From: niguma@ug.cs.dal.ca (Gordon Niguma)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball.fantasy
Subject: Running Our StratOMatic League
Date: 23 Aug 92 14:48:04 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada


  Just thought I'd post a couple of hints from my experiences as a Strat league
president. Our league usually had 6-8 players in it; hopefully anyone starting
up a new league will be helped by this post.
  Since we wanted to avoid all-star team powerhouse types, we'd get all the    
managers together and select 8-10 teams that would compreise the player pool.
This voting was usually made on a 5-3-1 point system for first choice, second
choice or third choice and the top 8-10 teams got in. This also reduced costs
of ordering all teams in addition to making all the teams have some weaknesses,
instead of being able to collect quality players on demand.
  All of the players from those teams who were above a certain AB or IP limit
(around 150-200 AB or 50+ IP) were designated a number from 1-8 to approximate
their values. For example Barry Bonds would be an 8 while a guy like Devon
White (last year) would be around a 6. Alomar (from last year) would be about
a 7 while a guy like Grebeck would be around a 5 (because he wasn't allowed 
to start for teams unless an injury occurred, because he didn't have enough
AB to be a starter). This number from one to eight represented the players
MINIMUM VALUE; this was the least amount of money you could buy that player for.
  Every round each manager would write down the names of five players they 
wanted to obtain. If a player appeared on only one ballot then that player would
go to the team that selected him for the MINIMUM value. If a player appeared
on more than one ballot then the teams which selected him would get into a 
bidding war for him, with the highest bidder finally winning.
  Example: In my first round I selected Clemens, Frnak Thomas, Roberto Alomar,
Jose Rijo and Shane Mack. I got the last three without any problem but I had
to bid on Clemens and Thomas. I couldn't afford to keep both so I ended up with
Rocket.
  The great thing about this method of drafting is the strategy it creates and
also it has a budget (110 to 130 points) which makes bidding very critical. 
If someone wrote down all of the best players in the league on his paper, then
he'd be sunk; there would be too many bidding wars and he might end up getting 
only one or two of the players he originally wanted while someone else may end
up with all five players he chose and avoid all bidding wars (bidding wars kill
you financially). If someone writes down OK players on his draft sheet he may
get all of them at a good price, but will soon find out that all the great
players have gone in the first two rounds and will have alot of money left 
over but won't have anyone around to spend it on, so even though he could win
most of his bidding wars from now on it won't land hima championship team. The
real key is to try to get four good to great players in the first round by 
getting sleepers that you don't think will get drafted early (like Shane Mack
last year) and be willing to lose a bidding war if it gets to high while still
managing to come away with some good players. Often in the first round my goal
is to get three or four of the players I wanted and not being afraid of losing
one bidding war but refusing to lose two or more bidding wars. The more bidding
wars that go on that don't involve you will drain the money of other teams so
that you can win your bidding wars.
  Oh yeah I almost forgot; if several wars are too happen in one round start   
with the player with the highest MINIMUM VALUE. If there's a tie go by some
other arbitrary measure.

					Gord Niguma
					(fav player: John Olerud)
					niguma@ug.cs.dal.ca
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball.fantasy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games