Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Plan on playing "Back to the 80's for the first time. Have been looking forward to seeing Royals players produce :shock: . What players are advised for this stadium in Strat?

Maybe?

P1 Bret Saberhagen
P2 Dennis Leonard
P3 Danny Jackson
P4 Mark Gubicza
P5 Charlie Liebrandt

CL Dan Quisenberry
R1 Steve Farr
R2 Jerry Gleaton
R3 Rich Gale
R4 Scott Bankhead

C Darrell Porter
1B Willie Aikens
2B Frank White
SS UL Washington
3B George Brett
LF Bo Jackson
CF Willie Wilson
RF Danny Tartabull
DH Hal Mcrae

C Jaime Quirk
1B Steve Balboni
IF Kevin Seitzer
OF Pat Sheridan

Did I mention that I'm a Royals fan? :wink:

Brett, Boggs, Rickey, Raines, Hernandez, Harrah, J.Clark, and player with high OBP, and non # HR on their cards work well here.

Hershiser, Reuss, Drabek, Clemens have all won 20 games in Royals for me. Relievers like Tekulve, Guante, Mohorcic.

SS like Ozzie and Fernandez are outstanding. Concepcion hit 22 HR on my championship team in Royals believe it or not.

Hitters w/high OBP and enough power to play at other parks in your league as well.

Hitters with low WHIPs, even if they have #HR on their cards they won't hurt you badly there.

Good luck

Sean

[Edit: Apparently I was writing this at the same time as seanreflex. Obviously we agree on a lot of points, which makes sense, since he gave me a lot of advice when I was building my first Royals team.]

Well, That's a great team in terms of Royals history but maybe not perfect in terms of playing in Royals in this game--where you're facing offenses very fine-tuned to their parks. Yours needs to be fine-tune as well if you want to win.

I'm guessing you know what the ballpark single/HR numbers indicate? Royals is 1-16 for singles (L/R) and 1-2 for homers, so it's paradise for singles but really cuts down on the HRs. The first thing you need offensively, then, is high OBP--flood the bases with baserunners. A lot of the guys you mention would be good in that area, esp. Brett and Porter are great, for example, but White has a low OBP and Wilson, despite a high BA, drew few walks and so also tends to have a low OBP. (Having said that, I'm now using Wilson in Royals after a couple of other OFs bombed and he's having a great year.) Unlike some people, I also look for HR power. If I feel like I've covered OBP, I go for HRs. I figure I want to out-homer my opponents both at home and on the road, in whatever park, so while I emphasize OBP, I don't neglect SLG either. Guys who hit a lot of 2Bs or 3Bs will help. Speed is nice but, IMHO, far less significant than OBP.

With pitchers, you want low WHIP over everything else, since you want to limit opposing baserunners, which the park promotes. I particularly look for pitchers who don't give up walks. The park will help you vs HR, but it never hurts to have guys who limit HR.

Defense is also really important. A good DP combo will cut down on the baserunners. It also helps to have a minus arm at catcher, and I care more about OF defense and arms in Royals than I might elsewhere. I try to have at least a 2 at every position, though sometimes that's hard to accomplish.

A nice thing about Royals is that all the things you need to win there--OBP, WHIP, defense will help you elsewhere. If you don't completely neglect HRs, you should have a balanced team for any park.

Seanreflex and Outa LF, thanks for the info. :D When looking at a pitchers WHIP for Royals Stadium what would be considered to high? More than 1.35? 1.25? :?: Danny Jackson is 1.36 and Mark Gubicza is 1.35, so would they not be a good fit there in Strat?

You want all four WHIP's on your starting rotation to be under 1.25 -- look at guys like Gullickson and Sanderson, even Hoyt, if you don't want to break the bank on pitching.

Also, a 5-man rotation with low WHIP guys can work there very well also. Blue, Boyd, JH Johnson, Darwin, and several others ... Schatzeder, Hesketh's good years, etc.

Good luck with it !!