Talent Reductions Again! from somebody else's mouth

[Cdawg]

I think we should just stfu and wait the 2 months for BM 2k13 and switch

[GoIrish]

I really don't think things are as bad as what is perceived by some. We should not just do something to the file for the sake of doing something. If anything, I would tend to side with Andy in regards to the thoughts here, if you want to lower the talent distribution, why not start with lowering the farm quality to above average. That will slow the production of talent climbing through the minors and create less of a bottleneck of talent on the major league level. Keep in mind, I am in a rebuild and I am suggesting this.

Sean

[AndyP]

I'm with Sean, I really don't see what we're in a fuss about. Talent is relative. We could have 80s as the top level talent and it's the same process of building a team. All you did was shift it on the spectrum - but as a shift across the board the difference is moot if you know what you're doing.

Dropping farm, on it's own, would extend career paths and reduce the massive amounts of injury we get to balance talent levels.

If we are going to change something, let's make clear what our objectives are.

[mattynokes]

I'm with Sean, I really don't see what we're in a fuss about. Talent is relative. We could have 80s as the top level talent and it's the same process of building a team. All you did was shift it on the spectrum - but as a shift across the board the difference is moot if you know what you're doing.

Dropping farm, on it's own, would extend career paths and reduce the massive amounts of injury we get to balance talent levels.

If we are going to change something, let's make clear what our objectives are.

I'd say the draft and farm system go hand-in-hand. A pumped up draft is also pushing veterans out.

[hokeyrules]

lets just delete houston from the game that solves problems.

[GoIrish]

I'm with Sean, I really don't see what we're in a fuss about. Talent is relative. We could have 80s as the top level talent and it's the same process of building a team. All you did was shift it on the spectrum - but as a shift across the board the difference is moot if you know what you're doing.

Dropping farm, on it's own, would extend career paths and reduce the massive amounts of injury we get to balance talent levels.

If we are going to change something, let's make clear what our objectives are.

I'd say the draft and farm system go hand-in-hand. A pumped up draft is also pushing veterans out.

To an extent yes, but I think the farm has more of an impact as that is the progression of prospects. The faster prospect progress the faster the game has to make space for them. The more players you have ready, the more of a bottlneck you have at the ML level and that is what we are seeing.

[dejota]

Like matty said at the very end of his post, it doesn't matter what we do if we don't lower the caps since the game will just bump it back up. Hence why I focus on those, not to say I don't believe adjusting the farm sliders would do nothing (like was implied a few times for some reason). The big issue with just lowering farm talent has remained the same: the GMs at the greatest risk and traditionally most adverse to talent reductions are the one's in the middle of a rebuild. You're setting those guys back simply by lower talent progression, at least if you do a manual reduction of talent and lower the caps correspondingly you don't ruin or impede their rebuild.

Yes on the surface we have the right total number of "aces" or "middle of the order bats" and yes on a case-by-case basis they generally don't get hosed too badly on the stat distribution. It's the variance, parity and randomness that gets killed off when you have an overabundance of talent. It creates a caste system and simply retarding prospect development does nothing about that for a long time and certainly not permanently if talent caps remain high. I think this remains true even if the game trends towards developing hollow overalls since those guys don't get the roles to maintain their overall. Once they drop the game replaces them, it's what causes the ebbs and flow with talent. We always have 120-150 90s but the quality will always vary no matter what we do with sliders, IMO.

To summarize, my POV isn't as black and white as previous posts have made it seem. I actually support a reduction in amateur talent but not without or in conjunction with lowered talent caps . Because no matter what we do with farm talent if the caps aren't reduced the game will continue to have too many middle of the road players taxing stats that normally would go elsewhere and a FA market so inundated with talent it makes pretty much 0 sense to extend a guy before you have to. Instead the game (seems) to feel obligated to the studs (Pace has never waivered, top bats have no trouble hitting 300/400/500 but they never flirt with a super high ba or 50 HRs, it's the exceptions that don't seem to play out anymore) and for everyone else they're lucky to reach 80% of their predicted stats.

