RotoGuru - Baseball Feedback Archives

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Feedback

This page is devoted to feedback I've received from you. If you have a question to ask or a comment to make, send me an email and if I think it's of general interest, I'll post it here.

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Guru:
Just some more numbers on Gareth's feedback letter.

1. Each NBA roster can only have 12 active players at a given time (348). So (200/550) over 36% of the players listed are inactive at any given time. So approximately (215/348) 62% of the active roster players have price movement. That's a pretty good percent considering most teams only actively use 9-10 of those players on a regular basis. So 2-3 players a team are not even regular players each game and probably get very little movement.

2. Just looking at last week, 31 players went up more than $100K.

3. In baseball last season you could use 10 trades in a week to build your money up. That might have caused some greater individual price changes. Everybody had a trade to burn in the early season if they saw a bargain. With "only" 5 per week, you can't build an all-star roster as fast, but with more total trades the money should move all season, but evenly. - Steve H. (3/31)

response from Guru:
I have no way to measure it, but I suspect that many teams used more than 5 trades per week early in the season last year. I suspect I even did so. In fact, last year we had 75 trades to spend at any pace. I do recall that some teams had "blown" them all by the end of April.

A caveat is in order, though. Assuming that Smallworld continues its practice of consolidating the trades and repricing for both games, then the trade impact of different starting roster values won't be segregated. So you can't just stick to the $50 million game and expect to get a trading pattern which is primarily attributable to other $50 million teams. Ditto for the $75 million rosters. Even so, it seems likely to me that roster differentiation will still be greater in the $50 million game. - Guru

Guru:
I am looking at the 99' SW Baseball Prices for the first time this year. I have to admit that I'm not at all pleased with the pricing. Last year's SW Baseball season was the best I've been a part of. I thought that maybe a little price adjustment was necessary. Maybe a 10% increase in opening day prices would have been fair, but these prices are ridiculous. The result of these prices is supposed to be a reduction in All-Star rosters. The side-effects are a reduction in roster differentiation and a lack of price movement.

Prices are comparable to this year's SW Basketball game. During last week's repricing:

89% of player price movements were less than or equal to $100k
61% of the nearly 550 players had NO NET GAIN or LOSS

That's right! 61% of the nearly 550 NBA player's prices didn't move and the reason is that nobody owned these players. SW Baseball prices are headed down the same road and I am headed to CNN/SI.

By the way, I'm currently ranked in the top 200 in basketball, so my displeasure doesn't stem from a lack of understanding or the lack of ability to put together a quality team. I simply don't like the fact that well over half the NBA players are inactive in this game. I'm half-kidding when I say that maybe this was just a thinly veiled effort to reduce strain on the SW server. I've noticed many fewer server crashes this year. Coincidence? Probably. At any rate, I'm headed to CNN.

See you good folks over there. - Gareth (3/30)

response from Guru:
Before you get unpacked.....

If you look at the actual facts, it seems to me like they prove just the opposite of what you suggest.

I pulled up my file of last year's baseball price changes. To make the comparison apples-to-apples, I evaluated just the first six price changes, since we've had six Hoops price changes so far. Let's start by comparing the percentage of players with no price change, week by week.

Percent of players with
no weekly price change

Week       '98 Base   '99 Hoops
  1           82%        18%
  2           83%        33%
  3           82%        52%
  4           84%        60%
  5           87%        63%
  6           88%        61%

You are right that 61% of the Hoops players had no net trading activity. But earlier in the season, when average roster values were much lower, a much smaller percentage of players were inactive. Compare these figures to last year's baseball price changes, and the contrast is striking. In fact, it's so striking that I thought maybe there were just more listed baseball players who were totally inactive (i.e., not on a major league roster). So, I ran the numbers again using only the players who had non-zero Smallworld Points through the first six price changes. Here are those numbers:

Percent of Active players with
no weekly price change

Week       '98 Base   '99 Hoops
  1           76%        16%
  2           77%        27%
  3           77%        43%
  4           79%        50%
  5           82%        52%
  6           83%        50%

Wow. The gap is even wider!

Since you mentioned it, let's also compare the percentage of active players with
weekly price changes below $100,000.

Percent of Active players with
weekly price changes under $100,000

Week       '98 Base   '99 Hoops
  1           89%        77%
  2           87%        82%
  3           90%        85%
  4           92%        84%
  5           94%        85%
  6           94%        85%

The differences aren't quite as staggering, but the advantage still belongs to Hoops.

Maybe there are other factors that explain at least part of the difference. But given the argument you've put forth, the evidence seems to suggest that the higher prices produce greater roster differentiation, not less. And it appears that as roster values increase, rosters look more and more similar. So if roster differentiation is what you're after, I think you're probably heading in the wrong direction.

I'll leave the door unlocked. - Guru

Guru:
Tyrone Nesby, though starting as a Forward for LAC, is shown on your records as a Guard. Sorry to say, SM has him properly listed as a Forward, costing me a trade this morning. Based on the millions you have saved me, it was a very small price to pay. Thanks for all the good work!! - LB (3/28)

response from Guru:
Sorry about that. But when Smallworld announced Nesby as an IPO this week, they announced him as a guard. I have an original copy of their announcement to prove it. Obviously, they changed it sometime later, and I didn't catch the change. (In fact, if you look carefully, you can see that the current announcement of Nesby on the SW home page lists his position as a forward in bold print, confirming that they changed it after the initial announcement.)

Oh well. Not the first time it's happened, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But so far this year, SW is 0-for-2 on correctly announcing and processing IPO's. So my advice is that if you're thinking of buying an IPO player - assume nothing! - Guru

Guru:
Dammit Dave! It happened again! I drafted my teams again already for cnn/si and smallworld baseball. Now I have to do it again for a third time!!!!! I don't think so!@#(&%

Again thanks for nothing. - name withheld (3/27)

response from Guru:
First of all, I had nothing to do with this latest change. Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea. So your sarcastic thanks "for nothing" are actually quite accurate. You're welcome.

Second, the roster value change to $75 million only affects the CNN game, not the Smallworld version - as least as far as I know. So there shouldn't be any reason you would need a third draft for Smallworld. - Guru

Guru:
In addition to SW, and BallPark Dreams (and SW Basketball, and a couple of NASCAR leagues), I also have a CNNSI/SW Baseball team. I decided to try this league as a "change up" and this is a little different for me. My question concerns the drafting order. We get to select the order of our "automated, high tech" draft. The current default is: P, OF, 1st, SS, P, OF, 2nd, P, C, 3rd, OF, P, P, OF. Then bench players: P, OF, P, 1st, P, 2nd, SS, P, 3rd, C, P. In your opinion, what is the best drafting order strategy. Should you draft the "slim" positions like SS and Catcher, and 2nd and then Pitching, followed by a deep positions like the OF? Or should you go for the pitching and OF first like the default order suggests? (keeping in mind that a good many people will probably use at least most of the default order). Also, price not considered, since I can select my own "pool" of players, which is best, 2nd to 5th rotation starters, or closers? I don't know how many other Gurupies are playing CNNSI, but there must be a few how might be wondering the same thing, any ideas? - Mike R. (3/23)

response from Guru:
In standard rotisserie drafts, I think there's a lot to be said for going after the 2b and SS positions ASAP. If you can land A.Rod and/or Biggio, that's HUGE. Those positions are so thin that landing one of those guys can really solidify a lineup.

I don't have a good answer to the pitching question. I'll throw that one out to the masses. - Guru

Guru:
I don't think I've ever written to you before, but I read your comments on March 22 about player values and thought I'd drop you a note. I've been visiting your site for well over a year now and find it to be an invaluable source for Smallworld info. I actually did alot of the stuff on my own until I found your site (i.e. stat compilation, player valuation), but I'm far less than a web guru and had to do it all by hand. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to find your site as I was beginning to question whether I could continue to justify spending the amount of time I did on my Smallworld teams.

In regard to your article about player valuations, I'm curious as to your opinion about when the ideal time is to begin acquiring superstars. Obviously, you have to begin the season with an eye toward gaining value. However, the reason you are trying to gain value is to eventually be able to afford better players. This is our ultimate goal. Everyone would like to have a team of all stars by the end of the year. This was even somewhat possible until the trade limit of 5 per week was set. You could spend the whole first part of the season finding all the guys who were going to go up from day to day. Now, you have to take the schedule into consideration as well as who looks underpriced. In my opinion, the current system is far superior. It is at least more challenging anyway.

I started out this basketball season with the philosophy that I should have as many 30+ point per game players as possible at the lowest price. This worked very well considering guys like Kobe and Armstrong have done so well. However, in spite of the price gains I was experiencing from week to week, I was falling further and further behind in my division, because the guy in front of me was carrying Chris Webber and his 45+ points per night in addition to picking up those less-than-$3 million guys who were gaining nearly as many dollars per week as my higher priced guys were. Think about it. If Webber is scoring 45 points a night at $15 million and you have another guy who is scoring 15 points a night at $1 million, then you have two players adding up to 60 points and $16 million dollars. To equal this, you would have to have two 30 point players worth $8 million or less each. Pierce, Armstrong, and Lynch are currently the only guys who are even close to this, and none of the three are over 30 PPG. Trick is, you have to find guys who are currently hot that are low priced to make this thing work, because you can bet that they won't stay cheap very long. This is made much easier with your recent addition of the "last two weeks" stats. Thanks much. This is where you begin to gain in dollar value. These guys go up like rockets in some cases. This won't really work at the beginning of the season, however, because you just don't know who's going to be getting minutes and producing.

So...that's the question. At what point is it best to begin picking up the Webbers and Kidds while filling your team with the Johnny Taylors and Felipe Lopezes and hoping that the Kurt Thomases and Dickie Simpkinses stay cheap and productive? - Jason R. (3/22)

response from Guru:
I guess the best answer is "when you can."

I agree with your strategic premise - that the object early on is to emphasize value generation, and the evidence suggests that it is cheap who are best able to provide the financial oomph. So the strategy that seem to be working is to find all of the cheap values that you can, and allow the rest of your roster to go after point generation, spending the remaining bucks on whatever you can afford.

As long as you dollars are fully deployed - meaning that you don't have much idle cash - then I think you just keep doing this until you have enouhg money that you don't need to own cheap players. Given the current price structure and the shortened season, that time may not come.

