Post by Captain America on Jul 23, 2014 23:01:16 GMT -5
Erbes had a great run as our original commissioner!
1. What's it like now no longer being the commish? Do you look at things within this league in a different way now? Do you miss commish'ing? What's the one thing you don't miss more than anything about commish'ing?
I've noticed the first 6 questions in this interview are about me commishing in the past and my feelings on it. Good gawd kill me now. And if you edit that out I'm going to rat you out. And you better not take out anything I say in this interview. Don't go all Bleacher Report baby back bitch on me. Anyways, I love not simming. Ashes and Steve are doing a great job. Love seeing the enthusiasm Ashes had in his interview about being commish, and I know Steve feels the same way, or at least I think. Either way having the both of them sim is a net positive for the league. I couldn't keep up with the sims plain and simple. Plus people seem to genuinely hate me here lol. Oh well. It's like did the inventor of butter like the guy who invented peanut butter? Probably not, but the peanut butter guy knows he did something better than the regular butter guy. That's how I feel. I definitely view the league more as a hobby than a job now, which is how I felt when it became tedious. I'm here for fun and to hang out with some bros. If I win something great, if not it's not like we're getting paid to do this. If I'm going to be horrible I might as well do it with players I like in real life. The worst thing about commishing was dealing with all the bitching. Listen, I fucked up a ton in the beginning, but I was also a first time commish and had really never used OOTP to the extent I used it to sim. There were bound to be hiccups, burps even, just didn't think people would go all Jackie Chan on me when I messed something up. Guys, let's have a moment of truth - I never purposely missed something or ignored a PM or whatever you may think. All honest mistakes. Let's all take a deep breath and go get some chamomile tea with honey and a splash of lemon. Great to sooth all your internet yelling voices.
Meh. I could've done a better job with the questions, but at least I now have a better sense of what others wanna see in interviews. Anyway, I don't blame you for getting burnt out after all this time. 11 straight seasons of commish'ing is no joke, but you did an excellent job getting BBSBL to where it is today. Fuck the complaints...you put a shit ton of effort into everything you did.
2. Was commish'ing here easier than you expected it would be? More difficult? About the same? And why?
What is this, 2 of 6? Alright. Almost half way done with this brutalness. Commishing was tough is the obvious answer. Outside of the time commitment, which was anywhere from a half hour to an hour for each sim, trying to keep 28-30 dudes happy is not easy. I mean I only have two hands and a mouth. Backdoor is off limits! Especially when half of those 28-30 have very strong personalities and don't like being told no. I also should have given jobs out to people. And those people shouldn't have been people who bailed or were going to be horrible at their job lol. The banks were a mess to begin with and that did not make my job easier. In sum, I would just like to say that commishing is tough so if Steve or Ashes ever makes a mistake please don't yell at them.
I've obviously never been a commish anywhere, but I sincerely respect everything that goes into doing each sim and trying to keep at least most of us happy at all times. It's always nice to have other GM's with jobs here helping out the commissioners with particular spects of this league, and for the most part, the GM's with jobs have done well with them.
3. How would you say Steve and Ashes have done at the helm? As good as how you did? Better? Worse? Different in any way? Is there anything in particular either or both of them could do better?
I already kind of answered this one in my first response, since all of these questions kind of lend themselves to each other and there's no way to answer one without touching on another, but I'll repeat myself for the sake of the interview. Ashes and Steve are doing a Tom terrific job. They sim at a normal time every day and reward activity with bonus sims. Let's do an aside here. I'd like to call break a baby back bitch for throwing me under the bus in his interview saying that I didn't reward activity with sims. Who was the one who instilled the 20 export rule? Who was the one who would get PMs from people saying we were simming too fast and if we kept at that pace that they would quit, from multiple GMs? Last season took 27 real days. That is slower than what I was doing in the heyday of the league! Break you can always try to take shots at me, and really whomever wants to can, but yall need to judge me on my entire commishing career, not just the last season. Mic drop. Mic pick up. Have to finish complimenting Ashes and Steve. The league started out on an extremely high note with tons of posting, trades, etc. Then we hit a lull, okay more like a canyon. League was stale and people knew it, the shine had worn off. Steve and Ashes stepped in and I'd have to say, minus a few ghost teams which are not their faults, the league is at least where it was in the beginning, if not shooting by it as I type. Awesome, awesome, awesome job.
As I said before, Steve and Ashes have done a wonderful job as commissioners with simming. I completely agree that some GM's unfortunately criticized you too much for not simming enough and I felt the schedule was good for everyone and very reasonable. It's too bad some people forgot about some of the great things you did as commish, but I wasn't one of them.
