I find year ranges in general annoying, but I don’t find they ruin the theme the majority of the time. The $100m is different imo because the players already give you a year range, to shorten it from the players allotted in my opinion was a poor choice in the theme creation. And that’s not a personal attack on whoever made it. I don’t make themes cause I’m not creative, but I do believe it was a poor choice in this instance and would have preferred Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander and the others were removed if preventing deadballers was the goal. There are many other great pitching options that could have been added to give quality seasons and teammate options.

and as for the “why” - I know nothing is going to change, but I hope that in the future different thought processes are used when creating themes like this. Or heck, maybe the r2 version could remove the year constraints and just allow the players to act as the year restrictions.

"The $100m "box theme" this year was particularly disliked because it forced owners into specific roster selections construction strategies without room for strategic diversity. This kind of design undermines the core enjoyment of simulation baseball, which lies in the freedom to create and compete with unique team strategies."

I couldn't disagree with this more. I totally get the frustration over the limitations - those arguments are valid. However, there are still many strategies available and many combinations of players. This argument makes it seem like we're going to see the same rosters across the board. There is plenty of room for diverse strategies even with the restrictions.

"I do believe it was a poor choice in this instance and would have preferred Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander and the others were removed if preventing deadballers was the goal. There are many other great pitching options that could have been added to give quality seasons and teammate options."

In one sense, I agree. However, this also may have been a gift to us. By including players like that, it gave us more options for teammates. If you remove those players and replace them in the boxes with more prominent players from 1920-1980, then we're more hamstrung on teammate options.

One of the main goals of any theme is to get different rosters. If a theme is too restrictive, many good owners will figure out the "right" combination of players that works.

One of the things I like to do after the season starts is to summarize the choices made in each theme. In the 70M theme, how many different teams will be selected? Probably not not 72, as I'm sure some teams will be selected more than once. In the 100M theme, I would be surprised if any 16-player combination was exactly duplicated.

Posted by just4me on 5/16/2024 3:11:00 AM (view original):

Posted by redcped on 5/16/2024 12:21:00 AM (view original):
Yeah, with all due respect, I cannot think of a single argument that any season besides 1972 is Sutton's best season. Others might be more cap-friendly in some themes, sure, but I mean it's not even close as far as stats go.

He was the 6th or 7th best pitcher in ‘72, and his WAR is within the margin of error for 1980 at 6.6 vs 6.3, despite the 60 additional IP. And he was 2nd or 3rd best in ‘80. After normalizing, both ’80 & ‘81 are roughly equivalent to both ‘72 & ‘73 on rate basis’, IP difference being only significant gap. ‘72 was a big year for pitching across the board. Lots of career years by traditional numbers that aren’t as clear cut career years after adjusting for the context. Thus the “arguably.”

1980 is eligible for the theme.

Posted by Jtpsops on 5/16/2024 10:33:00 AM (view original):
"I do believe it was a poor choice in this instance and would have preferred Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander and the others were removed if preventing deadballers was the goal. There are many other great pitching options that could have been added to give quality seasons and teammate options."

In one sense, I agree. However, this also may have been a gift to us. By including players like that, it gave us more options for teammates. If you remove those players and replace them in the boxes with more prominent players from 1920-1980, then we're more hamstrung on teammate options.

Exactly what I was going to say.

Players like Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander were included because they *have* decent usable seasons in this time range. To exclude them would have meant players with worse seasons would have be included, and then they also couldn't be used as teammates.

My takeaway from this discussion is that we might want to form a larger theme committee next year and see if we are able to reach consensus effectively and also satisfy some of the concerns noted by some of you. I'm certainly open to that. I have no "ownership" of this tournament. It belongs to all of us, and if someone else chooses to run it next year in their own way I'll compete in it regardless.

That said, I do hope everyone understands that some of the criticisms are hard to avoid. We purposefully spread out the salary caps to help separate the owners who can build effectively at all of them, and that does mean we are going to run into salary ranges where there's a lot of "been there, done that" we are aiming to avoid repeating. So, yeah, it is hard to be fresh in some of those caps without introducing restrictions that we haven't seen a lot of while also aiming for variety, competitiveness, and fun.

I can say with regard to year ranges that I can recall at least one WISC where I felt like I faced Ed Walsh or Mordecai Brown in practically every game because the themes made deadball pitching a useful strategy to a large degree. We did aim to break that up, so that you'll have some themes where they are prominent but others where they're nowhere to be found. The main thing I would say in defense of the 1920-1980 range is that these are years I see used the least in leagues without year restrictions, particularly in pitching. In doing roster-checking thus far, I'm seeing a very wide assortment of players and seasons used, including quite a few players I can barely ever recall seeing in action (or in the case of big stars, many of their less-used seasons that fit the cap better).

