Expansion Tips?

[kq76]

Beyond the exact process that other online leagues have expanded by, is there anything in particular, like particular steps in the process, that you felt have worked or haven't worked?

Feel free to detail your entire process here, but I'm actually more curious about opinions on the particular steps like say, "our protected list criteria were ABC, but I think it would have been better if it were XYZ because..." or "after each round teams got to protect n players, but I think it should have been i because...", stuff like that.

Maybe you have important info on when the draft should or shouldn't be held too.

[Stu]

We went through expansion twice in my online league. I won't detail the whole process (unless you would like me to) but here are some key things I thought of off the top of my head:

- The #1 most important thing is finding active owners for the expansion teams. This will greatly help in keeping the expansion draft moving quickly. Maybe even float the opportunity to current owners and try to find a replacement for the existing teams instead.

- The best time to expand (IMO) is right after players file for free agency but before any free agent offers are imported. This prevents teams from making the mistake of protecting players who are heading to FA anyways. It also gives the expansion teams the chance to fully participate in Free Agency and the Rule 5 draft. If you hold your amateur draft during the off-season you should probably allow the expansion teams to participate as well.

Other things we did that I liked:
- Only expanded by 2 teams at a time. Expanding by 4 in one season is too much IMO. The pool of available players is too small and existing teams lose too many players off their 40 man roster.
- Gave the expansion teams the #1 and #2 picks in the draft their first season.
- Turned off scouts for the expansion teams while drafting. It's hard enough to build an expansion team without having to deal with scout randomness.
- Automatically protecting the last two amateur drafts without teams having to use one of their slots.

Things I would do differently:
- We limited the losses of a single organization to 2 players per round (5 total). I probably would raise this limit slightly.
- Setting expansion teams to the lowest market size. I'd probably put them in the middle or assign them randomly.

[kq76]

That's exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for, stuff I never would have thought of like your first point, but stuff that is probably very good advice. Thank you very much!

Originally Posted by Stu

- Automatically protecting the last two amateur drafts without teams having to use one of their slots.

I think I probably agree with everything you said, but I don't understand what you're talking about it with what I quoted above. Could you explain?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by kq76

I think I probably agree with everything you said, but I don't understand what you're talking about it with what I quoted above. Could you explain?

Sure. We allowed teams to protect 15 players. Any players they selected in the previous two drafts were automatically protected on top of their list of 15. So when we expanded after the 1981 season any players selected in the 1980 and 1981 amateur draft were ineligible for the expansion draft.

Here are the expansion rules we used:

- Round 1 is 28 picks (14 per expansion team)
- Round 2 is 28 picks (14 per expansion team)
- Round 3 is 14 picks (7 per expansion team)
- Teams protect 15 players plus the last 2 drafts. They can add 3 players to their protection list after each round.
- Teams can lose no more than 2 players in Round 1, 2 players in Round 2 and 1 player in Round 3. This would limit a team's losses to 5 players total.

[kq76]

Ahh, now I get it. Yeah, that sounds like a very good idea too. I'm not sure the last 2 drafts is ideal, but some # is probably a very good idea.

So that came out to 35 total picks per team. That sounds pretty good.

You said you'd probably up the # a team could lose per round. I was thinking it might be a good idea to make it where some teams could lose more players per round than other teams would, like some teams might only lose 1, the better teams might lose 3. Were you thinking of splitting up how many players a team could lose based on whether they made the playoffs or their regular season record or were you just thinking that a set # of picks would be made per round and if a team lost say the max of 3 players during the round and they had a bad record then that was just tough luck?

[snnort]

Originally Posted by Stu

Sure. We allowed teams to protect 15 players. Any players they selected in the previous two drafts were automatically protected on top of their list of 15. So when we expanded after the 1981 season any players selected in the 1980 and 1981 amateur draft were ineligible for the expansion draft.

Here are the expansion rules we used:

- Round 1 is 28 picks (14 per expansion team)
- Round 2 is 28 picks (14 per expansion team)
- Round 3 is 14 picks (7 per expansion team)
- Teams protect 15 players plus the last 2 drafts. They can add 3 players to their protection list after each round.
- Teams can lose no more than 2 players in Round 1, 2 players in Round 2 and 1 player in Round 3. This would limit a team's losses to 5 players total.

It would be nice if the expansion setup in the OOTP engine could handle all this. As far as I can remember (unless it's changed in a recent patch) OOTP simply allows each team to protect a certain number of players (editable) but you don't get to add more after each round. I don't even remember if it breaks the draft into round at all, I thought it was just one big round, back and forth.

So am I right in presuming you handled this expansion draft outside of the OOTP engine?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by kq76

Ahh, now I get it. Yeah, that sounds like a very good idea too. I'm not sure the last 2 drafts is ideal, but some # is probably a very good idea.

So that came out to 35 total picks per team. That sounds pretty good.

