*** VD 15 Commentary Thread ***

[johnnya24]

So what are those big 16 franchises I keep hearing so much about? NYY, BOS, LAD, uh...., CIN, and approximately 12 others?

It's hard to narrow Franchises down like letters and decades. Especially since you have to pick 27 of 37, you almost have to think of them in groups or clusters.

A Possible Top 12?

NYY, BOS, SFG, STL, CIN, OAK, PHI, DET, PIT, CLE, LAD, CHC (CHW, BAL)

[Bene Futuis]

Awesome, thanks.

[johnnya24]

- I'll build the Scoring Spreadsheet at the end of Round 1.

- There is a player list spreadsheet in the Draft thread for research, ranking etc. NOTE: there was one update to this: a few players needed their Franchise changed to "WAS" (Hitters: Joyce, Farrell, Selbach, DeMontreville, McGuire; Pitchers:Maul, McJames, Mercer). If you downloaded this sheet early, then double check you have these changes.

- I'll get the rules post updated later today. I don't want to rush it. The general rules are in the Draft thread, and the basic rules of VD'ing still apply. But there ius one new guy, so I don't want to make mistakes or overlook things.

- I'll be around most of today if anyone has any questions.

[cavebird]

So what are those big 16 franchises I keep hearing so much about? NYY, BOS, LAD, uh...., CIN, and approximately 12 others?

The "Big 16" and again, some have a lot more good players than others, but these have the most depth, all having been around since 1903 or earlier: ATL, BAL, BOS, CHC, CHW, CIN, CLE, DET, LAD, MIN, NYY, OAK, PHI, PIT, SFG, STL. Except for the short lived Federal League franchises of the mid-teens (the Federal League collapsed after two years, all of their franchises are part of OEF), these were the only sixteen franchises from 1903 until the earlier 1960's, which would be a big factor if we ever added decades to this.

And yes, DMT, of course Young is the guy. I have had him as top overall two drafts in a row now (he was 1890's last time and now CLV on top of the numbers and letter) but it hardly matters, the top three seem to always go top three in some order. I had Johnson second.

[cavebird]

It's hard to narrow Franchises down like letters and decades. Especially since you have to pick 27 of 37, you almost have to think of them in groups or clusters.

A Possible Top 12?

NYY, BOS, SFG, STL, CIN, OAK, PHI, DET, PIT, CLE, LAD, CHC (CHW, BAL)

I think when you start breaking down between the big 16 it becomes a matter of taste as they all have plenty of depth and it depends on what you are looking for. For example, I have a franchise you don't even list as top 12 in my top five.

[johnnya24]

I think when you start breaking down between the big 16 it becomes a matter of taste as they all have plenty of depth and it depends on what you are looking for. For example, I have a franchise you don't even list as top 12 in my top five.

That was based on hitting ... and it's not really a top list, more a kinda-sorta-approximate list

[johnnya24]

With pitching added, it's really hard to put a dividing line in the value of Franchises. The value decline graph would be an almost constant gradient until the bottom 12 Franchises.

[heyelander]

So what are those big 16 franchises I keep hearing so much about? NYY, BOS, LAD, uh...., CIN, and approximately 12 others?

I did a really quick (not overly analytical) analysis of franchises yesterday. Set "Draftable" as anyone with 1000 RBIs or 200 Wins/200 Saves and filtered them by franchises. Here's what I got. Mind you, there is overlap in these numbers since people can have multiple franchises.

team	Hit	Pit	Tot
WAS	0	0	0
BLO	1	0	1
LOU	1	0	1
PHA	0	2	2
ONA	1	1	2
TBD	2	0	2
CLV	2	1	3
FLA	3	1	4
ARI	3	2	5
OEF	2	4	6
SDP	5	1	6
COL	7	1	8
KCR	5	5	10
TOR	8	3	11
WSN	8	3	11
MIL	9	2	11
SEA	9	3	12
HOU	8	5	13
ANA	12	6	18
NYM	10	9	19
TEX	12	8	20
PIT	17	5	22
MIN	15	8	23
CHW	14	11	25
PHI	16	10	26
BAL	17	9	26
CIN	18	8	26
STL	19	7	26
OAK	15	12	27
CLE	15	13	28
CHC	20	9	29
ATL	18	16	34
BOS	21	14	35
LAD	21	14	35
DET	23	12	35
SFG	21	16	37
NYY	31	19	50

