PennantChase.com Free Baseball Sim League News

Daily doubleheaders kick off today... more details to announce...

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:19:47 -0700

A few quick notes regarding the start of two games a day for Auto Leagues...

I am working hard toward automating the start time for sims. I expect it will be ready in a few days. (One complication is that some leagues are currently in the post-season on the shorter schedule. Once those leagues are over, I hope to make the switch.) With two games a day, it will be more important for users to know when the games are being played. I'm planning to sim the first games at 4:00 AM PT so that you can check the results by the time you get to work, and the next games at 4:00 PM PT. This gives you all day to make any changes for the night games, and all night to make changes for the morning games. As always, if you have any feedback on this issue, let me know!
Speaking of feedback... thanks to Nimo for pointing out that the repeating schedule meant teams were facing the same pitchers every 30-day cycle. I've changed all schedules so that the second half features different matchups - hopefully this adds more balance.
Thanks to gelter for the suggestion of having one Wild Card team. I mentioned in my last post why we stuck with 8 teams per league, and this was the perfect solution to maintain the importance of the regular season while expanding the excitement of the playoffs.

Just more proof that your feedback is crucial to making this a great site, so thanks! I'm excited for the changes, they should make for a much richer experience in the Auto Leagues!

Auto Leagues moving to 120 games with expanded playoffs

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:48:52 -0700

The recent site survey revealed that most users wanted more sims per day, combined with a longer schedule. There were also a few votes for more teams and wild cards.

Starting today, all Auto Leagues that are not already in the post-season have been expanded to a 120-game schedule. Also, the post-season has expanded to include one Wild Card entry.

Starting next Monday, we'll move to two sims per day and see how that works out.

The leagues will remain with eight teams. I decided against adding more teams at this time because I don't think the site has enough traffic, and it takes a while as it stands for the current leagues to fill. Also, some leagues like Deadball or 1980s don't currently have enough players to support more teams anyway. Also, 40% of survey respondents liked the league size as they are, so this seemed like the best compromise to keep everyone enjoying the site.

I gave much thought to the wild card decision and talked with a few users, and I think adding one wild card will enhance the experience while not making it too easy to reach the post-season.

I'm also working on a new highlights generator to give a richer experience to the Auto League homepages, which I hope to release soon.

These changes were important to focus on before creating any new leagues, and I hope you'll enjoy them.

The fans have spoken... examining the latest survey results

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:09:24 -0700

Thanks to those who participated in the site survey, it helps me get an idea of what the power users of the site really want. The feedback was interesting.

The All-Time Greats is the favorite league at 35%, followed by 1970-Present at 25%. Deadball and 2007 picked up 15% each and 1980s got 10%. This means by 60-40, users prefer the leagues with a larger pool of players.

But, interestingly, 60% prefer the decade leagues because it's harder to get a good team via free agency. What this says to me is you want a larger pool of players, but you want more teams involved so you can't gobble up all the best players.

This leads to what you wanted changed most about the Auto Leagues. Most want more games simmed per day (35%), followed by a longer schedule (25%) and then more teams (20%) and wild cards (20%).

Since there was no run-away winner, it seems to me you want richer leagues in general - more games per day, a longer schedule, more teams, etc. It's no surprise that 70% said they would be very interested and active in expanded leagues. (Also not surprising is that 80% would not pay for any features - I understand, after all, most people love this site because it's free!)

What was surprising is that the vast majority are fine with the 10-team limit - 75% said they were fine with 10 teams. This says to me you want quality leagues over quantity of teams.

Finally, regarding the next type of league, you guys were no help at all. It was very split - 35% said modern decades, 35% said team leagues, and 30% said classic decades.

So now I'll try to digest all this and come up with a strategy. The downside to larger leagues is that it could take longer for the leagues to fill. We'll have to test it out and see how it goes. I'm also thinking leagues would get bumped to 120 games with two sims a day. I think the two-month cycle is a good rate (I've been told other sites operate about the same cycle), so leagues would move at the same pace, but you'd have two games a day to enjoy.

I'm also thinking the Team League concept could be a great place to start expanded leagues, where you could keep your franchise for a few seasons, draft fictional amateurs, something along those lines.

If you have any extra feedback after hearing these results, please let me know!

What comes next? Take our first site survey!

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:59:43 -0700

It's been an evolutionary process trying to create a site that baseball fans can enjoy, and your feedback is always important to that process.

Since I don't do this site fulltime, I have to use the few precious hours I have working on the stuff you guys want most. So take a few seconds to complete the new survey!

I really had no idea what I was getting into when launching this site. The original concept was more around individual commissioner leagues, but the Auto Leagues have turned out to be the driving force so far, probably because it's difficult to find dedicated owners & commissioners for individual leagues. That will come in time, but for now, I'm interested to hear some feedback around the Auto Leagues.

Thanks again for your feedback!