Gekko Industries

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:19 am

Usually I shut down the Fantasy Baseball Division of Gekko Industries as soon as the regular season concludes and then rehire those positions in late November.

This year, however, I felt I let myself down (as it pertains only to fantasy baseball) when I had to regularly pull myself away from the fantasy playing field to spend time with my newborn and wife.

That feeling of “unfinished business” has been so unsettling for me, I decided to take a mere one week off and have been marching forward with 2010 baseball prep for the past four weeks. Recently in fact, I’ve discovered and unlocked doors (playerS) that I am sure will be gateways (key components) to 2010 fantasy baseball success.

One tidbit that I’ll mention is when looking back at last year and the year before, my biggest failures have occurred when I spent valuable draft picks or a lot of my FAAB on young and/or inexperienced players. For example, last year I got burned ACROSS THE BOARD on Alexei Ramirez, L.Milledge, E.Dukes, C.Gomez. The year before I got burnt by using 2nd and 3rd round picks on T.Tulowitzki and spending $600+ in FAAB on M.Scherzer. The thing about young and/or inexperienced players is that their sample sizes are small and we have a tendency to overstate their results (either good or bad), even by the best of us. I didn’t buy into the Matt Wieters hype last year, but I know a bunch of really good owners did. My point is young and/or inexperienced players often fizzle. I have no problem mentioning this to all of you, as come draft day you will indeed succumb to the hype of certain young and/or inexperienced players (even ones that throw 100mph).

I write this not to boast, but to give ample warning of what’s on the horizon. As I mentioned the past three years, my fantasy baseball prep is like having the answers for a test BEFORE the test is given to me. In addition, I will be focusing all of my efforts on no more than 3 weekly “manage” teams (this # could be less depending on if the NFBC switches to a less user-friendly FAAB system in 2010).

The way I see it, in order to beat me in 2010, you’ll need a good deal of luck, a lot of guppies in your league, and my wife to have an immaculate conception! 2010 will be remembered as the year GG claimed his rightful designation as undisputed fantasy baseball champion of the world. Try and stop me.

viper · Post by **viper** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:00 am

are there discussions on changing the FAAB process?

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:10 am

Originally posted by viper:

are there discussions on changing the FAAB process? No idea. I just know that Fanball is now the big eye in the sky. Will that change our interface? I don’t know. If it does change, I hope the FAAB system is exactly the same as the one we use via STATS. Time spent on FAAB is really the most significant bottleneck to owning more/less teams.

I guess we’ll find out when Greg and Co. roll out their 2010 plans.

colorado · Post by **colorado** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:13 am

Gekko,

Holy **** . You are so entertaining. I'm offering to buy you a beer if you hit the Flamingo for week one. You sure lay the BS deep. Thanks for the chuckles.

Scott Martin

Purple Helmets · Post by **Purple Helmets** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:36 am

Glad that the Gekko Industries motivation is at a VERY high level. Looks like 2010 will be more exciting than ever before in terms of offerings from the NFBC, and I personally am also looking forward to the healthy competition that the NFBC brings. Need to see if I can catch Lindy this season since 2nd place is the 1st loser. I don't want to be the 1st loser again this year.

Schwks · Post by **Schwks** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:38 am

If you wade through the bravado, the substance is actually interesting, and some of the small sampling of strategy talk that should be more frequently posted.

While GG makes a good point regarding younger players with smaller sample sizes, I'll play devils advocate and say that you can not win an individual league, much less the whole shebang, without a guy with a relatively small sampling size coming up big. (shebang...a word not used nearly enough)

jim.s · Post by **jim.s** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:51 am

It's as smart as juggling chain saws for a guppy like me to get into a debate with an acknowledged star -- but what the heck. I've played NFBC 3 years and figured out the young player trap after the first year. I played 9 weekly 15 team leagues last year, and had none of the players that you mentioned (expect Milledge once when he fell in the draft, and a couple of times off FA).

Do you have any non-obvious tips to share?

jim.s · Post by **jim.s** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:04 am

Originally posted by Schwks:

I'll play devils advocate and say that you can not win an individual league, much less the whole shebang, without a guy with a relatively small sampling size coming up big. (shebang...a word not used nearly enough) I've never come closing to winning the whole shebang so I can't speak to that, however guys like Crawford, Jeter, D. Lee can win you an individual league -- don't need small sample guys.