I decided a few weeks ago that the center position just wasn't a good place to find cheap value, so I decided to spend some bucks on stars, like Mourning, Olajuwon, Divac, and even Shaq. Forward has been a position with lots of value among the low priced players, so I've often had three or four guys there under $5 million. At guard, I've been somewhat split. On one team, I picked up Kidd several weeks ago as one of my stars, and just held him throughout. He's been gradually gliding up in price, which is nice, but the intent with him is mainly to score points. Then, I've picked up the real cheap guards, like Pack, Mobley, Lopez, Jon Barry, and held them for a few weeks apiece - just long enough to get several rounds of price increases, before deciding to was time to move on after the next hot player. I think that may be the most important skill - timing the sale of a player. Sometimes, a player may still seem to represent good fundamental value, but when some other upstart is screaming to be bought, you have to know when to fold. On the other hand, it has usually taken a few weeks for a cheap player's price to fully mature, so patience is important as well.

So what's the answer? Keep adding stars gradually, I suppose. As you turn over a few cheap players and bag the gains, upgrade another spot to a star, while redeploying the rest of the proceeds back into the cheap players - as long as you can find them. And frankly, you don't want the Kurt Thomases and Dickey Simpkinses to stay cheap and productive. Assuming you own them, you want them to get expensive and productive. Because that's where the gains come from. - Guru

Guru:
I have been very pleased with cyberskipper. If there are many people like me who are on tight budgets or just allocate their money to different things, cyberskipper is definitely for you. I played my first season last year, and won rookie of the year in the Kansas City game, for which I received a package of rookie cards. To date, I have received 5 different baseball caps, over 75 baseball cards, a ceramic Derek Jeter rookie card, 7 posters, a 6-pack cooler, 2 team autographed baseballs, and a Philly Phanatic video. And I didn't even do that great. As for strategy, it's best to be a franchise owner so you do not have to change the grids every week, which can become tedious. The main thing is to try to follow your grids closest in September during the stretch drive, since you can score the most cyberskipper points then. There are also different strategies for different teams, seeing how the Yankees have an explosive offense and the Braves have a fantastic pitching staff, a player would approach each grid differently. Then there is a difference between choosing National and American league grids, for the 9-12 slots. Oftentimes I found myself choosing the OTHER slot for national league grids, since that would account for good hitting pitchers. - Carey M. (3/22)

response from Guru:
Sounds like quite a haul for a rookie. - Guru

Guru:
First, I would just like to say that I loved your NCAA game. It was definitely a very interesting format, and I can't wait until next year so I can experience the heartbreak of having my teams lose all over again. I went into Saturday having the chance of getting 3 teams into the final four, and none of them were a #1 seed, and none of them faced Duke. I saw this as a ripe opportunity for my standings to skyrocket. I at least figured I could get 2 teams in, and at the very least 1. Unfortunately, every one of my teams (Gonzaga, St. John's, and Kentucky) choked. I had more fun playing your game, though, than any other NCAA game I've tried. Here's why: When I filled out a few of my obligatory "pick the brackets" games, did I pick Gonzaga to get into the Elite 8? Hell no, and I am in awe of anyone who did. But by entering your contest, I was able to jump around and scream every time Gonzaga won a game. Anyways, you have the best contest concept out there. Great job! I'm looking forward to even the small improvements you implement for next year. If I may interject a thought here, though: the points you receive for your team(s) getting to the final four seems awfully large when compared to the points received solely for winning games. Would I mention this if Gonzaga had gotten my team a 100 point bonus by beating UConn? Probably not, but the number still seems disproportionately large. Perhaps you could implement a slight bonus for teams that advance to rounds they, according to their seedings, were not expected to advance to. It's just a suggestion.

As for comments on how I manage 2 teams, I begin by drafting totally different rosters for each team. Unless there's an obvious bargain, no player will be on both teams. After the season starts, it's basically let each team run independently of the other. To a small extent, I still try to purposely differentiate the 2 teams, but I basically just let each one run its own separate (but sometimes similar) course. With different players on each team, different opportunities arise for each; each team has different monetary restraints to work with. However, this SW Hoops season, I seem to be dividing up the big price gainers each week between my two teams. The result is that my two teams have approximately equal and relatively mediocre franchise values. This didn't seem to happen to me in baseball or football, though, so maybe NBA price predictions just aren't my thing. - Matt S. (3/22)

response from Guru:
With regard to your feedback on the March Madness Contest:

I knew going in that this contest was going to be over the heads of some people - even some diehard Gurupies, who collectively are certainly smarter than average sports fans. None of the sites that run NCAA contests for commercial purposes would ever consider offering something this complex. That leads to two happy consquequences:
1. I don't have to simplify the rules so that everybody can understand. I can pitch my contest to those who are looking for something more interesting.
2. I don't have to worry about one of the major sports sites stealing my concept!
I do hope that more people will give it a try next year, because I think most of those who entered this year in spite of some confusion gradually figured it out as the contest unfolded. I know that was the case for one of my sons. And even my 8-year old daughter is now able to grasp the general concept of "shortening" a team.
I know that the benefits for a high seed (like Gonzaga) making the final four seem excessive. But frankly, that's somewhat intentional. It provides a little extra incentive to pick up the "deep underdog". And it helps to keep the prices relatively "fair" across the seed spectrum, while propping up the higher seed's prices slightly. There is a lot more incentive to go for a #10 seed (or several) if you know that there's that extreme chance of a monster payday.

If anything, it may be that there isn't quite enough reward for picking a #1 seed that actually wins. However, if I ratcheted up the reward for winning, it also ratchets up the fair price of the #1 seeds, and it wanted to keep the prices of the favorites within reach. But next year, I may set a minimum value for the winner's bonus - something like G$30 - just to keep the scoring changes in the final week more volatile.

Regarding your comments on managing two teams: Your approach is quite similar to mine. I start out with some material differentiation (although I had "screaming deals" like Loy Vaught (cough, sputter) on both draft rosters this season). In baseball, I made a conscious effort to avoid duplicate trades when more than one idea seemed reasonably attractive. The result, though, was that both teams appreciated fairly well, but neither did as well as a single team probably would have done, since the best opportunities tended to be split. So this Hoops season, I'm running each team independently, but without regard to whether they overlap. For the most part, there have only been two or three differences at any time - and both teams are doing quite well. So I think I'll stick with this same approach during baseball. - Guru

The next four letters respond to my question about strategies for managing more than one team.

Guru:
The way I do it is a buy one roster full of all my prospects and the players that I think will do good. On the other I place scrub players and a couple of good players. Then when the leader boards come up. I replace all the scrubs with the cheap ones. When I did this with Smallworld, By the third week my roster value was 72 million. However, this costs in points. But you can always catch up later. At this point, I have caught up 500 points on the leader of our division in 3 weeks. -- Jon L.

Guru:
All of my best choices go to one team; my second team is (although I've never thought of it this way before) almost of farm team. I like to start a season with no player on both rosters, although I will make an exception for incredible bargains--for example I would have put the underpriced interleague trade players on both SW baseball teams if the repricing had not occurred, and I bought El Duque for both teams when he was underpriced by mistake last year at the CNN/SI site. I've had no problem putting together two SW baseball teams with completely different rosters of (I think) quite comparable prospects. There is inevitably some roster convergence as the season goes on as "best producers" become easily available.

The advantage for me is that I never feel guilty/stupid for dissipating my best ideas; instead I feel good if my "second best ideas" come through, because I have them too. In hockey at the moment, my best team is in the top 100, while my second best is fighting for the top 1000. -- Alan S.

Guru:
This is in response to your question about maintaining two SW teams. Personally, I go for the diversity side of the coin. While it's true that two teams under the same manager can never be 100% different (not if you're trying to succeed), it is possible to try out different players.

I liken my second team to a sort of "farm team." I have no fear of putting a guy on that squad who is up and coming or untested. I'm not sure about other people, but even with the desire to win, I'm much less afraid to try radical roster movements on my "farm team". A radical move would be a three to five guy swap.

I don't see my current top team as being a national contender (rank = 4815) but I'm in a wicked dogfight in my division. I don't have time, or the point spread to make a bad pick. Testing out a pick on my second team gives me such a luxury. It's a conservative way of doing things, but it has paid off. I had a horrible draft and was in 10th place. I'm in 5th now and only (a big only) 300 points from the leader in my division. With half a season to go, less points to make up in the second half than the first, my second team strategy, and a little help from the Assimilator, I'm confident I'll catch the leaders.

P.S. In last year's SW Football, I had two teams - one under a disguise name (so my buddies wouldn't rib me) and one under my usual name. My usual name team was the one I was keeping as "farm team". As the season went on, the farm team began to outscore the primary team. Next thing I knew, I was pushing hard for the "farm team" and it finished second. The team I originally had as the top team finished 5th. (Both ranks obviously in my division.) Bottom line....be creative with the second team because you never know how it will pay off. -- Nick D.

Guru:
I have always had two teams in each of the Smallworld games I have played. Your sentiments reflect mine. Initially, I consciously try to manage the teams with a variety of personnel between the two teams, but invariably the two teams converge over the course of the season. This is because I do not want to sacrifice a potential bargain or a good point producer for the sake of diversity. So, my two NBA teams, for example, started out with say 45% overlap but now have about 75% overlap. My two NHL teams started out with maybe 15% overlap and now have 90% overlap. My two drafted baseball teams currently have about 40%-60% overlap (these numbers are from my head and not looking at the rosters). -- Steve W.

response from Guru:
Sound like a lot of similarities in your approaches. Thanks for responding. - Guru

Guru:
The best spring training baseball stats I have found are on the USA Today baseball stats page, but there is one page per team. - Paul S. (3/19)

response from Guru:
Asked, and answered. Seems like a useful page to bookmark. - Guru

Guru:
I need a clarification on the March Madness rules. If a higher-seeded team loses to a lower-seeded team, the higher-seeded team loses G$. If a lower-seeded team loses to a higher-seeded team, they do NOT lose any G$ (after all, they were supposed to lose).

But what about two team with the same seed? (e.g., a possible matchup of Duke vs. UConn in the finals). Does the losing team lose points? I couldn't find this in the rules. - Joe R. (3/19)

response from Guru:
Good question. Actually, I had considered this issue, and I thought I had addressed it somewhere, but I can't find it in the rules either.

