Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I'm in Oakland this season and have surprisingly good offensive numbers, both in terms of OBP and power, from Eddie Murray, Kal Daniel and Jack Clark. Anybody else have favorite hitters when their home team is in a pitcher's park?

A lot of power hitters have a couple of really good years for pitchers' parks and then they have some lousy years as well...

Take Darryl Strawberry... His second best OPS year 88 (913ops) he will likely be terrible vs righties. Same for 84 and 89. 87 and 90 ought to be decent but I have seen the 87 card play poorly at Wrigley and the Murph. So a hitter who was one of the most powerful of the era is, in my opinion, a lousy play in a pitchers park. George Foster, a hitter well past his peak in the 80s, is probably a better play than Straw.

Even perennial power guys like McGwire and Schmidt will have big trouble some seasons in pitchers' parks.

It all depends on the card.

Power hitters who played in pitcher's parks will generally do well. The best example that comes to mind is Jose Canseco. I used him in Dodger Stadium and he hit 40. Mickey Tettleton is another example. He hit 26 on that same team.

The truth is if you get a good card out of anyone, they're a good fit, no matter what park you play in. Some of the guys mentioned (Clark, Straw, Canseco, Tettleton) are good examples of that. Sure they performed well for you in pitchers parks, but think of how they would've performed if they were in a hitters' park.They unquestionably would've surpassed the numbers they put up in the pitchers park (probably by a lot). Thus, I believe those guys are still better suited for hitter parks.

For pitchers' parks, I still think the guys with lots of hit units, OBP, and/or speed are ideal. Raines, Gwynn, Hernandez, Boggs and Mattingly are classic pitcher park hitters. But the same theory holds true for these guys as well.....if they have a good card, they'd be very good in hitters parks too.

Here's a quick example of what I'm talking about. Check out Andre Thornton on both teams, a pitchers park and a hitters park.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=34[/url]

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=377[/url]

Same year (1978), but very different results. But still, I'll take what he gave me on that Comiskey team because he fit my team's needs and was productive nonetheless.

>The truth is if you get a good card out of anyone, they're a good fit, no >matter what park you play in.

Have truer words ever been written about Back To The 80's?

[quote:9c24d67b6a="albert2b"]. Check out Andre Thornton on both teams, a pitchers park and a hitters park.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=34[/url]

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=377[/url]

Same year (1978), but very different results. But still, I'll take what he gave me on that Comiskey team because he fit my team's needs and was productive nonetheless.[/quote:9c24d67b6a]

Wow! :shock: Interesting. Thanks.

It is possible to score a bunch of runs in a pitcher's park. For example, here's a team of mine that scored 900 runs in Dodger.
http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=48562

This team did focus on OBP. The team OBP was .363, led by J Clark (.450!), Rickey H (.393), Aikens (.390, Harrah(.389) and Sociscia and Butler (both .376). But it it had significant power as well, hitting 188 HR. Ripken led the way in power, racking up .305 BA with 36 HR and 141 RBI. But Clark hit 32 HR, Murray 26 and Rickey 22, and there were three others in double figures. That 188 HR in Dodger might be worth the same as 288 in a homer park.

My favorite kind of hitter for a pitcher's park--at least in the positions from which you expect real run production-- is somebody who combines high OBP with significant power as well. So Hernandez would be good--I had a monster year from him in Royals--but also Jack and Will Clark and Eddie Murray. I think Straw can be good because along with the power he has pretty good OBP. Even if these guys raw numbers are lower than they might be in the Kingdome, their value as hitters might be equal. I would avoid the high power/low OBP guys like Kittle, Armas and Kingman, but I think the others are fair game.