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Bristolduke · 06-12-2006, 11:27 PM

Work will interfere somewhat here, but based on the lack of posts, maybe this isn't the issue I had assumed.

Anyway, I have simmed 1996 three times (twice with average frequency and average difficulty and once with average frequency and very hard difficulty). Again this was with full minors. There has been an increase in the number of trades (which I had suspected based upon the results from the no minor sims) All three sims made 88 trades in 1996. (it was 57-61 with no minors) There has also been a reduction in the frequency in cash being involved but not much. In the 5 sims I did without minors in 2001, cash was involved between 46% and 57% of the deals. In the 3 1996 sims this has dropped to between 38%-43%. The tighter distribution may indicate boundaries of the AI.

This number appears very high. While certainly we are not always privy to the financial parts of deals in the papers, even if the AI believes it's 40%, it seems very high. Also the $3m limit clearly exists. No trade exceeds that amount and it is the most frequent number, even with all the minor leaguers. Again there appears to be no accounts for the club, as the Brewers may get $3m in a deal or the Dodgers/Yankees/etc.

Lets say determine your ability to accept a trade based upon a variety of factors (let's call them value points). The cash has value points (it appears it is the same value points for each team). So I'm trading player A who has 135 (This is a made up number) value points (a combination of factors you consider important about a player [e.g. speed, power, loyalty, years remaining on contract, age, etc] for player B. For the computer to make the deal it wants to be within 10(again made up) points (probably a parameter in the AI). Let's say Player B is 115 value points. With a difference of 20 points the AI won't deal. But wait, cash has value. If we assume $100k per point, if you offer Player B and $1,000,000 (worth 10 vaule points) then you are 10 points apart and the AI makes the deal. To limit this there is an artificial limit of $3M (otherwise the AI would throw all kinds of cash around.).

I believe this is an area the AI needs to be tweaked. While simple in implementation, the reality is that cash is usually NOT why teams trade. Cash is usually somthing the smaller clubs need to make the salary of the acquired player work. I don't know the logic being used here, but I would suspect some iterating logic is needed where different combinations of players are tossed back and forth until both team strategies are met. (example is only break off a negotiation when the value difference is deviating on 4 straight interactions or the value of the trade has not gotten to within 20 points (assuming 10 is the accept range). This made lead to some more creative offers as the trades are pretty static (more on this in later post) in structure. The current use of cash makes for lots of trades, but I question the "realism" of those trades.

One final point, and this may not be a bug but a area in the manual to be clarified. Difficulty appears to have no affect on computer trade. I expect it adjusts the parameter of acceptance on Human v AI trades. So for those trying to cut down trades, you need to reduce frequency as this definitely has an affect, but difficulty does not appear to be impacting computer trades (again more on this later).

Again I would appreciate the thoughts of others here.

06-12-2006, 11:27 PM	#8 (permalink)
Bristolduke Minors (Single A) Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 94	Work will interfere somewhat here, but based on the lack of posts, maybe this isn't the issue I had assumed. Anyway, I have simmed 1996 three times (twice with average frequency and average difficulty and once with average frequency and very hard difficulty). Again this was with full minors. There has been an increase in the number of trades (which I had suspected based upon the results from the no minor sims) All three sims made 88 trades in 1996. (it was 57-61 with no minors) There has also been a reduction in the frequency in cash being involved but not much. In the 5 sims I did without minors in 2001, cash was involved between 46% and 57% of the deals. In the 3 1996 sims this has dropped to between 38%-43%. The tighter distribution may indicate boundaries of the AI. This number appears very high. While certainly we are not always privy to the financial parts of deals in the papers, even if the AI believes it's 40%, it seems very high. Also the $3m limit clearly exists. No trade exceeds that amount and it is the most frequent number, even with all the minor leaguers. Again there appears to be no accounts for the club, as the Brewers may get $3m in a deal or the Dodgers/Yankees/etc. Lets say determine your ability to accept a trade based upon a variety of factors (let's call them value points). The cash has value points (it appears it is the same value points for each team). So I'm trading player A who has 135 (This is a made up number) value points (a combination of factors you consider important about a player [e.g. speed, power, loyalty, years remaining on contract, age, etc] for player B. For the computer to make the deal it wants to be within 10(again made up) points (probably a parameter in the AI). Let's say Player B is 115 value points. With a difference of 20 points the AI won't deal. But wait, cash has value. If we assume $100k per point, if you offer Player B and $1,000,000 (worth 10 vaule points) then you are 10 points apart and the AI makes the deal. To limit this there is an artificial limit of $3M (otherwise the AI would throw all kinds of cash around.). I believe this is an area the AI needs to be tweaked. While simple in implementation, the reality is that cash is usually NOT why teams trade. Cash is usually somthing the smaller clubs need to make the salary of the acquired player work. I don't know the logic being used here, but I would suspect some iterating logic is needed where different combinations of players are tossed back and forth until both team strategies are met. (example is only break off a negotiation when the value difference is deviating on 4 straight interactions or the value of the trade has not gotten to within 20 points (assuming 10 is the accept range). This made lead to some more creative offers as the trades are pretty static (more on this in later post) in structure. The current use of cash makes for lots of trades, but I question the "realism" of those trades. One final point, and this may not be a bug but a area in the manual to be clarified. Difficulty appears to have no affect on computer trade. I expect it adjusts the parameter of acceptance on Human v AI trades. So for those trying to cut down trades, you need to reduce frequency as this definitely has an affect, but difficulty does not appear to be impacting computer trades (again more on this later). Again I would appreciate the thoughts of others here.