Fortunately, the rules say that in the event there is a lack of clarity, then the rule will be what I meant, not what I said. And I meant to say that a team only gets charged for a loss if it was the favorite. If two teams have the same seed, then neither is a favorite or underdog, and the loser incurs no charge.

I'll fix the rules, though. Thanks for noticing. - Guru

Guru:
Here's an interesting observation on your NBA calendar. Look at Denver and Seattle over the period 3/21 thru 4/2. Both play 9 times in 13 days, yet Denver appears all green and Seattle only some green. Just notes that the concentration of colors can be misleading. - Mike V. (3/19)

response from Guru:
That observation implies that the non-green part of Seattle's run is less concentrated (and therefore, the green portion must be even more concentrated than Denver's). If you're looking over a horizon as long as two weeks, though, I guess it's fair to say that color isn't everything.

Which, of course, is a non-trivial issue, since I do think it's important to be aware of schedule outlooks over a period that long in the SW game. Many times it takes a few weeks for a player to realize his full price potential, and if you grab someone with an on-again, off-again schedule, you may need to snip the bud before it reaches full bloom.

However, I'm not about to reformat the calendar for different shades of green. I''ve gotta leave something for you guys out there to do for yourselves. - Guru

Guru:
Do you know if CNN is going to be offering a free Baseball league?

I would prefer to play CNN's version because of SmallWorld's feature of adding $10,000 a day if you click on their ads. Though being a small amount, it adds an unfair advantage to those that do not have internet access on nights and weekends. - Daryl M. (3/19)

response from Guru:
The CNN version of the game was just recently activated, although I have yet to see it advertised anywhere. You can use this link to register. - Guru

Guru:
Since people are "asking and receiving", anyone know where to get up to date spring training stats? - Gaylord (3/19)

response from Guru:
Good question. Anyone know? - Guru

Guru:
In the Smallworld Hoops game, do you think getting high priced players like Shaq or Webber, and then getting fair "dirt cheap" guys is best? - or getting all of the players about the same price? - Aaron (3/18)

response from Guru:
In seasons past, it has seemed like the best profile was a relatively uniform, average salary structure. The "dirt cheap" guys just didn't get much price action, and the best bet was to try to fill your roster with guys priced around the average - with a handful of stars, when possible.

However, with this season's the inflated prices, my sense is that the cheapest players (under $5 million, say) are getting most of the price movement. (I should probably do some quantitive testing to verify this.) This suggests that a "barbelled" roster of scrubs and stars is the most common structure, and that makes it the best bet - at least from a price performance perspective. The mid-priced players, for the most part, aren't getting much trading activity (with a few notable exceptions).

I suppose a lot of managers are trying to afford a few stars, and that leaves only peanuts for the rest of the roster. Whether that will be the pattern all season is up for grabs. Could be, though. As rosters gain in value, the typical upgrade might be to go for another star, rather than two mid-priced players. And as long as that persists, mid-priced players may continue offer relatively attractive point efficiency, but disappointing price performance. - Guru

Guru:
On the Assimilator, you noted in your daily blurb that the grey column will now reflect the daily averages. One problem: the total you show right now is the 10 players added up as the 7 day average. Maybe this is what you were striving for, but it would seem more practical to take the sum of the 7 previous days' total scores, and averaging them. - Carey M. (3/18)

response from Guru:
I did it the way I intended. The purpose was to see how the players on the current roster have been producing lately, in contrast to the third column, which shows the average for each player over the whole season. I don't think doing it the "practical" way you suggest provides information that is as useful.

Since rosters are always in a state of flux, historical averages on the grouped stats just don't seem relevant. Capiche? - Guru

Guru:
I was curious if there was a way that maybe you could arrange leagues for us that would like to compete against fellow Gurupies? I know it would take some time and with everything you have going on right now, it might be impractical. - Carey M. (3/18)

response from Guru:
I really don't want to get involved as a matchmaker. But, some game sites offer a search engine or a sorting routine that can pick out leagues based on their name. For example, I know ESPN lets you search for all leagues that begin with the letters "RotoGuru".

So, if you are searching for a league to join at a specific site, try looking for an existing league that starts with either "RotoGuru" or just "Guru". If you don't find one, then create one, and see if it attracts interest.

If the game site that you're interested in doesn't let you search for leagues by name, then try using the Fantasy Forum message center at the RotoNews site. Use either the general Baseball topic, or the special "Looking for Leagues/Teams" topic, or both.

Hope these alternatives work out. - Guru

Guru:
Do you know of any internet sites that allow you to assemble a portfolio of players and view their stats for the season, last week, and last 2 weeks? I have used STATS on AOL in the past, but I am switching internet providers and that is an AOL service only (I think). I have tried RotoNews, but it only allows you to access players that you have on your fantasy team. Therefore if you are scouting talent... it doesn't help. - Jason H. (3/18)

response from Guru:
Actually, that suggests another Assimilator opportunity. I currently have it programmed to accept only a properly configured roster, but maybe I should allow the option to store a collection of "wildcards", which you could use as a "watchlist" mechanism. Let me chew on that.

Meanwhile, if any of you know of existing sites that fit Jason's bill. Let me know. - Guru

Guru:
While there are still two more weekends of games, I think I've got a firm grip on the bottom position in your March Madness Contest. About the only suspense left is whether my loss will be greater than the winner's gain. Humbling, since I can't claim to have misunderstood the rules or anything like that...

Basically, my thinking was that there's no prize for being in the middle of the pack, or penalty for finishing underwater, so I tried for risky picks that could separate me from the rest of the field. (Sort of like picking all the riskiest stocks in a funny-money stock picking contest...) Unfortunately, I got all of my separation in the negative direction.

I like your contest, and I think you did a good job of setting prices. I plan to participate again next year, and I guarantee I'll do no worse! - Brad H. (3/17)

response from Guru:
I think your strategy was right on target, Brad. I was about to say it must be your execution that sucked - but then it occurred to me that it's probably as difficult to produce the worst entry as it is to produce the best. So I suppose even your execution was almost flawless, with only one minor fault -- you got it backwards! If you just reversed your longs and shorts, you'd be only two G$ out of first place! Awesome, Baby!

However, I don't think you have a lock on last place yet. In fact, if Duke should stumble, you might start creeping back toward mediocrity. The entry that is just ahead of you still has 6 shorts alive, vs. only four for you. The matchup is your Duke vs. her (I just checked - the official registration is for a "her") trio of St. John's, Temple, and Florida. Granted, she's also long Maryland, which could cancel out some of the shorts. But, especially if Temple upsets Duke, then I don't think you can "catch down" to her. And there are probably others lurking nearby, just waiting for either one of you to stumble.

Remember, there's $5.30 on the line for a last place finish. Hope you can handle the pressure! - Guru

Guru:
I wanted to say that I was pissed off at Smallworld until now when I decided to just bite the bullet and make my team, and I discovered that there were some great bargains out there, and that this pricing system is really much better. Thank you for helping to make the situation right and for your stats tables that helped me make my team. Maybe I'll win my division this year.

On another subject, I wanted to commend you on your March Madness game. It's by far the best I've found, and much more fun than just traditionally picking the winners of each bracket. Right now I'm in 41st, and hopefully I'll move up if my Kentucky Wildcats beat Wally World and Michigan State. - Eric S. (3/17)

response from Guru:
Thanks. - Guru

Guru:
They used to have player contract information on the Baseball Prospectus site (www.baseballprospectus.com). It's worth a shot. - David V. (3/17)

response from Guru:
Good suggestion, David. In fact, I found a page of player contract information, which seems to be precisely what Matt B. is looking for.

"Ask, and ye shall receive." Thanks. - Guru

Guru:
Those who criticize Smallworld for awarding $100,000 for the purchase of a hat are absolutely correct. I think it's a terrible idea. On the other hand, we're getting a great deal on free fantasy leagues. I don't think spending $20 per year on a hat is too much to ask. Still, I don't think owners should be awarded salary cap relief for their donation.

Your idea of paying for your salary cap is phenomenal! I have been trying to come up with ideas for Smallworld to raise capital without losing the draw that a free game provides. Your idea is great.

To take it a step further how about this: we could play for free with a salary cap of $50 million. Those paying $10 to play get to spend $55 million. Those paying $20 get a $60 million cap. That's the limit.

If they were to go any higher it would become impossible for the free players to compete. I think this idea would be fantastic. I'd pay $20 for an extra $10 million added to my salary cap, especially if I knew that not everyone was going to do it. However, I never would have played to begin with if the site wasn't free. I also would not continue to play if I felt that I had no chance of competing for free. Your solution allows people to play for free, which stimulates stability and growth, but also provides a way for Smallworld to raise capital and make this game even better than it already is. What a great idea!

I disagree with Steve P. Sure, Smallworld makes plenty of mistakes. I'll be the first to admit that. Smallworld also makes more than their share of unprofessional decisions. I'll also be the first to admit to that. But, don't make threats or comments that have the potential to ruin the game. This is a free contest. If you don't like it, leave. Go to ESPN and pay $29.99 for your right to complain. - Gareth (3/16)

response from Guru:
I don't really want to turn this into a forum on Smallworld's revenue structure, although that seems to be the hot topic today. So, don't be surprised if you send more letters on this topic and I elect not to post them. I'd rather focus on the strategy of the game, not the strategy of the game's provider.

[By the way, doesn't it seem like Smallworld's latest offer would be most appropriately referred to as a "salary cap".]

Now, back to Gareth. I don't know if your comments about paying for additional salary are genuine, or if you're pulling my chain. (They seem to be genuine, however.) Well, my suggestion was purely tongue-in-cheek. It's an interesting twist, but a bad idea, I think - no matter how much "Steinbrenner-like" realism it provides.

I also don't subscribe to the idea that Smallworld's games are free. True, there is no direct monetary fee to register. But, consider that:

Smallworld depends on a committed, involved base of managers to make its games work properly;
Playing the game reasonably well requires a sustained commitment of time and energy;
Smallworld derives revenues from manager activities (they aren't doing this for free, folks!)

