What would happen if Major League Baseball held a league-wide draft where every player in each organization became available and each General Manager could choose a total of five players to steal from other teams; but if two GMs selected the same player, he would remain with his current team and GMs were not allowed to communicate with each other? Earlier this year, SB Nation conducted this game theory simulation by having 30 of their writers act as the GMs for each team. The most intriguing parts of this experiment were the variety of factors and strategies each team had to consider when making their selections and the results of the simulation. First, let’s examine some of the factors each team had to consider and the strategies some teams
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Out of 150 picks, only 58 players were selected more than once, translating to 38.6% of the picks not changing teams. This seemed reasonable until I saw that the reigning MVPs and Cy Young winners were not selected at all and numerous other All-Stars received zero votes. The unwillingness of GMs to select elite players was likely due to the theory that the elite players would be selected by at least one other team. Only two teams selected five elite players, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Philadelphia was one of two teams to land all five players they selected, while St. Louis was the only team to receive just one player, probably because all the players they picked were from the Cubs, who were considered the best team going into the 2016 season and ended up winning the World Series this year. If communication between GMs were allowed, a slew of problems, such as Prisoner’s Dilemma, difficulty of coordination, Mixed Strategies, and First Move Advantage, would have affected the results. Unfortunately, that would be well beyond the pay grade of the writers who acted as GMs. Nevertheless, this fascinating simulation showed how game theory forces people to carefully plan their
Out of 150 picks, only 58 players were selected more than once, translating to 38.6% of the picks not changing teams. This seemed reasonable until I saw that the reigning MVPs and Cy Young winners were not selected at all and numerous other All-Stars received zero votes. The unwillingness of GMs to select elite players was likely due to the theory that the elite players would be selected by at least one other team. Only two teams selected five elite players, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Philadelphia was one of two teams to land all five players they selected, while St. Louis was the only team to receive just one player, probably because all the players they picked were from the Cubs, who were considered the best team going into the 2016 season and ended up winning the World Series this year. If communication between GMs were allowed, a slew of problems, such as Prisoner’s Dilemma, difficulty of coordination, Mixed Strategies, and First Move Advantage, would have affected the results. Unfortunately, that would be well beyond the pay grade of the writers who acted as GMs. Nevertheless, this fascinating simulation showed how game theory forces people to carefully plan their