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:06 am

Originally posted by jim.s:

It's as smart as juggling chain saws for a guppy like me to get into a debate with an acknowledged star -- but what the heck. I've played NFBC 3 years and figured out the young player trap after the first year. I played 9 weekly 15 team leagues last year, and had none of the players that you mentioned (expect Milledge once when he fell in the draft, and a couple of times off FA).

Do you have any non-obvious tips to share? While Wieters had a small sample, most of the kids have a solid three years of professional experience. That is plenty to base evaluations on, to me. I think some people have trouble using that kind of data and run into mistakes, but that is more of a problem with the fantasy owner than the player, I'd say. I guess most clearly, if you are expecting kids who hit .300 at Trip-A to hit .300 in the majors you are going to be disappointed every time and be more likely to show up on the boards talking about "these damn kids" and how they are a trap.

I think the kids have hit their mark for me just as often as the older players.

[ November 12, 2009, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: bjoak ]

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:19 am

Originally posted by Schwks:

While GG makes a good point regarding younger players with smaller sample sizes, I'll play devils advocate and say that you can not win an individual league, much less the whole shebang, without a guy with a relatively small sampling size coming up big. (shebang...a word not used nearly enough) Remember, I said using a “valuable” draft pick has led to my biggest misses.

Tulo in the 2nd two years ago or Alexei in the 3rd last year are the mistakes. Braun in the 18th a few years ago or mccutchen in the 25th last year is where the profit is made.

Schwks · Post by **Schwks** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:09 am

I think that fishing for minor leaguers who have yet to play at ML level should be generally avoided at draft, and saved for FAAB. But having a decent sample size of ML innings or ABs is a valid and productive way to measure worth over a full season. Guys like Votto, C Davis, Choo, to name a few off of top of my head, gave glimpses of being very good players in 08 and (despite Davis' flameout) made well reasoned draft picks that helped teams win.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Nov 15, 2009 5:07 am

Originally posted by viper:

are there discussions on changing the FAAB process? Changing, in what ways? I'm not sure I follow the question Mike.

The conditional bid process that we instituted two years ago has saved folks a LOT of time on Sundays and we have every intention of keeping that in place for 2010 and beyond. Nobody realizes how much time that saves for you folks than me, and in turn, I think some folks play more NFBC games because of it.

There is no reason to change that.

Now, I do know that some folks requested some changes last year that weren't done and I'd ask everyone to supply those now if you'd like. If there were some things we didn't get done that would save you even more time, let me know now. I have the programmers' ears and can put this on the docket now. Any and all suggestions are welcome and I'll do what I can to prioritize these and hopefully get most of them completed for you.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Nov 15, 2009 5:11 am

Originally posted by Gekko:

quote:Originally posted by viper:

are there discussions on changing the FAAB process? No idea. I just know that Fanball is now the big eye in the sky. Will that change our interface? I don’t know. If it does change, I hope the FAAB system is exactly the same as the one we use via STATS. Time spent on FAAB is really the most significant bottleneck to owning more/less teams.

I guess we’ll find out when Greg and Co. roll out their 2010 plans. [/QUOTE]As I stated above, NOTHING has higher priority in our game site than maintaining and improving the FAAB process because without time savings there are fewer multiple teams per person. We are still communicating with all parties involved and making Plan B and Plan C if some things don't come through as we wanted. So stay tuned and we'll have full details on the back-end decisions and more very soon.

NFBC owners expect the best back-end system and best live events experience. We are doing all we can right now to set both of those up. This is the week we need to finalize all plans and start rolling out the new web site and schedule of events. We need to get this train revved up and we realize that.

We're closing in, I promise.

viper · Post by **viper** » Sun Nov 15, 2009 6:29 am

just responding to a GG comment in this threads initial post. I certainly hope that things stay as they are.

Red Sox Nation · Post by **Red Sox Nation** » Sun Nov 15, 2009 8:24 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

quote:Originally posted by viper:

are there discussions on changing the FAAB process? Changing, in what ways? I'm not sure I follow the question Mike.

The conditional bid process that we instituted two years ago has saved folks a LOT of time on Sundays and we have every intention of keeping that in place for 2010 and beyond. Nobody realizes how much time that saves for you folks than me, and in turn, I think some folks play more NFBC games because of it.

There is no reason to change that.

Now, I do know that some folks requested some changes last year that weren't done and I'd ask everyone to supply those now if you'd like. If there were some things we didn't get done that would save you even more time, let me know now. I have the programmers' ears and can put this on the docket now. Any and all suggestions are welcome and I'll do what I can to prioritize these and hopefully get most of them completed for you. [/QUOTE]Greg:

Suggestions to make life easier with FAAB:

a) Capability to export FA list to excel.

