RotoGuru Feedback

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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.

Guru:
I've got some trading tactics that I believe are worthy of note. As I perused the SW rankings on your site, I noticed that most of the teams have a roster value of less than $80, perhaps even less than $75, but are still in the top couple thousand teams. I must assume that the owners here are pretty active and stay relatively alert and informed.

But today you suggested that in the upcoming weeks we may want to own both Kidd and Payton, and later, Shaq and Zo. This proves to be quite difficult for those of us with shallower pockets, so I suggest a different approach. For centers, it may prove beneficial to have one "stud" and one "second-tier". The stud would usually be Shaq, but in his emptier weeks it would be Zo or Dikembe. The second slot would be saved for a Wallace, Campbell, or similarly priced center. The reasoning behind this is it gives the owner FLEXIBILITY. There are so many times when an owner (such as myself) uses up as much of his/her cash as possible (thinking themselves to be ingenious when their cash level actually reaches zero) and then finds themselves strapped for cash later on. With the aforementioned pricing system, when it comes time to dump a player with few games in the upcoming schedule, there are quite a few other options to go with in the same price range.

For owners who need a bit more cash, there is another "tier" of centers at the 1.5-3 mil range producing a good 20 SW pts/gm. As for Kidd and Payton, I believe it benefits the $70 mil owner to own only one at a time unless both have extremely good schedules. This type of owner will be dropping Kidd today for Payton's 6 games from the 17th thru the 24th (for comparison, Kidd plays two games) and then switching back again for Kidd's 10 games in 17 days. This leaves at least one slot open for a $9 mil guard which has been real kind to us recently with the likes of Cassell and Iverson having heavy weeks. The reason why these guys are particularly good is that their schedules are so up and down week to week. Why is this good? Because as other owners drop and pick up the same players on the same day as you, your roster value will steadily increase.

Now that I've stated how to get into the top few thousand, here's how the $70 mil owner gets into triple digits: forwards! The $70 mil roster can't afford to allocate too much more than $20 mil to the forward spots, so one has to be choosy (and lucky). Forwards such as Odom, Feick, Ceballos, Lafraentz, and Nowitzki can be found on many rosters, and there's a good reason for that. These guys give you as many consistent pts for your buck as anyone else. The $70 mil owner usually can't afford to carry a Garnett or Duncan at the cost of having to carry an inconsistent $3 mil guard. Instead, they should have Payton or Kidd and carry the $3 mil forwards who are a dime a dozen.

The reason why you have to be so choosy when it comes to which forwards you pick up is because it's the most difficult position at which to make money. All the competition at this spot spreads the owners out, and thus, the price fluctuations. Also, with all the trading you may be doing at guard and center, you may have to hang onto the forwards for quite a while. (I've been stuck with Gatling and haven't had the trades available to get Sealy or Szczerbiak, (argh).

In the long term, I hope to make most of my money off the price fluctuations on Shaq and other high-priced players. I can then upgrade the second center or funnel a little more money into the forward spots. But that's a long way off. For now I've got to fight my way back into the top 1000. - Steve W. (1/16)

response from Guru:
I think your approach is sound. One of the best ways to preserve trading flexibility is to keep at least one cheap player at each position. This generally allows you the option to trade players individually, rather than having to do combination trades.

You're also correct about the difficulty of making a lot of money at the forward position. Too many good cheap forwards spread the wealth, and ditto at the stud end of the fwd spectrum, with Duncan, Garnett, Webber, Malone, and Hill all competing for playing time.

My best team is worth over $90 million now, and I have no trouble working into a lineup with Shaq, Mourning, Kidd, and Payton all at once. My other team is about $10 million poorer, and it is notably more challenging to keep that team optimized, especially when I'm always remembering who my richer team can own. - Guru

Guru:
I am the commish of my fantasy basketball league and am looking for a way to make my life easier. We have a rule on draft day that when a "tweener" comes up we vote on what position he will be drafted at. Let's say the consensus on draft day is that the player is a guard. The team who ends up getting him must play him at guard until he starts 5 games at another position. So, when somebody asks me "can I play Chris Mills at guard yet" because they remember he started a game there in early December, I have to go through every single Golden State box score to see if he has started 5 games at guard. I know that games played by position is a staple in rotisserie baseball and Johnny Hunt keeps that updated religiously in his Baseball Weekly column. So why has the fantasy basketball subculture missed the boat on this issue? Do you know of anywhere that I can get my hands on this information quickly and easily or do I have to keep scouring old boxscores. By the way Dirk Nowitzki just started his second game at center last night. Do you know how valuable that guy would be if he qualified at center? This is my dilemma, please help. Thanks - Joseph D. (1/5)

response from Guru:
Unfortunately, I don't know of such a resource. In fact, not all boxscores agree for a given game. For example, while the Dallas boxscore at ESPN shows Nowitzki starting at center last night, the boxscore at NBA.com lists him at forward (and does not list a starting center at all).

