Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I just finished my first week with my 1st strat-o team and I'm currently on a 6-game losing streak. After the draft I was confident in the players I had but I obviously banked too much on their real life stats and big names that I got. Still, I've looked at the player cards and the dice apparently isn't rolling in my favor. I've made some decent trade offers to beef up my SP but nobody has taken them. Beckett has been HORRIBLE. Being new at this I'm not sure if I should just wait it out and let the odds swing things back in my favor (13 of my 15 losses are by 2 runs or less, including 2 blown saves by Nathan).

Sorry to sound like a newbie, but any advice is welcomed.

Here's the link to my team:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=29189

1) be patient. Dice are funny things. They roll this way for a while and then they roll that way for a while. But after 162 games they sort of balance out. So hang in there if you believe in your team. Don't start dropping players. That costs you money every time and is rarely the answer.

2) use your money wisely. keep the minimum amount of players: ten pitchers and 14 hitters. Unless you get fancy with platoons and specialist RPs and starters, an expensive bench just wastes money. Keep your subs cheap. Keep as much money on the field as is possible.

3) build a team suited for your park. Focus on BPHRs (Ball park home runs -- #) and get hitters who hit them from your park's generous side and pitchers who don't allow them. Thus for Coors, very few #s on your pitchers and many #s on your hitters' cards; in Petco, the opposite strategy would be effective.

4) study good teams and ask lots of questions. Folks are very generous with their time and experience on this site.

5) but mostly, don't panic. Shift your lineup if you must and mess with player and manager settings, but try to avoid drinking too much and dropping half the team. You'll hate yourself in the morning.

Hang in there and good luck!

The biggest glaring thing I see is that, as far as I can tell, Carlos Lee and Vladimir Guerrero are both playing in the outfield at the same time...this may be hurting your staff more than you think as a huge number of x-chances in LF and RF are becoming extrabase hits...you may want to rejigger things so that one of them can DH.

Adam, your team should come around. Your pitching isn't performing up to expectations yet, but the dice should start to roll your way. Don't panic and do a housecleaning or anything like that. You could unload a couple pitchers and perhaps use the $$ for one more quality set-up guy. Otherwise, hang in there.

IMO, as has been mentioned, cut back to 14 players, either a 11/13 or 10/14 ratio of pitchers to hitters. Currently you are struggling vs. RHP. That's problem b/c you'll typically see more of them than LHPs.

IF it were me, I'd consider dropping and Teixera (over paying for def. IMO w/ limited offense, as you're seeing), Hamels (better vs. lefties, which Fenway takes care of anyway), and Huff. That frees up roughly $9M right off the bat. I'd also look at swapping out Becket, who will continue to get shelled, and 1 of your catchers, who are both generally quick hitters IMO.

For your park, players I'd consider if available are Scott, Berkman, Bard (would be a significant upgrade at catcher), and other balanced or pro-RHP type bats that don't have more than 2 bphr on their cards. I think you need quality, but you currently have quantity. IMO, in Fenway you should favor average and OBP over raw power. For SPs I've had good luck with J. Johnson and lower-end options like Wakefield in pitcher's parks.

Good luck.

Grab a free team when it comes out and try different things. It is the best way to get a feel for the game. I don't know why you are doing so bad except for your park. I tried Fenway once and had a bad time there. I find that it is better to go all hitting (high singles and homeruns) or pitching (very low singles and homeruns) then try to manage some of all. Jack of all trades and master of none when other teams master some and forget about the rest. Hang in there, it will come together sometime soon.

You really have no choice except to trade... My Scot Shields still has a 6.87 era afer 99 games but dropping him would only give me a card worse than him... I have tried to trade but no go.. so Scot let's go for 7!