12-08-2009, 05:59 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by yajeflow View Post
we've got owners who all have different goals. some owners are trying to win titles. some are trying to build great minor league systems (we have trophies for each minor league, too). some are trying to make money and be the most profitable. we even have a team that is focused almost exclusively on ticketing price strategy and generating maximum revenues. we've got a team that treats the players as commodities, buying a guy at a low price and then quickly finding a better price for him elsewhere.

the league was created with an imbalance of talent, and an imbalance of loot. the 'goals' have sprung forth from this universe we plopped into. the point is...'winning' can mean many things. the team that 'won' the title lost $600,000K. to *me*, that wasn't worth it (i am the 'profit' guy).
I like the idea of different goals. I'd just add that the best at those goals each year should be celebrated in a way too with a record of each through the years just like the championships record in OOTP, but with maybe including the top 3 finishers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaxxvain View Post
great discussion guys, I appreciate your input.

A couple of things that I am considering incorporating in my yet to be invented league...

[snip]
1) I'm not a fan of disallowing the trading of high round picks, even just 1st rounders. Trading can be a lot of fun. I don't think it's wise to limit trading unless it's disallowing obviously totally one-sided deals. Let the guys have fun. I think it's smart to disallow the late round picks though because: 1) it makes your job as commish a little easier, and 2) it helps ensure that a team should at least have some picks that might develop.

2) Don't think just having a salary cap will work well. You don't want it too high or too low. You need to find the right cap for your league and that's not all that easy.

3) Do stadium improvements really make much difference, really? If not, then I wouldn't restrict too much one's desire to customize things how they like. If anything, maybe allow for ranges of values.

5) Yeah, there are some traditionalists out there who believe less is better, but this is about what's fun and if only very few teams make the playoffs it could be easy to lose interest.

6) I'm a big fan of promotion/relegation, but how exactly is yours going to be to different?

7) This sounds nice and all, but I'd strongly advise you not to give yourself too much work. Starting a league you might think you have a tonne of great ideas, but it's probably best to try to keep it at least a little simple to start off with otherwise you're likely to burn yourself out fairly soon. This one thing probably wouldn't be that much work, but I'd think it's a good candidate for leaving out initially.

Finally, a note about having parity as a goal. I'm not sure that "parity" is actually a goal that you should really strive for. Take for example late in the http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...shootouts.html thread where I argue that parity might be a decent goal from an economic standpoint and even an entertainment one, but if it's done to the point where everything just becomes mediocre then it's probably not such an ideal choice. I agree with you that you don't want to make it too easy for good GMs or too difficult for bad teams, but there's also something to be said for having a really great team in the league to look up to and aspire to one day best. For example, previous to last year, Niagara won the last 5 CBL championships and 6 of the last 7. I didn't take them out this last season, in the final I took out the team that took them out, but it still made for a great story that the juggernauts were finally dethroned. If OTOH you have a league where more often than not a different team is winning it every year, well, there's not as much of a triumphant feeling. It's almost a feeling like, "well, it was just our year". So go for parity if you want, but just keep in mind that you might not want to go too far with it either.
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