Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I am about to begin drafting my first ATG team. Previously I have just played 2005. Am I right in presuming that all the basic advice is the same as for ATG: i.e. High OB at top of order, best hitter 3rd, BP hitter 4th, clutch around #5? What do I do about #8 hole in ATG? No DH obviously so do I bother putting a good OB guy there, bearing in mind the pitcher is up next, or just put my second worst hitter here?

Any help would be gratefully received

I've only played one season of 2005 but two and one-half major differences stand out to me:

1. You have 51 teams in ATG 2 and only one of them was not one of the best handful of teams in its decade. That makes the player pool much deeper.
2. The range of ballparks from extreme hitting through neutral to extreme pitching is much greater in ATG 2. The styles of teams in your leagues likely will vary much more than in 2005.
3. Far fewer steroids available in ATG 2, but the beer is colder.

Enjoy and welcome to the madness.

remember that in ATG2, there is NO excuse not to have good def, especially up the middle. In 05, there isn't enough def to go around, particularly those with bats also. Though I've found that CF seems to be the hardest position to get a good def + good glove guy everytime.

I like to have either a high OBP guy, or low BA/high power guy or some speed in 8 slot. Logic on power guy is nobody behind him to bring him in so if I have an all or nothing guy this is as good a place as any. High OBP is good because if less than 2 outs it give pitcher someone to bunt over. If 2 outs a walk from the #8 guy means the pitcher will not be leading off the next inning so you in effect save an out.

Deeper player pool and ability to have better defense already mentioned. Also a big difference is ability to go with S9 or S8 people and lessen dependence on bullpen or go good S5/S6 people and build solid bullpen so the lopsided starting verses bullpen strategy can be more effectively pulled off.

Flexibility can be more rewarding in ATG as you will see more variations in strategies by opponents so a flexibility can either make you less vulnerable to others extreme strategies or make you more able to take advantage of theirs. The ability to look over your opponents and adjust your team not only to match your ballpark but also match up against your opponents strategies is much more important in my opinion. This is probably my weakest point as I never spend enough time evaluating my opponents potential strategy/roster and plan accordingly and thus the really good managers who do that tend to edge me out. I often lately find myself to be the 5th best team in a league too often. :D

One more difference: The deeper player pool makes it easier to fool yourself in to thinking you have a great team. You can build a team that looks very good on paper but good chance there are 11 other teams that also are good on paper. So be prepared for more of a learning curve on learning the player pool. And also keep in mind that the greater variation in strategies possible means that there is more variation on how many players perform from one league to the next.