Gotcha, thanks Niv. I will definitely read up on that.
I will admit, however, that when the Clevinger injury happened and the rest of my staff was stinking it up, I freaked out and bid $10 on a couple of pitchers because I (thought that I) really needed the pitchers and I anticipated others bidding on them as well.
Thatâs why getting them at the price of the second highest bid is important. If you value a starter at $10 and everyone else values them at $2, you should get the player at $3 rather than negotiate against yourself up to $10.
This is important in a market-based game that doesnât have player agents or some other form of opposing party to negotiate against.
All bids are available as soon as the auction closes. Hit see details.
Revealed bids would just be a snipe-fest. People would start auctions at 5 am so they ended at inconvenient times.
@damgagnon I know they are available when the auction closes, I just meant why not make the bids available for all to see before the auction closes.
LOL, yes, I could see the 5 a.m thing happening.
Why not just make the winning big equal to the second place bid? This would eliminate the incentive for league leaders to bid $1 on everyone.
Because the second place bid could be a team lower in the rankings than the winning bid, and in that case the lower-ranked team should win?
Isnât that what this proposal is doing?
I think we have a misunderstanding. Iâm not making a case about police-states. Iâm saying youâre never going to achieve the utopian Vickrey style because of how differently people are going to bid on players at different points throughout the year. Vickrey tie-breakers isnât going to change people from over-bidding on players for any reason.
But my suggestion here is that what you are arguing is âsupposedâ to be the case isnât the way the economic design plays-out.
The in-season economy of ottoneu is designed completely around the minimum cost of rostering a player- otherwise I could add an endless number of players and cut them without shouldering any expense. $1 up-bids are simply the strategic reality of this system; if both a $1 and $2 player both carry the same $1 minimum roster cost if released, then why shouldnât an in-season FA cost $2 and then people who are $1 âtrue-valueâ seekers are mostly rewarded for taking that risk pre-season in the draft?
I donât see it as a âbad-faith bidâ. I see it as a strategic bid that fits ottoneuâs economic design as a risk-centric (or roster cost) one (and not a player value-based one). And itâs a strategy that enhances the gameplay.
Then we have a disconnect over what the founders apparently intended the ottoneu system to be and how it actually plays-out in reality. If it was meant to be about true-value price discovery, then there shouldnât be a penalty for releasing players. But of course thatâs insane, because competitively speaking there needs to be a cost for releasing players⌠and then thatâs where some people see strategies as âbad-faithâ while others see it as âsystemically appropriateâ.
Right, my point is to tweak this rather than changing all tie-breakers.
A nominating team that did not place a bid on the player would only be âforcedâ to take the player at a $1 cost if no other team placed a bid. Otherwise, the nominating team would not be part of any $1 tie-breaker. This not only keeps nominating teams from putting â100 playersâ up without cost (as theyâd still have to take them if no other team bids), and it also makes it possible for a first-place team to win a $1 bid on any player they didnât nominate (or inserting the potential penalty of being stuck with a $1 player that a team tried to up-bid). Any nominating team would of course have to make a bid of $1 and not just assume that it would be automatically entered for them by the game.
I donât understand where this suggestion (and minor tweak, relative to a lottery system) becomes a disaster?
It does promote league engagement but I think the primary benefit for in-season auctions is the strategic flexibility of post-draft roster management.
But itâs not that top teams wonât win low-cost players at auction; itâs that theyâre less-likely to do so.
Regarding the number of auctions in any league, assuming a fully-engaged league I would think the number of in-season auctions would be directly related to the roster/budget health of each team in the league. Which is to say, how effective people are at playing the game within its economic constraints. This doesnât change by helping nominating teams win a player.
Itâs also arguably another way for the âbetterâ or more-engaged owners to have an advantage, is it not?
Again, I donât see it as âoverbiddingâ as I do the marketâs natural correction for the economic design of the in-season (non-auction draft) format. Nor do I agree that top teams âhaveâ to overbid; no one knows who is bidding or how much, so any top team bidding $2 instead of $1 is only assuming that someone else is going to bid $1. Which is to say, theyâre placing their bid based on their perception of market activity, and if they donât care about losing a $1 bid then they certainly donât âhaveâ to bid $2.
I donât think the assessment that the current system prohibits league activity and engagement, and therefore this âfixâ is appropriate, is necessarily accurate. I just havenât seen it in leagues Iâm in where in-season FA activity is tempered because of the tie-break rules.
No, itâs fixing a controversial and sometimes-broken tie-breaker.
Neither am I, and this proposal isnât about over-bidding. You are missing or intentionally ignoring the point. At this stage, it feels like you are arguing just to argue. I think you have stated your case, and I disagree.
You do realize @nivshah, the guy you are arguing with, IS the founder and owner of Ottoneu and has played for a decade. I think you should consider respecting and appreciating the fact that he is willing to take time out of his busy schedule and have a dialogue with us on this topic at all.
I do!
Iâm sorry!!!
!@#$%^&*!, I was simply engaging in conversation over something I feel is a fundamental misunderstanding over how the games design actually plays out. But if you say Iâm the problem, then I guess I have nothing else to add.
Again, I sincerely apologize.
Peace.
Making all bids view-able during a pending auction would probably lead to lots of conversations bordering on collusion.
I think that a segment of Otto would really like this proposal, so I think itâd be good to have it as an option. But I also agree with @ballnglove82 that itâs too complex for a segment of Otto. We have questions every year in the preseason when auctions or waivers are decided by a coin toss.
I also think his suggestion (and others) of tie going to the nominator has merit and seems logical and addresses the desire to incentivize starting an auction. It does mean that anyone could bid $1 on a player with no risk of winning the auction to drive up the price, so his solution of only forcing the nominator to place a $1 bid only if no one else bids addresses that issue. So the only issue that his suggestion doesnât address is prioritizing/assisting teams lower in the rankings. Maybe thereâs still a way to do it, or maybe not. But I do think itâs a good option to consider as a simpler option to implement.
The underlying point that it is a less predictive and more complicated system is a fair one. That is why it would be a league option, as I mentioned in the original post and also in thread.
I am not sure giving the tie to the nominator 100% of the time is a fair answer, because I think that over-rewards the idea of player discovery in Ottoneu. I know there is some value to player discovery, but I am not convinced that it is so valuable as to undermine one of the systems that helps teams lower in the standings get better at the margins.
I agree that most of this debate is extremely at the margins, but in aggregate I think this system would balance the various issues with the current blind auction system without abandoning Vickrey auctions for auction formats that require more time and coordination from owners. If you donât believe the issues as outlined in the original post are game-breaking issues, well, youâre right, and you wonât be forced to adopt these fixes. I have received enough feedback to believe they are more than just nothing, however.
I was thinking of it less as player discovery and more as encouraging/rewarding teams for starting auctions. But, I donât have very strong feelings about this either way.
People should just assume that other managers are monitoring the player pool and might not have nominated a player yet for strategic purposes. Being ready to pull the trigger and act if a player is nominated (possibly before its ideal for their respective team) is the type of skill that should be rewarded in a deep fantasy format. Just giving nominated players to the nominating team creates an absence of strategy (ESPN, 3 bench spot basicâŚ).
As with many things on this site, I really appreciate the expansion of options offered here. I think adding a âbetaâ option for leagues that want to try it is likely to give you the best feedback on how many are really interested in using it- and if it creates more problems than it solves.
But thank you Niv for always looking to improve the system with options; even on the margins.