Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

It has been said many times that vets are less likely to dump players mid season, taking the 20% hit. My guess is that they have played more seasons, learned from their mistakes, and make less errors in roster construction.

For example, they KNOW that a cheap pen can be quite effective if properly constructed, and will use that to fix weaknesses caused by players missed in the draft.

At same time, even vets must have players on which they miscalulated how they would do. I'm not a vet, but here is an example that I think anyone might do:

-Jamey Carroll in SAFECO was my 2B. Seems like a reasonable choice. He didn't "suck", but he didn't do much for the team either. My theory is that the low BP singles factor just hurt this guy too much, combined with the expectation that he would have a good OBP vs RHPs.

So I dumped him for W. Harris, and I will play N.Perez @ 2B vs hard lefties.

My point is this: don't be afraid to make changes if the team isn't doing well, under the following ideas -

1. Some baseball teams win more games with a smaller budget. Some of this is due to a better farm system, and a greater number of cheap players of course. Some of this is due to just being smarter and more creative.

2. With the above in mind, "vets" know better than anyone how to find and use cheap effective role players, including starters, and bullpen specialists.

My Safeco team was tanking because I didn't have enough LH pop. I made A LOT OF CHANGES, including a trade for Dun, but added Griffey, Koskie and others. My division is full of RH pitching, much of which is "hard" (such as D. Bush).

Since my house cleaning I've gone 7-2, and I don't think it is a coincidence. I would post the team, but I forgot how to do it.

The bottom line is, don't suffer through a losing season. Look at your division and fix your weaknesses if you made a mistake. Are you getting killed by RH bats? Go get Hermanson if he is out there. Paul Byrd perhaps?

To post your team, here is one way: Pick league statistics, click on your team. Right click the URL (which should include the ID#) and copy it. then paste that into your post.

Few teams get it perfectly right, so almost everyone makes roster moves during the season. Nothing wrong with your general approach. Trading is the most cost efficient way to make changes and should be your first choice when making changes. Use basic common sense when using the FA pool. Rules of thumb are:

* Don't panic. It is as easy to be 1-10 as it is to be 10-1 at the beginning of a season, so don't make irrevocable changes early in the season.

* Recognize what you are doing. You are giving up 20% of a salary, which makes you less salary competitive than the other owners. The benefit you are getting in return should make up for that in addition to the player you are giving up.

* "Shaking up" your team vice improving your team is generally a bad idea. Replacing one player with another with lesser stats is always a bad idea (unless it is part of some larger strategy of course). Sometimes you get lucky, mostly things just get worse.

* Do your research. Why are you making this change? It should be to statistically improve your teams chances based on what you have learned from the games played so far. There should be a better reason than "I'm paying too much for Edmonds for him to be hitting .250! I'm dropping him for Vernon Wells because I think I need a RH bat."

* There is an exponential increase in the likelihood that you are making a mistake the more often you drop players over a given season. Once might be smart, twice just might correct a mistake made the first time you did it, third time you are probably no longer competitive due to salary erosion and the calibre of player you have the money left to buy.

* Lastly, don't be afraid to use the FA pool when you have listened to the above and believe that you can field a better team by making that move.

That said, in your case with carroll, he has lots of natural hits and plenty of OBP vs RHP that do not depend on ball park singles. He's better than Harris and given safeco and the lefties you might be seeing he's at least teh equal of perez. You did improve your D, though. :)

Good advice all the way around.

Now I don't mean to say this team is perfect. Part of what I'm doing here are "tryouts" for my next team. S. Stewart for example looks like he could be a good RH part of a DH team with a LH bat.

I'm also trying out cheap pitchers, that I can use vs heavily right or lefthanded teams. A common technique I believe.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=36501

For a new manager sometimes if you're out of it a dump may be worth it to "educate" yourself about a player you've never used before.

But be aware of two things. 90% of the time it makes your team weaker, unless you are only dumping a small amount of salary. Dumping Mantle or DiMaggio just about never helps you in the long run. However those are darned good players and you have a good chance of being able to trade them if you get creative. Sometimes you can do a two for one where you only get one less expensive player you wanted, and then dump the undesireable and save yourself a lot of salary penalty.

Secondly excessive dumping affects the race in your division and probably assures the second team in your division the Wild Card. That can be frustrating to look at from another division.

At the same time PTR, I think the biggest thing I missed early on (though it was not completely ignored by me), is the importance of match-ups.

Pitching match-ups are critical, as much as having "good pitching". Don't you think?

In 05' having good starting pitching is essential, and there's not that much out there.

There are some relievers worth the money, but you have to have a real bomber team to make that strategy work.

Good luck.

So much for this causing a gift wild card in my division. I'm 9-3 since the blow up of the team. I haven't had the stiffest competition, however, I was losing 2 out of three, or getting swept for some time.

It seems that the wins are being caused by -

a) the team has more LH power, and therefore better suited to SAFECO.

b) pitchers are a bunch of low priced scrubs exept for OL PEREZ, but I'm better able to match up against other teams with guys like D. Hermanson, who kills RHBs.