by qksilver69 » Thu May 12, 2011 3:44 pm
[quote:a414cb95f8]I'm sure that's all in how you pick 'em right? I'm sure the difference between Meek and Hensley is all explained by a great pitching coach. [/quote:a414cb95f8]
HAL is my coach, I'm just letting him do his job! :D
But yes, this NLD is all about how you pick 'em. Here is the post I had ready to go before I decided to give you a shot at it:
[quote:a414cb95f8]I think the mirrors are in your stats Joe! :D
Seriously, I can't really trust any stats that call my team neutral or bad in any pitcher park. I expect us to look bad in any hitter park, but we have a lot of natural XBH, OB & speed, and our pitchers are tailored for a pitcher park div, which we're in. So not sure what you're measuring but pretty sure it's not the right things! :P
But the big factor you're not looking at is matchups. The reason I ditched Santana and Thome post-draft was I counted SPs in my div & the league and it was a lot of LHs. To date: 75 starts against LH SPs, only 60 vs. RH SPs. That is the most unbalanced number I've ever seen since I started playing SOM.
Ok, now take a look at my L/R splits - we're doing significantly better vs LHP as a result of me ditching Thome/Santana and investing in Freese/Cuddyer & others.
Lastly, I'm giving HAL all the tools he needs to succeed. If I'm facing a LH SP and he gets pulled for a RH RP, HAL has a ton of PH to choose from. And of my 18 million platoons, only 2 guys have faced a bunch of pitchers on the "bad" side - Cuddyer and Upton, mostly due to injuries. Everyone else is being used exactly the way I'd want. And I have the best PR tandem around in Upton & Dyson, so any close game HAL has them in there taking an extra base or stealing 2nd or even 2nd & 3rd.
The same goes for RPs - HAL goes down the line and picks the right RP almost all the time, and yanks the specialists very quickly because there is almost always a rested guy with a better platoon advantage warming up in the pen.[/quote:a414cb95f8]
The 1-run game thing is usually explained by luck, but in this case a) we're in a pitcher park in a pitcher div, with a weak offense so we're going to see more 1-run games than the norm, and b) the pen usage by HAL has been so spot-on that I think some of the +11 1-run record is earned.