Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

His stats indicate that it might be, but then again he has only pitched in 4 games.

Lefties hitting .450 in 40 at bats
Righties hitting .246 in 65 at bats

[u:e9327359ce]Bud Black [/u:e9327359ce]and [u:e9327359ce]Lamar Hoyt [/u:e9327359ce]seem like they also might be in their worst year! :(

Black
Lefties hitting .143 in 14 at bats
Righties hitting .358 in 81 at bats

Hoyt
Lefties hitting .231 in 39 at bats
Righties hitting .320 in 50 at bats

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=67520

I would never keep a pitcher who is overbalanced in his worst year. For example, while I might keep a lefty who is tough on RHBs or a righty, Stieb, who is tougher on LHBs, I would not keep a righty in his worst year who is most effective against RHBs.
The problem is that line-ups typically get loaded with LHBs against righties and RHBs against lefties and they end up feasting on them.
Having said that, I have a hard time time keeping any pitcher with a 1.40 whip or more. Your 1.30 and 1.25 are going to see their WHIPs jump to that range because every team has a solid line-up, no easy outs.
The only caveat would be if you have an outstanding offence, but then your team would be even better if you could upgrade your pitching.
A case in point is that I have a Stieb now and I know he's not in his worst year because of his l/r splits. Even so, his WHIP is running around 1.50 and he's walking as many guys as he is striking out.
I keep waiting for the numbers to start to reconcile themselves, but they may not.

Stieb is definitely a keeper in all but his worst year--but definitely should be dumped in the bad year.

Those splits are not looking too healthy. I don't think it would be too early to dump him now. You could keep him for a couple more starts, but his platoon numbers are pretty emphatic, with all the good years one way and the bad one the other, so I wouldn't hesitate to cut.

Your stat sample size is still pretty small to start worrying about your pitchers.

Also, pitching is an entirely different monster to determine their cards. Splits and their overall performance in the small sample size isn't enough. You need to be looking at the overall picture of the league as well.

1. You are going to play 1/2 your games in Royals so your h/ip ratio is going be worse on most cards than normal. This will drive your WHIP in directions that you can make a mistake in judgement if hastily made.

2. Constantly benchmark your team stats against the other teams in the league. If no one is getting any kind of good pitching, it may be that it is going to be one of those leagues in which the hitters are out in force and the pitching stats are going to suffer.

You've got to zoom out and look at the state of the league more when dealing with whether you're going to drop a pitcher or not.

Got to give them more starts before you know what year you have. It's not worth taking the salary cap hit this early.

Rule of thumb I use is give them 40 games or 10 starts, then you get a better idea of what you have if you can't figure out a hitters year from an injury.

Someone suggested the 40 game rule to me. Makes sense. Especially after I dumped the '80 Brett after 15 games and he wound up hitting 375 for the year.

I thought that I'd share a story of hope for you concerning the guy...

The last championship team that I had, I was desperate for a good starter at the half-way point. So, I scoured the waiver wire looking for someone to add. As most leagues go, almost all the pitchers in the league had been used for some period of time and none of their stat lines looked too hot.

My division rival dropped Dave Stieb at the half way point with a 1.32 WHIP and an over 4.00 ERA. Even those stats were better than what I had going though. However, I studied his stat line closer and even tracked his progress through boxscores to see if I can see anything promising. After the research, I felt confident that Stieb wasn't in a "bad" year, so I made the pickup.

His stat line for me the rest of the way out for the season was almost identical for me as it was for my rival. 1.32 WHIP over 4.00 ERA.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=56539[/url]
(Regular Season Stats Here.

However, when it came to the playoffs, patience was paid back in full:

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/playoffs/team_other.html?user_id=56539[/url]

I had Stieb's best card all along and he was the biggest reason why I was successful in the playoffs.

Point is that the state of my league (Most teams were hitting the ball well and pitching stats were down.) told me that I needed to use a little more discretion on my decision to keep or drop some of my pitching. I've got my routine down to a pseudo-science on picking up serviceable pitching cards during the season and keeping my underperformers throwing innings during the season. You'll find your niche too sometime soon.

It's all about getting and retaining the good and serviceable cards in the end. Stats help you to discover who you've got but they can also deceive you when you're desperate for a quick fix.

Believe me, I'm not immune to dropping players that I should have kept. I've made plenty of errors in judgement but I've been working to keep it to a minimum as much as possible.

Good Luck.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. The "story of hope" was a good one. The Krazy Keeshonds need inspiration! Especially Stieb. Hopefully in a few weeks the Keeshonds will have thier own "story" and it won't be "tales of misfortune (and unlucky rolls)". :lol:

What at first looked like a pretty sure move to make (drop Stieb), now does not appear so definite as an effective way to improve the team. The team is 7-8 so it's early enough (I hope!) to keep going with Stieb, just to be sure he is in his bad year. The only 2 teams he has played so far in his 4 games are hitting well vs RHP (.310 and .267).

Tough to pass up on some of the free agents out there though:

Britt Burns
Ken Forsch
Bill Wegman
Bill Gullickson
Charlie Liebrandt

They all seem to be saying, "Pick me up! :twisted: I'm a sure thing 20+ game winner! If you don't snag me in the next 60 seconds a division rival who is scanning the FA pitchers at this moment is gonna click PICK UP THIS PLAYER."

The Stieb story of hope was heart-warming.
However, I too would have grabbed a pitcher with a 1.32 whip. Plus I would never have dropped him in the first place.
I would, however, avoid Gullickson and Wegman like the plague.
Both look very attractive but I've had no success with Wegman and limited playoff success with Gullickson.