Post
by Buster » Wed Mar 21, 2007 10:27 pm
I didn’t expect that this thread would take off so quickly, but I have enjoyed the dialogue. While the BBDS was not my creation, I did want to take an opportunity to address some of the concerns with the BBDS and without insulting anyone’s ideas, try to explain why I strongly believe that the BBDS is superior to the KDS. To do so, I am reprinting portions of the comments, and then adding my two cents in reply.
CAPTAIN HOOK:
Buster - nice article, but like everyone else who has championed this method, you have not addressed how ties would be handled other than randomly which is what the method purports to avoid.
"... If there are ties, the commissioner will randomly determine which owner is awarded the slot. The process is continued until all draft slots are taken. If some slots aren't bid on, the commissioner will randomly place the remaining owners into those slots.
Perry, thanks for the compliment. Please allow me to explain the tie situation. No matter how the BBDS is done (i.e., whole dollar values, dimes, pennies, etc.), there does exist the distinct possibility of a tie. I’d be a fool to argue otherwise, so I won’t. Presently in the KDS, I imagine that there are also a number of “ties” (situations wherein more than one owner has the same first preference). We don’t seem to care much about those situations, as we use the random method to break those ties. I would be willing to wager that there will be fewer ties in a blind bid than there are in the KDS. Can we eliminate the randomness completely? Absolutely not. Can we limit the randomness to a relative minimum? Yes. Should we? Yes again. For the sake or argument, whether we use Gekko’s BBDS or Nevadaman’s self-proclaimed “Awesome Solution for BBDS,” we will take away a significant amount of the randomness (but not 100%).
UFS
John, you had a number of posts and I did my best to compile the points that you made into one section, and will attempt to address these points here.
Of course it (KDS) was fair, everyone has an EQUAL shot at getting #1, or any other number drawn before using their KDS list.
No, KDS is unfair for a number of reasons. First off, it was and has been poorly executed. You, as well as a number of others, apparently did not understand the manner in which KDS was supposed to be entered. How many made the same mistake? We will never know. I, too, made that mistake, (however, since 11 was my 11th choice, I doubt my mistake mattered much. I was destined for a poor pick, apparently). KDS is random, and depending upon your perspective, random may or may not be “fair.”
The question shouldn’t be whether or not this is a fair method, and if you took that from my column, I apologize. Please allow me to rephrase. “Is the KDS the best method to determine draft position?” That is the question that should be asked. The answer is, that KDS is infinitely better than GWYG (get whatever you get). However, KDS is not the final answer. It needs tweaking such that the randomness can be limited. As it stands today, through luck, randomness, or whatever term you choose to use, the KDS allows some owners to get their preference of draft positions more so than other owners, and the owners have no say in that. If an owner is randomly chosen #1, he/she gets his/her first choice. If an owner is randomly chosen #15, he/she gets whatever is left (which theoretically could be his/her first choice, but is not necessarily likely).
You would never write this article if you were 5,2,1,4 the last four years.
Actually, I would. My position at CREATiVESPORTS.com is to make our readers aware of different things going on in fantasy sports. I don’t know the exact demographics of our readers, but I am sure that the NFBC players only make up a small percentage. My Outside the [Batter’s] Box Columns are written for a larger audience, one that may use a straight serpentine with random selection, may use a KDS format (we have used one for more than a decade in one league), may use a partial auction for the first four players per team, then a snake based upon the amount of money left for each team after the auction, or any other method.
BBDS will never be used in any sport. There is a HUGE flaw in it. If you value FAAB more than draft slot, or you bid high and just lose out, you will always wind up drafting in the same slots (about 9-13) every year. For $1300, I do not want to go in knowing I'm pegged for 9-13 every year just because I value FAAB more than draft slot preference. I want an equal shot at any pick.
