Small observation and rant

[Coffeeholic]

[quote:33864a0647="stevep107"]Jerlins:

I completely agree with what you are saying.

I too have tried having groups of pitchers who are "leftie-killers" or "rightie-killers" on multiple occasions and have not had any success with it. I have also not encountered any team using this strategy which has done exceptionally well or impressed me.

My view is that you use a four man rotation of solid starters and use them against all opponents, regardless of how many LH or RH hitters the opposition is using.

If I have a LH biased line-up (and playing in Shea) and the opposition uses "leftie-killers" against me, I will often substitute low-value RH hitters into my line-up to counter their strategy (guys like Youkilis and Encarnacion) and I have had some success with this strategy.

No disrespect intended to any vets out there, but I'll happily take my solid four man rotation against your specialty "leftie-killers" and "rightie-killers" anytime.[/quote:33864a0647]

Well no kidding Steve... given my druthers, I'll trot out RJ, Santana, Schmidt and Sheets every night also! Probably my favorite approach to this game is to use very strong Starting pitching and couple it with excellent "D" and just enough hitting to score a few runs.

Trouble with the '05 game is that the starting pitching is so thin that it's very difficult to get a real solid 4 or 5 man rotation. Early on, I was extremely frustrated because I would list top notch SP's high on my draft card and then get stuck with guys like Bauer and Bush as consolation prizes.

Even with the team which I had Halsey pitch his 3 hitter, I can tell you that my starting pitching bears no resemblance to what I had listed in my draft.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=42521

I had what I deemed as a realistic goal of getting Davis, Mulder, Maroth and Rogers as a 4 man rotation. I only got Rogers. :(

So I had to improvise, and in a league with 4 other Shea's, you can imagine that the pickings were rather slim. But when I see one of my divisional rivals field a team so succesptible to hard LHP:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=44941

a pitcher like Halsey becomes an effective weapon. If I can go, say 8-4 against a divisional rival with a $.50 mil starter I'd say I've gained an edge.

Is my whole pitching staff predicated on this strategy... no! But I can't pass up the opportunity to take advantage of this other team's weakness.

Now if my other divisional rivals (2 more team... for a total of 3) had the adroitness to each grab a cheap hard LH SP like Halsey and were to enjoy similar results, then this succesptability to cheap, hard LH SP's becomes a huge liability for him.

[Coffeeholic]

Anyway, when someone posts on these boards asking for advice on a team that hasa line-up of: Mirabelli; Quinlan; Giles; Renteria; Lowell; Byrnes; Baldelli; Mench; and Wily Mo Pena, :roll: I'm going to advise him that he needs to get some protection against hard RHP!

Steve, you even stated that you insure to provide protection against hard/reverse SP's.

And Jerlins, looking at your Pony Express2 team that you mentioned above that kicked my but (well done btw!), I see that although you were very strong vs. RH pitching, you did provide protection vs. LHP with ARod, Eric Young and Kaz.

[visick]

hmmm...

I can see both points that are being made. I'd like to chime in on the subject.

When you don't get any of the big SP's in the 2005 set, you have to make do. What I mean is this. I might try and carry 11-12 pitchers if I miss out on a top SP. I would try to acquire 2 or 3 fairly even SP's (1L-E-1R) and then go with 2 or 3 hard lefties and 2/3 hard righties.

So when I face a heavy lefty or righty team, I would throw 1 or 2 of the "even" guys and a hard righty/lefty accordingly. In this case, guys like Halsey, Halama, Ramon Ortiz or my favorite Hermanson look like good pitchers.

Is this cost effective? Probably not. But these guys are "fairly cheap". And you can still field a good hitting squad with the leftover $.

I think one of the biggest things I've noticed playing in a few Vet leagues, is how the Vets take advantage of their park with their hitting and pitching, more than mixing and matching to other teams.