Thus, I don't think it's warranted to sluff off inappropriate game administration because "it's a free game". (I'm not saying that you said this, Gareth. I just think the point is worth emphasizing.)

Clicking on ads isn't "fun", and isn't integral to the game, but Smallworld isn't alone in offering this type of feature. In fact, it's becoming more and more common among "free" game sites. And for people who don't want to shell out bucks to play internet fantasy games, it does provide a way for them to compete using a "currency" (i.e., time and energy) that they have already demonstrated a willingness to commit. So it seems fair in that regard, too.

But trading preferential game treatment (and a "salary cap") for $20 seems to step over the line. It's virtually tantamount to my "pay for points" suggestion, and while Gareth might like the idea, I suspect many of you would go apoplectic if Smallworld introduced such a feature.

I actually do fork over $30 to ESPN to play some of their fantasy games. I could play similarly structured games for free elsewhere, but the administration and controls are first rate, and worth the expenditure - in my opinion. I've also found that, in spite of the sheer magnitude of the ESPN enterprise, when I have questions or complaints, I do at least receive an acknowledgement from ESPN. And they do seem to make every attempt to cure any administrative problems (which very rarely occur).

The fact that we don't pay any direct fee to Smallworld shouldn't give them the latitude to ignore administrative problems, or to avoid making a best effort to "put things right". That isn't something anyone should have to pay for. That's just good business. And appropriate behavior, regardless of the endeavour.

I'm not suggesting that Smallworld isn't working hard to improve the administration. I'm sure they are. But in the "real world", to succeed you have to strive to do whatever it takes. And so far, I haven't seen evidence of that level of commitment, which does bother me - free or not. - Guru

Guru:
Just an interesting note: I found an old excel sheet from last year that had the end of the year stats (for SW Baseball) and was curious as to how the points would look if I applied this year's scoring to last year's stats. Since the batting stats haven't changed, I'll start on the pitching stats. Here are the pitching results for four teams that were in my division:

Team 1 - '98 = 10235, '99 = 18862, a difference of 8627.
Team 2 - '98 = 12266, '99 = 20595, a difference of 8329.
Team 3 - '98 = 10153, '99 = 18653, a difference of 8500.
Team 4 - '98 = 11975, '99 = 19818, a difference of 7843.

Now the batting scores from last year would remain the same, and they were:

Team 1 - 21581
Team 2 - 20450
Team 3 - 19840
Team 4 - 19575

Looking at these results, it seems to me that 5 pitchers will produce approximately as many points as 9 hitters will. Therefore, $ will be better spent on pitchers than hitters this year, even more so than last year.

Now just some brief comments about the changes from this year's scoring vs. last years. Pitchers are not penalized nearly as much as last year for poor performances. Losses no longer count, as well as the fact that a run is now less than half the value of an inning whereas they used to be equal in value, not to mention that strikeouts are not worth as many points. This would seem to imply that average starters who pitch many innings may have an advantage over the ace closers.

Other comments (more like personal opinions): Last year's trading policy of 50 trades for the year was far superior to this year's 5 trades per week. And of course I have to comment about the pricing. I am happy that there is more of a price spread between players now that the prices have been corrected, but (and there's always a but) last year's starting prices only had about 5 players at +$10M and none of them started above $12M. I'll live. - Vince M. (3/16)

response from Guru:
Glad to hear you'll live.

Good observations, although I disagree with some of your conclusions.

First, as you suggest, the new pitching formula will probably produce points which amount to roughly one-half of a team's total. But, that doesn't imply that dollars are better spent on pitching. If the pitching points are priced in parity with hitting points, then it doesn't really matter. (remember - "Points is points!") And from what I've seen, pitching point potential is properly priced in parity. So there should properly be no positional preference. Period.

Both the absence of a loss charge, as well as the higher relative IP points will tend to make starters produce more points than closers. But again, if the pricing reflects this difference, then it really only affects relative player ranking, not player selection strategy. If you reach a franchise value that allows you to buy the best roster possible, that roster isn't likely to include any relievers. But until that point, relative value considerations should dictate the best pitchers to own.

Last year's game had 75 trades, not 50 - but this year's allocation of 5 per week still provides an extra 50 trades or so. Depending on how price changes emerge, this may mean that late in the season you'll need to aggressively swap in and out of pitchers to pick up extra starts. It also means that you should not be doing these "pitcher rotation" trades early in the season, since those types of trades are not likely to generate much in the way of price gains, and you'll want to maximize your gains potential in those early weeks.

Last year's initial prices may have had fewer players over the $10 million level, but last year's game also didn't offer players with the potential to produce more than 5000 SWP over the season. This year, of the 37 players with draft prices above $10 million, only 2 are hitters - Sosa and McGwire - and they just barely clear the hurdle. So, in that respect, the initial pricing is more similar to last year's than you realize. In fact, it sounds like maybe you can draft approximately the same point potential as you could draft last year. The difference is that you'll probably need to produce more points this year to finish with a ranking comparable to last year's. (Though even that isn't a certainty.) - Guru

Guru:
In your font poll, I find that all 5 fonts are displayed as the same font (apparently "Times New Roman"). - Norman W. (3/16)

response from Guru:
It is probably your browser's font setting that is causing this. Most browsers allow you to override the page-specified font, and replace it with a specific font. "Times New Roman" and "Arial" are both such normal fonts that I can't believe you don't have both.

If you like your setup the way it is, you may just want to ignore the issue. But maybe you ought to check your font settings and see whether or not you are forcing the uniformity. "Variety is the spice of life" - so they say. - Guru

Guru:
I don't know if you have been to the Smallworld Baseball site yet, but they are offering $100,000 to your SW team if you buy one of their hats for $19.99.

After the reasons that they gave for restarting the game, this is crap. I guess all I have to do to turn a good year into a better year is to buy a hat. What happen to the "integrity of the game?" How is this fair? - Jeff M. (3/16)

response from Guru:
I would have to agree that this is an ill advised offer. The silver lining is that I can't imagine why anyone would spend $20 for a hat just to get a paltry $100,000. So while it seems to be unfair, its most likely impact is inflammatory, not inflationary.

Shoot, if they want to raise some funds, why not just sell SWPs directly? How about 100 SWPs for a buck? They'd probably get some takers for that offer. And they could rationalize it as being just like real baseball, where the richer teams have a clear competitive advantage. How much more realistic could it be? - Guru

Guru:
I am tuning up for my annual ascent to trying to win a baseball title, and I am a big believer in contract years motivating players to peak levels, but I find it difficult to find the contract status of all the MLB players. To assess that, mainly I rely on big headline knowledge, but that is only for star players...............so if you could direct me to somewhere on the net for this info I would appreciate it!!!!!!!!!! - Matt B. (3/16)

response from Guru:
Wow! 10 exclamation points!!!!!!!!!! You must really mean it!

Unfortunately, I don't know where to find this info, but maybe other Gurupies have some ideas. - Guru

Guru:
Just to touch on a number of points.

Thank you for your NCAA contest. As far as I am concerned it is the best contest available. As good as it is, and try as I might, unfortunately I think the scoring is probably too complicated for a wider commercial appeal. It's really too bad because it is so much better than other contests that it deserves wider exposure.
Although I was not particularly pleased to lose all my hit points or have to redraft SW baseball, I again thank you for a change which will significantly improve the quality of the game for the 6 month baseball season. This thanks is conditional because I have not yet decided to actively manage my SW baseball team. I am still too perturbed over the handling of the basketball season. I lost a day's worth of points due to a Small World computer error a couple weeks ago. After a series of e-mails, which ,after several unanswered inquiries, ultimately resulted in the recitation of legal precedent pointing out that arbitrary and/or inconsistent administration of the site contrary to published rules probably results in a technical violation of federal law resulting in a legal classification of the site as an illegal lottery, Small World answered in a very "Clintonian manner", effectively admitting that my lost points were the result of their error, but apparently w/o any effort to rectify the matter. (i.e. they just kept assuring me that they had corrected the problem so it would not repeat itself in the future. Even this I must question for I do seem to be seeing quite a few notices that points are being awarded to invalid teams this week again.) At any rate I am not sure I want to devote the time to a site with equipment like SW/CNNSI or administered in its present manner.
I also agree with your suggestion that the absence of purchase and sale activity result in a downward price adjustment for all of these types of games.
As a last point it certainly looks like fate has punished us in Echelon's Full Court for holding on to the likes of Ewing and Pierce. I think I lost an irreplaceable half million each when I had to bail on both of them. Although we did get some benefit for 3-4 weeks, it didn't offset the extra games we could have picked up. Maybe Echelon needs an IR slot to minimize the injury penalty. I am not at all sure there is enough time left to overcome the loss of the future benefits for Pierce and Ewing. I guess it is mostly a fluke that the most highly appreciated players went down. I assume the trend line points to Anferneee, Kurt Thomas, and/or Jason Williams next. I get the feeling you have held on to Pierce - probably the right move to try to win, given your present team ranking - but I dropped him because I am further behind and he slumping immediately prior to the injury and/or following the return of Mercer.

Thanks again for your site and the NCAA contest. - Steve P.(3/15)

response from Guru:
You make some excellent points, Steve. Responding in your order:

I knew going in that the NCAA Contest rules would leave a lot of heads spinning. I spent the better part of December-February tinkering with all sorts of alternatives. I wanted to find a scoring approach that would keep the contest "alive" throughout the duration of the tournament, and that would provide reasonable scoring balance potential across most seeds. I tried a number of simpler formulas, but couldn't seem to find something simple that I thought would fit the bill. So, I opted for the current format. I was pleased that so many took the time to try to understand it, and that many entered while admitting that they weren't sure they fully understood it. Hopefully, as this year's contest unfolds, the framework will be clarified for many, and next year we'll have a more "confident" group of entrants. Based on the first week's results, I doubt that I will need to change much for next year (although, as always, I have a few minor tweaks in mind that should add some additional interest.)
Thanks for supporting my SWB stance. Clearly, the problem wasn't the repricing; it was the poorly constructed initial pricing. It seemed to me that the cure would ultimately be less painful than living with the disease. And I understand your administrative frustrations with SW. I haven't been damaged yet this season by administrative glitches (knock on wood), but I have received a fair number of complaints from Gurupies who have incurred unexplained point shortfalls. What makes it most maddening is that SW doesn't often even respond to these problems, let alone cure them. Errors are inevitable, and we need to learn to accept them from time to time. But Smallworld's failure to provide at least the courtesy of a response, and their seeming inability and/or unwillingness to rectify the damage is inexcusable. (I don't accept the excuse that "we're doing the best we can." I think the real reason is "we're unwilling to undertake the necessary effort to repair the damage - so you're screwed.")
I've made the suggestion before about using "inactivity information" to prompt prices changes. I'm not holding my breath.
Our injury problems in Full Court may be less "flukey" than you would suspect. Some of these players were priced cheaply in this year's draft because of time missed last season due to injuries. If these guys are more injury prone than the more fully priced players, then maybe it's more than just bad luck. Obviously, this isn't true across the board - but it is the case with Ewing, Pack, and (if it happens) Penny.

