In-season auction tiebreakers are based entirely on standings right now. The lowest team in the standings when the auction ends will win the player being auctioned. This has resulted in a few quirks:
Owners on higher ranked teams have low incentive to start auctions, since nominating teams get no additional benefit in winning auctions.
The first place team can never win a player for $1. This works as a parity tool, but also has resulted to a common strategy for first place teams to always bid $1 on every auction they did not start, knowing full well they will never be forced to take on the player being auctioned.
While it makes sense to give teams doing worse the opportunity to win more players in-season, these two quirks are less than ideal. After talking it over with a few users, weâve come up with a proposal for a weighted tiebreaker.
Every team that is tied with the highest bid will get a number of âentriesâ in the tiebreaker lottery
The number of entries will be directly tied to what place you are in the overall league standings: 12th place will get 12 entries, 1st place will get 1 entry.
If the nominating team is involved in the tiebreaker, they will get bonus entries. I believe 4 entries came up as a possible value, so weâll ride with that.
The system will then randomly pick a tiebreaker winner from these entries. This will give first-place teams a chance to win tiebreakers, even at $1. It will also add an incentive to starting auctions. However, it still gives weight to teams that are lower in the standings.
This will be a league setting that I hope to make available during 2019 arbitration. Iâd like to get a feel for if this system is interesting to more than just myself and the few users that helped me come up with it and if there are thoughts on how many entries each team should get based on their league ranking and whether or not they nominated the player.
So, does this sound like an interesting change?
Our league would be interested in adopting a weighted random tiebreaker
Not sure if weâd adopt this change but would like to see it as an option
I absolutely love this idea. It solves multiple problems in a succinct, easy-to-understand way. In particular, I think it very much improves bidding and nominating players within the Vickrey system by encouraging players to bid what they think a player is worth more consistently than the current tie-breaking rules.
I canât speak for others in my leagues, but any procedure is better than the current one which you explained the faults with. Iâd prefer a totally blind auction where nominations are not shown unless you nominate a player that has already been nominated within the 24-48 hour clock ticking. But as I said, any change would be an improvement.
I personally prefer a uniform Waiver/Free Agent rules/method rather than introducing random/chance/luck into the equation.
I remember hearing somewhere (on some NPR show, probably) that early video game designers realized they actually had to âprogramâ randomness because people would become frustrated when what they perceived should be a random result didnât jibe with what was actually a statistically random occurrence. They kinda did something similar with the NBA Draft Lottery (conspiracy theories notwithstanding), which was once formulated more like the system proposed here until the Orlando Magic defied odds with just a 1-in-66 chance of landing the #1 pick in '93- the year after they landed Shaquille OâNeal with the top pick in '92.
So what happens when a 1st place team always wins their tie-breakers, just because of freaky statistics? Or when the team that always has the most chances in their tie-break lotteries always loses? And then three years in, half the league is split over the setting because the way randomness works hasnât âfeltâ right to everyoneâŚ
The current system is predictable and logical in design; I personally see no reason to mess with that. And as was pointed out in the OP, there are strategic approaches to it (which, I say, only enhances the game-play). But I disagree with the statement that these âquirksâ are âless than idealâ; rather I think itâs what keeps the system from chaos. I think it has been proven elsewhere that predictability fits the human psyche better than whenever chance/luck/randomness is introduced into the equation, and baseball (particularly fantasy baseball) already has enough of that to begin with.
Thatâs why I voted âNot Interestedâ.
For clarificationâŚ
This would be an optional setting and not a universal change for how ottoneu as a whole does its tie-breakers, correct?
Currently teams that nominate a player but do not place a bid on him are only awarded the player if nobody else bids (which is to say, they donât factor into a $1 tie-breaker⌠which also is the one situation where a first place team can win a $1 bid on a player they didnât nominate, to correct the â#2 quirkâ above). Would this stay the same in the new system, or would nominating teams that donât place a bid automatically be part of the lottery for $1 tie-breakers, particularly with any âbonus entriesâ?
This is not true. The system inserts a $1 bid for that team before the tiebreaker steps occur. If the highest bid is $1 from 3 other teams, the nominating team should be part of that tiebreaker process.
The quirks are less than the ideal set by the Vickrey auction system, which is to encourage bidders to bid their true value for a good. When first place teams bid $1 on an auction they did not start, knowing full well they will never win that player at $1, that is not a true value bid and undermines the purpose of a Vickrey auction.
The proposed system (and what video game designers do) is weighted randomness. Itâs weighted to minimize the completely unexpected (lower ranked teams not winning players), but its randomness in this situation more correctly asks teams to bid the amount they value a player rather than trying to game the in-season auction system itself. The more likely outcome than 1st place teams winning a bunch of auctions in a statistically-unlikely-but-possible scenario is that 1st place teams will stop bidding $1 on players they do not want because they have a small chance of getting them, which would force them to cut players etc.