[Jerlins]

Coffee, I'm not advocating totally disregarding the need to find some protection, but I've seen too many posts offering advice to someone whose team seems to be well put together, only to be told they have to dump a hitter such as H. Matsui for Gload because they need some lefty protection. In this case, for example, how has the team helped itself?

The Safeco team I assembled that I was disappointed in began the season initially had Dunn (R2) Guerrero (L3), and Manny (E) in the middle of my lineup. I honestly did not want Manny only for the fact that he was right handed, yet decided he was the perfect "balance" I needed as the rest of my team was left handed. The results were not pretty and decided to get rid of his sorry butt after 90 games.

90 351 58 80 23 1 18 43 50 82 0 3 .228 .327 .453

I rarely if ever dump a player but I had finally had enough. I picked up Mabry who I felt was better overall in Safeco to begin with and in less than half the games has basically matched the output Manny gave me in 90. And I could have used the $2.3 million elsewhere.

44 174 27 52 7 0 11 36 14 52 0 0 .299 .353 .529

Anyways, I enjoy the banter of differing opinions and is what makes this game and the community enjoyable. I'm yet to be convinced still.

[CHARLESBELL]

Jerlins, I took a quick look at the last Tour league I was in (in which I got soundly trounced). That aside, I looked at the staff's of the 6 teams with a winning record in that league. Here is what I found, and every one of these guys is a deadly vet player:

All had either a hard lefty, righty, or both
4 had 6 SPs (AP, novie, kavik, jeep)
1 had 5 SPs, but 4 were * pitchers (AT)
1 had 7 SPs (Foggy)

Those extra SPs are there for situations such as you described. There is no league more competitive than the Tour league, where every small advantage has to be exploited to win.

[hechojazz]

Seems like the original point may not be a wrong one, if you're playing in a "regular" autodraft league...I've only been in a handful, and in my experience most teams don't have the hard right or left matchup pitching options, so it generally turns out that you can be fairly one-sided in your hitting lineups without too much of a penalty. If in the preseason period you notice a division mate or two with that constitution, you'd then be well-advised to make some moves to prepare yourself for that competition. And certainly if you were to be playing against the high-talent vets, you'd be silly to leave yourself vulnerable to the .50 hard SPs you should expect. But the competition in some of these autodraft leagues is not always so talented...so I guess it depends on what you see after waivers have run and teams in your league are straightening themselves out for the season.

[Coffeeholic]

[quote:89ccaed464="Jerlins"]Coffee, I'm not advocating totally disregarding the need to find some protection, but I've seen too many posts offering advice to someone whose team seems to be well put together, only to be told they have to dump a hitter such as H. Matsui for Gload because they need some lefty protection. In this case, for example, how has the team helped itself? [/quote:89ccaed464]

Well, "dumping" Matsui isn't good advice, regardless of the situation! :wink:

But I understand the point you're trying to make (I think), and so it probably all boils down to a matter of degree.

For example, if you're hypothetical team had Matsui and Abreu, and B.Giles, and Griffey and Raffy in it's line-up, then perhaps sound advice would be to say: "Think about dropping B.Giles or Raffy for someone like Gload to give you a lefty bat that can hit LHP'ing (esp. if you see your divisional rivals poised to exploit this weakness in your line-up)".

The way I see it, this game is all about allocation of resources. We all get $80 mil to spend, and it's up to us to spend this money in a way which will give us the biggest bang for our dollar. If I see an opponent (esp. in my division) that has a line-up that will allow me to use a $.50 pitcher in a manner which see's him pitch more like a $7 mil pitcher (or even $2-$3 mil), than that means that I am using my resources more effectively. Hence my advantage.

Hechojazz has a good point about "autodraft" vs. "vet" leagues though.
In "autodrafts" you're probably more likely to see managers who would not exploit a weakness in an oppponent's line-up, while in "vet" leagues you must be very careful because such weaknesses will not go un-noticed.

[Play By The Rules]

Pretty simple, really.

