Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=357466

I'm back trying strat once again. I haven't played in a long time. Are there any petco experts out there who offer free advice?

I'm far from an expert on PETCO, but here's a 100mil team, I had that did well in PETCO. Hope this helps

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=341939

I like your first three starters. I would scrap the three non * starters and pick up the best remaining cheap * starter (there are plenty of options in this set). Spend the rest on 1 decent reliever who can work the majority of relief innings for you, preferable someone with a C rating as Cordero can be your closer against R but not v L. Then pick up a cheap C v L. I'm not a big fan of ARod in this set, but otherwise I think your offense is good. I've had good success with Bautista in Petco because of his straight HRs.

I was heavily considering trading in ARod for Markakis or Ichiro, and bringing Bautista to the IF. We'll see.

Totally agree that I need a credible closer. We'll see what I canpickupon waivers.

I have my fingers crossed on the SP*'s. I don't want to endup with Zito. Even if he did well, I'd cringe everytime his name cameup in the rotation. :D

Thanks again.

I cringed when faced with nobody else but Zito in the Players Championship.

But, as you can see, I can't complain now...

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=340252

visick

looking at those pitching stats makes me realize how much i miss the yearly games vs atg...havent played it since 2004

Zito, Barry L S6* 20 16 0 0 277.0 202 97 87 94 188 20 2.83 1.07 E 2.48M

277 IP! That's awesome for $2.48M! I'd be happy to see him pitch 150+ for the G-Men. I pull for the guy every year, but he can't hold it together for more than a couple starts. 2012 will be THE YEAR. Heck - maybe Harbaugh should coach baseball, if he could make something productive out of A. Smith, why not Zito?

Re Jose Bautista - I like this choice for Petco. One of my theories about playing in a pitchers park is that your WANT to have homerun hitters who have a lot of non-ballpark homerun homeruns - i.e. you want straight-up homerun readings.

This is a team that I had that won 96 games, and lost in the finals to a team that won 100 games (same division):

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=329275

Yes, it is Kauffman, not Petco, but my point is the same either way - my theory is that you can get good homerun production in a non-homerun-park, for decent $ value, by loading up on non-ballpark homerun readings, like Bautista.

(I should point out that this was in a keeper league, so I was over the $80 million cap space slightly).

This was a 2008 team ($80 mil sal cap) that I had that played out of Petco:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=226763

This team was the wild card playoff team with 87 wins, but did go on to win the championship.

The roster strategies for this team were:
1) lead league in ERA (actually came 2nd)
2) good range defense for 2b/ss
3) goal was to out hit opponents - did not have more walks or homeruns, but did have more hits
4) wanted really good quality starting pitchers, but for cheaper pitchers I also like pitchers like Maddux who had a lot of GBA results.

Getting lots of doubles, together with good team speed, is a good strategy for ballparks with low homerun chances. That way, a fast runner on 1b can score on a double. A base clearing double is almost as good as a homerun. Fontenot (2008) was good for that.

Check out the run scoring doubles in game 1 of the finals:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/playoffs/boxscore.html?group_id=83001&g_id=983