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Post by Rangers GM (Stephen) on Jan 5, 2020 13:01:12 GMT -5
All, I am disappointed that I have reason to bring this up again, but given recent feedback I have received I would like to briefly highlight this passage from the league's Code of Conduct (rule 1.1 in the constitution): As a common courtesy it is expected that personal messages from other owners be responded to in a timely manner (ideally no more than a few days) – even if it is to say “No thanks” or “Sorry, I’m not interested”. Whilst I appreciate that there are varying approaches and levels of activity across our league ownership, please do everything you can (within reason) to maintain this minimum standard and ensure that this common courtesy is extended to all of your league-mates at all times. Many thanks, Stephen
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Post by Rangers GM (Stephen) on Jan 6, 2020 4:52:59 GMT -5
Hello all,
We have several teams on the waiting list, but before I begin to reach out to them perhaps it would be responsible for us to have a brief pause for some introspection.
The above message was posted after some recent discussions I had with owners (Bill was not one of them - his departure and the reasoning behind it is a complete shock to me) and after my own personal experiences.
Do you feel that we have a problem with activity? Do you feel we have a problem with owners who do not respond to PMs? If yes to either of these questions, how do you think that this should be addressed?
Please name no names in this thread. This is not an exercise to shame people. This is instead an attempt to understand the mood of the league and to try to avoid the future loss of another strong owner and someone whose departure will make the league a worse place.
Thanks, Stephen
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Post by Royals GM (Jordan) on Jan 6, 2020 6:00:57 GMT -5
I also found Bill's departure to be a shock, and am quite disappointed. Regarding activity, I personally think we are quite an active league. For example, I try to respond to every message, though it's possible I miss one now and then. Sometimes others don't respond to my trade offers, but I honestly feel this is reasonable and appropriate if they don't like the offers--I don't mind people not responding occasionally. I'm still confident that every owner would respond if I made them a good enough offer, which to me seems like the important thing.
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Post by bill (Bill, SD) on Jan 6, 2020 10:24:19 GMT -5
I think the offseason and holidays are historically a slower time on this site so activity is usually down to a degree and starts to pick back up in FA bidding.
However, it appears this offseason has been even more quiet than usual. Also, there have always been a couple of teams that can be challenging to get consistent responses from, but again this year I'm noticing teams that used to be more responsive now seemingly ignoring messages or not responding for whatever reason.
I perhaps differ a bit in that if I send out a feeler to gauge where a team is at on a player or potential offer, I would at least expect a "go kick rocks" type of reply. Also I am getting more of the "Yeah, I'd be willing to look into a deal" reply with nothing further after numerous check ins. It doesn't seem all that difficult to me to reply with a "no longer interested" or something of that ilk instead of leaving the other guy hanging. I actively try to respond to any message I get just to acknowledge it, even if I know it wont go anywhere. Has one or two slipped through the crack, sure, but when I find it or get a follow up I make sure to reply.
I can see where the frustration lied with the other Bill to that degree. Now knowing his feelings on activity, it makes the reaction he had in my and Dodgers trade thread make more sense. I wish he would have expressed that discontent to the leadership before letting it boil over into abruptly quitting, as he was a good owner and committee member in his time here.
In short, I do think there could be an activity issue and my resolution would be to reach out to those owners and gauge whether they are still interested in the league and determine if perhaps the commitment to the league is more than they can now manage. There is no shame in stepping away and coming back later (I believe about every current owner would be welcomed back with open arms) when life allows.
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Post by Pirates GM (TJ) on Jan 6, 2020 10:29:01 GMT -5
I think the period from December 20 - January 5 is the absolute worst time to judge response level from fellow GMs. Literally all of us have holiday family stuff going on in our lives during that couple weeks. And for those with kids on a holiday break for a couple weeks it’s even more of a mad scramble. Because it’s not like a summer vacation where you can spread things out. It’s rush rush rush to do everything you need to do before the kids are back in school.
This was my fifth New Years in the league and all five times it’s consistently the slowest for responses (including for responses from me).
Overall I think the league response level is good. Occasionally I’ll get a convo that turns into messages in a bottle. But I’m in 3 of these leagues and the response times here are easily faster than the other two. “Better than that other league” isn’t a meaningful goal. And we can certainly strive for improvement in any case. But other than right around Christmas, my experience here has been just fine.
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Post by Washington Nationals GM (Alex) on Jan 6, 2020 10:51:27 GMT -5
I totally understand what the Pirates are saying about this time of year and I agree, but there are several owners here that regularly do not respond to offers / inquiries (at least from me) at any time of year. There are 20+ teams I fully expect to get back to my message within2 days (which is an accomplishment for a free league) and handful more that might take 3-4 days ( still totally acceptable timeframe in my mind) and 3-4 more teams that I fully expect to ignore my message unless it gets them an all-star caliber player or top 100 prospect at well below value. Honestly, I think these teams just are not cut out for this type of league and as a result will never really compete for a championship here. I would prefer to remove those owners since it seems we have a good flow of applicants that seem qualified. This is a great league full of dedicated, competitive, knowledgeable owners, admittedly it is not for everyone, but we should strive to keep the league full of the best owners we can find. I certainly don’t want to get in to a situation where we are kicking out a long time owner for having a busy life for weeks or months at a time, I am all for giving a long leash to owners, but the people I am referring to have been operating that way for a long time.
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Post by Braves GM (Eric) on Jan 6, 2020 11:09:39 GMT -5
I'm a notorious offer sender. I've probably sent an offer to most of the Trade Block postings in the last six months, and I've most likely sent a dozen more offers without such provocation.
