Stadium realignment

[Arkansas Falcons]

Can anyone say stadium realignment for Newark?? Obviously numbers are unrealistic and teams wont be able to compete with that nonsense

thanks

[commish]

I would agree if he wasn't just as good on the road as he was at home. Maybe we just need to outlaw "Butch cheating" mode on.

[Rat Pack]

The whole "Stadium Factors" thing is really, really, really stupid in my opinion.

The other side will argue "Well, Lefties have a better chance of hitting HRs in Yankee Stadium than righties (not named Arod)"

That's fine... However, that's because the wall is 313 feet down the right field line... not because of some sort of special "factors"

IF you want your ballpark to play bigger for lefties or righties than move your fences. That should do it. To allow "factors" on top of that is just plain silly.

And with only a handful of people truly undersatnding what it means anyway it only benefits a handful of guys anyway. The rule SHOULD be.... You pick a real life ballpark and use the factors that come with... OR.... You design your own and use the EXCACT factor from a real life ball park. Everyone needs to pick both a park and the factors to match. EVERYONE!

[Wally Backman]

Lemme get this straight: factors aren't affected by changing the dimensions of your stadium? Factors can just be "set" regardless of dimensions?

I thought if you changed your dimensions (like I put up a higher wall in RF of Ebbetts Field to cut down the LHB advantage a bit), it would also affect your factors.

[ironfist]

I think that both have an effect on the way the park plays.

[sugarbutch]

Park factors are a way to take into account variables like altitude, wind, etc. If you put Coors Field at sea level, the dimensions could all be the same, but it would obviously play a lot differently. Supposedly Camden Yards changed from being a hitter's park to being a pitcher's park because of the hotel and football stadium they put up nearby, changing the wind patterns.

I wouldn't have a problem with outlawing customized stadiums and just having everyone pick a RL stadium. The problem would be we would have to decide, any stadium all time? Would we include Mile High Stadium (where the Rockies played their first couple years and was an insane hitter's park) or parks from the 19th century where the outfield fences are like 500 feet away? I would suggest we either say you have to pick a CURRENT stadium, or maybe Yaro can put up a list of stadiums, maybe all the current stadiums and 10 or 20 "classic" stadiums, and then everyone picks from the list.

[Rat Pack]

How bout this....

Either we do a really good job of explaining factors at the draft next year or we just eliminate them entirely?

It seems to me that very few people use them. I think that's because no one knows what the hell they are. Myself included. I understand the concept but not the full scope of what they do.

I would vote for no factors of any kind. Build a stadium, set you walls and play ball. Or pick a current or former one and turn off the factors.

If one person uses them everyone has to. That simple. If you play in Yankee Stadium, or any other real life stadium, you use the factors that come with. If you bulid a custom one you pick the factors from a real life stadium to use.

For instance... I play in a custom ballpark. I would pick the factors that come with Shea.

Or whatever.... Either way, they need to be explained to all. It really just seems like one more thing people don't pay attention to.

[Me Again]

The other big problem I see is the abilty to change the factors every year to suit your teams strenghs and weaknesses. Same with the ability to modify your stadium every year.

I'm of the opinion that if this is truly a "simulation" league then people should have to build their teams with their home ball park in mind. I would suggest a new rule that once you pick a home park you can't change it but every third year.

As is, I can load up on LH hitters and then pick Yankee Stadium to take the advantage of the short porch in Right. Then next year, if those guys all suck I stock up on RH hitters I can push the right field wall back to 360 and pull the left field one in.

Same thing with pitching.... Load up on LHP and then build the walls in left field to be 400 feet around. Then next year, RHP and move them in again....

I think there has to be some sort of planing ahead in terms of building a team year to year.

Just a thought

[commish]

I love the idea of fixing your team's stadium for a set # of years. In real life, teams can't just build a new stadium every year (though they do occasionally move the walls in and out). I think we should set a time period that a stadium needs to exist and then it can only be changed in x amount of years. I think the suggested 3 years is a good length of time. The exception would be if a new owner comes in (but not if you change your team's name/location).

Butch, maybe you write up a short explanation of how park factors work vs. park dimensions so that people get a good understanding. I purposely added factors to the ballpark images so people would not be able to have an advantage. Then I can (or you can) email this to the other league members so that we all have an understanding.

Do we need a league FAQ page to host something like this?

[sugarbutch]

Remember park factors are used in real life, not just in DMB, because dimensions really don't tell the whole story. Mile High Stadium had huge dimensions but was a hitter's park.

We shouldn't focus just on park factors anyway... that's just one element of how stadiums are coded.

Each stadium has like a dozen different things - park factors, dimensions, wall heights, foul ground (small, average or large), surface (grass or turf), weather (hot or cold), how often it rains, if it is open or has a dome or a retractable dome, prevailing wind directions and strengths, etc... Each one affects play to one extent or another.

For example, if you play in a stadium with a huge amount of foul ground (Oakland A's) and have a good defensive team, your pitchers will do better because the fielders get a chance to run down the pop-ups that would land in the crowd at Fenway or Wrigley.