If the system was an evenly weighted dice roll to win a player (as it is before the season starts), that would give higher-ranked teams better odds to win players than this system, which would certainly undermine the spirit of in-season auctions as a parity driver.
Unlikely outcomes are bound to happen under this system, like winning a player on a 1% chance (Orlando Magic winning the lottery). But weâre talking about tiebreakers on in-season auctions, so thereâs the same fallback answer that there is now - teams can bid more.
NOTE: I edited this post a lot because I wasnât happy with my tone and for clarification.
How is it an âevenly weighted dice roll to win a playerâ before the season starts?
Bidding up player costs regardless of their âtrue valueâ happens in the draft to a much greater extent than on $1 up-bids on in-season FAâs by first-place teams; if a team wants to nab a player for $1, it would make sense that the best time in the market to do that would be at the end of the draft and not necessarily during the season in Free Agency. Even so, there have been times when Iâve nominated a FA with only a $1 bid on him (and ignored the âI really need this guy so Iâm bidding like $14 on a $1 playerâ instinct), so then when the first place team is the only other team to bid him with $1 I still got him for a $1 and didnât have the âoh WTFâ reaction when I get him for $2 because of my over-bid. Which is to say, I kept my bid within my valuation and this supposed âgamingâ of the system didnât occur, even though someone tried.
Furthermore, any $2 player still has a minimum of a $1 cost if he is released- so what is the true cost of that $1 up-bid? It really only matters beyond the season when that player is keeper-worthy, because itâs not like the $2 cost is keeping you from owning a second $1 player when the minimum cost for each roster space is the same (e.g., if you have $398 of $400 and 38 of 40 roster spaces used and win a player for $2, youâll still need to cut someone even though youâre within the $400 budget). So people should actually be shifting their perception of any in-season FA bid as the playerâs âmarket costâ rather than his âmarket valueâ. And (again) the market for $1 keeper-worthy players was better in the draft than in FA, so a $2 result of an up-bid on an in-season FA which only matters when the player is keeper-worthy is just the natural progression of the market between the pre-season draft and in-season FA periods.
When it comes to âfair valueâ, I think itâs important to acknowledge how market valuation changes between the pre-season auction draft and the in-season Waiver/FA market rather than simply characterizing one bit of market activity as âgaming the systemâ.
I apologize; I thought this changed last year. The game used to automatically bid $1 for the nominating team but now it doesnât show any bid for the nominating team if that team didnât bid, and I see some teams nominate players they figure are going to get action without the intent of bidding on him (likely to thin-out the FA market and shrink team budgets) as a market strategy.
This strategy wouldnât change with this suggestion, however if first-place teams that didnât nominate a player could still win a $1 player that they were only trying to up-bid, then why wouldnât that also accomplish the goal of keeping teams from âgamingâ the system? The same thing happens in an auction draft; if Iâm just nominating SSâs even though I have like four of them because I want everyone else to spend money on the position, eventually Iâll get stuck with a $1 fifth SS. So if everyone knows this one team always tries to up-bid FAâs, why not make it possible to nominate players without a bid in order to stick the first-place team with a $1 player they didnât want? This ought to be enough to keep first-place teams in-check in most of these instances, and accomplish the goal youâre seeking with a lottery system.
All weâre talking about is this one instance where someone chooses to bid more than $1 on a FA and someone else chooses to also bid $1 in order to bump the cost up a buck. But the proposed âfixâ for this one instance is to change all tie-breakers, regardless of situation. I suggest that the perception of âgamingâ the system here is simply normal market activity, and that by adjusting the current system so that a nominating team which doesnât bid only âwinsâ the player for $1 when no one else bids (which would make it possible for a first-place team to âwinâ a $1 up-bid player) is the only âfixâ needed to tidy-up the system.
Also,
âŚbut the âbonus entriesâ by nominating teams changes the âweighted randomnessâ based on the standings.
I still think this all complicates an otherwise non-issue issue.
Consider how the tiebreaker meshes with the game of Ottoneu. This is an issue I have discussed at length with many veterans (including Niv), and generally speaking, our conclusion is always that the current tiebreaker is lacking some subtle changes that would improve the user experience. Currently, a tie goes to the lower-ranked team, and the team that initiates a nomination automatically has placed a minimum bid ($1 for previously unowned players and a minimum bid for previously cut players).
The crux of the issue is that the tiebreaker rules fundamentally do not suit a Vickrey auction. The Vickrey auction style encourages participants to bid what they think a player is truly worth. It is in this spirit that the rules of Ottoneu were formed, and it is this spirit that helps to maintain year-over-year parity in what is otherwise a challenging deep-dynasty format.
