Contents this issue: Letters to the EditorWords of Wisdom: The Commissioner Explains Money!
Pontification: Buying Free Agents
Guest Pontification: Playing Hurt
Forum: What good is the midfield (not) answered
How much are players worth?
Mistake of the Week
Random thoughts for new managers
(from Scott Emery, emery@ames.arc.nasa.gov)
...I have mentally capped the effective age of my playing players at 7 years (noone on the field is allowed to be older) to keep my injuries down. Note that a four year old that has two four-fatigue sessions is effectively 8 years old.
This is a great observation, and points out that I have not read the rules very carefully. Certainly not carefully enough to check its veracity. However, if true, it gives you a good Rule o' Thumb in playing fatigued players. Wouldn't it be great if Age N really meant N years old, though? It would certainly explain my youngsters' lack of scoring ability...
(also from Scott)
How can I tell if I am playing at home vs. playing away...
I believe that if the schedule says 1-3 (for example), it means that Team 1 is visiting Team 3. Mel will shriek if I am wrong... ;-)
By the way, I took it upon myself to replace the numbers in the schedule with the actual opponent names, and it's very handy. Oh, and as an advertise- ment, KWPD had seven subscribers the first week. Since Mel tells me that SPARF won't be popular enough to televise for a coupla weeks yet, why not see what you've been missing? There are seven managers out there who know more than the rest of you, so mail me to see how YOU TOO can be "in the know."
Comissioner's Notes:
This week I'd like to talk about $$$ and it's future role in SPARF. The first question I always get asked about $$$ is "Can I buy new coaches?" The answer to this is definately, assuredly, unequivocally "NO" I tried to value the coach relative to the other thing a player can buy and came up with a result most of the way to infinity. Even small benefits in coaching would be way too valuable. (So make sure you have the $$ to hang on to your coaches at season end)
Also, I plan to eliminate some of the confusing and highly irrelevant $$$ items like astroturf and larger stadiums, etc, or at least simplify them, as they don't really add anything to the game, and are overpriced anyway (even though larger stadiums are worth it in the long run, the time to break even is around 3-4 seasons -- if your popularity is high enough to fill the stadium)
Currently, popularity is such that most teams will get 25k on the road, and 30k at home. It will be a while before anyone is able to change this in either direction (The popularity stats from last season diverged because of a flaw in the formula, so I reset them this season and am using a new formula). One result of this is that most teams are likely to get around 125k spending money this season (rather than 90k as expected)
I should note that Steve's comments were pretty close for last season's popularity algorythm, but this season's figures will be more stable.
The total list of overhead expenses for season end follows (this table comes almost directly from section ten of the rules)
pay your seven coaches: $210k (7*30)
pay your medical insurance: $ 50k
-------------------------------------
total expenses: $260k
Here is a good estimate of income:
seven away games: $175k (7*25)
seven home games: $210k (7*30)
-------------------------------------
total income: $385k
net spending money: $125k (385-260)
Of course, any tv $$$ you pick up is pure creme, and the post-season money is also going to be addable (assuming you get any --- see my next week's article for more details)
The primary use of money is going to be the drafts, especially now that there are no farm clubs, and this is the only way to get rookies is via the draft. The one REAL IMPORTANT note I have is: make REALLY sure you have the $$$ to rehire your coaches --- otherwise your team will go into debt as follows:
Next Week: Playoff Structure and Tierings
This week, Tales of Woe pontificates on the usefulness of buying free agents. By definition, a free agent from another team was cut. That means he is bad. Why would you want someone bad on your team taking up space?
Two reasons: One, they're usually pretty cheap (see FORUM), and may be better than your 18th-best player (or third-best, if you are WPD). Plus, they are often "skewed" players, who can be really useful, especially if the skew is to Defense. But two, you don't have any attachment to the poor sap. Train him at 4 fatigue every week and turn him loose. While he's decent, he'll play well and save one of your guys (especially if you find yourself short a man and have to crank that Age 1 guy back down from 24 fatigue to get him in the lineup safely). When he gets injured, cut him. You basically rent a slot to save time, and rent here is pretty low. But don't buy anyone you can't reasonably use RIGHT NOW. Otherwise, he really IS just taking up space (cf. Arthur Rex, WPD).
This week's guest pontificator is Matt Galer of The Borg, whose tips are very wise, although it would be wiser still not to be in the position to ever have to employ them.