Any other Gurupies out there have a viable solution? - Guru

Guru:
In your 12/30 column you note several differences between the CNN-SI site and the SWH site which favor the latter. I agree but I also would note an important difference which apparently favors CNN-SI. While players not actively traded tend to drop in price by about 40k per day on the SWH site, it is more like 80k per day on the CNN-SI site. This difference in particularly noticeable in the prices of injured players. Each injured player with potential good value (if healthy) which I checked is cheaper at the CNN-SI site by several hundred thousand dollars except for those at the minimum (e.g., Marion). One might also expect that initially overpriced players will come into play sooner.

These differences might act to hold down the price of active players. However, in looking at the players on the team with the best ppg, i.e., O'neal, Mutombo, Garnett, Duncan, Webber, Malone, Kidd, Payton, Cassell, Jones, 8 are cheaper at SWH. The only two exceptions are Jones who became cheaper at CNN-SI during his current injury period and Webber who became slightly cheaper at CNN-SI shortly after his price dropped subsequent to neck strain. The bottom line to me is this, while it is not clear in which game it is easy to score higher, it is clear that they are sufficiently different that a competition between people in the two games is not fair. While a single ranking is harmless, I would argue that you should crown two separate Hall-of-Famers, one for each game. - Jay S. (1/3)

response from Guru:
Agreed. They are similar, but different. The difference in the price gravity factors at the two game sites has been discussed at the message forum, and no one has arrived at a rationale other than that "they are different."

As long as there are worthy leaders from each site (and it appears that this will be the case), I'm sure I'll award HOF status to the top finisher in each game. But I'm maintaining consolidated rankings for simplicity. - Guru

Guru:
I was thinking that Iverson will gradually appreciate to a point which is more than his pre-injury salary. Whereas his sell off on one day was capped by the 1 mill max, the buy back has been gradual.

What do you think of this theory?

He could then perhaps hit the upper 10's soon if his performances support buys. Last night he was actually off missing many shots. If he hit over 40% he could have been 60+ SWP. - David Klyce (12/16)

response from Guru:
Iverson is a little tough to figure. Granted, with a better shooting percentage he could have had 60+. But a healthy Iverson has never averaged much over 40 SWP for any extended period, so while he can have 60+ SWP games, he also has the occasional 25 SWP game to offset it.

I think your interpretation of his sell-off is incorrect, however. Granted, he did max out one day. (Twice at the CNN site.) But, SW price drops are a function of the proportion of sells for the player vs. total sells for all players on the same day. (At least, this is how other SW sports have operated, and recent evidence tends to confirm this for SW Hoops as well.) For example, if there are 100 sells on a given day, and 50% are Iverson sells, he would probably drop the max of $1 million. But on another day, there might be 1000 total sells, of which Iverson represents only 10% (100), and he'd drop much less - even though twice as many teams sold him that day. So, you can't interpret a maximum loss to equate to a lot of sells. It just means a lot of the sells that day were for Iverson, that's all. On those days he dropped a lot, he was the "theme of the day", and it was Thanksgiving week, which meant overall trading activity was probably low to begin with. That combined to suck Iverson down with abnormal force.

I'd expect a decent gain tomorrow (Friday), but after that, it will probably be slow going. Frankly, I think he'll have trouble getting to $10 million in the next week. Most of those who have waited will jump in by Friday. Thereafter, there won't likely be more than a steady trickle, unless he does something spectacular (in one direction or the other). After two games this weekend, he has only 2 games in the next 7 days, which isn't likely to attract many late comers. If he continues to produce at a 40+ SWP/G clip, he can certainly appreciate to well over $10 million, but it will be a long, gradual path.

I think hitting the upper 10's "soon" is wishful thinking. Unless, of course, he does start cranking out 50+ SWP games with regularity. In any event, Friday (12/17) is the key. - Guru

Guru:
I won't go into the details of Monday's pricing screw-up. It's a free game, I can't complain much... and even though I was screwed, so were a lot of other people. 'Nuff said.

But the REAL screw-up, at least in my book, is how they handled it. Since I don't play the other fantasy sports, I don't have the same experience with Smallworld as you or a lot of other people. Apparently though there were a number of incidents with baseball. As you say in your blurb, there ought to be some basic QA going on here. 5 mins. a day to "check your work", seeing as how thousands of people are relying on its accuracy, is not asking too much. Not to make too big a deal of it, it's just a game, but within that context there are a lot of participants devoting a lot of time and energy to this game, and it doesn't seem like it should take too much to make sure the daily results are reasonably accurate before posting them.

What amazes me though, especially if this has happened before... is that there's no sort of "contingency plan". They don't post anything on their site about it. No responsibility. Just ignore it and it will go away. I even sent them an email shortly after the repricing and inquiring about it and what action, if any, they were planning to take. No response. Personally, I'd rather see them either fix it ASAP when they make a mistake... maybe freeze trading until they can get it corrected. Or at least address it the next day... say if Odom should have dropped $100K yesterday but risen $50K today. Combine them for a $50K drop. Or even back out yesterday's erroneous $70K gain on top of that, yielding a $120K drop. Something. But don't just "wish it away"... not without an explanation. Again, it is just a game, but people spend a lot of time on it, and it reflects very poorly on Smallworld how they handle the aftermath IMHO. - Doug T. (12/8)

response from Guru:
You're preaching to the choir, Doug.

