Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Here's an experimental team that worked: trying to get the highest possible running rating in the whole line-up (ignoring SB ratings). The team was 86-76, with an exp. W/L of 95-67.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=318341

Because Youkilis and Utley are injury-prone, I needed a lot of flexibility with players available for several positions. Because the team is weak in slugging and has a few defensive shortcomings, I needed to spend a lot on pitching (almost 40%) and get guys who don't give up a lot of hits or home runs (the staff ended up with an average of 7.9 H/9 and 0.9 HR/9). And those two points together meant I had to use high-OBP platoons to get cheaper players and have a deep bench. But other than those two points, the whole idea was to get guys with high running ratings (not so easy at C, 1B, or 3B!). (Note: I completely ignored stolen base ratings, focussing only on running ratings.)

Obviously I didn't get everyone I wanted in the draft or waivers, so it's not ideal and I had to make some compromises -- but here it is, "the fast team," with the running rating after the guy's name (17 means 1-17, etc.):

(platoons at C, 3B, CF, and DH -- I show the OBPs for the platoons; the league average OBP, not counting my team, was .321)

v. LHP
C Martin 13 (OBP v. LHP .332)
1B Youkilis 14
2B Utley 16
3B Bonifacio 17 (OBP v. LHP .403)
SS Ramirez 15
LF Pierre 17
CF Upton 17 (OBP v. LHP .380)
RF Suzuki 17
DH Castro 15 (OBP v. LHP .353)


v. RHP
C Jaso 13 (OBP v. RHP .380)
1B Youkilis 14
2B Utley 16
3B Fontenot 13 (OBP v. RHP .360)
SS Ramirez 15
LF Pierre 17
CF Maier 14 (OBP v. RHP .372)
RF Suzuki 17
DH Furcal 15 (OBP v. RHP .371)

BENCH
McCoy 15
Baker 12

For the season I outscored opponents by 729-609, even though I was out-homered by 106-148.

I thought I was the only one who thought about a speed team (ignoring sB ratings). I think I tried this a while back. Stolen bases are overrated.

The team ended up winning the finals (even though Utley and Martin got injured, Utley for the rest of the series in game 2 or 3 or so, and Martin till game 7).

Check out these two games (the team was trailing 3 games to 1 in game 5):
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game 5 http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/playoffs/boxscore.html?group_id=131529&g_id=991

TEN-RUN 16TH INNING!
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game 6
http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/playoffs/boxscore.html?group_id=131529&g_id=992

Three outs away from losing the series, came back from a 4-1 deficit in the 9th inning at home.
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quite interesting! :o

The youth manager must have hated J.J.Putz to allow what happend to him in game 5. :shock:

Can you imagine being a hometown fan in game 6 ? :D

What was game 7 like?

Nothing exciting -- 5-1 in 9:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/playoffs/boxscore.html?group_id=131529&g_id=993