You said you'd probably up the # a team could lose per round. I was thinking it might be a good idea to make it where some teams could lose more players per round than other teams would, like some teams might only lose 1, the better teams might lose 3. Were you thinking of splitting up how many players a team could lose based on whether they made the playoffs or their regular season record or were you just thinking that a set # of picks would be made per round and if a team lost say the max of 3 players during the round and they had a bad record then that was just tough luck?

I don't think I would split it up. I guess my assumption is that if we raised the limit the better teams would lose more players because they have more good players and wouldn't be able to protect everyone. I think by using the low limit it forced the expansion teams to pick players they didn't want from bad teams while better players were left unprotected by good teams but were still unavailable to be picked because of the limit.

Make sense?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by snnort

It would be nice if the expansion setup in the OOTP engine could handle all this. As far as I can remember (unless it's changed in a recent patch) OOTP simply allows each team to protect a certain number of players (editable) but you don't get to add more after each round. I don't even remember if it breaks the draft into round at all, I thought it was just one big round, back and forth.

So am I right in presuming you handled this expansion draft outside of the OOTP engine?

It would definitely be nice if the OOTP engine could handle this. Especially since our model is very similar to how MLB handled their last expansion.

We used the OOTP engine to conduct the draft but handled the additional protected players in the forums. Again, this goes back to finding the right people to run the expansion teams. They were organized and diligent about checking the protection lists to makes sure they weren't drafting somebody who was ineligible.

For some perspective, both teams from our original expansion made the postseason last year, 6 years after they joined the league.

[Alan T]

Stu has some good suggestions in his posts and I don't know that I disagree strongly with most of them.

One thing I'll throw out as an addition to his good information, is after my two expansion drafts that we've done in our online leagues one thing all owners need to be aware of ahead of time is adding additional teams that have large amounts of available cash on hand will cause player demand prices to go up sometimes pretty greatly.

So owners likely need to plan for it ahead of time as it seems to take 2-3 seasons at the minimum for the player demands to go back down (once the expansion teams use up their cash).


Ok, one other comment.. on his suggestion about adding only two at a time.. that is useful from a standpoint of how much talent is available in the player pool and not spreading yourself too thin.. but I just have to say doing an odd team schedule just was a complete pain in my butt (going from 2 6-team leagues to 2 7-team leagues).. and I'll likely never do it again myself.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Ok, one other comment.. on his suggestion about adding only two at a time.. that is useful from a standpoint of how much talent is available in the player pool and not spreading yourself too thin.. but I just have to say doing an odd team schedule just was a complete pain in my butt (going from 2 6-team leagues to 2 7-team leagues).. and I'll likely never do it again myself.

We went from 2 leagues of 10 to 1 league of 10 and 1 league of 12. Then brought the other league to 12 during the next expansion. That way we didn't have to deal with an odd number of teams in a league.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Stu

We went from 2 leagues of 10 to 1 league of 10 and 1 league of 12. Then brought the other league to 12 during the next expansion. That way we didn't have to deal with an odd number of teams in a league.

Yeah, we didn't have that luxury when we added two teams. Just wanted to make sure people understood how much a pain an odd team schedule is to create is all.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Stu

Make sense?

Yup. I was just thinking that the deep teams, the teams that more players might get selected from, might not necessarily be the best teams. It just might get to someone if they're struggling to make the playoffs year in year out yet lose more players than a team that has been making the playoffs pretty frequently. I think I'd go with something like record the last 3 years though.

As for the odd number of teams per league, I agree with being against it. Sure, it might rub people the wrong way if they're competing in a division with more teams in it than another division has, but the schedule probably would be brutal to come up with. And if the lg does plan to even out the leagues in a couple years then it'd probably not be too much of an issue s-t.

[snnort]

Originally Posted by Alan T

One thing I'll throw out as an addition to his good information, is after my two expansion drafts that we've done in our online leagues one thing all owners need to be aware of ahead of time is adding additional teams that have large amounts of available cash on hand will cause player demand prices to go up sometimes pretty greatly.

So owners likely need to plan for it ahead of time as it seems to take 2-3 seasons at the minimum for the player demands to go back down (once the expansion teams use up their cash).

Is there positive proof this is the case? I was under the impression that player's salary demand is based ONLY on the player salary settings you have setup in your league options... plus talent in certain positions, and of course effected by the morality ratings of the different players (greed, loyalty, playing for a winner, etc.)... But is it true that the OOTP 10 engine has incorporated the ability of the player AI to look at what other players are actually making to determine their demand?

I'm asking for clarification because I don't know the answer, but I don't want to take this as "biblical" truth (from an OOTP perspective). Is there evidence that the players "look" at other players salary's OR that the player AI looks at available payroll room of the league as a whole when it determines player salary demands?

[Stu]

Originally Posted by snnort

Is there positive proof this is the case? I was under the impression that player's salary demand is based ONLY on the player salary settings you have setup in your league options... plus talent in certain positions, and of course effected by the morality ratings of the different players (greed, loyalty, playing for a winner, etc.)... But is it true that the OOTP 10 engine has incorporated the ability of the player AI to look at what other players are actually making to determine their demand?

