Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Hello all, i was curious. what is a good stragety in drafting a team in a pitchers ball park such as busch stadium, oakland or roayals stadium?
Should you take hitters with high batting averages over OBP . Good starters or throw in middle of the line pitchers? i am still a rookie at this and would be thankful for any imput.
jb

I can never seem to put together a decent Oak team. However, I would say your dependence on OBP is directly proportional to the singles rating of the park. OAK REALLY surpresses hitting. You need good OBP there to be consistent. Of course, if you draft hitters who actually played in pitcher's parks (Strawberry, McGwire, Canseco, GDavis), you can get production anywhere.

I'd say as a general rule of thumb not to get too wound up on the effects of home park. Draft a team with good table setters and good sluggers. Have some D up the middle. As far as pitching goes, it helps to have an ace or two, plus some good middle relievers (I think RP gets overlooked WAY too much, esp. since most of the SP's outside Clemens are crap shoots). I'd advise you to draft some pitcher's park hitters and move them into a neutral park, such as Olympic, Yankee or Exhibition.

For a pitcher's park, here are some suggestions for hitters:

Strawberry (played in Shea)
GDavis (played in the Astrodome, so he'll hit ANYWHERE)
Harrah (productive in ANY park; ALL his years are usable [you can bat him leadoff in the years he lacks power]).
Cey (played in Dodger; walks and hits HR's; glove is average)
Oberkfell (walks, plus a great glove [and can swing to 2B]).
Paciorek (average defense in LF, but 3 years over .300; hits a lot of doubles).
DwMurph (played in OAK; Walks+Power+Gold Glove CF).
Hendrick (cannon arm ni RF; good average/slg.; played in Busch).
RJones (played in hitter's parks, but draws walks, slugs, runs well and has a good glove)
DMartinez (good utility guy; speed, average, some power, good arm, but NO WALKS).
Redus (walks plus blazing speed)
LSmith (HORRIBLE glove, but can post MVP numbers)
Pendleton (a 1 at 3B, plus TWO years of excellent power, and a very good RBI year).

Good relief choices on the cheap):
JRobinson (most years useful)
ALopez ((see comment above)
Clear (worth a gamble, as he can be shut down and eat innings)
Tekulve (if you want to REALLy keep the ball down, go here)
Sisk (no HR's, but some awful WHIPs)
Gott (mid-priced, and some shutdown years)

Look for the 1-2M RP, where possible, and try to get a couple of them. If you can't get all great SP, think about drafting 6 SP (1-3 of whom are "locks" to be decent), and rotate your other starters into the rotation based on opponents (3 pitchers who can swing to the bullpen allows you to start your "skewed" pitchers against those teams with weaknesses versus LH or RH; for example, you might have McWilliams in the 7L year and Beattie in the 5R year [I think it's 5R]; you can pick and choose who to start them against, based on your opponent's splits. Further, you can pick and choosde fly ball vs. groundball pitchers, depending on where you're playing that series -- flexibility is nice! [though it requires more work).

FINALLY: I'd advise you NOT to designate a stopper, at least not early. Let HAL use your best relievers in the optimal situations. There are WAY too many "save" situations that 99% of pitchers can make it through (ex: a 2 or 3-run lead in the 9th can be protected by almost any decent pitcher; but for that 1-run lead in the 7th, you need the big guns).

I would suggest-
1. Good starting pitching. Look for low WHIP, some ballpark HRs on the card are OK.
2. Gooe defense, especially up the middle
3. BA and OB are both important, but I am partial to OB%
4. Good team speed
5. A slugger or two for when you go on the road.

Don't sacrifice power. You'll still need a team slugging of .425 to be successful. So, I echo the one or two sluggers for your lineup like Strawberry, Canseco, or McGwire.

Low WHIP pitchers that do well are Tom Browning and Bill Gullickson. They're economical and usually available for the picking at the bottom of an autodraft card.

I'd look for doubles and triples on the cards (and the lack of singles**, doubles, and triples on "low WHIP" pitchers).

Al Oliver, Keith Hernandez spring to mind. Still need some power, though.

While the above $5m names have been covered, the following are usually available via waivers and post-waiver day period

Phelps (3 seasons with 43+ OBP vs. RHPs)
Hargrove (5 seasons)
Kruk (4 seasons)
Oberkfell (4 seasons)
Greenwell (3 seasons but usually drafted)
Aikens (3 seasons and power)
A. Davis (3 seasons)
Kemp (3 seaons)
Backman (4 seasons - available through first 39 games)
Driessen (3 seasons - available through first 79 games)
J Thompson (2 seasons - available through first 39 games)

One thing I would suggest is that playing in a pitching park lets you take some gambles that can pay off big. For example, it allows you to take a shot on a guy like Dennis Martinez.. Some of his bad years are usuable in pitchers parks. Most hitting park teams won't take a shot with someone like him unless they have to, because he has fewer usable years for their park. He won't be so awful for you if you end up with one of these years and is something you should atke advantage of. Mid priced guys like Saberhagen and B Smith can be very good in pitching parks. Don Sutton is an overlooked high priced guy that can be very good and his worst years are OK. Andujar and Hoyt can also shine if you get lucky with Andujar or very lucky with Hoyt.