An IR slot might be a good approach to alleviate the impact of some of these Full Court injury problems. Usually, when games offer an IR slot, though, they require that the player must be placed on injured reserve in real life. That wasn't the case with Pierce, and I don't even recall seeing that Ewing was formally placed on injured reserve. - Guru

Guru:
I thought the Madness contest required a total of 16 entries, 8 Longs and 8 Shorts. So why are there 5 contest entries that have only half of the required information (8 Shorts but no Longs)-2 of them in the top 10? - Bill B. (3/14)

response from Guru:
The rules state that you must short exactly 8 teams. But the only requirement for longs was that you could not buy more than 8 teams, nor could you spend more than you raised through shorting. There was no requirement to buy any - although frankly, I can't think of why that would be a good approach. The biggest upside potential comes from being long a team that goes to the final four. Foregoing that possibility seems like an inferior strategy.

Some of the entries that only shorted teams appear high in the standings early on because they raised a lot of money through shorting - and didn't invest it in longs. As the tournament wears on, though, they'll give back a lot of that if the teams they shorted continue to win. And once teams make it to the final four, the short-only entries will get left behind. So their early lofty rankings can be deceptive. - Guru

Guru:
While your current mid-level team status might be a bit embarrassing for you, I must admit that for us traditional mid-level players that it's a bit of a thrill to be with or even just ahead of you after two rounds. It probably won't last, but like die-hard Cleveland Indians fans who remember the days when they would be in or near first place only the first week or two of the season, it helps keep us going! - Fred C. (3/14)

response from Guru:
I'm not really embarrassed by my mediocre showing. I've never been very adept at picking a bracket in advance, so I'd have been surprised if I did really well.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to hear that my tepid performance is serving a useful purpose! - Guru

Guru:
I have a question for you based on the current restructuring of the SW Baseball price format. Is it incorrect for me to assume that one's beginning pocketbook should be able to field an average team? Even you stated in your blurbs that we would be fielding Marlins equivalent teams. It almost makes how well you do based more on the luck of your initial picks more than anything else. Granted you can make well informed picks, but baseball is a fickle sport in that the greatest phenom can become the greatest flop. I felt I had drafted 2 average teams with great potential before. Now while I am sure it may still be possible, currently my thoughts are blurred by anger over this change. Also, this is not the first time SmallWorld has decided something and not told us, the players, beforehand. One that definitely comes to mind was when the told us 'after' the price change deadline, that there wouldn't be an update that week. While seemingly miniscule, it unfortunately affected my team dramatically. I would really like to hear your opinions on these issues. I apologize for the rant. - Chris N. (3/11)

response from Guru:
Actually, I didn't say you would be fielding a Marlin's equivalent team; I said the Marlins would cost about $50 million. But I think it will be very possible to assemble a roster that could be much better than the Marlins. Maybe it's a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one.

I don't see why you should rightfully be able to field an "average" team at the start of a season. In fact, it makes sense to me that you should start the season by fielding what is equivalent to an "expansion" team. The challenge is to be able to find the cheap talent early, so you can trade up over the course of the season to an average team by mid-May, an above average team by the All-Star break, and hopefully a front runner in time for the stretch drive.

With 5 trades per week, you have a lot of opportunities to adjust along the way. This works out 120-125 trades over the whole season. The key will be to draft enough steady producers so that you can afford to carry 9 of them through the first trade period. By the second trade period, you only need to keep 4. By the end of April, you can have turned over your entire roster, and the seaosn will still have 5/6ths remaining. So don't overplay the value of the initial draft. A good draft will certainly be helpful. But virtually everyone will have a few early problems to deal with.

Actually, I don't think the baseball prices are quite as Draconian as the initial basketball prices were this year. I don't think even the Clippers were affordable in the initial Hoops draft. However, there were enough bargains to be able to assemble a roster with reasonable upside. Not all of those apparent bargains worked out, either. (Loy Vaught has been pretty much a bust so far, and a lot of teams drafted him.) But, 1/3 of the way through the short season, I already have built up a roster that includes several All-Star cailber players, and none of my players are truly "scrubs". I'm confident the same will be true in baseball. You'll just need to pay attention to spring training developments, and see what part timers from last year will be starting this year. Those are probably the guys who will turn out to be the best initial buys. But you won't find them by looking at last year's stats. You'll need to do a little work to find them.

I, too, share your frustrations with Smallworld's recurring quality control problems, as well as their last minute surprises. If you've had enough (and you're not gonna take it anymore!), then I encourage you to try Echelon's baseball game. Their various games have been much more smoothly (and predictably) administered over the last year, and while the framework is somewhat different, many of the underlying strategies are quite similar. Lately, I get mostly complaints about Smallworld's operations. I get mostly compliments about Echelon. So there are viable choices.

Or try both. That's what I'm doing. If it turns out to be too much to keep up with, then drop your least favorite game after the season starts. - Guru

Guru:
Kudos to you for the March Madness game you've given us. Since you probably understand the nuances of this game better than anyone, how about revealing your shorts and longs and the strategy you used. I'd be very interested in your thoughts. - Logan (3/12)

response from Guru:
My entry is called Guru. Click on the link and you can see my picks.

I've been thinking about alternative scoring formats since the middle of last year's contest. I spent a lot of time in December and January modeling alternative designs, trying to find a good mix of simplicity and balance. In the end, I had to concede some simplicity in order to achieve the desired balance. By balance, I mean that I wanted to be sure that most of the teams had reasonable upside and downside potential.

If I was right about the balance, then there probably weren't too many slam-dunk strategies. I figured that shorting a #15 of #16 seed didn't make much sense, since the reward was limited, and the downside, while remote, was relatively huge. I also didn't really want to buy a #15 or 16 unless I had some conviction about the specific team, since the likelihood of a positive return was very low. Shorting the better seeds seemed like a good approach, because they had multiple opportunities to lose and still be profitable. But beyond those thoughts, there seemed like good reasons pro and con for just about any approach. And quite frankly, I was so busy getting the administrative and reporting aspects ready for the contest that I didn't really put a ton of thought into my selections. I pretty much threw my entry together in about 15 minutes on Wednesday night. But here was my selection thought process, for whatever it's worth:

I started by picking the teams that I had an opinion about, both longs and shorts. I liked Michigan State, Maryland, Kentucky, & Ohio State as high seeds, and Rhode Island and Miami (OH) as underdogs. I wanted to short Auburn, Cincinnati, Kansas, and Minnesota, because I thought they were all ripe for an early exit.
I decided to avoid the top seeds in UConn's bracket - either as longs or shorts. UConn is the team I'm rooting for, and I figured I'd rather watch their games without having to think about how it would affect my entry.
Once I had those teams picked, I looked for other viable teams to short. I ended up deciding to short St. John's, UCLA, UNC Charlotte, and Indiana. I can't quite recall why I picked all of them. UNC Charlotte was the flip side of Rhode Island, and I liked Rhode Island's chances enough to effectively "double up" that position. (Almost worked out, too.) I shorted Indiana mostly because Bobby Knight is a jerk. For the other shorts, I concentrated on the teams seeded in the 3-6 range, although I'm not sure whether that was sound thinking or not. I guess I liked the first round risk/reward tradeoff. If they lost, it was an upset and I'd gain a decent payout. If they won, the cost would be relatively affordable in the first round, and they could still bail me with a loss in round two.
Once I had the shorts picked out, I looked for some other longs that I could afford. A number of entrants picked less than 8 longs, and left some funds unspent. Since the biggest returns come from successful longs, I wanted to be as long as I could. Unfortunately, with the picks I had so far, I had only G$2 left, and room for two more longs. That left the choices as #8 or #16 seeds. #8 seeds carry the risk of a $9 loss if they are upset in round one, so I was a bit gun shy - but decided on Charleston. I couldn't get comfortable with any of the other 8 seeds. That left the four #16s. I could have just kept the extra buck, but I figured it was unlikely that $1 would make much difference at the end, so I picked the #16 that I thought had the best shot in round one - Winthrop. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

There are some interesting hedging possibilities inherent with certain combinations, but in a contest like this, you almost have to avoid those, since they virtually guarantee a middle-of-the-road result. For example, shorting the top four seeds from one bracket can't burn you too badly, since at most only one can get to the final four. On the other hand, the odds are pretty good that one of them will advance. So instead, I tried to scatter my picks around, and in a couple cases, doubled up by going long and short on the respective opponents for a single game.

Hopefully, this scoring format will work out well, and I'll continue it again next year. That'll give me a chance to learn from this year's mistakes and observations. As I often say, "you never really learn how to do something well until you first screw it up." - Guru

Guru:
What's up with Darrell Armstrong's (Guard - ORL) price? Here is a guard who has averaged 27.6 swp/game for the season, has averaged 25.3 swp/game for the last two weeks, scored 33.5 swp in his last game and still looked attractively priced at $8,040 ($M), but his price dropped by $1,110 ($M). I can usually pick the price gainers and price losers each week, but there is always a surprise - this week it was Darrell Armstrong. It looks to me that his owners all got nervous and decided to bail on him. I would appreciate any insight that you could provide into what happened to him. Maybe I can learn what I am missing as I guesstimate the price gainers and losers. - Rich C. (3/11)

response from Guru:
I actually had Armstrong on one of my rosters, and decided to dump him in the nick of time. So I can at least give you my rationale.

