Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I wish the "vets" could advise me as to what direction one should go at end of season with play off postion clinched.
Go for best record and home field advantage or "rest" players?
I had 8 game lead with nine games to play and rested 3 players for the first 6 of my last 9 games.In the last series I decided to go for best record which 3 of us all had a good chance to a achieve.
Well as you could have assumed I did not get home field and lost my catcher for first 2 games of playoffs.
Did I make a mistake or is not a obvious decision to make?

I think it depends on how much of a home field advantage you'd get. If you play at US Cell and are possibly facing a guy who's at RFK, you may want to go for it. Injuries can happen at any time, but you could easily have come through that last series injury free.

[quote:bb2e35b8be] I had 8 game lead with nine games to play and rested 3 players for the first 6 of my last 9 games.In the last series I decided to go for best record which 3 of us all had a good chance to a achieve. [/quote:bb2e35b8be]
Your indecision was your mistake IMO.

I will rest key players with less than 600 PA once a playoff spot is clinched. An 8 game lead with 9 to play is not clinched IMO. I would rather have one extra game at their place than face the playoffs minus a player or two.

Now it is obvious what I should have done as I lost both games on road and my replacement went 0 for 7.