High Team OBP

[keyzick]

Almost half way through the season of my last 2010 team, and I noticed the team OBP of .366. Noticeably higher than the rest of the league, so I got to thinking "how does this rate on an alltime SOM basis?"

After sampling through about 30 seasons (of 2010 ball, didn't check past years), I didn't find a single team in all those leagues that cracked the .360 mark. Occasionally a team might be in the .350's, but not very often at all - maybe 6 times in those 30 sampled seasons...meaning 6 out of 360 teams!

This team started out horribly, mainly because of the pitching, but has been playing really well lately...so I can't say it translates to W's, given what needs to be sacrificed in pitching and defense, but it's interesting nonetheless.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=372224


Check some of your own teams...what's highest OBP you can find? (outside of theme leagues that limit pitching of course!)

[MrHacktastic]

I've only completed 2 stratomatic seasons. My two OBP's are .350 and .340. My .340 team actually won it all. My .350 team went 81-81. I'm in my 3rd season and my team OBP is .332 but I think it will finish closer to .345 or .350.

[keyzick]

Yeah, I plan to go back and look at even more past leagues when I get a chance...there almost seems to be a balancing point, where the high .340's fare well, while the .350+ really don't have as much success.

I can only guess that it's because that offense came at too much of a sacrifice in other areas.

[tcochran]

Interesting question. I looked at all of my playoff teams and confirmed that most had OBP in the .340s. Outliers were at .356 and .310 (Petco). I expect you're right that the balancing pitching, fielding and base-running needs makes the difference.

[keyzick]

Yeah, I didn't just look at my own teams either, I looked at how all teams in the leagues finished for OBP. Other than my currently posted team, the next 2 highest OBP's in other leagues I found were by another manager - one at .358, another .356...both were offset by near bottom of the league pitching, and neither made the playoffs.

[superflymacdaddyjuice]

was the difference in SLG substantial between the successful .340 teams and unsuccessful .350+ team? it would be really cool to see team LOB for the season.

[J-Pav]

Those couple of seasons way back when, when we had a yearly record book, made for some really interesting teams. Silly season end of year credits would go to "400 homer" teams, "1000 runs scored" teams, or even to teams looking for a most bases on balls record.

Personally, some of my very favorite experimental teams went to strategies like "best net walks" or "best net strikeouts" or "best net hits".

While those strategies are still fun, I had an interesting light bulb moment :idea: last season. It seemed to me that there was something going on with slugging pct, and I started moving in a direction to exploit it. Champs teams were averaging 300 doubles, 30 triples and 200 or so homers. But then I did an interesting calculation - the league averages were right at 300 doubles, 30 triples and 200 or so homers!

My point is that, while it's easy to build a "400 homers" type team, a more [i:a2fa211b11]winning[/i:a2fa211b11] strategy is to be [b:a2fa211b11]the team that comes in fifth place in the most number of categories.[/b:a2fa211b11]

I think we talked about this before: be the jack-of-all-trades kind of team that intentionally avoids the extremes.

Back on point: most of my better teams averaged .330 obp in hitters parks and .340 in pitchers parks.

[Palmtana]

[quote:20c7e3d4d4="J-Pav"]Those couple of seasons way back when, when we had a yearly record book,...... [/quote:20c7e3d4d4]

The last year that happened was for the 2004 season. The team that had the highest OBP that year was put together by helium. His relatively low HR's (for Coors) was more than made up for by an [url=http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=55861&stats=sim]OBP of .405.[/url]

[J-Pav]

[quote:698df11516="Palmtana"]The last year that happened was for the 2004 season. [/quote:698df11516]

Seems just like just yesterday... :D

Oh, for the days when players could score 175 runs in a season and you could win 100 games with a 5.10 ERA!!

[schnoogens]

This team clocked in at a .355 OBP and made the playoffs (in addition to batting .306):

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=358179[/url]