Carry 3 strong *SP and a weaker fourth (lots of nice options this year, Lidle, Morris, Milton, Moyer, etc.) Obviously you don't spot start Halsey or Smith for your top three but it's not that big of a dropoff for the fourth slot.

I have won divisions with Smith pitching like Cy Young against one particular division rival, is it worth redoing your whole roster to counter that probably not, but on at least one occasion it cost my rival a playoff spot.

[tyches_coin]

My most successful teams have followed the format mentioned by Play By the Rules. Three very good * guys and between 2-4 cheap matchup guys in the fourth spot. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck getting three good * guys in 2005, but in 2002 and 2003 my teams built along those lines consistently won between 90 and 100 games. Once I even got 20 wins out of the four guys I was matching up in the fourth spot, granted I also got 28 losses (some of them pitched quite a bit in relief as well) and a ERA in the 6's. I did have a pair of guys go 13-12 with a ERA in the high 3's one season as well. I thought that was pretty good for around 2 million.

In general, I think it easier to make the playoffs in an auto-draft league with an unbalanced lineup built to dominate at home and a deep rotation (two or three good starters rather than one great one like Randy) than to build a good balanced lineup or a strong but not overly expensive pitching staff around Randy. That said if I had to build a team just for the playoffs against unknown opponents, Randy would be my first pick every time and I'd try to build a balanced lineup.

I do think the statement that cheap hard righty/lefty starters are going to be a significant problem for a one-sided lineup during the regular season is exaggerated. But I also believe that a team that won with a balanced lineup will have a much more predictable playoff run. It's true that there might be only one team in the league with the starters to trouble an unbalanced lineup, but if you're unlucky enough to run up against them in the playoffs it'll probably be a short post-season. If you manage to reach the playoffs with a strong balanced lineup then to run up against a pitching staff that can shut you down, it'll have to be a pitching staff that could shut anyone down (all around good pitchers rather than specialists) and hopefully your opponent will have made tradeoffs on the offensive side of things. Thats something a team that can slow you down with specialists won't have had to do.

There's also the issue of the late season divisional games. If just before the trade deadline, I notice my last starter, who isn't very good anyway, has most of his remaining starts against a lefty/righty vulnerable lineup I'd be more than happy to take the salary hit and replace him with a cheaper specialist. Especially if I'm in a tight playoff race with the vulnerable team.

[ROBERTVOZZA]

I have only 1 thing to say...Jerlins, if you made the playoffs 9 of your 1st 10 Leagues and just missed on a tiebrteaker in one of them - You don't need any advice...Just keep doing what you're doing.

If you have been doing that in autoleagues with all newbies, it still counts. If you have been doing it in mixed newbie and vet company, it still counts.

But if you haven't played in leagues with some of the wiley vets here and really want to find out just how good you are, that is the true measure.

Everyone here - Riggo, Luckyman(Not as much), Penngray, etc. plays in autoleagues to figure test the waters, figure out what works and pickup easy credits. Nobody has to feel bad about playing autoleagues with people they don't know.

But my experience is that the competition level in experienced Vets Leagues is the best yardstick and it is also a lot more fun as well. Most tof the players are very generous with information they have accrued over time and generally a great bunch of guys.

I monitor the Ratings and am always looking for the really skilled and ultra competitive newer players.

I create an invitational league called LOTO(Aka League Of Their Own.) It has been comprised mostly of players I have gotten to know and respect over the past 4 years and it seems to be growing. This year, I turned it into a mini tournament with Elimination for a Finals round.

But I have ventured out more this year and have gotten to play with a good deal of very competitive newcomers, which Iplan to invite into the 06' Tour - which will have either 36 or 48 players with eliminations.

You and a few others (That I have played) are definitely going to receive invites - So I hope you will play. Then you'll get a good idea how you stack up. For more info, brouse some of the LOTO Threads in Individual League Chat to get a feel.

But for now, I wouldn't feel as tho you need to change what has worked for you. If it ain't broken, you don't need to fix it. GL, Robert(SWP)