[AndyP]

I'll say it simply again - what is our objective?

In the past you have fought ridiculously hard to ensure "parity" while at the same time declaring the house was on fire because of "too much talent". And you were highly resistant to seeing how the two go hand-in-hand. You at least appear to have changed that tune, but it has long been your tune. The two aren't separate.

Let me break this down:

1) The posted plan is only superficial. As Peter says (hell, it's his selling point!) - the stats won't be affected. This is simply going to make it appear as though we have less talent than we actually do. It won't actually change anything unless we change the farm settings as well. All it does it change the locus of our talent concentration. How it spreads out around the locus and the subsequent production will be unaffected because we haven't changed anything in the recipe, only changed the appearance.

If we want to do this to make it less intimidating for some GMs.....then let's discuss it under those pretenses. The objective clearly matters here.

If, on the other hand, our issue is stats:

2) I'm also going to need to see some evidence of a lack of variance, parity, and randomness. I certainly don't see it - players are dying off, dropping down, bumping up, etc. - all the time. This is a significant claim and one which requires a lot more than what is presented if you want to justify messing with the file's talent balances. As far as I'm concerned....things play out pretty close to real life, or at least not that wildly out of character as suggested.

If the issue is the amount of talent:

3) Then we have to drop farm first, a small drop in the talent caps, and then subsequent cap drops slowly until we reach what we want. If we don't do it that way, what we'll see is a wave of injuries to established players until the file has time to reset. At that point (essentially burning the talent base down to start again) we might as well just restart.

If the issue is career paths"

4) Then you slow down draft and farm rates. This will also cut down on major injuries and provide a more realistic set of playing careers.

Lastly, and a point that absolutely has to be kept in mind: TALENT IS RELATIVE. Shifting the upper end of talent to the 80s with a few rare 90s doesn't solve anything. It doesn't narrow the disparity between good and bad teams, it doesn't change the stats, it doesn't change anything. What is painted on the overall is not what we should use to judge any changes that are necessary. If FA has a bunch of 80s inseason....who cares? You still judge them relative to the players that have jobs. the same issue will exist whether the unsigned guys are 99, 89, or 49. They'll be unsigned because they aren't as good relative to the players that ARE signed. We have a free market based FA, we determine value. That the in-season free agents have spiffy overalls (again, getting caught up in this trap!!!!!) - I ask again - WHO CARES? As a league of teams, crappy and great alike, we determined they sucked worse than our other options. Messing with overalls will not change this reality of the league, please stop pretending it will.

So let's get straight what we want or what our objective is. Someone tell me what is wrong, show me why it is wrong, and express what you want to see different. Then we can talk about whether it is actually a problem and, if so, how best to fix it.

[GoIrish]

I don't think Andy is not disagreeing that the caps would need to be lowered, he is first trying to figure out what the issue is at hand that is trying to be resolved. Stats, Career Paths or amounts of talent? and to make sure we have the proper plan in place so we do not have to keep tinkering with this every couple of seasons. In my opinion, anytime we make a change to the file, it gives the perception to some (keep in mind perception is not reality) that someone messed something up when something does not go their way (injury, rating drop etc).

I don't disagree with dj that caps need to be lowered but I agree with Andy that if you just kill off random players while lowering caps without addressing the farm then we will keep sitting at this table of discussion every couple of seasons on what to do next. I think it needs to be a little bit of both. Take the farm from excellent to a notch below. Then cut some of the current talent in the file. I think you will find that we will be fine on these issues for awhile then because the farm is not going to be producing talent that is forcing some of the issues.

[AndyP]

Exactly, I think if we're going to do anything, the first thing to do would be to take the temperature of the league on what, if anything, needs to be changed.

I'm not trying to be an obstacle to any path, I'm just trying to make sure we know where we're trying to get to. Personally I wouldnt change much other than some slight changes to the farm/draft to encourage more realistic career paths. But I'm ok with the status quo too. Let's just see what people in the league think is a problem, get specifically to the problem, and then solve it.

That's all.