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Ken_Kennilworth
Joined: 11/26/2019
Posts: 399

Charleston Hawks
III.2

Broken Bat Baseball
So this question is probably best answered by someone that was involved with or knows about the development of the game.

Why does the game have <11 POT players available in the draft?

I don't think there are many players with POT of 10 or below are on a roster...There are 756 rosters with up to 50 players each, so 37,800 slots; lots of possible spots, but i'd bet fewer than a dozen or two were filled by players <11 POT.

As a sample, I looked at the rosters of each team in Legends and Level II, saw only 1 POT 10 as i recall, and only 3 POT 11. So if the top level owners are avoiding low POT players, I figure the owners in the rest of the leagues are likely doing the same.

So why is computer resource & storage given to generating/keeping players that will not be used/rostered? I
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9571

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Its the only way to can get bad boards.

May seem like a joke, but that is the serious answer. Steve has stated before that teams really only need to be able to draft 2 or 3 keepers a year to keep their pipeline of players full. If we have 8 (previously 10) rounds, that means we need to have at least 5 boards with no keepers. It would be hard to do that if everyone was POT 11 or higher.
Ken_Kennilworth
Joined: 11/26/2019
Posts: 399

Charleston Hawks
III.2

Broken Bat Baseball
thanks Rock, interesting reply

do you happen to recall the thread name where Steve said only 2 or 3 keepers are required? (no big deal if you can't)

that is significant info, because with 2 or 3 keepers per year, it implies a players major league career should last maybe 8 - 10 years...25 player major league roster divided by 2.5 keepers per year = 10 year average...if true players should come up by 23 or 24 and retire by 33 or 34...i've been running my team to make use of all 30 major league spots, and maybe i should use spots 22 - 30 with young players and cull out older marginal platoon position players and relief pitchers

but back to bad draft boards...if only 2 or 3 keepers, why not reduce the number of rounds to 4 or 5 and drop out the players with <10 POT? I think i that would more evenly distribute the talent available to all drafting teams: in other words, fewer rounds of draft by each team with a better chance of pulling a good draft selection.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9571

Haverhill Halflings
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Broken Bat Baseball
Well its fun to anticipate the draft. I don't think people would want fewer rounds. Plus, you still need to evaluate players to pull the POT 12 diamonds from the POT 14 chafe. That is where some skill starts to come in. I wouldn't want fewer rounds. Better distribution would be nice though. Its silly when we have round 1 boards full of POT 11s.

25 should be plenty for a full team. 30 usually means you are bringing in a lot of youth, or have a lot of backups. Possibly a lot of platooning. But that isn't realistic. Just taking advantage of the extra slots. I would say that average career in BB is probably 8-10 years. (~24 - 34). Part of the recent changes Steve made to the draft get players in the the majors even earlier (~22 years old).
Ken_Kennilworth
Joined: 11/26/2019
Posts: 399

Charleston Hawks
III.2

Broken Bat Baseball
https://brokenbat.org/forum/-/3/5563

seems like this question or one similar to it was discussed previously. Indeed, the draft has been a constant sore. In the referenced thread the idea was to increase the number of higher quality players available. The concern was upgrading/inflating the talent level but not really changing overall competitiveness (aka rising tide raises all boats)
i think maybe the wrong decision was reached then.

but first let me ask this follow up: do all players available in the draft have an equal chance of being offered in the draft (random selection) or is offering weighted / crafted to provide a variety?

if random, there is some chance that various owners will get multiple good guys to chose from, and some owners get a pack of dogs. In short, it's a crapshoot, not a skill game.

However, with the bad players culled out, the talent available would be more uniformly distributed and ultimately, competitiveness in the league improved.

In the thread above, Steve said that in the long run the good drafts are evened out amongst the teams, and that skillful management ultimately triumphs...what he didn't say was how long it takes for the long run to get here...

as Maynard Keynes said "in the long run we are all dead" (in reply to Classical Economists during the Great Depression who said "in the long run, the economy will correct itself without stimulus"



Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9571

Haverhill Halflings
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Broken Bat Baseball
BTW, I did put in a suggestion a while back to make all player <10 show up as POT 10 and then remove fuzziness over time. Would mean a lot more POT 10s on the boards, but some of those guys would be decent POT 12s under the hood.

EDIT: I bumped it so you can read the suggestion. Its similar (but different) from what you are suggesting.

Updated Friday, July 24 2020 @ 6:03:18 pm PDT
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9571

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Its not weighted. That was a suggestion I have made in several threads.

I think the most recent suggestion was to hold out the top X (700?) POT players and assign one to each player's pool in the first round.

And yes, I think it probably equalizes sometime in the next 1000-2000 years (realtime).

With the exception of the draft change year (2041) where lots of teams got good players, I've had horrible luck with draft boards. My team could have been considered the Mendoza line of the draft up until the change. Haven't done a whole lot better since. Last year the only possible keepers I pulled were a pair of POT 12s, and neither one is still on the team.

And yes, in that thread you linked above, I have frequently championed the "more picks / better distribution" platform, to no avail. I would still prefer to see better distribution of talent, rather than the excitement of lucky team that pulls three POT 16s in one season.


Updated Friday, July 24 2020 @ 6:21:13 pm PDT
Ken_Kennilworth
Joined: 11/26/2019
Posts: 399

Charleston Hawks
III.2

Broken Bat Baseball
Rock, you have a lot of good ideas
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9571

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
That was a bit of an exaggeration, Steve did increase the number of players from 5 to 10 on my suggestion. So to some avail. Just not as much as I would like ;)
MukilteoMike
Joined: 08/09/2014
Posts: 3294

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
Why are players even generated with less than 10 potential? If every draft option was at least a borderline guy that had a chance of playing, much of the frustration would be eliminated.

I completely disagree with the notion that bad players have to be created so we can't/won't keep too many. A perfectly designed 10 potential player is still nothing more than a backup guy, but at least he has that possiblity. Who are the 10's going to replace on our rosters? Other bums. But with the fuzziness in potential for newly generated players, there's the possibility they're better than 10.

I'm not saying to increase the number of players that are truly above 10. Keep that the same. But get rid of players that have zero chance (less than 10 potential). Yes, there would be several times the number of 10's as anything else. That's why it would be interesting.


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