Petco offensive assault.....

[mlayers]

I would love your analysis on this team. I dont have alot of Petco experience, but I think I might have a winner here. I have speed, OBP, Def, natural power and lots of walks. I can't believe i got just about everyone I drafted. My main question is about my pitching staff. How do you guys think it will fare? I have another Petco, a Fenway and a Wrigley in my div, heavy RH pitching in div.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=12982

[geekor]

personally I don't think you have enough innings for that bullpen, and I'm not fond of Alou in LF. If you downgrade Thomson to Seanez, then upgrade your cheap SP only to Wood, you can set all of your RP's, except Wood, to avoid beofre 6th (or later) and let Wood mopup the early innings if your SP gets knocked out early. I'm not sure what is left for LF, but Alous bad def, and the fact that you aren't prepared for all his injuries by looking at your backups, means LF won't give you as much as it might cost you.

OTher than those 2 things, I think the rest of your team looks great.

[mlayers]

geekor....thanks for your input. I got Seanez and Woods. Should I also put Seanez on "avoid before 6th"?

[mlayers]

geekor...I replaced Alou with Jason Michaels in LF, he is a 2(0), plus he has good OBP and helps against lefties. This gives me a 2 at every position except RF. I also dropped Blanton and picked up Garland. What do you think now?

[maligned]

I've been very successful in pitchers' parks. Here are some tips for future attempts:

1.Make sure your pitchers have low WHIP with high BP HRs. You know you're getting the best value. A guy like Oswalt that gives up a lot of baserunners should be a no-no. That's the only way you'll give up runs in Petco.

2.Don't spend cash on hitters with high BP HRs. Though Ortiz and Pujols will hit some homeruns for you, the cash you wasted by having them on your roster to hit a lot of flyball outs will not be recovered in the long run.

3.Build your SLG through doubles. Get a lot of speed/OBP/doubles guys like Jeter, Giles, Winn, etc. They'll get on base, race around the bases, and knock each other in while your opponents tread water against your low WHIP teams, only occasionally getting a solo homerun or two.

I didn't take the time to look at any of your opponents' rosters, but if they have much experience and built reasonable rosters, you're probably going to struggle the rest of the season. I'd resist the urge to dump salary, but I'd recommend working some trades if possible. Look for another struggling team that needs SLG and offer Pujols and Ortiz for guys like Helton, N.Johnson, Abreu. They all have huge OBP, will serve to knock in your other OBP guys reasonably well, and will not waste at-bat after at-bat hitting ballpark outs.

My last couple pitchers' park teams have been outhomered something like 160-110 for the season, but have had OBPs of about .330, compared with .300 for my opponents. A .330OBP/.360SLG team with speed will always beat a .300OBP/.390SLG team.

[jpgavin]

I've been using a similar team in Petco and there in 1st half way through the season. I have Oswalt too, and I have to admit he's been mediocre at best. But Suppan (3.57 ERA, 1.38 WHIP), is 9-2 at the half way point. I have Thompson too. He has 11 wins, but to have a reasonable bullpen I had to really limit my starting pitching. From an offensive standpoint, going after players with high OBP and relatively high slg without a lot of home runs seems to work. How did you include the link to your team in your message?

[maligned]

I saw you dumped a lot of salary and are trying some different things. It's usually not the best route to go, but I hope you can get it turned around.