I Propose a Trade

[mattynokes]

If we want to address the talent issue, it should start with lowering the Farm Systems to Very Good or Average. The "random" drops that seemingly happen to every player once they hit 30 are starting to make this game no longer fun. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. With lesser chances of prospects booming, I'd tend to think veterans will have more realistic careers.

[hokeyrules]

I like Matty's point!

[dejota]

I think if we want to address that it's longevity that we'd have to adjust and that would take even longer to occur. That being said I'm not against lowering farm down a notch either. Especially if somebody ran some sims with equalized spending and farms at two different levels to make sure it'd halp.

[AndyP]

I'm not sure we're going to fix the longevity issue to anyone's satisfaction, but a little bit better consistency would be nice.

[GoIrish]

I voted no because at any point that the settings in the file are tinkered with, we have a non optimal effect. When the injury settings were tinkered with we saw injuries out the wazoo.

[Cdawg]

while I understand what's going on, I don't quite get the full picture of it all. I'd like to see a bit more of a write up on what the idea is and why it should be w/ much stronger points than "we are higher than normal."
As I said I would just like a good solid picture of what's going on to make an educated decision.

[dejota]

There's really 3 different things going on:

1) Purely based off principal, too much talent generally makes it harder for rebuilding teams to compete, allows for dynasties and waters down any parity that's inherent to the sport (IRL). We've managed to avoid this for the most part but 3 of the 4 teams in the Championship Series were repeats from just a year ago.

2) Mogul seems to take advantage of the talent caps we've set and this has been consistent for a few seasons. We say 3.9% as the limit it's giving us 6.2%. That may seem small but it amounts to about 40-50 more STAR PLAYERS than we intend or about 1.5 90+ players/team. Since talent tents to gravitate together all it really does as far as the big picture is concerned, is fortify strong teams and increase the difficulty for weaker teams. This is the opposite of real life, IMO.

3) On the league level we're seeing teams with talent have little trouble maintaining it simply because they don't have to trade away talent to maintain success. I think it's taking it's toll on league health when you consider I haven't had to make a big time acquisition for over 2 full seasons and neither has Toronto, Florida or Chicago aside from tweaking (Bogho for Roberts, two aces for teheran, upgrading carter come to mind).

If I were a rebuilding team that would be unbelievably demoralizing. It should be much more difficult to stay on top than to get there and I feel we have the opposite in FCM atm. It's becoming harder and harder to climb to the top and easier and easier to stay there. This is like a colorless/odorless gas, it will kill a league without anyone even noticing until it's too late IMO.

[GoIrish]

I don't know if I completely agree with you DJ. Last season we had ST. Louis who was a rebuilding team take the wild card. They followed it up this season with winning 97 games. Those 97 games would have been enough to win the NL West or East. It was bad luck that Chicago and Houston had good seasons and are in the same divison because 97 is typically enough to win the wild card. If they did not have the dc issues at the start of the season, they could have maybe won 100+.

I am all for trying anything that will promote parody within the league for better competition, I just don't understand the logic that lowering the ratings of players will do that. Yes rating will drop on the Chicago's, Houston, Toronto's, Florida's, etc etc but the ratings will also drop on the other teams as well. How will that help them close the gap?

I don't think what we see now in FCM is far off of what we see in real life.

Here are the ALCS and NLCS since 2000
2000 ALCS NYY vs SEA / NLCS NYM vs STL
2001 ALCS NYY vs SEA / NLCS ARZ vs ATL
2002 ALCS ANA vs MIN / NLCS SFG vs STL
2003 ALCS NYY vs BOS / NLCS FL vs CHC (fucking bartman)
2004 ALCS NYY vs BOS / NLCS STL vs HOU
2005 ALCS CHW vs LAA / NLCS STL vs HOU
2006 ALCS DET vs OAK / NLCS STL vs NYM
2007 ALCS BOS vs CLE / NLCS COL vs ARZ
2008 ALCS TBR vs BOS/ NLCS PHI vs LAD
2009 ALCS NYY vs LAA/ NLCS PHI vs LAD
2010 ALCS TX vs NYY / NLCS PHI vs SFG

in the past decade you have seen 4 repeat matchups in back to back years. You have also seen a repeat of some of the same teams over and over. You have also seen 2 teams win multiple championships (NYY and BOS). When you say that the league is not a mimic of real life, I don't follow that at all.

If you want to find a way to make the league have more parody, I am all for it and I will do whatever it takes to make more people have fun. I am just not in agreement that the lowering of talent levels will achieve your goal.


I also have no issues with even swaping teams with someone if they want to play a front runner for a change (personally, I like the underdog role more). I would even be willing to take on the SEA situtation and let HB take over CHC.

[AndyP]

For me, lowering talent levels has more to do with realistic rosters than it does with realistic results....just me though.

[mattynokes]

I don't think lowering the talent levels will necessarily fix the dynasty fears or promote balance. The drops are random so what if the teams like CHC or FLA aren't hit very hit or even at all while rebuilding teams like OAK or BAL see drops to their key players? I think lowering the talent levels is banking on that the good teams are the ones hit and that's not necessarily going to happen that way.

I'd propose to, one, lower the Farm Systems to "Average". I would skip going down just one notch to "Very Good" because I think at "Average" the minors will be more realistic. It seems to me success rate is pretty high. In my time here so far I've only seen a small handful of my prospects truly bust. If anything it's only been the mid 80s peak prospects stopping in the low 80s and that's still highly usable. I feel this will also allow for more veteran stability. We shouldn't see as many random veteran drops since prospects won't be sprouting all over the player.

I propose, secondly, that we use a sort of Force To FA system. I've seen it ran in past leagues and it helps a lot with league balance and is highly realistic since most players do test the market. Here's how I'd run it:

1. Teams can keep 3 out of every 5 players rated 90+ overall that are Free Agent eligible
2. Ratings will be determined by the World Series file
3. If a player who is signed in-season becomes a 90+ rating by the end of the season, he will count towards being 1 of the 3 retained 90+ rated players
4. If a player qualifies for fallback arbitration, the team can offer it to them
5. If a team allows 3+ players to test the market, they will be credited to keep additional players during the next cycle
i.e. If COL allows 3 90+ players to go to FA, COL will be able to sign 4 90+ players during the next cycle

Charting it will be easy and would look like this...

Colorado Assuming all are rated 90+ for example purposes
1. C Gabriel Gamora - Signed
2. 3B Duque Alomzo - Signed
3. CF Wesley Freeman - FA
4. RF Ryan Westmoreland - FA
5.

In this example I would have met me quota for allowing two 90+ overalls to test the market, so I would be free to sign the next 90+ player who becomes FA eligible. However, I could choose to let that player test the market and be able to sign 4 players during the next cycle.