Quality control has been a chronic shortcoming of SW, as has "customer relations."

In September, Small World CEO Mark Jacobstein sent a apologetic email to all baseball managers, addressing both technological and quality issues. Since then, I have noted a material improvement in the technological construction of both the football and Hoops games, which has resulted in fewer problems that need to be remedied. But quality control still seems to be lacking, and open and honest problem communication is still lacking. Here's a quote form that email: "We have also hired a team of Quality Assurance experts whose job it is to test every aspect of the game before we release it to the public, so that your game experience is enhanced and consistent." Evidently, the process still has some holes, or else the QA experts don't know how to diagnose price anomalies.

And I don't buy the rationale that this is a "free" game. We invest a lot of hours planning strategy, visiting the site, clicking on sponsor ads,... which ultimately produces significant revenues for Small World. We just don't have to make any direct cash outlay to play the game. And we have every right to expect the same level of service as any "pay-to-play" game. - Guru

Guru:
I would be interested in knowing any tips about determining how a player's price is determined and being able to predict up and down swings or direct me to past postings that might help me.- J.E. (12/8)

response from Guru:
The rule of thumb is that buys increase a player's price, and sells cause it to drop.

One of the best places to learn more about this is at the message forum. There are a lot of willing experts over there who are very capable of interpreting and anticipating price movements.

The best technical explanation is an article I wrote last May about SW baseball pricing. Although we don't have the same data availablility for Hoops, it appears to be operating in the same way (albeit daily rather than weekly), with one important difference. That difference has been dubbed "price gravity".

As best we can determine by inference, gravity pulls down the prices of players who are owned by a minimal number of managers. If a player's ownership percentage is below the gravity threshold, then an amount is deducted from his daily price change. At the SW site, this amount seems to be $40K, while at the CNN/SI site, it is more like $60K. The amount may be slightly different depending on the ownership - that aspect is still difficult to pin down. (There are other slight differences in the gravity behavior at the two sites which we also haven't been able to satisfactorily explain, other than that Smallworld may just be using difference formulas at the two site - perhaps as an experiment to see which works better.) Presumably, once a player's price drops to a level that it is economical, buying will begin, and the player will gradually escape the force of gravity.

Hope this helps. If you have specific questions, though, ask them at the message forum. That's probably the best way to learn. - Guru

Guru:
It seems to me there is a fine line between "dropping a player who seems to have peaked in price", and "bailing on someone who has had a recent run of subpar performances". I mean, aren't subpar performances usually the reason someone peaks in price? If a player has gone up in value over a million dollars, and THEN has a run of subpar performances, I'm not sure I'd qualify it as a defensive move since you've gotten your million plus dollars from him already.

Anyway, I certainly understand your point. I was fortunate to stay away from Iverson and Pack so far... and that has helped propel me ahead in the salary-cap game, as a lot of people were stuck with $2 million in losses with Iverson alone. On the other hand, I've been playing it a bit risky and using my 4 trades by Sunday or Monday each week it seems. This week I traded Skinner for LaFrentz on Saturday, and now wishing maybe I would have waited and traded for Marion on Sunday instead, after seeing his resurgence last night. Oh well, I'll just count my blessings thus far and hope Marion doesn't have another killer game to send his price through the roof before Thursday.

As long as my luck continues to hold, I should be able to conserve a trade next week, since my roster is beginning to afford a few more "keepers" than before.

By the way, I find the poll interesting, since I prefer the daily repricing scheme 10-fold over the weekly. I hardly played the game last year I was so disenchanted. - Doug T. (11/30)

response from Guru:
I guess the difference I was thinking about relates mostly to motive. I dropped Griffin yesterday because he had appreciated over $3 million, and his upcoming schedule was extraordinarily light. His value hasn't peaked due to subpar performances. In fact, he still looks cheap on a SWP/G/$ basis, but I figured his price would suffer somewhat over the next week because a lot of managers would get restless holding a relatively inactive player - hence the "defensive" motive to sell. Since I could also add some extra points over the 10-day period, there certainly was an offensive motive as well. (Of course, I used my last trade to do it, and bought Erick Strickland, so I'll end up losing points and dollars. Argh.)

You are right when you say the difference is subtle, however. I guess a defensive trade is one you make because you're trying to avoid something, either a price drop or an inferior (price adjusted) point stream. An offensive move is one you make because you want to add another player, either to capitalize on a likely upward price trend, or to gain extra points from a heavy schedule. Sometimes, you can do both at once. But sometimes, the required timing of a defensive move limits the flexibility on the buy side. And with the recent rash of injuries, that's the way it's felt to me lately.