There are three fundamental issues that arise with the tiebreaker scenario. First, the 1st place team can bid, with impunity, $1 on every single auction irrespective of what the owner thinks each player is worth. This is inherently in opposition to the intended style of mid-season auctions. The second issue is that the first place teams cannot win $1 players unless every other team abstains from bidding. That requires a 1st place team to over-bid (again, inconsistent with the spirit of a Vickrey auction). Finally, the third issue directly stems from the second. The current tiebreaker discourages top teams from nominating players when they must over-bid value.
The proposed changes are not ârandomness;â instead, they solve all three of the above problems while (i) bringing the rules further in line with the spirit of Ottoneu in an easy-to-understand way, (2) encouraging parity through some partiality to lower-ranked teams and, (3) rewarding actively nominating players, an incentive that is desperately needed for teams leading their leagues.
The tiebreaker for 48 hour auctions before MLB games are played is an evenly weighted dice roll.
Absolutely. In the in-season 48 hour Vickrey auction system, the goal is to find a balance between finding market value without requiring live bidding like there is in the auction. The goal of the Vickrey system is to have every bid submitted as close to the true value a team has for a player as possible. Therefore, $1 bids by first place teams who fully know that $1 bid is not a winning bid is âgaming the systemâ. Itâs a disingenuous bid rather than a true value bid.
You mentioned âprogrammed randomnessâ and that is what programmed randomness is. Rather than using a pure random number generator, you weight it to push towards the outcomes you want. The goal is to make every possible bid a possible winning bid, while also rewarding teams for nominating players and still making the in-season auction process pushed towards helping out lower ranked teams. Those are the 3 goals, and this solution is the best way to both reward teams that nominate players and attempt to lessen disingenuous $1 bids.
80% of respondents (not including me) found this option at least interesting, so I think this is a little dismissive.
Seems David and I stepped on each other a bit here, but hopefully our explanations help clarify the thought process behind the proposed league setting.
The idea that nominating teams should get more credit for starting auctions has come from the community and is probably understated in my original post as an important factor in this proposal.
Starting auctions helps league health, but so does the giving overall priority of player additions to teams that are doing worse in the standings. Weighted chance is the fairest way to address this tension, and I believe better than doing nothing for teams that start auctions. I didnât always agree that starting auctions was worth rewarding, but my mind has moved on that in the last couple of years.
I voted the middle ground- because: why not give an option either way? But after this discussion Iâve changed my mind a bit.
It seems to me that the main complaint about this system as it is now is the gaming of the system by 1st place teams. Gaming, instead of accurately valuing, does seem to go against the spirit of Ottoneu. However, I think this proposed system is an over-complicated one. Veterans and fans of deep dives into the rules for competitive advantage will love it (as I do), but as a commissioner that frequently fields all manner of questions from more casual owners it seems like a simpler solution is more ideal.
I would think that simply closing the loophole is better: nominating owner gets the tiebreaker. 1st place teams are no longer incentivized to price-police âunfairlyâ and 1st place teams neednât feel the need to overbid (although I appreciate this âfeatureâ).
This is much easier to explain to new players and makes the most sense to more casual players, I think.
But thatâs not how the market actually plays out, either in the draft or during the season.
In both cases, people bid irrationally depending on the perceived demand of the player and their own budget restrictions. You could argue that the most successful teams are the ones the best play the game within the theoretical constraints of the Vickrey system, but the irrationality of the rest of the league will always keep you from accomplishing the goal of a true Vickrey auction as an ottoneu feature. If I really, really, really need SPâs and I have a ton of budget space available, Iâm going to be willing to go way above true value on SPâs in any auction so long as I believe I can handle their true roster cost. Thatâll be true in any competitive scenario.
I think year-over-year parity is (almost) entirely accomplished here through the minimum player inflation and subjective arbitration system, not through a âVickrey appropriateâ tie-breaker process.
âIntended styleâ aside, it is not in opposition of what the actual market cost for rostering the player truly is. $2 players have the same minimum roster space cost as a $1 player; the only effect here is with $2 players who are good enough to be kept after the season and who couldâve had a $1 base cost. Anything else (e.g., a top team nominating a player that a lower team also wants for the same cost, or a top team up-bidding a $1 player) is simply the marketâs natural imposition of that basic economic reality of the game.
Also, by not requiring a nominating team to be part of the $1 tie-breaker when other teams bid, you avoid the scenario where a first-place team can bid $1 on every single auction âwithout impunityâ. Any team that tried could ultimately be stuck with a $1 player they didnât want.