4. Do you eventually plan on taking your commish spot back in the future? What will you do if Steve and Ashes really want to keep simming for us and put up a fight?
Not a fucking chance. I'll never ask for it back. There were a couple days in there where I was like man I miss doing this stuff, and then I woke up the next morning and shat those feelings right out. Now, if they're done simming and need a break, I would definitely step back in and take over. I wouldn't want this league to die over something dumb like that. This questions was all minutia. As a reward for all of our readers out there for sifting through this godforsaken interview I give you boobs (PG-13 of course)!!!
Haha thanks for the videos. Saves time from having to look for pictures. I'm not surprised you don't miss being commish and hopefully Steve and Ashes will continue to sim as long as they enjoy doing it, but nice to know you'd still be willing to step in if anything were to happen.
5. What was your biggest accomplishment for this league as a commish and what has been your biggest regret?
Um starting it? lol seems like a pretty obvious answer to me. Stepping down when I did? Probably saved the league. Although I suspect Ashes and Steve would have taken over even if I didn't start a thread and just disappeared instead. Biggest regret is a little tougher. Anytime I messed up an export in the playoffs. Broph and Kobe come to mind for being on the wrong end of that. I could care less about messing up an export during the season because there's 162 games, but the playoffs are a different story. What makes it worse is I did it to them in the World Series. Legitimately felt bad both times. Sorry bros. Also using real players. I forgot how much bitching goes on about the draft from my days in GABL. Add in the fact that we have to make our drafts from scratch and it was a horrible decision not to use fake players right from the get go.
Yes, thanks a lot for starting up this wonderful league! People in life make mistakes, but some mistakes are tougher to accept and move on from. I can only imagine how bad you felt when those postseason export situations happened. Not everything here will be perfect, but some people (myself included) unfortunately do not have much patience for things like that, which in a way is understandable. But at the same time, we all need to remember the possibility that if one certain mistake didn't happen, another mistake somewhere down the line could have happened instead.
6. You've put together some great forum events for us recently. Just to clarify, are you the only person that can organize official events or do Steve and Ashes both have the same amount of power to put together events themselves? And did you organize all these recent events completely on your own or were there joint discussions with them?
In other words you want to know if I'm undermining Ashes and Steve's authority? The answer is no. I feel like this is a question that could have been answered on the forums with one word, but now I'm tasked to try and expand that into 4-5 sentences ugh. I've PM'd them both about most, if not, all of the rewards stuff that I've posted. For example, all three of us decided it wasn't a good time for a frenzy this year. It's a great oligarchy we have going on. More boobs!!!!
Interesting. Very good to know. Hopefully, Steve and Ashes will step up and run events of their own as well. I can understand keeping events each season to a certain limit though.
7. What kind of changes and/or improvements does BBSBL need more than anything and why? How could the best OOTP league around get that much better?
More active GMs. That's obvious. We need probably 3-4. Not sure they're out there though. Not a ton of people playing OOTP5. Would be nice if we could bump our league up to OOTP13 or something close. We'd lose some guys here because it's a more complicated game, but we'd also gain more because that's what everyone else is playing. Upgrade or become obsolete. I'd like to upgrade all over these tits that's for sure!
That's one topic that people haven't really discussed at all, not just here, but in other OOTP 5 leagues as well. I think people want to stick with what they know as long as all is well generally speaking. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? If enough people here though really wanted to go for OOTP 13 or another upgraded version of any kind, it would be interesting to see what would end up happening and what the future of BBSBL would look like. I'm perfectly fine with OOTP 5 just because I'm used to it, but it would be cool to see what the more recent versions look like.
8. Has the 2nd PD reversal addition been a success? Do you think it will last forever?
Has it been a failure? I'd answer your question and mine with a no, and that in itself is a positive. Maybe 3 guys have used it? Is it hurting the league? I don't think so. It's extremely expensive, but it's nice to have the option of being able to reverse a 2nd PD in my opinion. For example, Yonder Alonso had his 2nd bad PD this past season. Something like 3 categories and it would have cost me $9M to fix. I said no thanks. The only guys getting double reversed/ teamed are the studs. Don't we want the studs to stick?
True. Each team would ideally want their best players to not get shafted from a random PD and I like the 2nd PD reversal definitely over the 1st year player thing we did before. I think a lot of us were overthinking the 1st year PD's happening a lot more often than they actually do. But now, with the 2nd PD reversal being worth twice the amount of a regular PD, it's fascinating to see who is willing to pay the big bucks for 2nd reversals.