How To Get Most of Your Team Injured in a Single Season -------------------------------------------------------
I began the season thinking gee, injuries wont be that bad, and even if I do suffer a few, no problem I'll put some of these young dudes who have been sitting around all year in for a game or two. Sounds like a good concept, but most of my players sitting around were collecting tons of fatigue every week in anticipation of the totally awesome team for next year. I had players on my bench by midseason who had fatigue values approaching the 40's (amazingly enough, I found out that 10 x 4 does come out to 40). Then I started to sustain some injuries in my starters who were all mostly in the 12-16 range in fatigue values. Things snowballed from there...
I would definitely suggest that you keep at least 4 players in addition to the 18 starters who could play with a reasonable chance of not killing themselves (I usually have younger players with fatigues around 6 or so). The two sub positions are usually filled up with two of these players. With 4 such players, you should have enough to weather losing a starter or two for a couple of weeks. If you have four of your regural starters out, play these guys over putting in players with better skills but high fatigue values, they will probably get injured. It is better to but the high fatigue players in as subs as the likelihood of injury drops for them (I never had a sub drop on me, and some of my subs had fatigue values that seemed to rival the US's national debt...).
Last word of advice: dont be afraid to cut players. I held onto some players far too longer than I should have last season. I knew that they wouldnt see any more playing time due to injuries, and instead of letting them go, I just stuck them into the "fatigue soaker" squad. The "fatigue soakers" were the large group of young players that I had no clue what to do with at the beginning of the season and just organized them into a group of something like 14 and put 4 fatigue in them every week (very bad idea...). Now, my roster is currently at 30 players, and training is much more efficient. If I sustain injuries like last season however, I will be in a bind, and may start trying to buy 2nd rate players for first rate prices...
(Oh yeah, if a player gets injured for the 4th time, cut him. I hung onto one until the 5th time...).
[Editor's Note: FOURTH time? Man, I cut everyone who got injured more than once, and several with one injury. Any thoughts?]
Last week TOW asked what you thought about the importance of the midfield. Nobody cared.
This week, Tales of Woe asks the age-old question: How much are players worth? How much should I offer for that free agent, or to that other manager willing to part with a player I could start right away, or even to the guy selling off his Age 0 players?
This week's mistake comes once again from Wallamaloo, Home of the Mistake. I wanted to get a high-fatigue player in the game against a tough opponent, so I came up with a scheme: play a sacrifice super-high fatigue player in his position, get him injured, and let the sub take over with a reduced chance of injury. Good, right?
Of course not. This is MISTAKE of the Week, not Brilliant Play of the Week. The schmuck didn't get injured and my sub never got in. Moral: don't depend on random numbers: they aren't called random for nothing.
This week's random thought comes from the Commisioner, who offers a way to see why you lost. See Issue 1 for a description of how to compare skills. BTW, I have found that my PATH (for UNIX gurus) doesn't include "dot" (that is, ., the current directory). It is safer to run the program by typing ./pairings, or to build an alias for the program. Write me at swb@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu if you can't get the script to run.
(from Mel)
Here is an analysis script is just finished, and a blurb describing it. This isn't so much a tale for Words of wisdom as pontification or tips, as the interpretation of these things is likely to be a dark art.
Analysis Shellscript by Mel Nicholson (based on a similar program by
Van Bougner). The following shellscript will pair up the fixed position
players from a scout report against their opposites. Just save the
script to a file called "pairings" (or whatever), make the file executable
using the command "chmod 755 pairings" and your ready to go. To run the
program, just type "pairings
--- cut here, and do not include this line --- #! /bin/csh echo "Mobiles" grep RKM $1 | head -1 grep RKM $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep RKR $1 | head -1 grep RKR $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep ROV $1 | head -1 grep ROV $1 | tail -1 echo "" echo "Team 1 Forwards/Team 2 Backs" grep LFP $1 | head -1 grep RBP $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep FF $1 | head -1 grep FB $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep RFP $1 | head -1 grep LBP $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep LHF $1 | head -1 grep RHB $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep CHF $1 | head -1 grep CHB $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep RHF $1 | head -1 grep LHB $1 | tail -1 echo "" echo "Centre/Wings" grep LW $1 | head -1 grep RW $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep "C " $1 | head -1 grep "C " $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep RW $1 | head -1 grep LW $1 | tail -1 echo "" echo "Team 2 Forwards/Team 1 Backs" grep LHB $1 | head -1 grep RHF $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep CHB $1 | head -1 grep CHF $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep RHB $1 | head -1 grep LHF $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep LBP $1 | head -1 grep RFP $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep FB $1 | head -1 grep FF $1 | tail -1 echo "" grep RBP $1 | head -1 grep LFP $1 | tail -1 --- cut here as well, but do NOT include this very line ---