Constructive criticism is definitely important, and I appreciate it. I also remind everyone that the goals should also be to ensure sufficient participation, and we had trouble getting to 72 owners this season after barely making 96 work last year. So the long-term continuation of this tournament has to include making it appealing to newer owners and trying as much as possible to being enjoyable. That's one reason we didn't do anything that required calculators or puzzles, for instance, because those can drain enthusiasm broadly even if some people really love them.

I have a question about the $70m theme. Can we choose Whatif Sports Park if our team's stadium does not suit our roster, or is it only available of our team's stadium is not listed?

Posted by firesalt on 5/16/2024 9:28:00 PM (view original):
I have a question about the $70m theme. Can we choose Whatif Sports Park if our team's stadium does not suit our roster, or is it only available of our team's stadium is not listed?

You can only use What's If Park if your team's park isn't available, so you would have to use your team's park in this case.

Posted by redcped on 5/16/2024 9:44:00 PM (view original):

Posted by firesalt on 5/16/2024 9:28:00 PM (view original):
I have a question about the $70m theme. Can we choose Whatif Sports Park if our team's stadium does not suit our roster, or is it only available of our team's stadium is not listed?

You can only use What's If Park if your team's park isn't available, so you would have to use your team's park in this case.

That's ok. I just found a team that has a stadium custom made for their roster. And the roster is better, too.

Actually read for the most part the 11 Pages to here ...

I overlooked as well at first the 1920-1980 in Boxes League and changed 2 Players ... This Theme IMO was or would be the hardest as (not disregarding the suggestion to copy/past boxes in a spreadsheet by schwarze) it was the most challenging or tedious or eye straining ... But this is not a complaint as always glad to be here with such great talent ... Would have joined long time ago but having hard time keeping number of teams under 20

One change I made actually was for the better I think if that is a commentary as it gave me as well as more total IP/162 a long relief pitcher who could start as well or be in a Tandem with the changed SP ... In time I will also look for (fiddle) possible better 12 or 13 teammates to accommodate the offensive player I kept within the "boundaries" as his immediate selection keeping in mind Cash left was redundant PA wise

Following up on a coupe of things here:

Quote post by 06gsp on 5/16/2024 8:24:00 AM:
i am very confused by the persistence of the complaining. there's no shortage of usable players, and almost no chance everyone will have similar rosters. the themes aren't changing. what are the complainers attempting to accomplish here?

My point with my post was originally intended to be commentary from my team building strategies and thoughts towards helping shape future theme creation. I only posted it early and in this thread as it seemed to me that most of the points from others who were complaining about the $100m theme were being missed and I was trying to clarify (from my perspective at least) how those missed the point of the complaints. It's not that it was hard (the $70m frankly was harder), it's in how it limits creativity.

By no means was I intending to disparage any of the theme creators or their efforts, only try to explain why the frustrations with this theme in particular and then offer suggestions on how to improve a similar theme in the future.

Quote post by Jtpsops on 5/16/2024 10:31:00 AM:
"The $100m "box theme" this year was particularly disliked because it forced owners into specific roster selections construction strategies without room for strategic diversity. This kind of design undermines the core enjoyment of simulation baseball, which lies in the freedom to create and compete with unique team strategies."

I couldn't disagree with this more. I totally get the frustration over the limitations - those arguments are valid. However, there are still many strategies available and many combinations of players. This argument makes it seem like we're going to see the same rosters across the board. There is plenty of room for diverse strategies even with the restrictions.

Quote post by schwarze on 5/16/2024 10:34:00 AM:
One of the main goals of any theme is to get different rosters. If a theme is too restrictive, many good owners will figure out the "right" combination of players that works.

One of the things I like to do after the season starts is to summarize the choices made in each theme. In the 70M theme, how many different teams will be selected? Probably not not 72, as I'm sure some teams will be selected more than once. In the 100M theme, I would be surprised if any 16-player combination was exactly duplicated.

These two quotes both are similar to the ones that inspired me to post my other "rant" early. They miss the point, and maybe it's a flaw in how I tried to convey it. It's not that I expect there to be 16 of the same roster, it's that the box theme limits the creativity of roster design to a very specific type of roster build. yes, you can go with more HR or SB, but you're essentially hamstrung into drafting a very specific build. Platoons are almost impossible, unconvential rotations are almost impossible (might actually be impossible even if not trying to be competitive), building a team that prioritizes maximum value is almost impossible, and combinations of those things are likely entirely impossible. There's going to be wasted salary on excess PA or IP, you're going ot be carrying a 3 or 4 man rotation of 200-400 IP pitchers... Yeah, so what that one team is running Alexander, Carlton, Perry and another is running Johnson, Blue, Grove... the roster building strategy behind them is the same. It's not about the specific players or combination of players, it's about the ethos behind the roster construction. All of the teams in this league will essentially be the same, if not all actually be the same 2-3 team structures.