9. Is the general scarcity of in-game cash right now a problem? Do you think it will remain the way it currently is for a while or is this more likely to be a shorter phase?
This is going to sound really mean and there's no other way to say it, but aren't you a writer for Bleacher Report? This question is soooo mundane. I don't think anybody cares about the game cash 'scarcity' problem. First of all it's a problem we created. It's not like the game said, "Okay let's fuck these dudes and drop all of their TV, merch, and attendance revenues. That'll teach them!" Second of all, I don't think it's actually a problem. I see plenty of teams (NYY, CHC, ATL, MON, NYM, PHI) who will all make fat stacks this year. And thirdly, back to the first of all, we created this problem. Instead of letting dudes walk, people are constantly handing out $20M/yr contracts which drive payrolls through the roof. Sure we could have had a compensation system in place for losing FAs (add that to my list of regrets please), but guys also need to realize when to cut bait. And it's not on myself, or Ashes, or Steve to come up with some rewards contest to bail people out. We ain't the government. No TARP funds available bros.
Meh I didn't like this question either to be honest, but really wanted to touch on this topic one way or another. The $20 million extensions definitely are a huge reason why some of the payrolls are as jacked up as they are right now. Some of the studs can really get greedy, but as the saying goes, "don't hate the player, hate the game." So that's what it is. A compensation system would have been nice, but I bet it would have been somewhat complicated if we did something like the real life Type A and Type B system. People would be arguing over the values of certain free agents-to-be and making cases for why they should be Type A instead of Type B, for example.
10. Now to your Yankees. How would you evaluate your rebuild thus far? Any regrets on starting that rebuild? Where exactly are you in the process? When should we expect to see a competitive Yankees team again?
Oh we're horrible. Will be for quite some time. I actually don't mind losing this much. It's not fun, but it's also not not fun. Naw I mean? I love where my system is heading, which I see you ask about below so I guess I won't go any further with this statement. Gun to my head on when I compete... maybe like 2013. I want to take the Brewers way of building a team and not pay anybody over $6.5M. Nobody cares about the Yanks though, what they do care about is boobies!!!
Your rebuild is definitely looking good so far. The mid-2010s definitely looks like a time for you to compete again. The Red Sox are not getting younger and may have just 2-3 years of real competing left. The Rays are better set up for the future and could last a bit longer. The Jays and Orioles really need to retool for the future, but Game gets lazy and Jah is Mr. Anti-Tanking, so more than likely, they'll continue to sit on their teams as usual.
11. You've stockpiled some really good spects in Goldschmidt, Alvarez, Colome, McEntee and Corbin in particular. Do you plan on keeping them all and building your team of the future around them or could you see yourself eventually flipping some of them for more developed talent later on? What are the Yankees' most glaring weaknesses as an organization?
I'm playing the long game. Not trading anyone I don't have to. Which means everyone lol. Except Klos. I'm way overvaluing him, but I don't want to just give him away, ya feel me? Future line up:
1. Lee, SS
2. Jackson, CF
3. Klos, DH
4. Goldie, 1B
5. Alvy, 3B
6. Heathcott, RF
7. Cervelli, C
And that's all I got so far. Not bad, but obviously not great. Definitely need a 2B and another outfielder. Oh hey there Machado
I could teach Alvy 2B too in ST. Might work. I also need pitching. I've completely ignored it lately and it's going to bite me in the ass soon.You're definitely more set for the future with bats than arms, so that might be something for you to focus on in the next draft or two. I think Alvarez is gonna be a star for you, especially with that Yankee Stadium right field short porch helping hit that many more home runs. Goldschmidt will be sick too, but Yankee Stadium is just built for lefties in particular. I mean it is "The House that Ruth Built" after all.
12. How would you grade Spencer's job with the drafts he has done for us? Anything in particular he has done really well? Any suggestions for him to make drafts even better?
Wow has my interest waned as this interview has gone on lol. Answers keep getting shorter and shorter. Sorry! Spence has done a great job. He has a limited baseball knowledge so that probably made it a little tougher on him. Striking a balance between what they've currently done in the bigs and what one thinks they'll do is nearly impossible. It's definitely impossible to please everyone in the league on every single player. No real suggestions for him as this is going to be his last draft I'm pretty sure. I'll be taking it back over for the time being. It's by far the most grueling and annoying thing that anyone has to do in this league and he deserves a break. Lifetime achievement award waiting in the wings for Spencer Martin.