The biggest knock I've heard against the new rules is the need to pay closer attention. Some managers just don't like the need for daily analysis. One person also suggested that roster value inflation will be greater under daily repricing, but the evidence so far doesn't support that assessment. - Guru

Guru:
You're right on the mark about defensive trading (11/29 blurb). But I believe the source of the problem is that none of us knows how to play with daily price changes. SW has carefully gotten us trained to rush to get our trades in before a price change reflecting a week's worth of study and contemplation. Then after every change we were rewarded with new trades. Pavlov? The rush continues, but the rewards have been severely curtailed.

I'm wondering if the time tested strategy of trading for gain for the first half of the season then trading for points the second half will really work in this game. It seems that if you ignore the price swings and manage the schedule and the point producers you'll end up ahead.

Now, to find the discipline not to jump everytime the bell rings. - Mike V. (11/30)

response from Guru:
It is more difficult to know what "trading for gains" means in this game. With certain rare exceptions, most player gains have emerged slowly and steadily over a period of days or weeks. In general, these are the players with good performance and heavy schedules, so it may be that trading for gains is not really distinguishable from trading to maximize points.

I've just got to learn how to avoid picking up players just before they're injured. I think I've identified the way to "trade for losses". - Guru

Guru:
Sound the alarm! It'll be a Small, Small World sooner than later. Price gravity is sucking the $'s out of Small World Hoops. The 349 players you list in the SW stats had a total value on 11/2 of $1,425,010 SW (in thousands). The sum of the current year to date price changes is -$93,200 (thousands) or -6.54% in 25 days. There are 170 days in the season, so at the current rate the league roster should be light about 44.5% by the playoffs if things continue at this rate! I don't really have any idea of specifically how the gravity thing works, but this is how the numbers look.

Is the sky falling?? - Kevin B. (11/30)

response from Guru:
If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

If a player's price falls, and nobody owns him, was any value really "sucked out of the market"?

Dropping the prices of players who aren't owned certainly doesn't reduce overall market capitalization. Some of those price drops are for inactive players, so those price changes will have no impact on anything. But some are for players who are just not performing up to last season's level, and gradually, some of these players will become cost justifiable. And regardless of what that does to the sum of all prices, it certainly should enhance the value of the game. - Guru

Guru:
In regards to your Back-to-Back Backsliding, I think the analysis is fairly sound. If you have the volume of back to back games necessary wouldn't the mean SWP second game differential be a more accurate reflection rather than the average off a baseline?

Good article, I appreciate the idea. - Icarus (11/23)

response from Guru:
That might be a better way to do it - if the object was to discover whether there was any falloff in the second game. But I think the way I did it better responds to the way people manage their teams.

You pick up a guy in advance of heavy scheduling. Then you don't care whether the first or second game is higher - you just want to get total points that are consistent with the recent average.

It's also possible that players would be rested more than usual on the first night, in anticipation of having to play the next night. If this dampens the first night's output, your method could miss the impact entirely.

In any case, since I didn't find much impact, I doubt if alternate methods would uncover significantly different results. - Guru

Guru:
Last year, I believe you had a version of the NBA schedule that was easily converted into excel. I'm curious as to whether you plan on doing that again this year- it helped me out immensely last year.

Thanks again for all your hard work!- Sam R. (11/6)

response from Guru:
I don't recall exactly what I did for this last year, but there are two ways I can think of to get what you want.

If you have Excel 97, you can just read the schedule grid directly into Excel, and then strip out the stuff you don't want to keep. In Excel, open the full season schedule page: http://rotoguru.com/hoop/schedule.html. It may take a little while for Excel to interpret all of the cell formatting, but it should reproduce all of the colors.

Alternatively, you could read in (or download) a text (.prn) file from http://rotoguru1.com/hoop/NBAsched.prn. Parse the file into columns of width 5. The top row is the team name, and each subsequent row is the daily schedule. - Guru

Guru:
The nice thing about being in your division is the opportunity to compare strategies. In Echelon you're going VERY cheap right now at roughly $99k per day. This gives you a tidy 6194 pts/$1M efficiency ratio, saving over $60k per day if you include all of the bonus money....call it $50k per day after transaction costs.

Is the strategy that the studs who are above $25,000 simply don't have that much room to appreciate early on, thus if you save money now you'll still be able to afford the studs later? Thus, you can get 3 or 4 studs in place of $10k/day players around mid-season vs. my strategy of 2 studs now and an almost "break even" payroll of $146k/day?

What I wonder about is the appreciation of the studs and the mid-range solid players. Ceballos, Marion, Laettner, Odom, et al will be $18k or more by the time you're able to fill with studs later on in the year. - Greg R. (11/6)

response from Guru:
I've gone cheap for now, in an effort to nail down some of the best long-term values. After awhile (I haven't figured out just when yet), I'll prune out the inferior ones, and use those slots to rotate among higher valued talent. By filling my roster with underpriced players, I hope to have some choices in my ultimate keepers.

Based on the logic in my 10/29 tip of the day, I figure it's worth holding on to a player if his market price is more than 125% of his locked price. (The optimum percentage threshold might be a little higher or lower.) The players who start out the cheapest have the best opportunity for the highest percentage appreciation. Meanwhile, a $20,000 player would have to appreciate to $25,000 to make him a worthy "hold" candidate, vs. actively swapping for extra games.

