Great discussion!

There are tankers but they usually get "dimed" and I email them about the behavior. In most cases its benign--like keeping usage down for trade purposes. Lets face it, real teams tank---think about the Marlins in recent years and so many other teams in the past. Mr. Mack sold his Athletics off to pay the bills on at least a couple of occasions. The present day Indians started out as a complete "frame off" renovation.

The best solution for tanking is peer pressure. We have to make the navigation better for playing games and setting up away teams so that managers will find more time to CONVERSE!

I'm working hard to get our limited development resources on to the MATCH-UP page for game play and trading, and to display CAREER stats and leaders. Those two advances in the network will stimulate a lot more interaction like the stuff you guys are discussing here!

Now to the discussion on platoon players: The game does limit them but it is true that early in the season such a player can be used to beat another team. The problem with SIM design is always the fight between reality and "gamesmanship". My position has always been to find that fine line and play with it. A strictly "realistic" environment doesn't allow for much gamesmanship and nowhere near the level available to real managers.

EXAMPLE: It is perfectly within our possibilities to create a game that uses actual pitcher/batter statistics to control the flow of action. In real life managers do this and some times even ignore LH vs. RH splits to pit a particular batter against a particular pitcher. There is no way to simulate that level of real life gamesmanship because of small number problems. Sometimes too much realism is not a good idea.

There is an awful lot going on in PB and there is no doubt that the result is not VERY realistic---and a great deal of the problem is the many facets of player skill we can now simulate. We as SIM managers have more knowledge of the eventual result than the real manager does---and that's why we make bolder moves at the end of the game! Do we really want to somehow take that away?

One of the problems I have is to explain to APBA players (and other SIMS based on very basic statistical simulation) that there players won't necessarily approach real life stats in a relatively short 160 game simulation. The small sample size is one reason but another is the league size and most importantly the ability of the SIM-manager to "manage".

The solution to many of these gamesmanship/realism debates is to survey the populace and find out what is the best mix---in other words---specific to this discussion ask the managers how they would want platoon players handled. The problem with surveying the current "early adopters" is that I doubt we really have real cross section of the managers that will eventually enjoy SIM-ball on-line.

The environment constantly changes and the product will keep getting better, faster and more available to more players. I have been running on-line leagues for ten years---since the days of 1200 modems. In fact at CSN we had a couple of 300 modems on-line and they had a very deleterious effect on performance! In those ten years I have listened to a more views, complaints, great ideas, blatant tantrums, unprintable diatribes and encouragement than you can probably imagine. I have tried to synthesize this into a game that would work on-line and please the people who want to compete on line. It is not meant for replay fans---though I was one and appreciate the fascination.

Thanks for the stimulating ideas---the experimental league is a good one and more complex versions of the game including attendance and revenue models (the best way to avoid tanking by the way) have been on my drawing board since the late 1980's.

Mike Bravard<