I'm asking for clarification because I don't know the answer, but I don't want to take this as "biblical" truth (from an OOTP perspective). Is there evidence that the players "look" at other players salary's OR that the player AI looks at available payroll room of the league as a whole when it determines player salary demands?

I don't think the AI looks at what other players are making but I do believe it looks at available budget room throughout the league. Not 100% positive but would be pretty easy to test.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by snnort

Is there positive proof this is the case? I was under the impression that player's salary demand is based ONLY on the player salary settings you have setup in your league options... plus talent in certain positions, and of course effected by the morality ratings of the different players (greed, loyalty, playing for a winner, etc.)... But is it true that the OOTP 10 engine has incorporated the ability of the player AI to look at what other players are actually making to determine their demand?

I'm asking for clarification because I don't know the answer, but I don't want to take this as "biblical" truth (from an OOTP perspective). Is there evidence that the players "look" at other players salary's OR that the player AI looks at available payroll room of the league as a whole when it determines player salary demands?

I have two online leagues that can absolutely say with 99.9% certainty that this is the case. When you add a bunch of unclaimed cash into the system, players will simply demand more money. This is fairly easy for folks to test though. You don't notice the change immediately, but the next free agent period after the expansion suddenly most players will suddenly ask for roughly 25% more to re-sign or as free agents.

This only goes on for a few years and eventually evens out, but there is definitely some form of dynamic play in the financial system where players demand changes depending on available cash.

[Jaxxvain]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I have two online leagues that can absolutely say with 99.9% certainty that this is the case. When you add a bunch of unclaimed cash into the system, players will simply demand more money. This is fairly easy for folks to test though. You don't notice the change immediately, but the next free agent period after the expansion suddenly most players will suddenly ask for roughly 25% more to re-sign or as free agents.

This only goes on for a few years and eventually evens out, but there is definitely some form of dynamic play in the financial system where players demand changes depending on available cash.

Alan,
If this is true, can you explain why Babe Ruth at age 27 is asking a paltry extension demand in FOOL-H

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Jaxxvain

Alan,
If this is true, can you explain why Babe Ruth at age 27 is asking a paltry extension demand in FOOL-H

I have no idea what is up with that, but it is not related to expansion teams as we haven't had expansion in that league. I've seen various contract oddities in OOTPX that are unrelated to expansion that are a bit frustrating at times. Most commonly super relief pitchers that are used as and successful as starting pitching never demands more than what a relief pitcher would want in contract regardless if his position is set to Relief pitcher or his stats. Someone threw out the guess that because of Babe Ruth having "relief pitcher" ratings as well, the game might be considering him a relief pitcher despite his awesome batting ratings and position set as an outfielder.

Anyways that somewhat goes way off topic here and I wish I had an answer for what is up there, but definitely not expansion related.

[rutri01]

We expand without the expansion draft- so most may not like my process or help you in anyway. Since we are a new league and expanded in season two- most didn't want an expansion draft but since we were only 14 teams wanted more teams. We have 6 GMs on the waiting list. So I decided to expand 6 new teams for a total of 20 in season 2. Also we were 1 league of 14. We then went to 2 leagues of 10.

We have the amateur draft at the end of the season. So I add the teams after the amateur draft. Create the new teams and fill the organization with players. Not sure if I would get worse, the same, or better players than if we did and expansion draft. The new teams were allowed to sign free agents and will attend the 2nd amateur draft coming up in a few weeks.

We are thinking about adding another 4-8 teams in season 3. I have a bunch of guys waiting for teams so I will add more if they still want in and follow the same process. It worked well and didn't cause any extra work. The new GMs new about the process and were ok with it. Some may not if they want to draft- but I didn't want to do 2 drafts back to back.

[snnort]

Originally Posted by rutri01

We expand without the expansion draft- so most may not like my process or help you in anyway. Since we are a new league and expanded in season two- most didn't want an expansion draft but since we were only 14 teams wanted more teams. We have 6 GMs on the waiting list. So I decided to expand 6 new teams for a total of 20 in season 2. Also we were 1 league of 14. We then went to 2 leagues of 10.

We have the amateur draft at the end of the season. So I add the teams after the amateur draft. Create the new teams and fill the organization with players. Not sure if I would get worse, the same, or better players than if we did and expansion draft. The new teams were allowed to sign free agents and will attend the 2nd amateur draft coming up in a few weeks.

We are thinking about adding another 4-8 teams in season 3. I have a bunch of guys waiting for teams so I will add more if they still want in and follow the same process. It worked well and didn't cause any extra work. The new GMs new about the process and were ok with it. Some may not if they want to draft- but I didn't want to do 2 drafts back to back.

You're expanding too many teams at a time to have a successful expansion draft anyway... so the way that you are handling expansion is certainly for the best.

[rutri01]

the amount of teams added was also another reason we did without the draft too.