The key for me will be to not hold on to too many cheap players for too long. If I have trouble effectively spending all of my cash, then high efficiency isn't going to get me enough total points. At this juncture, though, that possibility still seems a long way off. But I guess I'd better start thinking about it.

By the way, I'm not at all convinced that this is the optimum approach. We're all learning as we go along here. - Guru

Guru:
I played SW Hoops for the first time last year and found it quite easy - just pick up outstanding players and ride them. There was little concern for the schedule, as the compact season led to a uniformly intense sprint to the finish with few days off. This year the NBA is back to normal and there are numerous stretches for each team where they do not play games for 5 or more days. I imagine that in order to do well in SW, one needs to increase their roster value and get as many games played as possible.

My question is how to value each trade. I read your Hoops Pointers article on this topic from Jan. 1998 and I wonder if those numbers can be relied upon. Are the point systems from the 97-98 game the same as 99-00? I understand that we cannot know how SW plans its repricing at this point, but as for points/game, is there a rule of thumb that can be used before the season starts like "You need to gain 'X'swp/g per trade" to make it worthwhile? - Charlie C. (10/20)

response from Guru:
The best answer today is probably, "Let me think about that for awhile." For now, however, I can at least say that

the point formula hasn't changed for SW Hoops over the last few years,
I think scheduling did play an important role last year, even though the disparity across teams may have been less than in a normal season, and
it's probably better to wait for at least a few weeks before acting on any trading "rules of thumb" along the lines that you've suggested.

With only four trades per week, I think it makes sense to be stingy in the early season. Some of the best gains opportunities will probably be schedule-related, and those should clearly be exploited. But there will be plenty of time to make "point motivated" trades later in the season, when we better understand the price dynamics. While no one likes to get off to an apparent slow start, fantasy basketball is like a marathon (similar to baseball, different than football), where the strategy and tactics should change over the course of the season, and where a "slow start" - if you're efficiently building value - can easily be overcome. Trading to maximize game exposures makes the most sense when you have enough dollar value to flexibly trade among several studs, and that probably won't occur for most teams until at least January. - Guru

Guru:
i think u oughta keep making ur "Field Goal" things...the thoughts u post on the smallworld site about once a week...i luv them - Peter B. (10/20)

Guru:
I noticed that in 1997-98 you had nearly an essay a week on hoop pointers. I would hope you would consider writing more articles like those this season, I find them the most useful and helpful part of your site. - Charlie C. (10/20)

response from Guru:
There are several reasons why I haven't been as prolific in putting out strategy essays lately:

Many of the essays from the previous two years are still relevant.
The scope of the site has expanded significantly over the past year, and site maintenance and development often crowds the time available for research and writing.
I was motivated in the first year to get more exposure, and contributing regular articles to the Smallworld site was a good way to do this. While new postings at the SW site still generate some new traffic, the marginal returns are much lower now, and the motivation is lessened.
I suck at fantasy football.

A lot of good strategy insight has been contributed at the message forum. I realize that there is also a lot of "noise" over there, and that many of you do not take to time to dig through the all of the oysters in search of the occasional pearl. That's why I've just introduced a new feature: Message Forum Keepers, where I'll try to capture the best strategy discussions that develop at the forum.

Bottom line: I do hope to write more, but the rigors of site management will undoubtedly lead to continued irregularity. Meanwhile, I'll try to update the keepers to satiate your appetite for thought provoking fodder. - Guru

Guru:
I was thinking that the entries that only began this week should be penalized as if they made no picks in week one. Therefore should have a -500 added into their scores. If not this weeks entrants, then from now on if you just join the league, then you pick up -500 X the number of weeks you missed.

Just an idea. Great game so far! - Jared (10/20)

response from Guru:
I didn't think a penalty for week one was appropriate, since that scoring rule didn't apply until the second week. But I suppose from here on, late starters should incur the 500 point penalty for week 2 onward. I think I'll do that in the total points column, but in the averages, I'll just count the weeks since the initial entrance. That should keep everyone totally confused. - Guru

Guru:
I read your message about the Tribe facing Pedro twice in a 5 game series. Some thanks for possibly having the best record in the AL (but definitely winning your division). This is what I think should happen.

First one must look at the motivations that are in place when deciding which way to adjust the postseason format.

The owners want to make money and they accomplish this by having good attendance and a team that can get into the postseason (Of course their payroll has something to do with it as well, but that is a separate issue). They also make money if baseball as a whole is strong and the value of their franchise continues to go up.
The league wants to have some more post season games to make money. They also want the regular season to be profitable and healthy to get better TV contracts.
The league does not want the playoffs to extend further into the fall.
The league believes that more playoff games produce more money.
Oh yeah. The fans want meaningful games played, true pennant races and a fair playoff format that decides the best team. This means that a wildcard should not get basically the same rights as a division winner.

These are my solutions to accomplish all of the above:

First, we need to have unbalanced schedules to make pennant races stronger. It will also be a fair gauge of the division winner. Teams will have numerous opportunities to prove who the better team is over 162 games... no excuses.