BBDS is used. We use it in one of our leagues in SoCal. Mike Lins of RotoWin is also using it in his Big Game league, and it seems to have worked. There are flaws in every method. We are all humans, and we all have flaws. My point is that the BBDS has less flaws than the KDS, and the KDS has less flaws than the GWYG format. The BBDS will force players to consider spending, or not spending FAAB (or in Nevadaman’s proposal, non-FAAB designated money, let’s call it DSAB [Draft Slot Acquisition Bucks]. Knowing that if you don’t spend any FAAB or DSAB that you will have a pick between 9 and 13 (ironically, just about my picks for each year of the NFBC), perhaps you might choose to bid some of your FAAB or DSAB. Perhaps not. At least you will have that choice. If you believe that Free Agent Acquisitions are more important that draft slot, and you are satisified with the 9-13 spots, then you would choose not to bid for a draft slot. If you decide that you want to give it a shot at a better spot, you still have that choice. Under the KDS, there is no choice. That is my point.
The most "exciting" day as you wrote would then become meaningless for at least 30% of all owners. Not a great selling point IMO.
The most exciting day is still meaningless (in your words) to those who get less desirable draft positions. It will still be exciting, still be interesting, and on occasions, will still be infuriating. Perhaps, if you get stuck with slots 9-13, it will be more infuriating that exciting. Been there, done that, four years running.
I'm not paying $1300 year after year to be pegged into slots 9-13 when I KNOW that FAAB is more valuable than the draft slots. Put in other terms, I don't want to be pegged to slots 9-13 every year because some idiots over bid for their draft slots.
Caveat Emptor, or perhaps here, “Idiot Emptor.” A fool is born every minute. If you believe that bidding significant FAAB or DSAB on a draft slot is an idiotic move, then you will be all the better playing in a league wherein the idiots bid on their draft slot, and you have a better shot at free agents. If draft position doesn’t matter much, then by all means exercise your right to not bid on a spot. If you don’t want numbers 9-13 (or whatever you believe is going to be left over), then make a modest bid on another slot. The choice is yours. With KDS, you have no choice.
Put another way, If I play 15 years, I want an equal shot at every draft slot once.
Mathematically, you know as well as I, that this doesn’t hold up. If you flip a coin twice, and the first time is heads, the second flip you still have a fifty-fifty shot at another heads. You don’t have an equal shot in 15 years. For the numbers to even out, you would need a significantly greater sample size, likely one that will be greater than the number of years left in our lives. I am not a statistician, but I can tell you on slot machines (keeping with the Vegas theme from the draft), a machine is tested theoretically for 10,000,000 spins to get the payout percentage. Fifteen years wouldn’t work, as things won’t possibly even out over that short a period of time.
What you are asking me to do is to spend very valuable FAAB $$ I don't want to spend just so that I can possibly have an even chance at every draft spot. ROFLMAO.
No one is asking anyone to spend very valuable FAAB $$. You are given the option of spending, or not spending, any portion of your FAAB (or DSAB) $$ on a opportunity to have a better input into your ultimate draft position.
In KDS, about 75-80% of the owners get a pick in the top 50% of their choices. Happens just about every league.
I don’t know your relationship with Greg/Tom, or the others, so I don’t know if you have had the opportunity to analyze the KDS figures. This claim sounds like something that I might make in Court, especially if the trier of fact has no way of knowing if what I say is true or not. I have no way of knowing if your figures are accurate, either. I suppose that they are not necessarily true, but they sure sound true. Unfortunately, we both know that due to the flawed method in which the KDS has been implemented over the past two years (no clear understanding of how to rank the preferences), there is no possible way of knowing how many people got a pick in the top 50%.
Based on the above, there's only going to be 3-4 times every 15 years that I don't get one of my top 7 choices on average.
Again, these appear to be more generalized numbers without statistical backup. I would hope this would be true, and perhaps my situation is the exception that proves the rule, but again there is no way of knowing how true this is (or is not). It does sound very impressive, though.