Since July 2019 I've had three messages without a reply. One was to notify a player they had rights to Nick Goody, which I don't think even demands a response. The other two were just ignored initial thoughts, 'I'm interested in _______, is he available?'--both of these messages were sent to the owners I find least likely to respond if they're just wholly uninterested in a deal. I've actually completed a deal with one of those teams in the last year or so, as well as the team who now owns Nick Goody.
I've had no problems with response time.
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Post by Rangers GM (Stephen) on Jan 7, 2020 5:26:25 GMT -5
Now that a day has passed and all but 4 of our owners have logged in and had the opportunity to read and comment on this thread, I will take this opportunity to add my own opinion. I totally understand what the Pirates are saying about this time of year and I agree, but there are several owners here that regularly do not respond to offers / inquiries (at least from me) at any time of year. There are 20+ teams I fully expect to get back to my message within2 days (which is an accomplishment for a free league) and handful more that might take 3-4 days ( still totally acceptable timeframe in my mind) and 3-4 more teams that I fully expect to ignore my message unless it gets them an all-star caliber player or top 100 prospect at well below value. This post from Alex perfectly reflects my own experience. I don't have the stats that Eric does, but I don't recognise the level of response that he receives. Perhaps he is a better communicator than me? Either way, there are certainly several owners who I do not feel comply to the part of the code of conduct that I highlighted a couple of days ago, and that was also highlighted last offseason. I am conscious that my response means that only 6 of 29 of our owners have stated their views. I would be interested to hear from further owners to see how they feel. Stephen
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PMs
Jan 7, 2020 8:20:45 GMT -5
Post by Braves GM (Eric) on Jan 7, 2020 8:20:45 GMT -5
I don't disagree that there are a handful that simply won't reply unless they're receiving something quality. That is a truth.
I just checked my outbox for any zeroes...I promise I don't keep stats! Haha.
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Post by Toronto Blue Jays GM on Jan 7, 2020 9:26:21 GMT -5
I don't know any actual stats, but I suspect I'm in the lower half as far as overall activity goes. (I would testify under oath it is due to the terrible Kershaw deal I made that hamstrung me for 3 years, but I digress). I rarely send unsolicited trade offers, but I always respond as soon as possible, and I'm probably in the upper half on response time. I think the activity in here over most other leagues I'm in is very high overall. I don't see it as something to kick a group of teams out for, but I understand the rule is there for a reason and sometimes it is good to get rid of dead weight.
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Post by Reds GM (Kyler) on Jan 7, 2020 11:16:52 GMT -5
I agree with Stephen and Alex, but for me the proxy I use to test engagement isn't response to messages (as I tend to agree with Jordan's perspective that if I offered someone something good enough they'd respond): it's engaging in the public discussions in some capacity. There are a few that i don't think ever have voted in a league rule, or shared their opinion in a forum like this, and also rarely (if ever) make their own trade offers.
Blue Jays, even though I don't know your actual name, I think you're an awesome league member and I always appreciate your comments in the public forums and I would 100% back you up on being one of the best at responding. I usually love your comments on big trades haha
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Post by Pirates GM (TJ) on Jan 7, 2020 11:42:09 GMT -5
In other news, come on, Blue Jays. Change your name to the format all the cool kids use: “Blue Jays GM (Geralt) or Blue Jays GM (Yennefer) or whatever”. We’re an island of misfit toys here, and we like seeing first names.
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Post by Pirates GM (TJ) on Jan 7, 2020 11:52:25 GMT -5
Because I was curious, I went back through the last year of my outbox to see how many unanswered PMs I’d sent. Going back 12 months wound up being 2 pages of PMs. There was a grand total of 1 that didn’t receive a reply. There were probably a couple more where the talks didn’t really finish, they just stopped after a few PMs without closure (this usually happens when a Trade block is going on and the selling team ultimately makes a trade and posts it... that team sometimes sends final rejection PMs to the other suitors but often doesn’t... something I’m fine with frankly).
But out of 2 pages of outbox PMs I only had 1 unanswered. And that GM and I had another successful convo like a week later so I’m confident it was an oversight.
Is it possible there’s sampling bias here? And I just don’t initiate talks with folks I’ve had response issues with before? I suppose. But I rarely cold call on players. I’m almost always sending a response to a Trade block.
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Post by Admin on Jan 7, 2020 12:23:10 GMT -5
Because of Bill’s departure, I’m grateful we are discussing this. Like TJ said elsewhere, I’m also guessing there’s more to Bill’s decision than just a lack of replies. My experience closely aligns with Alex’s description as well. At times, I’ll look at a trying to make an offer for a player, only to retreat, knowing the GM is usually unresponsive. My stats aren’t quite as sharp as those of Braves and Pirates. Despite that flaw... (And to be introspective, I may well accidentally overlook a reply at times as well.) In my experience, this is an awesome place to play. We have a fun variety of competitors here, each with their own personality. I’m not anxious to trade off the friendly atmosphere for the sake of efficiency. At times, GMs have to be replaced. Maybe there could be a fair and standardized way of ensuring a certain level of involvement. (Mandatory activity polls are used in some leagues...) Whatever direction we lean toward, I’m pretty content. My experience is very limited, but it’s my favorite place to play, flaws and all. In the meantime, I’ll work on my communication skills to get to the same low percentage of non-replies as described by others.
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Post by Pirates GM (TJ) on Jan 7, 2020 14:06:36 GMT -5
Whatever you do, don’t say yes when Bert invites you to join his “Daily Quiche Recipe PM Club”.
The first couple are fine, even the eggplant and gruyere one. But by week 3 you’re getting recipes for cauliflower-pomegranate quiche and who wants to prep all those pomegranates???
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