Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

24 games into the season and I stand at 9-15, last in the entire league. What is going wrong? On paper I have the best team.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team.html?stats=actual

On paper, perhaps, but this is SOMO -- there can be lots of answers. Make sure to read the strategy thread for new players. And repost your link by finding your team on an opponent's schedule (your team will appear but you won't have add/drop options). The link you posted is back to the viewer's current team page.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=2801

Does that work?

The link works. This is what it shows me.

1) a poor rotation with too many starters
2) a pen with 2 closers and no depth...07 requires an 11 man pen IMHO.
3) Your lineup is a mix of players not fit for your park and over paid bench players
4) Your D is awful( and that's being nice)

You need to read the thread..."Newbie Advice Thread" . After reading this thread you will see where you went wrong. Better luck next time.

[url]http://forums.sportingnews.com/viewforum.php?f=30[/url]

Well, it can be explained with 1 word: Defense

C-4
1st-5
2nd-3
SS-3
3rd-3
LF-4
CF-2 (with a noodle arm)
RF-3

While this team might qualify for the SOM rotissiere finals as you compile points in the 5 hitting categories, few should actually be on the field when the other team bats. It's not a mystery why your team ERA is 5 plus in an extreme pitching park. It's not so much the errors that happen when they actually get to the ball, its them getting to the ball when its hit to them, which you can not see in the stats or the box score.

You also have players on your team that are ball park dependent, and not exactly the right fit for your park, Ramirez, Soriano, and Lee, which is not helping the cause.

So no, you do NOT have the best team on paper, not in Strat terms anyways.

Damon is the only guy on the roster with any fielding range, and he can't throw worth a darn.

There's a lot not to like about your team, but defense is the biggest problem.

Don't be discouraged, I know some of the criticism may sound harsh, but we all started this game making most of these same mistakes. The newby advice thread Splinter mentioned is a must read in order to get some basics down. This isn't fantasy baseball, it is a simulation of real baseball.

I'm no expert at giving advice, and once the season starts it is difficult to make major changes to your team because of the salary hit. If you release a player you will only get 80% of the value of that player back, so you lose money when you release a player after the season starts.

So, the advice you will always hear is try to trade with other owners first (no money is lost when you trade). Then if you have to, look to the free agent pool for the rest of your needs.

Pitching - young and hoffman I would keep. You don't need or want 7 starters in most cases. Keep your top five SPs and deal or release the other two. I would use wagner as trade bait to try and get an R2 or R3 relief pitcher to shore up your pen. Hoffman can handle all your closer needs, but with all R1s your bullpen is going to get tired, and that spells trouble. It might be worth it to use some of the money you might save in deals on the hitters to upgrade a second relief pitcher to R2 or get a better SP to replace hudson or traschel. Your pitching staff is going to be troublesome no matter what you do, though.

You've built a power hitting team and put it in a stadium that doesn't allow many homers. The 1-2 and 1-5 numbers for left and right ballpark homers is explained in the advice thread, but it means that a ton of what would be homeruns in other parks are going to be outs in yours. The only real keeper among your regular hitters is Abreu, and I think you'll have to keep damon, too. Ramirez is really not fit for your stadium either but could be kept as well. Hafner, durham, m young, soriano, lee - see if you can trade these guys for better defense at 2b and ss in particular (a 2 rating is fine), and look for doubles power and high OBP for your 1B and LF replacements.

This is just to get you started thinking. Let us know what you are thinking of doing and we can help you assess the deals and/or moves you might want to do.

Hang in there!

I would chime in again on the defense. I like my middle four (C,2nd, ss, cf) to have a total defense rating of 6 or 7. You have to put some one defensive players into the mix. That means you have to rally go after guys like Hunter, Wells, or Jeter, Hudson, Castillo, etc. hard in the draft. You must get some top guys high up. You can have two or three SP in the top 10 but you need to get a guy who can hit and play defense in key positions. .I have found you can hide maybe one 4 in an OF corner, maybe at 3rd or 1st if you are in a hitters park. But you can only afford one defense liability.

That doesn't mean you cannot win with Young at ss or Utley at 2nd for example, but you really need to know what you are doing to make it work. If you have all righ handed starters or 3of 4 or 4 of 5 then you might hide a 3 at ss, figuring you division foes will try and stack lefties who will hit more to secodn than ss. You have to have an unusual team to win with a 3 at ss or 2nd.

That's the trick, how to get enough offense from a good defense. Tha is, where do you compromise. You can compromise on starters for example if you have four or more defense 1's and o more than one 3 in the field.

The other thing is after the five starters you do not need funds for the rotation, 7 pitchers is a waste of money.

I would encourage you to look at winning teams and see how they are constructed. You will notice that good players really work their parks. They have three or four power hitters with 8 BPHRs on one or both sides. Your park would be better for guys like Overby. Loduca is a ggod fit but Hafner is not optimizing his card or Soriano. Anyhow hang in there. We have all made these mistakes. After drafting my first team I thought I was a sure winner, they went 70-92. Then I started to experiment with spcialty teams, in extreme parks, like Petco. I learned what worked there and then went to MM or other parks. You catch on. Don't overestimate your teams though. They may seem like really good teams but you need to look closely. My best advice is DO NOT Undeestimate defense. I think it is the key to success. Better luck next time.