The regular season is very long and because of that, there is plenty of time to become a division winner if your team is very good. My feeling is that if after 162 games you have not proven to be a better team than one in your division, then you have already proven you are not the best team in the league and therefore do not need to prove anything in the playoffs that you couldn't prove over 162 games. Therefore I would like to eliminate the Wild Card. However, because eliminating the wild card would not satisfy some of the above parameters, I must keep the Wild Card. [Heads drops in a slow shaking motion...]

Do not lose faith, my bright-eyed bunch, the "Stevester" has a solution:

First, we need to have unbalanced schedules to make pennant races stronger. It will also be a fair gauge of the division winner.

Second, we add another wildcard team. Yep, I said it, we add another one.

Has Steve lost his mind?

Stay with me, here is what we do:

You have 3 division winners.
You get 2 wild card teams which would be the teams with the next 2 best records in the league.
The 2 wildcard teams play a 1 game "pre" playoff to decide who gets into the real playoffs. This game is played immediately after the season ends, so as to not push the playoffs any deeper into the year. It would be a very exciting game that would attract a huge crowd.

OK, I will let that settle in...

Advantages:

Division winners get rewarded for winning their division with a reprieve on the first round.
WC teams have to play this one game playoff which would be a very exciting game. They would also have to let it all out in this game thus being a little more spent to then go into the next series. A disadvantage to being a WC team.
Part 2 gives the division winner with the best record an advantage. Something to play for.
We get more playoff teams in the mix which makes everyone happy because more teams are still playing for something with a chance at 2 wild card spots.
The teams get rewarded for good play during the regular season and the road to the WS is tougher for the teams that played worse during the regular season.
Finally, this would eliminate the terrible thought that exists today where somebody says, we are better off not being the division winner because of the matchup we will get. (e.g., Pedro would likely start in the WC playoff game, and only be available once in the next round.) This will keep true pennant races alive as nobody would rather be a WC team.

Everybody wins! The fans, the owners, the league, and the TV people. - Steven W. (9/23)

response from Guru:
An interest analysis, "Stevester". Think you can get it implemented before next weekend? - Guru

Guru:
Echelon football market: Would I be correct in assuming that there is no reason to select a team prior to this weekend's games? It would seem that you should wait until you can take advantage of picking a team which will enjoy initial price changes. Dividends are too low and you can not sell your team until after the first weeks price gains.

Small world: I basically gave up on their baseball game when I did not receive points on Aug 13th and 14th. Can we expect a better run game for football? - Will T. (9/10)

response from Guru:
I think your interpretation of the Echelon Football Market trading rules is incorrect. You can sell your team prior to the first price change. You'll just incur a 0.5% transaction penalty, and you'll forfeit any dividends on the players transacted. So the question is whether you think the dividends on your "keepers" will exceed the transaction costs on your "dumpers".

If you've spent $15,000,000 to draft a team, the transaction cost to sell the whole thing is $75,000. Let's assume each slot is equally valued, so the cost per sold player is about $5400. Using Echelon's draft pricing standard, an average player (worth one-fourteeenth of $15 million) should produce a weekly dividend of roughly $17,000. So, if you can keep one third of your roster intact, that should more than offset your transaction costs - especially since it's the higher producers that you'll be keeping.

Sounds to me like even if you're a modestly unsuccessful drafter, you should assemble most of your roster in advance. Or, try two teams, drafting one in advance, and leaving the other empty until Monday.

As to whether SW will be able to appropriately administer this game, who knows? The advantage of football is that there are fewer games to tabulate, and plenty of time to fix errors before the next game compounds the problem. From that standpoint, football should be the easiest game to get right. But they have something to prove to all of us. I expect improvement, but I also assume nothing. - Guru

Guru:
I'm back from a week's vacation and finally catching up on your daily blurbs, including your note of the 1st about R. Johnson being off a few rosters. This might be water under the bridge since your note was a week ago, but I'm afraid that I was one of those who left him off at the time; having to choose between Pedro and Johnson to be left on a roster inactive for a week was not an easy choice! I suspect that with the large numbers of students returning to school that temporarily inactive rosters might explain at least some of the RJ absences--of course, so could dementia. - Fred C. (9/8)

response from Guru:
Hope you stayed the course. While the comparison for that start was a tossup, Pedro bested Randy by almost 150 SWP the last time out. - Guru

Guru:
Help! I have been messing with my Small World football team for about 2 weeks. Yesterday I was making a few changes, and I got the message "Sell Failed, not enough trades remaining" I have e-mailed SW, but I get the same message, saying that they will get back to me, and they are working on customer relations.

Without trades, I will be stuck with a team I do not want, and thus lose my motivation to play. - BSK (9/7)

response from Guru:
I've been getting similar messages for over a week now. At first, it seemed that teams were getting stuck after just 4 trades. Lately, it seems like the limit has been raised - perhaps to something like 40 - but the more active draft swappers are still hitting a wall.