I had bought him two weeks earlier - just before his disappointing Feb 24 price gain of only $100,000. He was coming off two straight 40+ SWP games then, and I figured I was just too early, so I held on for another week. That next week, he had two lousy games in a row - a 15.5, followed by a 7.5. Assuming that he had been heavily bought at the beginning of that week, I figured a lot of managers would probably be noticing his cold streak. But I hung in there, and was rewarded with the March 3rd gain of $1.2 million.

But given his gain and his poor prior week, I figured many managers who had bought him the week before would dump him. I held on throughout the next week, which worked out well, since he averaged about 33 SWP/G that week. But at the end of the week, I decided to bail, based on my gut feel that the early traders had probably already done so. Turned out to be good timing. I don't always get 'em right like this. - Guru

Guru:
Can you help me? I'm playing Full Court, and I thought if I buy low and sell high I can take the difference in profit. When I sold Ewing today, I only got my original salary. Is this the way it goes? - Wayne J. (3/10)

response from Guru:
There's no such thing as "taking a profit" in Full Court. In fact, in a sense there's really no such thing as cash! At least, there's nothing unique about your cash supply vs. that for any other team. You can spend up to the salary cap, and that's it. So when you dropped Ewing, you freed up some salary cap room, based on the original salary you had him at. If you add him back again at some point, you'll have to do it at his market salary.

Therefore, selling a player who is at a "gain" is not an inherently good move, in and of itself. You may still want to do it when a player is injured, or to take advantage of additional games from another player. Given his injury, in this case selling Ewing was probably the best move to make. But it still hurts (you and me both), because there aren't equally productive alternatives available at the salaries that we had Ewing signed for. - Guru

Guru:
One of the things that makes the NCAA Tourney really interesting is that they don't re-seed the teams after each round like they do in the NBA, so you could have a 12 seed playing a 13 or a 5 playing a 12 in the second round while number 1 is playing an 8. This sometimes makes for some strange matchups. And each game is 40 minutes of sudden death from the start, no second chances.

Then, sometimes another team can do some of the dirty work for you. My NCAA tournament book is 2 years old, but back in 1988, Kansas, a number 6 seed made it to the Final 4 by beating an 11, 14 (had beat 3), 7 (had beat 2) and a number 4 seed (had beat 1) and then went on to win it all. - Steve H. (3/9)

response from Guru:
It's these types of things that provide much of the statistical "charm" of the event. - Guru

Guru:
I need some advice from the sports guru. What are your thoughts for the field of 64? I am extremely biased with the success that my Spartans are having and I am tempted to put them into the final. Outside of my emotional favorite, I really know little about the rest of the field. How would you fill in the brackets? - Jim L. (3/9)

response from Guru:
Jim is my brother-in-law, and once I started writing down some thoughts, I figured my response would probably have some mass appeal. So, here goes.

This tournament is one of the most heavily analyzed of any sporting event, but is also turns out to be one of the most statistically confounding for prognosticators. Nevertheless, here are a few pearls of wisdom from someone who's found various ways to screw it up in years past.

First of all, there's usually a ton of pre-tourney prediction info on the internet, and many of the pundits tend to call things similarly. This, in turn, becomes the conventional wisdom.

Rule #1: The conventional wisdom usually turns out to be wrong. Either ignore it, or (better yet), pick against it.

Last year, the pre-tournament favorites to overachieve included teams like Temple, Xavier, and Clemson. They were all seeded #6 or #7, but all had played strong regular season schedules, and supposedly had a potentially favorable path through the regionals. Guess what? They all lost their first round games - before they could even make it to those "favorable" second round matchups.

Team's seeded #1 have also had a tough time. The tournament field has been seeded for 20 years now. (Prior to 1979, bracket placement was subject to a random draw.) In the last 20 years, there has never been a tournament in which all four #1 seeds advanced to the final four. Only once have three #1's advanced to the final four. A normal year has either one or two #1 seeds advancing that far. (11 of those 20 final fours have had two #1 seeds, and 7 final fours have included just one.) One year no #1 seeds made it that far!

Rule #2: Pick at least two #1 seeds to be upset prior to the Final Four.

Historically, teams which are "seed underdogs" lose 72% of all tournament games, which of course means that the "seed favorite" wins 72% of all games. I can't put my hands on the year-by-year breakdown, but as I recall, there isn't a tremendous amount of variability in that overall percentage from year to year. Further, a #1 seed has never lost to a #16 seed in the first round, and while it will undoubtedly happen some year (there have been some close calls in the recent past), it's probably wreckless to make that prediction. Similarly, #2 seeds have won 53 out of 56 first round games vs. #15 seeds, a winning percentage of 95%. So it's pretty dicey to pick an upset there, too. If I ignore first round games involving teams seeded #1 or #2, then favorites win about 69% of all other games, or roughly 2 out of 3. So, as you fill in your bracket, you should probably be picking an underdog to win about 18 games (one-third of those remaining 55 games). One possibility is to simulate a mock tournament, in which you roll a six-sided die to simulate the result of each game. If you get a number of 3 or higher, then the favorite wins. If not, then the underdog wins. In fact, I may just try that approach this year! (I've previously dubbed this the "smart random" approach.)

Rule #3: Disrespect seedings. Pick about 18 underdog winners throughout the tournament - give or take a few.

If you want more historical results on winning percentages for seed pairings, I have all the data at your fingertips (or should I say "mouse-tips").

In most contests, in order to have a chance at winning you usually need to pick the correct tournament champion. Often, game results are weighted in a manner that accentuates the value of the later rounds. Historically, #1 seeds win the tournament about half of the time. That implies that the pre-tournament favorite (like Duke this year) wins less than half of the time. Frankly, it seems to me that picking a #1 seed to win it all is an inferior strategy, since even if you're correct, there are likely to be a lot of competitors with the same pick, and the likelihood of rising to the top is still pretty low. But if you pick a non-#1 seed to win, that choice will probably put you in a more select crowd if it turns out to be right. Two years ago, Arizona won as a #4 seed. Most pools that I saw had very few entrants picking Arizona to win it all, which made some of their earlier round picks less consequential in determining the ultimate winner.

Rule #4: Pick an underdog to win it all.

Finally, if you want to enjoy the tournament more, figure out where your emotions are invested. If you have a rooting interest, do you want to double up your bracket picks on top of your emotions? If your favorite team does well, it's euphoric high fives all around. But if you pick a bracket result that's contrary to your rooting interest, you have a silver lining no matter what the outcome is. I have no advice to offer on your choice in this regard - "different strokes for different folks". But you might at least consider the possibilities in advance.

Bottom line? In any single field-of-64 tournament, there are 63 games to be played. This produces about 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 possible outcomes. That's over 9 quintillion, for those of you who don't want to count the commas. So even if everyone on earth filled out a bracket, it's unlikely that any of them would get it all right. And even if someone did, it would probably be someone without internet access, so they are even more unlikely to be in any online contest! Consequently, a few mistakes aren't likely to kill your chances. Be bold! - Guru

Guru:
I'm a first year SW player and cannot give you enough props for your site. It simply has no parallel.

I wanted your thoughts on the inefficiency of the SmallWorld market. Since the original prices are determined using last years stats and projections on how rookies will do, the Small World market becomes increasingly stratified as the season progresses. I feel like there are a only a very small number of players which serious, active managers can choose from. There are literally dozens of players that no one in their right mind would pick. Let's use Larry Hughes as an example. I'm a huge Sixer fan and would love to pick up Larry on my squad when Philly is playing a lot of games. But no one is going to throw down 9.8 million for him. No one. It would be the equivalent to having a stock IPO at certain price only to have no one buy the stock. So everyday you could pull up the ticker and it would show no volume and an unchanged price. But of course it doesn't work like that. There should be a price at which Hughes would be more attractive. Maybe 4.8 million? Shouldn't the prices on players not in demand fall until they are traded more actively, giving us a fair market price for that player? Players like Ervin Johnson, Jimmy Jackson, Michael Curry, Micaheal Doleac, Billy Owens, and Robert Traylor are effectively priced out of the game. These are only a few. Because the price moves are not congruous with performance, the possibilities are severely limited. I would think that a formula combining performance with market demand would make the most sense. Any thoughts? - Bart V. (3/9)

response from Guru:
If you were to dig through the RotoGuru archives, you'd see several essays I've written which make the same suggestion. The SW formula only uses the "activity side" of the available information. If a player is bought or sold, that implies that someone thinks he is too rich or too cheap. But there is often just as much information conveyed by market inactivity. If virtually no one owns a given player, and no one is buying him at his current price, then the market is saying that his price is too high - and his price should start declining until it reaches a level where buying activity begins. Similarly, if a lot of managers own a given player, and none are selling him, then the market is saying that the player is still on the cheap side - and his price should continue to drift upward until some selling activity begins.

I have outwardly advocated a price change process which takes full advantage of all of the available information - activity and inactivity. Smallworld actually announced such a change prior to the 1998 baseball season, but I don't they they got it calibrated very well, nor did it appear that they followed through on it after the second week or so. Clearly, getting the price sensitivities properly calibrated is a difficult effort, but one which I think would improve the competitiveness and market-realism of the game. If we keep lobbing this suggestion into SW every now and then, maybe someday we'll prevail. - Guru

Guru:
I do want to apologize for my ranting and raving last night. After further analysis today it does look to be better. Holy Cow! Look at the prices of those pitchers!! Whew! It was just the initial shock of it all. I have looked into my new team and it is still feasible to have a well put together team with a couple of all stars. I am going to play and will see all of you at the top of the rankings! - Adrian (3/9)

response from Guru:
A lost sheep has returned to the flock!

Hallelujah! - Guru

Guru:
I'm surprised that some Gurupies are disappointed at the repricing for Smallworld Baseball. I personally think the game wouldn't have been much fun if everyone started out with basically the same rosters. Kudos to Smallworld (and to you, if your comments helped sway them) for changing the prices and hopefully making it much more difficult to pick good teams. I understand how some people would be angry if they've already picked their rosters, but spring training has just started. What's the hurry? - Matt B. (3/9)

response from Guru:
I'm totally convinced that this was the best decision in the interest of preserving the integrity of the game.