TQuote post by schwarze on 5/16/2024 10:42:00 AM:

Posted by Jtpsops on 5/16/2024 10:33:00 AM (view original):
"I do believe it was a poor choice in this instance and would have preferred Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander and the others were removed if preventing deadballers was the goal. There are many other great pitching options that could have been added to give quality seasons and teammate options."

In one sense, I agree. However, this also may have been a gift to us. By including players like that, it gave us more options for teammates. If you remove those players and replace them in the boxes with more prominent players from 1920-1980, then we're more hamstrung on teammate options.

Exactly what I was going to say.

Players like Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander were included because they *have* decent usable seasons in this time range. To exclude them would have meant players with worse seasons would have be included, and then they also couldn't be used as teammates.

I don't see how my example above with other players serving as the limit and freeing up teammate choices doesn't implicitly solve this while also allowing for trade-offs and more strategic choices. You want Ruth, you have to either pair him with Gehirg and spend more on offense (trade-off choice 1) or you have to draft Ward and take an offense hit and pay for defense (trade off choice 2). You want Alexander, you use Hartnett and maybe settle for having to platoon at C for Alexander's better season, etc... make the choice for these guys be their teammates... you can still use their useable seasons in the range, but they're still bound by their teammates seasons and using these stars becomes one of the trade off choices. Do I go with maybe a lesser option to get this sensational teammate or try to find a better balance between option+teammate.

In any case, this theme forces drafting teams that conform to a specific play style, which is very much not my play style, which does take away from the fun aspect. I don't mind hard themes, or playing outside of my comfort zone via players, years, caps, etc... but I do find it frustrating and generally don't play in themes that limit play style creativity to those outside my preference. That's the point I was trying to make here, with a goal of there being more thought this direction for future themes.

I do appreciate all this feedback. I will say that when designing the themes, at least speaking for me personally, I did not actually attempt any team-building in that process. I didn't start a single team until after all the themes were posted and open to all because I feel I should operate under the same time constraint.

My sense with the notes on the 100M theme in particular is that you would have to start building teams to notice how some of those season/teammate choices were actually impacting the roster decisions. In this case, that was not part of my consideration in our theme discussions. I can see from your notes, however, that it could have been helpful.

Do people think a larger theme committee should be used next year? It might be harder to get consensus, but it would also get input from a variety of voices that might think differently in some key ways.

These two quotes both are similar to the ones that inspired me to post my other "rant" early. They miss the point, and maybe it's a flaw in how I tried to convey it. It's not that I expect there to be 16 of the same roster, it's that the box theme limits the creativity of roster design to a very specific type of roster build. yes, you can go with more HR or SB, but you're essentially hamstrung into drafting a very specific build. Platoons are almost impossible, unconvential rotations are almost impossible (might actually be impossible even if not trying to be competitive), building a team that prioritizes maximum value is almost impossible, and combinations of those things are likely entirely impossible. There's going to be wasted salary on excess PA or IP, you're going ot be carrying a 3 or 4 man rotation of 200-400 IP pitchers... Yeah, so what that one team is running Alexander, Carlton, Perry and another is running Johnson, Blue, Grove... the roster building strategy behind them is the same. It's not about the specific players or combination of players, it's about the ethos behind the roster construction. All of the teams in this league will essentially be the same, if not all actually be the same 2-3 team structures.

We'll see, of course, once the teams launch, but I'm predicting we'll see more variety in the rosters than you're expecting. My guess would be this league will see quite a bit more roster uniqueness than the $80m league.

In terms of the above, it's true I'm not using any platoons, although I didn't attempt to find any so I'm not ready to declare it impossible. I am using an unconventional rotation that doesn't fit what you've listed above (3 or 4 man rotation of 200-400 IP pitchers). I'm spending a bit more on bench hitters than I would on a league with no restrictions, naturally, but I don't think I ended up with a ton of wasted salary.

Do people think a larger theme committee should be used next year? It might be harder to get consensus, but it would also get input from a variety of voices that might think differently in some key ways.

I guess two questions to ask would be

1. Would that help? Or would it be a case of too many cooks in the same kitchen?

2. Does all the discussion around the $100m theme necessarily mean it was badly done? It seems like people either love it or hate it, which is interesting (again it was my favorite of the 6 builds)