An open stadium in a rainy climate (Marlins) is bad for pitchers because, while no games get rained out entirely in DMB, you can have rain delays that will force a starting pitcher to leave the game early. (If you look at the boxscores you will occasionally see something like, "Joe Blow removed after 80-minute rain delay.") If you have a superstar starting rotation you want a dome so they don't get pulled early.

And if you have an open stadium in a hot climate (Texas Rangers), it also is bad for pitchers -- they will get tired faster, as the Rangers discover every year.

If we just do away with customized ballparks (the only thing you can change is the city/name), I have a few questions:

1) Do we want to have a draft with everyone picking a unique park, or do we care if three or four teams play in Yankee Stadium?

2) Do we want to allow people to draft any stadium from all-time, or limit it to any stadium from the current MLB parks? Maybe we could do a combination, any current MLB stadium plus 10 or 15 classic stadiums (Astrodome, Old Yankee Stadium, Polo Grounds, Ebbetts Field, etc.) although some of those old stadiums are pretty crazy.

3) As to requiring people to stay in a stadium for a minimum number of years (you have to sign a lease or whatever), I would try to stagger it so every team isn't changing stadiums in the same year... maybe we could have a minimum four-year lease, and alternate every other year between Morris and Hanover. Like, 2008 for Hanover and 2010 for Morris and 2012 for Hanover, etc. Summer Olympics years for Hanover and Winter Olympics years for Morris, or vice versa. If you decide to stay in your stadium in 2010 but then change your mind, you have to wait until 2014 to change it.

4) And finally, every year the new DMB season disk has updated park information for all stadiums. How are we going to handle that... Are you in Fenway Park 2006 for the next four years, or just the current version of Fenway ParK? Park factors change at least a little every year, not to mention when a team does a major change like building a new stadium...

[commish]

Good questions and good explanation

sugarbutch said:

1) Do we want to have a draft with everyone picking a unique park, or do we care if three or four teams play in Yankee Stadium?

I wouldn't want to do a draft of stadiums. I think we can allow as many people to play in the same stadium as they want. Afterall, in real life, if someone wants to create a park with the same dimensions as Yankee stadium, they are welcome to.

sugarbutch said:

2) Do we want to allow people to draft any stadium from all-time, or limit it to any stadium from the current MLB parks? Maybe we could do a combination, any current MLB stadium plus 10 or 15 classic stadiums (Astrodome, Old Yankee Stadium, Polo Grounds, Ebbetts Field, etc.) although some of those old stadiums are pretty crazy.

The choice should be limited to whatever stadiums I have on file! Seriously though this limits the available parks to real life MLB stadiums from the last 10 or so years and to the ones included with DMB. There are only a few crazy ones, like Coors and some of the older ones, but I think most people will stay away from those.

sugarbutch said:

3) As to requiring people to stay in a stadium for a minimum number of years (you have to sign a lease or whatever), I would try to stagger it so every team isn't changing stadiums in the same year... maybe we could have a minimum four-year lease, and alternate every other year between Morris and Hanover. Like, 2008 for Hanover and 2010 for Morris and 2012 for Hanover, etc. Summer Olympics years for Hanover and Winter Olympics years for Morris, or vice versa. If you decide to stay in your stadium in 2010 but then change your mind, you have to wait until 2014 to change it.

My idea was basically that you needed to stay in the stadium a minimum of 3 years. After that you are on a year to year "lease". It's like a cell phone, you have to sign a 2 year contract, but after that you can choose to stay with the company for as long as you want and can change whenever you feel like. A lot of teams don't change their stadiums year to year anyway, so for a lot of teams, they will still be happy in their current stadiums. When they "build" a new one, then they are kind of stuck with it for 3 years.

sugarbutch said:

4) And finally, every year the new DMB season disk has updated park information for all stadiums. How are we going to handle that... Are you in Fenway Park 2006 for the next four years, or just the current version of Fenway ParK? Park factors change at least a little every year, not to mention when a team does a major change like building a new stadium...

I hadn't thought of this. Usually I keep copying the stadiums over from the creation date (if you created a Yankee Stadium clone from 2004, then you are still playing in the 04 stadium in 2007). I think that you can give the team the option to update their stadium to the current factors without impacting the 3-year "lease". This could be seen as a team making aesthetic changes or moving the walls in and out in real life. (for custom parks, you're SOL)

[Rats]

What about people using Yankee Stadium next year when the current one gets torn down? Do they move into the new Yankee Stadium or stick with the old one for three years?

I would think they move as well.

Anyway, I like the three year number and the idea of having to build your team with your home ballpark in mind.

Now, if we could just do something about the OF posistions

[commish]

Hmmm If they build a brand new ball park, I think they're stuck in their original park for the remainder of the "lease". It's probably a good idea anyway, since they may want to find out how the park plays before moving into it. For the purposes of this rule, it would be considered a different stadium, so they would be bound to the lease and not allowed to change their stadium.

One thing to note, since DMB is a year behind real life, the owner should know that a new stadium is being built and when it is supposed to open. So if they want to play in the new Yankee stadium the first year it is available, then they should not build a new stadium 1 year prior to that day and lock themselves into a new lease.