But I also understand why some early drafters are bummed. Suppose you thought you were going to have a pitching staff of Clemens, Brown, Johnson, Schilling, and Stottlemyre, to go with a hitting lineup that would challenge many respectable big-league rosters. And then you found out that instead, you'd only be able to afford the Florida Marlins' roster. I think a little venting is probably the first reaction most of us would have. But once the emotion subsides, I think most Gurupies will realize that this change was in the "best interests of baseball". - Guru

Guru:
First of all, I may have cracked at least part of the mystery with teams being broken into. I have 2 teams on the Smallworld site and due to the fact that I can be forgetful at times, I use the same password for both. It generally saves a lot of time and worry. But in some cases, I'll try logging into both teams at the same time, and, though it says one team name on the left side scroll box, it is sometimes really logged into the other team. Maybe it's just AOL, but I think it could be possible to log into another team if you had the same password. I don't know how easy it is for those with malicious intent, but it seems feasible with some "trial and error".

Secondly, I have a retrospective on the football season (a whole lot of good it does now...). I was just wondering what you would think about doing the repricing for football for SW on Sunday morning (or whenever the weekly freeze is). That would eliminate people leaving a spot open because they couldn't do that and still have a valid roster. I think it would place more strategy in picking for the next week as opposed to picking from the prior week. I would also think that price increases would be considerably lower. - Craig M. (3/9)

response from Guru:
I think that logging into two teams simultaneously is begging for trouble - whether they have the same password or not. Even if you log out from one team and then login into the other, you still have to be very deliberate about what you're doing, because sometimes your browser will settle for the version of a page which is in your computer's local cache - and might still reflect your old roster. When this happens, be sure to reload the frame before proceeding. The team name appears at the top of all "activity" pages, and you need to be sure you're continually checking it to ensure you're acting on the correct roster. If a simple reload doesn't solve the mixup, then hold down the shift key while clicking on "reload" (or "refresh" if you use MSIE), and this will tell your browser in no uncertain terms that you want it to go out to the SW server and get the right page!

Football, eh? I agree that getting the repricing in sync with the weekly roster freeze would clarify the best time to trade in and out of bye-week players. But that means that you'd either have to freeze rosters mid-week (which would be an unpopular change among managers, to say the least), or reprice on a weekend as you suggest, which is probably not likely to make Smallworld's top ten list of preferred enhancements.

And while this change would certainly make the optimal timing of trades less confusing, I fail to see why it would produce lower price changes. I'd guess it would do just the opposite. When more managers trade all at once, price changes are more exaggerated, and more teams participate in the bigger price jumps.

Football? - Guru

Guru:
I guess you are happy about the price change for sw baseball. You seem to be instrumental in it occurring, and while you have time apparently to redraft your teams and study all the new prices. I DON'T!!!!! I spent hours looking over prices and drafting 5 teams. I don't have the time to do all that again, I work for a living and have a life outside fantasy. Thanks for nothing. - Anon (3/9)

response from Guru:
What a ridiculous assertion!

For someone who seems to have so little precious time, I don't know how you got around to drafting your teams 5 weeks before the season started! And you are managing 5 teams? Doesn't sound like someone who has a time shortage, does it? In fact, had you waited, you'd have also had access to a lot more user-friendly information that would have saved you a lot of time. So your griping sounds like an emotional reaction, but doesn't hold up logically at all.

Get over it. If I was instrumental in bringing about the change, then I'm proud of it. - Guru

Guru:
I read your reply to the disgruntled SW manager for baseball. I agree partly. First off, SW seems to have problems starting up in all the promotions, but to change the rules (prices) so players become unreachable like basketball (with everyone playing with a bunch of mediocre players) takes some of the fun out of it. I agree they should have corrected those mispriced players as in Clayton and Zeile, but they took what otherwise seemed like fair prices so you could afford a few name players, they now put out of reach. Players, especially pitchers, cost more now at the begining of the season, then their final cost last year. You still get the start up $50,000,000, with an inflated player price makeup. You seem to have some pull with SW - what about a promotion fair and enjoyable to all?

P.S. SW should give make the click money no matter how insignificant it means to player prices topping $14,000,000. - Ted D. (3/9)

response from Guru:
Sorry, but as to the player repricing, I agree with the inflated setup. Most star players are priced similarly to their levels at the end of last season. Pitchers generally cost more, but that is reasonable, because this year's scoring formula is different and pitchers will now produce roughly 50% more.

Over the course of a long season, it helps the game if all-star rosters become a lofty goal that is difficult to attain, not a slam dunk by the All-Star break. Using the original prices, I could have had an initial roster which included Kevin Brown, Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens, plus a number of decent hitters. That's a ridiculous way to start.

In Smallworld's recent football and hockey games, most of the leading teams could afford to own anybody by the middle of the season. A lot of Gurupies have told me that they lost interest by mid-season, because there was no longer any incentive to trade for profits. Trading for financial gains is a key ingredient of Smallworld's games, and when this aspect is trivialized, much of the fun is missing.

When you're forced to manage mid-priced players, you are required to follow the game more closely. I'm sure there are plenty of good values in this new price list. In Hoops, look at how many players have had multi-million price increases in just the first three repricings : Othella Harrington, Robert Pack, Darryl Armstrong, J.R. Reid, Jon Barry, and Kurt Thomas are all up $2 million or more. Rookies like Paul Pierce and Cuttino Mobley have gotten off to good starts, both on-court and in the price tables. Kobe Bryant was an early "high-flyer" in price, but you wouldn't have found him by looking at last year's stats. Ditto for Eric Snow, Derek Harper, John Stakrs, Dickey Simpkins. In a "traditionally priced" game, many of these guys just wouldn't have mattered, because everyone would have been flocking to the Kidds, Garnetts, Shaqs, and Webbers. Now, you have to do your homework to be able to generate the gains necessary to go after these rewards. I certainly enjoy the challenge more - and so do many Gurupies who have written to me in the early part of the Hoops season. So take this as a challenge. Frankly, as a Gurupie, you already have a phenomenal information advantage over your non-Gurupie competitors. By pushing the early focus down to the mid-tier players, that advantage becomes even more powerful. You should all be thanking SW for having the guts to eat those first prices and go with a fairer and more challenging list. I've been outwardly critical of SW sometimes in the past, when I thought it was warranted. In this case, I applaud the change; they did the best thing for the integrity of the game. - Guru

Guru:
Forgive me if I sound irate! It is not at you! But I am very irate! SW has officially SCREWED everyone signed up for baseball. The totally erased everybody's rosters and set everybody back to $50 mil. All click for $ that had been done up until now is gone. The roster I had spent two days creating, and was a top of the line roster I believe, is now history and I can't even afford it anymore. What a piece of crap. Why would they have opened the site just to screw everybody like this. I am so mad at them I may not even participate in the season. Sorry for venting but I also wrote to them and let them hear it worse, like it will do any good - they don't read email anyway. - Adrian (3/8)

response from Guru:
Yo, Adrian!

Get over it.

Frankly, the new prices look much better than the old ones. Although you undoubtedly had a much better roster, so did everyone else. In fact, there were so many players mispriced that virtually everyone who was paying attention would have had very similar rosters. That doesn't make for much of a game, does it?

To be honest, I strongly encouraged Smallworld to take a "do over" on prices, because the first set were way too low, and way too unbalanced. The current prices appear to be much, MUCH better.

There are really only two things that suck about this:

SW should never have gone public with such careless pricing the first time, and
They shouldn't have voided the impact of all of the ad clicking that everyone had already done.

But neither of those issues has much of a lasting effect.

So take a deep breath. If you do decide to play, you'll probably enjoy it much more than you would have under the old price structure. Believer me, your previous roster wasn't really better than anyone else's. It was THE SAME as everyone else's. (Todd Stottlemyre, Royce Clayton, Todd Zeile... am I getting warm?) - Guru

Guru:
Got a quick question about shorting a team and how you get money for them.

Let's say am shorting Duke. They are a #1 seed, and if I buy them they get -16 for going out in 1st round, -15 2nd, -6 3rd, 7 4th, and so on. Does that mean if I short them and they lose in the first round I get 16 points? Or does it mean I get 80 points since that is what they get for winning the NCAA tournament? I understand everything except the exact winnings of the teams you short. - Pooh (3/8)

response from Guru:
First of all, if you short Duke, you receive $25 right now. You can use that $25 to fund the purchase of other teams.

During the tournament, you'll get the opposite of whatever you'd get if you were "long" Duke. So if Duke wins game one, you would lose $1 (since anyone who owns Duke would receive one dollar,....er, I mean GuruBuck.) Suppose Duke successively beats teams seeded 16, 8, &4, but then loses to the #2 seed. If you were long Duke, you would receive $1 + $9 + $13 - $16. (The #2 seed would receive $16 for beating Duke, and since Duke was beaten by the underdog, Duke loses $16 for that game.) So Duke owners would receive net payments totalling $7. That means Duke shorts would lose $7.

However, since people buying Duke would have paid $25 to receive $7, they actually lost a net of $18 on Duke. And people who shorted Duke would have received $25 to subsequently lose only $7, so they would realize a net profit of $18.

Follow? Just think of a short as being the mirror image of a long. Anything received by a Duke owner would be payable by a Duke shorter. And anything charged against a Duke owner would be received by a Duke shorter.

So if Duke loses its first round game (Dream on!), and you shorted them, you'd receive $16. And that would be in addition to the $25 you had received for shorting them in the first place. In fact, that the most you can possibly realize if you short Duke.

Hope this helps. And by the way, Duke doesn't automatically earn $80 for winning the tournament. That's just the most they could win, assuming they continue to face the best possible seed in each round. If they end up facing some surviving underdogs that have won prior games, then they won't earn as much as $80. - Guru

Guru:
When exactly does Small World freeze the basketball rosters? In the rules it says: "The Roster Freeze will be at 12 noon, CST each day (always before the first game is played that particular day). "

This is a contradiction, because on Sunday there are often games starting well before Noon CST. Do they use a different freeze time on Sundays? It would be nice if they could be more specific here. - Jon I. (3/7)

response from Guru:
I suspect the freeze is always at noon CST. But I wouldn't wait until the last minute - there are too many horror stories about slow servers and other technical problems that could potentially lead to an invalid roster calamity. It's unlikely that seeing the first quarter of a game would provide enough information to make the risk worthwhile. - Guru

Guru:
What a great site! I'm so glad I found it. I will be a daily visitor.