Ahh so you will be doing drafts again starting next season. Good to know! Doing drafts takes hours in any league. I have enough experience with them myself to say that. The creativity though with the more current players and prospects in reality is definitely an added challenge for whoever is doing the drafts. Like Baseball Reference can only give what has already happened, and then to consider potential projections as well is something else. Spencer has done a great job, and +1 to the lifetime achievement award idea. It would be well deserved!
13. Speaking of drafts, now that we are in 2009, we are getting closer and closer to catching up with real time. Have you thought about the future draft classes that will consist of all fake players? How do you plan on putting together those draft classes? Tons of studs? Or will there be a big limit on how many draft class studs we see? Anything else we all should know in particular?
Lol why would I do a ton of studs just because they're fake players? They'll be generally the same as these drafts except with fake players. You can't flood the league with a ton of talent at once because it throws everything ratings-wise into wack. Regardless of how people feel about it, I'll probably sprinkle in some cultural reference names to keep things spicy. Ned Stark, starting first baseman for the New York Yankees, anyone? Yeah, sure why not? Feel like we need some cleave...
Creativity with names would be fun! I'm just interested to see what kind of route you take with the talent ratings for the studs. More brilliant hits or brilliant home runs? Things like this will be fascinating to track in each draft. The work though will definitely be easier without having to flip between OOTP and the Baseball Reference tab every 20 seconds. It also puts creativity to the ultimate test and we can see what real Erbes draft classes look like without the real life stats being weighed so heavily.
14. Let's talk about the LBB thing you've had with the Rangers GM there. Are you really trying hard to get him to join BBSBL? Do you think he would honestly be a great fit? Any other particular LBB GM's that you think would enjoy this league? Do you even know any of the other GM's there in particular?
I don't think any LBB GMs would survive over here lol. People think that guy gets under my skin, but I'm trolling him 95% of the time. Love how he references the old days of LBB like LBB was some legendary league lololol. Gets me every time. I think he would do well here until Play or Aaron torches him in some convo and then we would never see him again. He also wouldn't survive because of the rewards system, general posting, and sim schedule. This league is too active for anyone in LBB that isn't already here. LBB is what it is.
It's a shame that not enough people have found LBB particularly appealing. The 1960s were great years and featured quite a few baseball legends. I feel that a lot of people simply do not want to stretch themselves thin and feel like they would need to spend that much more time in their days to be active in all the leagues they are involved in. But the fact of the matter is that LBB for one would not require much of a time commitment at all compared to BBSBL. I hope we can get more people involved, but yeah some of the non-BBSBL GM's there haven't done shit and make the less active GM's here look extremely active generally speaking. Unfortunately, Darell of course has gotten some criticism there, but the lack of GM's is not his fault. We got your back, Darell!
15. If you had to decide which 3 GM's presences you enjoy the most here and the 3 GM's that annoy you the most, who would they be and why?
Saving the juiciest question for last! I like it. Let me preface this by saying that I don't HATE anyone in this league. Some people paint themselves as victims way too often and think that I have some vendetta against them. I honestly believe that the league would suffer if we lost anyone right now. That being said there are a few annoying ones out there..
The Good
1. Dale - Just a joy to be around. I don't ever remember seeing Dale getting into an argument with anyone. Very laid back. This league could use a couple more people with that disposition.
2. Ashes - Without him the league wouldn't exist (plus Steve!). Had to include him for saving my butt.
3. Jordan - Don't know him all that well, but he's been a solid addition to the league. Answers PMs promptly, posts, and we have the same interest in TV shows so can't go wrong there.
Obviously, love Play, Spencer, Steve, Aaron, Nanz, among others, but I didn't want to be a kiss ass.
The Bad
1. Kobe - Not for the reasons you would think. I don't mind the trolling posts, but he does the same thing break does when he gets ganged up on - plays the victim. That shit is annoying, especially when you try to play internet bully 95% of the time.
2. Other than that I hate everyone equally.
Of course I gotta save the best question for last. That's how it's done. Dale has certainly been one of the best additions to this forum and is just such an easygoing guy that can get along with anyone. Ashes and Steve have been great for quite a few obvious reasons that I don't think even need to be listed. Jordan seems like a solid GM so far. Gotta agree with you there. He's gotten with the system rather quickly, and that's a very good sign for the future.
As for your analysis on Kobe, I have first to have to say that I was honestly shocked that myself, Break and DRowe weren't listed 1-3 in that order. Anyway, I lol'd. That is so true. He really does try to act like the biggest troll ever, but then curls up into a ball like a pussy when people go after him. Kobe can't play both sides like that. That's some bitch shit and just shows how fake Kobe really is. Dude needs to chill the fuck out and stop being such a drama queen for once.