I don't understand why this should be so tough to cure, as unlimited preseason trading has been a feature of all SW games in the past. But, if you stay stuck, you can always reload with a new team. Just transfer your "stuck" team to a new division, create a new team, and put in it your vacated division spot. And then make up your mind before you enter your draft. If you need to do some trial and error, you can safely use the Assimilator. It has no limit, and it'll probably run just as fast as the SW draft process. With less irritation. - Guru

Guru:
I am writing through this forum as opposed to the message board because I am hoping to get your opinion on my opinion on Griese vs. a midrange QB . My feeling is that although Griese is cheap, he is essentially a rookie and will play as such. He will therefore garner few points, and will have little chance of price appreciation because he will be widely held initially. My inclination is to avoid Griese, although he is owned by virtually every other manager in my division, and buy a QB in the $5-6 mill. range to go along with my high priced QB. In which direction would you proceed? - JPH (9/7)

response from Guru:
It seems that many times, the pre-season "no brainer" turns out to disappoint. And the "coup" is someone who materializes out of nowhere, like Randall Cunningham last year.

There are enough Griese factors available to rationalize any decision you want to reach. You've cited some of the negatives, in addition to which, Denver plays a tough schedule, including facing last year's strongest defense in the first game.

On the flip side, he's played well so far, he's on a talented offense with a runner who will deflect a lot of the defense's attention, and he can't drop in price. Depending on how you deploy the money saved, he could turn out to be a good buy even if he disappoints on the field.

I'm leaning toward passing on Griese in the draft, for not much sounder reason than being a contrarian. Plus, if he starts out well, I can still easily pick him up after the second weekend, and use the free funds for someone who has started strong. But, I haven't finalized my thinking on this yet. - Guru

Guru:
I've been a regular Gurupie for a couple of years and have played all of the SmallWorld sports games for the last two years. I have to say that the way baseball was handled this summer was enough to make me look around for alternatives.

I found a new game which appears to be very thorough. The football version even makes you pick 11 defensive players. You may want to have a look. They also have hockey and basketball and it's also free. The URL is www.fantasyteam.com. - Jacques C. (9/2)

response from Guru:
Thanks for the alert. I may give it a look-see, although I wouldn't provide any statistical coverage until I had played at least one season first - to see whether the game is interesting and appropriately supported. If other Gurupies have any experience with this site, let me know. And feel free to give it a test drive this fall.

(Not sure I want to have to pick a full team of defensive players, however. It's tough enough to keep track of the ball handlers.) - Guru

Guru:
I've had a couple of bugs in my brain just lately that I wonder if you might have thought about.

First, I had been saving up trades for a couple of months, planning on using them on my top 1-2 pitching slots, swapping in big-name types every day. It then occurred to me that many excellent starts come from guys who are low on the price scale (the Freddy Garcias of the world, et cetera) or from guys in the middle somewhere. I decided that, instead of using my trades only on those top-price slots, I would rotate all five of my pitchers at once. I sold off Griffey for Trot Nixon to give myself a bit of extra pitching budget (about $41 mill), then started to churn pitchers for eight days (Tuesday night to Tuesday night, to maximize positive impact on budget). My results have been pretty good, but this is a rather small sample; do you have any thoughts on whether it's better to burn up your pitching swaps on the high-budget dudes or whether some other strategy is best?

Second, I note that you seem to be of the view that pitchers starting on Tuesdays tend to get a price boost in the repricing. I have always assumed that the pitchers who would receive the most positive price activity would be those starting Wednesday, since a lot of trades are made Tuesday night because of the Wednesday repricing. Have you, by any chance, crunched any data/reached any conclusions about what day's pitchers tend to benefit most in the repricing? - Kurt D. (9/2)

response from Guru:
Frankly, I haven't done any thinking at all about the bugs in your brain. (You might want to call an exterminator.) But I have thought about the topics you raise.

It's obviously better to burn your trades on the best pitchers. If you can pick cheap pitchers for their best outings, then more power to you. But I think I have the best chance by going with the most consistent producers, since I only need to get their averages (over time) to get 100+ points per trade.

But at this point, if you have a lot of trades left, you'll have to go beyond the proven studs. Obviously. Because there's no point in having trades left unused when the season ends.

As to the Tuesday vs Wednesday issue, I think the pattern shows that popular pitchers do best (pricewise) for weeks with two starts between the prior Thursday and repricing day. This usually means they pitched on Thursday & Tuesday, or else Friday & Wednesday. This seems to benefit from three different trading styles:

Those who use all (or most) of their trades to pick up 2 start pitchers at the beginning of each trade cycle, and
Those who tend to use one slot to rotate through a series of pitchers (since many use the last trade on Tuesday - or else skip a Wednesday rotation), and
Those who just buy the stud pitchers, regardless of timing.

I haven't done any quantitative analysis on the Wednesday vs. Tuesday factor, but it seems like both days are quite good - as long as the Tuesday starter didn't pitch the prior Wednesday (since he wouldn't be a 2 start pitcher).

The converse is also true. The week after a two start week is a bad price omen, since those pitchers tend to get 2 sells but only one buy during the week.

