Arrgh.. I made another Rookie Mistake

[xtrap]

Sorry if I vent here but I'm also looking for a bit of advice for future teams. I've been in two leagues this year and made the playoffs twice. The first season I made a mistake by not paying attention down the stretch to my pitching rotation and my rotation was all jacked up once the playoffs started. The guys I liked using at home I had to start on the road and vice-versa.

Fast forward to league two. Today is the last day of the season and my record is 96-63. I was meaning to sit some of my players that have high Injury rolls but instead I got caught up at work and neglected to do so. As luck has it, Hafner went down for 15 games. Arrgh..

Now that I'm completely hooked I cant wait for the next season to roll out. Right now tho, I'd love to read other rookie mistakes to avoid in the future.

thanks.

~patreek

[visick]

1. Be patient with players. You need to evaluate a player after 1/3 of the season.

2. Look to trade a player 1st. Dropping a player will cause you to lose $ unnecessarily.

3. Keep an eye on your lefty/righty splits, especially after the 1st. week of the season. Your 1st. week is against your division, and you will need to beat your division to advance to the playoffs. If you are facing more lefty bats, you might consider adding a lefty SP down the stretch, before game 142. (visaversa for righties...)

[wavygravy2k]

In the ATG1 game I made the mistake of setting both the "per game starters" and "set rotation". If I remember correctly, in the regular season it would use per game starters but when the playoffs came it used the starting roatation so it didn't use the pitcher that I wanted to spot start.

Now, whenever I want to use per-game starters I make sure the set rotation is blank.

[durantjerry]

Since you are headed for the playoffs, when you are in in the playoffs, you should watch your bullpen much closer than you do in the regular season. For example, your closer or key set up may have pitched two games in a row and probably won't pitch in a third straight game. Also take advantage of moving spot starters to the pen, especially for deciding games 5 or 7. I have lost a few series due to a tired pen, ending up with the likes of Chuck Crim(80's game), JC Romero and some other bums I can't remember on the mound at the very end of game seven when the likes of B Wagner were sitting in my pen. I lost all three of these title series game seven's that immediately come to mind. I'm not sure I could have avoided any of the three situations, but you definitely can't avoid the situation if you are not aware of it.