[heyelander]

Thanks very much for this breakdown. I guess I'm looking for very basic information such as (1) how are aggregate stats calculated / how is the winner determined? (2) How much time does an owner have to make his or her pick? (3) I see the spreadsheet for eligible players, is there a spreadsheet for taken players and how the teams are constituted so far? (4) etc., just very basic things re operationally how this works (as opposed to what are good strategies to use).

First, dude, learn which thread to post in! /jk
VD15 Draft thread is for drafting players
VD15 Commentary thread (this one) is for talking about the draft
VD15 History thread will be an out of date list of who has been picked, and spreadsheet pastes (more on that to come)
VD13 Commentary thread is for general talk about toothpaste, our thoughts on the Amish, and puns.

The game runs like a standard 5x5 roto league (times 2). So we will draft our teams, total their Career Runs, RBIs, SBs, HRs, OBP; Whip, ERA, Wins, Saves, Strikeouts and rank people based on their totals. Added wrinkle of we also pick a best year for each player when drafted and we total BY stats for the same categories and rank them, so it's really 10x10.
Other wrinkle, we do some multiplicative scoring where instead of just adding your ranks for each category, we add one, multiply them, then take some log shit I've not understood ever and made my nearly fail senior highschool calculus, and that's our score. This was done because tanking large numbers of categories use to be more successful than straight drafting. The "new" multiplicative scoring evens this out and creates the need for more balanced drafting. You can still tank a few categories and be competitive, but not like 6 like you could. The person with the most points after this ridiculousness is the winner. We will know who won the moment the last pick is made.

I think there's a 12 hour clock for picks? Maybe even 24 hours... people can get angsty if you aren't paying attention, but don't mind them. I don't. Everyone is pretty cool if you manage expectations. "Slammed at work today, won't be able to pick until I finish up at 5", "I see I'm up but I have to run to buy toothpaste, back in 4 hours" "Dog bit me, need to go to the ER. Hopefully I can make a pick from surgery" That sort of thing.

There will be a huge spreadsheet coming out after round 1. It will give you everything you need to keep track of every ones team and see the scores.

[jmaeroff]

Sorry for posting in wrong thread earlier. So OEF is all Federal League franchises, combined into one for purposes of this league? What is ONA? Am I correct in assuming that PHA is the NA Philadelphia Athletics, who played one season (1876) in the NL? Are we allowed to use NA seasons, or only NL & AL?

[jmaeroff]

Just seeing heyelander's reply....thank you.

[heyelander]

Sorry for posting in wrong thread earlier. So OEF is all Federal League franchises, combined into one for purposes of this league? What is ONA? Am I correct in assuming that PHA is the NA Philadelphia Athletics, who played one season (1876) in the NL? Are we allowed to use NA seasons, or only NL & AL?

ONA is Other National Association teams. Apparently the league wasn't too stable and teams popped up and folded on the regular.

No worries about posting in the wrong thread, just joshing. I added more to my previous post, editor was acting funky, so I kept saving and then editing.

[heyelander]

Sorry for posting in wrong thread earlier. So OEF is all Federal League franchises, combined into one for purposes of this league? What is ONA? Am I correct in assuming that PHA is the NA Philadelphia Athletics, who played one season (1876) in the NL? Are we allowed to use NA seasons, or only NL & AL?

if anyone ever really gets annoyed by anything like this, I'm pretty sure we will all tell them to fuck off.

[Ken]

if anyone ever really gets annoyed by anything like this, I'm pretty sure we will all tell them to fuck off.

I'm annoyed.

[heyelander]

I'm annoyed.

reputation demerit incoming.