B) An option to copy FA bids for multiple teams. (Main-Auction-Online, etc) For example Jessie Crain is announced the closer at 7:45PM on Sunday. It would be nice to set up a thread and copy it to my 6 teams. We would still need to go in and add the player to drop but this would still save time.

Thanks in advance.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 4:26 am

Originally posted by viper:

just responding to a GG comment in this threads initial post. I certainly hope that things stay as they are. Sorry Mike. I didn't read Gekko's first post.

We have every intention of retaining the Conditional Bid process we've had the last two years so that folks can continue to play in as many leagues as they'd like without spending too much time on Sundays. Trust me, I'm in competing fantasy football leagues right now and the additional time I spend on conditional bids for those leagues compared to the NFFC setup is frustrating. I failed to even get a backup D one week when I failed to cover enough of my conditional bids. The system is a pain.

We know what we have here and we'll duplicate it if we don't use the same setup in 2010. All of this is still a work in progress, but we'll know more soon.

Now back to Gekko Industries....

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 4:45 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Trust me, I'm in competing fantasy football leagues right now and the additional time I spend on conditional bids for those leagues compared to the NFFC setup is frustrating. I failed to even get a backup D one week when I failed to cover enough of my conditional bids. The system is a pain.

does the league rhyme with FFTC?

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 5:51 am

We know what we have here and we'll duplicate it if we don't use the same setup in 2010. All of this is still a work in progress, but we'll know more soon.

So STATS might be replaced then? I'd love to see the same setup and I actually like STATS, but yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing the simple math on the lifetime standings calculated correctly.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:39 am

Originally posted by Gekko:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

Trust me, I'm in competing fantasy football leagues right now and the additional time I spend on conditional bids for those leagues compared to the NFFC setup is frustrating. I failed to even get a backup D one week when I failed to cover enough of my conditional bids. The system is a pain.

does the league rhyme with FFTC?

[/QUOTE]Both leagues have tougher and more time consuming FAAB setups. I think everyone agrees with that. I think we all got used to clicking on 10 conditional bid kickers in 10 seconds and enjoying the time saved. We have to keep that in place here and everyone is on the same page with that promise.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:41 am

Originally posted by bjoak:

quote: We know what we have here and we'll duplicate it if we don't use the same setup in 2010. All of this is still a work in progress, but we'll know more soon.

So STATS might be replaced then? I'd love to see the same setup and I actually like STATS, but yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing the simple math on the lifetime standings calculated correctly. [/QUOTE]It takes two to tango, so we'll see what happens in the next week or so. But if we can't work things out then we'll have a system in place with every single function we have now and a new look and feel. We're ready either way.

Gekko · Post by **Gekko** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 11:34 am

Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

It takes two to tango, so we'll see what happens in the next week or so. But if we can't work things out then we'll have a system in place with every single function we have now and a new look and feel. We're ready either way. AWESOME NEWS GREG!

swampass · Post by **swampass** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:14 pm

Originally posted by Gekko:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

It takes two to tango, so we'll see what happens in the next week or so. But if we can't work things out then we'll have a system in place with every single function we have now and a new look and feel. We're ready either way. AWESOME NEWS GREG!

[/QUOTE]ive got some requests regarding team stats. is it possible to get the same breakdowns of stats available on the FA list for the "Team Stats" link? you only get weekly. also is there a possibility of getting some stats on the set lineup page? again same breakdown. last year, this year, last week, last month, per week, etc. it would make sense to see some stats while trying to set your lineup. i just hate working multiple tabs and wouldnt be surprised if others agree.

thanks!

swampass · Post by **swampass** » Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:14 pm

Originally posted by Gekko:

quote:Originally posted by Greg Ambrosius:

It takes two to tango, so we'll see what happens in the next week or so. But if we can't work things out then we'll have a system in place with every single function we have now and a new look and feel. We're ready either way. AWESOME NEWS GREG!

[/QUOTE]ive got some requests regarding team stats. is it possible to get the same breakdowns of stats available on the FA list for the "Team Stats" link? you only get weekly. also is there a possibility of getting some stats on the set lineup page? again same breakdown. last year, this year, last week, last month, per week, etc. it would make sense to see some stats while trying to set your lineup. i just hate working multiple tabs and wouldnt be surprised if others agree.

thanks!