This is why KDS has been a big hit. NFBC is up what, 225 to 375 teams in two years?
OK, I am often accused of exaggerating, but this one even tops what I might try. I’ve seen a number of advertisements for the NFBC, and I can’t recall a single one that advertises the KDS. I recall “Live Drafts,” “$100,000,” “Prize money secured by Wells Fargo,” “Over $625,000 paid in 2007,” but nothing about the KDS.
Let’s take this to its illogical end. A person sees the advertisement for the NFBC and isn’t sure whether he/she wants to participate. Let’s look into this person’s proverbial mind for a moment. “Should I fly to Vegas/Chicago/Tampa/New York, invest $1,300.00, spend a month ranking players, and devote my summer to watching games that include Royals v. Devil Rays? I’m not sure. Wait, they use the KDS for draft slot selection. OK, I’m in.” Sorry, I can’t believe that the increase from 225 to 375 teams is driven by the draft selection process.
QUAHOGS
GG – doesn’t BBDS with FAAB $ create an unequal starting point for a contest (25 leagues competing with each other) such as this? Right now at the start of the season every league has $15,000 available dollars for FA's. With FAAB BBDS some leagues may have drained $2500 from that pool leaving $12,500 available. Others maybe only $500 leaving $14,500. In your eyes do you think it's still a fair starting point where some with $1000 compete in a $12,500 pool while others compete in a $14,500 pool?
Your are correct in your assumption that this might create an unequal starting point for a contest. This, of course, would only hasten the inevitable, as after the first FAAB period, the contests are all unequal. Let’s look, for example, at week 7 of last season. In that week, Cole Hamels went to one league Las Vegas 1 (Macedawggs) for $826, and to another league Tampa #2 (B.A.T. Wingers) for 311. There is going to be inequity wherever you look. Whether the FAAB becomes unequal with the first FAAB week, the seventh FAAB week, or the week before, is no reason to minimize the value or appeal of BBDS or Nevadaman’s proposal.
SPORTSBETTINGMAN
Lance, let me address your issues briefly, as it is late, and I doubt that anyone will get this far in my post, anyway.
1) Removal of any randomness to the process allows for far easier collusion.
No more collusion than is available during the FAAB process. We haven’t seen that as of yet, and I doubt that we will.
2) A player can guarantee the first selection year in and year out by bidding 1000...not in the best interest of a competition such as this.
Not necessarily. He/she would not only have 0 FAAB to spend, but he/she may very well get in a league that has more than one manager doing the same thing, which brings us to tie resolution.
3) Tie bidding resolution would be weak.
Granted, but no weaker than KDS, and certainly more rare than the “ties” (more than one manager having the same first choice) in KDS.
4) League to league starting points would be unbalanced.
No different that with the FAAB, or with the draft. In some leagues, Johan Santana is a top five pick. In other leagues, a second round pick, and in one league that I read about (but can’t confirm) a third round pick. The leagues aren’t equal, and never will be. Some leagues may have stronger managers, some may have weaker. Some may have managers that quit mid-season, others may have those who try their best even when in 13th place and two weeks to go. Some have managers trying different strategies, others may not. If we are looking for equality, we have both come to the wrong place.
GORDON GEKKO
just an FYI buster - if you really want people to buy into BBDS, why would you call the creator a "troll"? doesn't that put your readers in a negative frame of mind right off the bat
“Intenet Troll” DEFINITION “In the context of the Internet, a troll is a person who makes inflammatory comments, which by effect or design cause disruptions in discourse, or a post made by such a person.”
If the troll hair fits, well you get the idea.
[/QUOTE]Your example is one of random assignment, not KDS. However, I think I see your logic. Let's say you had Bonds as KDS1 and Ensberg as KDS2, and I had Ensberg as KDS1 and Bonds as KDS2. Your name was randomly picked first, so you got Bonds. My name was randomly picked second, so I get Ensberg. 
[/QB][/QUOTE]i liked that one too 