I disagree that it ârequiresâ a team to bid more than $1; theyâre only bidding more than $1 based on their prediction that someone else will bid $1, but they can always bid only $1 if they donât want the player at $2 and hope that no one else will bid. The same is true for anyone else, regardless of standing. If they do âneedâ the player and bid/pay $2 because of that, then thatâs simply the nature of the market within the economic constraints of the game and the managerâs ability to budget over time. And I disagree that this âdiscouragesâ top teams to nominate players; it simply makes it more challenging.
And again, the perception of $2 as an âover-bidâ is incorrect; because of the economic rules of the game, the perception of any âover-bidâ should be based on the minimum cost of rostering the player (e.g., a $5 bid carries a $3 minimum roster cost). Therefore a $2 perceived âover-bidâ on market value is really a $2 âcorrect-bidâ on the minimum market cost of rostering any player. This is why I say that I donât understand why a correction here is really necessary.
Respectfully I think this is âPo-tay-toe, Po-tah-tohâ. This is simply a reflection of in-season strategy based on the constraints of the system, which only enhances gameplay.
First, why should nominating teams be âhelpedâ?
Second, I brought up âprogrammed randomnessâ to make the point that what we think ought to be the case is always going to be at odds with what statistically is the case. Where humans err with that is in the idea that we can âcorrectâ for it, particularly when itâs over one very specific issue. As it relates to here, tie-breakers for every situation would change because of problems over one issue, and I suggest that over time it may come to be that people will perceive the âprogrammed randomnessâ to be off (and therefore needed to again be corrected for).
But again, I donât see how the current system doesnât already do this, and couldnât better do this by allowing nominating teams that didnât bid not be part of any $1 tie-break. I see the current issue as a mis-perception of âvalueâ versus âcostâ for the in-season FA auction system, and the goal of reflect a Vickrey style auction while also âhelping lower ranked teamsâ is inherently at odds.
OK, Iâm sorry. I didnât mean to be dismissive, I was simply stating an opinion. I get the impression it doesnât matter what I think, anyway⌠so who cares about my âdismisivnessâ? I was just engaging in conversation.
Iâd be a little worried about boxing out lower ranked teams with a straight âtie goes to the nominating teamâ solution. It would force lower ranked teams to always bid a little bit more (in aggregate) to win auctions, but the game should be somewhat forgiving to lower ranked teams, not punitive.
I hear what youâre saying in terms of simplicity. This might just not be an interesting option for some leagues to adopt as a result. I think if there is transparency around each tiebreaker - how many entries each team got, etc - that might help alleviate that concern.
Perceived irrationality should never motivate any rules changes. I donât really see this as a strong argument - for example, some people are always going to break the law. Does that mean we shouldnât attempt to enforce it?
The top team up-bidding a $1 player is NOT the marketâs natural imposition and it is NOT part of the economics of the game. It is a bad-faith (to use another Otto-vetâs words) bid that literally has zero chance of winning the auction. The Vickery auction says that market value is the second-highest bidâs value. In this case, if the second highest bid is a bad-faith bid, you are systematically distorting player values in the bottom tier (which are very, very important to winning and competing).
See above - I donât believe this point takes into account the proper market value in the Ottoneu system.
Nominating teams ALWAYS bid no matter what. This point is just not valid under current rules.
Finally:
Then I could nominate 100 players at a time and try to draw out bids with no consequence. This would be a complete disaster.
Guys, stupid question here: Why is the in-season FA bidding hidden? What would happen if we kept the current rules the same, but made all bids visible? Iâm typing this at work, so I canât really think through all the possible scenarios at the moment.
I guess this wasnât properly addressed, so let me try to be more clear for anyone who shares ballnglove82âs question.
In-season auctions are a good thing for league health, because they promote league engagement. They are also a lower barrier than negotiating a trade, the other major form of player movement. If top teams, who are presumably run by the most engaged / best owners have no interest in nominating low cost players because they wonât win them at auction, it deflates the number of auctions that will happen over the course of the season or over the course of many seasons. This can be the difference between feeling like the league is somewhat vibrant and not.
So if teams that are nominating players get a bonus number of lottery balls in the drawing, there is less of a downside for higher ranked teams to nominate players - rather than announcing a player for lower ranked teams to then get, they have a chance at winning those players at lower prices.
Talking this out, it seems that it further helps teams bid true value rather than having top teams overbid to get a player they really want. Thatâs a secondary benefit, the primary one would be that it would encourage league activity and engagement, which is good for all the teams in a league.
Youâd have a problem where teams would all wait to the last second to bid, which makes the entire auction more of a crapshoot.
Youâd run into inflated bidding and more room for irrationality because you could react to other teamâs bids.
Thereâs probably more than just that, but there are entire books on why the Vickrey auction model (which requires every bidderâs bid to be hidden from every other bidder) results in an incentive to bid true value.
You can start with the Wikipedia article when you have time - the system is pretty interesting. I also believe Ron Shandler wrote about this on The Athletic recently.