Which is why RJ went up, and Pedro went down. This also suggests that RJ is an accident waiting to happen next Wednesday. Those two seem to be the most heavily traded, so the impact is the most extreme for them.- Guru

Guru:
I have a question about this year's Smallworld football scoring that you may or may not know the answer to. (There is no consensus on the message board about this either.) The issue is whether all players receive all points, regardless of their position. More specifically, do kick returners who double as RBs or WRs get points for all the positions they play, and conversely, do WRs and RBs who double as punt and kick returners get points for those special team positions? - Steve W. (9/2)

response from Guru:
I believe that all players will get points for all scoring categories. My reasons are:

The posted scoring example for Brian Mitchell clearly indicates that Kick Returners will receive points for rushing and receiving.
Last year, all players received points for all categories. Running backs got points when they threw passes. Kickers got points when they scored 2 point conversions.
Last year the rules clearly stated that all players received points for all categories. This year, the rules appear to be silent on this issue. (However, some Gurupies think that there was a contradictory comment in the rules awhile ago. If so, it has been deleted - another sign.)
When you bring up an individual player's page - say Wide Receiver Will Blackwell, for example - it lists both receiving and return yardage, and in the "scoring rules" column, it specifically shows the points for all categories. Interestingly, though, it doesn't show the throwing categories here. Check Edgar Bennett, for example. He did throw two passes in 1998, completing one for a TD. In last year's SW game, he received points for that. But this year, those stats aren't shown on his page, and he seems to be priced at the standard 25 SWP/G/$mil using points which exclude the passing stats. So I don't know if that is intentional, or an oversight.

Likewise, receiving yards aren't listed for QBs. While a QB reception is rare, they do occasionally happen. I don't know whether those points are to be included or not.

But it does seem likely that backs, receivers, and returners will all get points for rushing, receiving, and returning.

I suppose I could ask SW for clarification. But lately, when my emails to them have been answered, the responses haven't been totally reliable. So that still wouldn't settle the issue. And ultimately, the issue isn't necessarily one of "intent", but rather of what the scoring software has been programmed to do.

If anyone has further evidence to confirm or refute my assessment, please clue me in. - Guru

Guru:
Another possible explanation for the 5% not having Randy Johnson is if you are behind someone in the standings you can root for his players to perform poorly and in this case if he got bombed those 5 % would have gained on just about everyone. I've used this strategy (unsuccesssfully most times) to try and catch my friend in my division. I'm in the 1900s in SW and my friend is in the 180s and this was without your site. (I just discovered you last week from the top 50.) - Mike M. (9/2)

response from Guru:
Rank has its privileges. - Guru

Guru:
On this date in 1906, Jack Coombs (of the Philly A's) beat Joe Harris (of the Boston Pilgrims, soon to be Red Sox) 4-1 in 24 innings. Both pitchers went the distance, Coombs had 18 K's. Without knowing hits or walks, Coombs scored 598 SWP to Harris' 464. Not a bad day for those who had them on their roto-rosters. Some perspective: Philly's _TEAM_ ERA that year was 2.60 with 9 HR's given up. The best pitching that year was by the Cubs, ERA was 1.75 and 12 HR's total for the season (pre-Wrigley). Boston Pilgrims had the worst pitching staff at 3.41 and 37 HR's. I bet most roto-players were trading for starts in those days! - Dave B. (9/1)

response from Guru:
Probably right. But modems were so slow back then. - Guru

Guru:
In your daily blurb, you asked why five percent wouldn't have Randy Johnson.

Perhaps they couldn't access the site at all. I could not get into the Small World baseball site the night of Aug. 30 or the morning of Aug. 31. I wrote and complained and they sent a form letter back that said they couldn't respond to every e-mail. I've had it with Small World. I'm picking another game next year. - Mark E. (9/1)

response from Guru:
Join the crowd. - Guru

Guru:
Quick question about Small World Football. With the recent news about Griese replacing Brister as Denver's starting QB (however temporarily), I would imagine that everyone who hasn't been hiding in a cave would pick up Griese, if for no other reason than the $250k price tag. My guess is:

His price will never go up very much since he'll likely be on a lot of opening day rosters (which is a reason not to pick him up).
Since people have the extra money for another player, the increased productivity at that position would obviously help the team (which is a reason to pick him up).

Any thoughts? - Caleb S. (8/31)

response from Guru:
As long as Griese isn't a total screwup, he's probably worth owning in the early weeks. While you're correct that heavy drafting interest is likely to dampen his appreciation potential - perhaps considerably - he still should put up a lot of points for only a $250,000 capital commitment. In the early weeks, when capital is scarce, you need to find some attractive cheap players to give you room to maneuver with the rest of the roster, and Griese looks like a good candidate.

Just don't get your hopes up for a major gain. He'll start cheap, and always be cheap. - Guru

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RotoGuru is produced by Dave Hall (a.k.a. the Guru), an avid fantasy sports player. He is neither employed by nor compensated by any of the fantasy sports games discussed within this site, and all opinions expressed are solely his own. Questions or comments are welcome, and should be emailed to Guru<davehall@home.com>.