My question is concerning Small World Sports. In the early going in SW, the name of the game is price increase. I'm sure my task will be made easier with your site, but in the past this has always been a problem. In SW Hockey right now I lead my division by 2000 points, but am nowhere near the national leaders. My dollar value is $80M while the national leaders have $125M!! And that leaves me no chance. Once I fall behind dollar-wise after the first couple of price increases, the problem becomes progressively worse. The leaders, having more money after the first price increase, can pick up a better player or two, therefore increasing their value even more than mine after the second price increase, allowing them to get a few more all-stars and so on, until I'm left in the dismal position I'm in now!

I've vowed not to let this happen again in SW Baseball. What recommendations do you have for the initial draft and then for the first round of trades prior to the first price increase? I'm not looking for player names, but for basic strategies. Should I draft a team mixed with All Stars, high priced players on half them team, then the best mix of lower priced producing players on the other half? Should I try to get a team filled with the best 3.5 to 3.6 million dollar players I can find? Keeping evenly priced players throughout the team. Should you draft players in major markets and contending teams? The idea there being if more people see these players, more people will draft them, increasing their $ value?

I'm tired of finishing ranked 2500 in the nation! Please help! - Big E. (3/7)

response from Guru:
I'll try to address these issues after I get my baseball stats fully organized and posted. In the meantime, you might want to review some if the strategy essays I've written in past seasons. Look for the "Hoop Pointers" link under basketball, or "Base Advances" under baseball, or "Field Goals" under football. Many of the most useful techniques are applicable to all SW sports.

As a SW Hockey player, you should also take advantage of the "RotoGuru-like" SW Hockey site. Click on the SW Hockey icon that appears among the other linked icons along the left side of this page. - Guru

Guru:
I got stuck in an undesirable division in Smallworld's Hoops game. Over half the division had exactly 0 points as of this week. I decided to create a division called Guru's Boys (no password required) for anyone to join that may want to compare their team with a higher level of competition. Any competition has to be better than going up against zeros!

If you would forward this information to any interested parties, I would appreciate it! - Brooks P. (3/6)

response from Guru:
Done! - Guru

Guru:
Somebody accessed my account on the SW Hoops site and used my last four trades to trade away my four best players for four guys who are out for the season. Nobody has my password, so I can't figure it out. I alerted Smallworld and they gave me trades to get my old guys back. Only problem is I got screwed and lost Friday's stats for my "stolen" players. I'm still first in my division, but my world ranking dropped from 171 to 473. Sucks huh? - Mike (3/6)

response from Guru:
Sure does.

This was a chronic problem during SW football, but yours is the first instance I've heard of it in Hoops. It's possible someone discovered your password, but it may also have been a technical glitch - as was the case when it happened in football. The best defense is to check in on your team every now and then, just to make sure it's still the way you left it. And notify Smallworld immediately (hoops@smallworld.com) if you've been "violated". - Guru

Guru:
I am one of those people who is guilty of early week trades in Smallworld. I manage three teams - two that are mine and a third for my friend whose computer went down last month and wants me to play it since I got him a better ranking than he ever got (67th at the moment).

The last two weeks, I have made 2-3 trades after the Wednesday shift to accommodate the schedule. I want to save all of them for the end of the week, but injuries have made me use up more than I wanted too. [Ceballos, Othella (to replace Barkley) Simpkins (to replace Long), etc.] I want to get to the end of the trading period to make these moves, but this week I had to spend 3 more trades on Wednesday night to grab 5 more games on high scoring players. I'm sure that you saw that Miami plays 4 games in 5 nights, and two of my players had only 2 games in that span. I will hang on to the other two trades in case of injury and hopefully, will be able to set my scheduling to where I have my 5 trades at the end of the period, but it still looks to be two weeks away at this point.

Just thought I would let you know why some early trading is happening. Oh, and I got lucky in a way. I would have dumped some good gainers this week and couldn't. As a result, my friend's team is at $75 million now. - Philip D. (3/4)

response from Guru:
It's usually better to be lucky than smart. - Guru

Guru:
Am I the only one who was surprised by this week's price changes? I dropped Robert Pack from my team two weeks ago, and the day before the price changes I dropped Jon Barry to get Brent Barry, since Jon didn't have a particularly good week. I also missed out on Cuttino Mobley, since I really didn't see anything spectacular in his numbers. My team didn't do too badly, as my franchise value still went up 5.25 million, but every trade I am using now is based solely on price changes (and dropping injured players) so my point total is still very low (partly because I forgot to draft a valid roster and I missed out on the first day's points). I picked up several players who I thought would increase in value because of their decent point accumulation at a relatively low price, but didn't turn out well. Their SWP/G/$ were at or over the 4.0 range, so they were good buys, but why didn't their price increase? - Philip Y. (3/4)

response from Guru:
It seems to me the primary keys to a good price change are:

A heavy schedule from the previous Thursday through the repricing Wednesday,
A good showing in the SW Top 50 listing, particularly at the beginning of the trade week, and
Some sort of notoriety - like a big game that was noted on ESPN's Sportcenter, or a good game on national TV. That is what probably helped Cuttino Mobley the most.

Although many Gurupies (like me) prefer to trade just before a price change, the mounting evidence indicates that more trades are being done just after a repricing, as soon as new trades are doled out. So, it's important to recall who looked good at the beginning of the week. I was a bit premature in buying Jon Barry and Cuttino Mobley, but I held on and got the reward. I also dumped Othella Harrington prematurely, I guess, but I didn't have the guts to hold on, especially with the national recognition that Barkley's return attracted.

The moral? Even if you don't think like the masses or agree with their tactics, you've got to recognize how the masses think and act - because the masses drive the price gains and losses. Just like the real stock market! - Guru

Guru:
I am excited about this year's March Madness competition. I was looking at the stats that you have posted and had a question about the "Best Potential G$ Return by Seed" table. I haven't checked out all of the numbers but in particular I was looking at the numbers for the 4 seed.

According to your chart, a four seed would earn the same return if that team lost in either the 3rd or 4th round. For some reason that does not make sense to me. If the 4th seed survives to the 4th round, shouldn't that team have earned the points for winning in the 3rd round (which against the number 1 seed would be a gain of 16 points). Then, by losing in the 4th round, the team would have earned a return of 32 G$ instead of 16. Am I missing something? - Troy J. (3/3)

response from Guru:
Um-m-m-m-m..... it was a test to see if anyone was actually paying attention. Yeah, that's what it was... a test!

If a #4 seed makes it to the 4th round and then loses, it beats a #13, #5, #1, and then loses to a #2 or #3. So the G$ awarded would be 4 + 12 + 16 - 0 = 32.

You passed the test. So I corrected the table.

(I wonder what other "tests" I made?) - Guru

Guru:
I stumbled upon a site that has the most added and dropped players for the ESPN FBA game. - Lance S. (3/3)

response from Guru:
Interesting, but not necessarily applicable to the Smallworld or Full Court game formats.

The ESPN games use a rotisserie scoring format, where each player appears on at most one team per league. Players can be added from free agency on a "first come, first served" basis. So the guys most likely to be added are guys who are apt to get more playing time due to a teammate's injury, or a lineup change, as well as players who have been unusually hot, while the guys who are most likely to be dropped are also usually injury-related.

In the games I cover at this site, those influences certainly are important. But the biggest price movers also are highly influenced by price, which is not present in the ESPN game format. So I don't think it has much value - unless you're just not paying attention at all, in which case it might keep you from missing the obvious moves. (And I suspect some of you may find that useful.)- Guru

Guru:
I had an idea that might help a lot of people get a good idea of who is going to go up every week. If you had a stat column that had the last 2 weeks SWP/g, minus the total year SWP/g, this would give a very clear view of who has been hot lately. - Kyle (3/3)

response from Guru:
While this type of stat might point out some of the price movers, I don't think it would be a very consistent indicator. I think it would be just as likely to give false signals as it would good signals.

For example, as of today, the top ten "hot" players would be (number in parentheses shows today's price gain):

Derek Anderson (+$40)
Gary Trent (+320)
Jeff Hornacek (0)
Danny Fortson (+180)
Elliot Perry (0)
Joe Dumars (+90)
Jason Kidd (+400)
Stephon Marbury (+70)
Dickey Simpkins (+990)
Joe Smith (+240)

Note that none of today's top six price gainers shows up in this list. Of the best six price gainers, J.R. Reid would have ranked 11th in this sort, Robert Pack 22nd, Jon Barry 39th, Darrell Armstrong 53rd, Cuttino Mobley 93rd, and Paul Pierce 125th.

Not a very "clear view", is it? Clear as mud. - Guru

Guru:
On the Assimilator for the Full Court game, I was wondering if you could rearrange the order of the positions to match the order at the Full Court site, i.e.... 2 C's, 4 F's, 4 G's, and 2 wild's.

I also wanted to know if anyone else had mentioned that when they pull up the Assimilator, their stored rosters aren't there. I have had that happen just about everyday. So then I have to input the roster again and save it only to see it erased the following day. Maybe this is something local to my computer. Do you have any suggestions to check if it is just local to my computer? - Ruben F. (3/2)

response from Guru:
I'll think about reversing the order for Full Court in the Assimilator. Off the top of my head, it may be easy, although I need to think about it a bit more before committing.

As to your roster storage problem, it has to do with how your browser handles its cookie constraints. According to a book I have, Netscape will only store a maximum of 300 cookies in total, and no more than 20 cookies per domain. There is also an overall size limit in bytes. In the Assmilator, each roster is stored as a separate cookie. So that implies a limit of 20 rosters. Presumably, this limit would apply across all Assimilators, so when baseball and hoops are both active, it may be more of an issue.

The more difficult limitation relates to the overall max of 300 cookies. There are all sorts of cookies stored on your machine that you don't even realize are there. Any site that wants a "memory" - like storing your password so you don't have to retype it everytime you pull up the site - probably stores the info in a cookie file. And I can't figure out how Netscape decides which cookies to "forget" when the limit is reached. However, I occasionally have the same problem that you do (using Netscape 4.5), so it seems like "last in, first out" may apply in my case.

When I run into this (it happens about every three months for me), I just delete the current cookie file, and start from scratch. This means that some sites for