Another SOMO myth debunked-Jhonny P leads his team into 1st

[durantjerry]

I have to admit that I am running the experiement and if someone told me they had an up the middle defense of Griffey, Utley, Jhonny P and Fick/Greene, I would tell you you were headed for trouble. Dead last in pitching AND defense and somehow have the second best record to date. It is an underwhelming 26-22, but given everything I have read and believed over the years, it shouldn't be possible.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=10508[/url]

[geekor]

Actually, in a hitters park I don't value Def as high....

Talk to Daniel (dneedle). I remember on the boards him saying def was overrated, then I happened to be in the league in 02 where he had really horrible def throughout, but easily had the best offense in the league, and cruised to a title.

I think if you are making a bashing team, Def isn't as important as having a good bat. Now try playing him at SS on your Petco team, that's a different story ;)

[durantjerry]

Everything you say is correct and extremely obvious. No kidding defense is less important in bashing venues. I remember what Daniel did. I'm talking specifically about using a "4" at SS, with the surrounding poor defense magnifying the deficiency even more. You make it sound like this is something you have already considered and seen work because of something Daniel did two or three years ago. I would be willing to bet you have never had a non-theme team start a "4" rated player at SS. I know I haven't. The reason I have not is obviously because I didn't hink it was my best course to a winning team, or else I would have done it. In my experience, almost no one who knows what they are doing starts a "4" at SS, and this is the first year I have regularly seen "3" rated players.

[honestiago1]

A 4 at either of the middle IF positions is a recipe for disastor. A pair of average IF's in the middle can be suicide unless you REALLY score the runs. As far as def being overated, I would say the importance of your defense is relative to the strength of your pitching staff. A GREAT pitching staff can mitigate the problems caused by bad D by limiting baserunners, getting key K's, etc. Unless things have suddenlt changed, however, good D in strat keeps you competitive. And defense and pitching can trump any masher team in a playoff series.

[Jerlins]

While you are proving you can win with a 4 at SS, could you also not say your team would be even better with either Furcal or Rollins (similarly priced) manning the SS position for your team? Especially Rollins given the fact you are in Ameriquest. Both Furcal and Everett are in your division and while OBP is lower, both are matching the production numbers of Peralta, Furcal's is doing it in Petco, while Everett's a 1!!!! Just a thought to ponder.

[MICHAELTARBELL]

Seems you have gone 6-18 since your Oct 18th post....same thing happens to me, whenever i post a good team record, they go in the TANK!

I think HAL is watching..... :wink:

[MARCPELLETIER]

durantjerry,
geekor,

I think I already said it before, and your posts lead me to repeat the info:

Middle defense is not undervalued anymore in the TSN system. In the past, we basically didn't pay for having defensive double-plays, and for great centerfielder arms. So teams with ss-1 and 2b-1 and cf-1(-4) were certainly advantaged. This advantage lasted for a few years, but in recent time, TSN acknowledged the problem and put a price to those advantages.

So, to summarize, the belief that it's easier to win with great middle defense wasn't a myth before, although it is now a myth (or I should say, a false belief). As we speak, I have a team at 97-55 win a 3e25 ss and a cf-3e8 (+2). So I have no doubt that a team with poor middle defense can now win with the same ease as teams with great defense.

You might object that Daniel teams were based on the past seasons, and had success nevertheless. I would claim the following:
1) When I checked Daniel data, he had tried three or four teams with extremely poor defense. One had great success (probably the one geekor refers to), one or two had records a bit over.500, and one had a very poor record. Thus, the overall sum of the teams I checked was very much closer to .500 than to .600.
2) But, you might say, .500 isn't too bad. If poor defense were bad in the past, we should expect .400, not .500. The reason he still got .500 instead of .400 is that there was another bias in TSN, which has also been corrected (in fact, over-corrected, in my opinion). We came to realize, with Daniel teams and other data, that outstanding offensive players were not priced appropriately because they were generating more offense then predicted. It will too long to get into details, but in short, if you assemble a line-up with great offensive players, you build up your offensive chances in a way that will outweigh the predicting models we had. So, to come back to Daniel teams, when he was concentrating his money on offenses, he was compensating the negative bias towards bad defense by this offensive build-up positive bias and generating .550/.600 seasons. But when he was spending his extra dollars on pitching, he wasn't compensating for the negative bias associated with bad defense, and he was getting .400 teams. To give concrete examples, Bonds used to be priced around 14M in his great years. For the same price, you have nowadays Pujols and D.Lee who are not even close of Bonds's potential. I tried a team where I spend almost 70M on offensive players, and played in Kaufmann to make sure I wouldn't get an upgrade with playing in Coors, and it won't even finished with 70 wins (in fact, I believe you were both part of this league).

This doesn't mean you can't win by putting all your eggs in offense. You can if you select the right stadium and the right relievers (which I haven't in my 65-win team). But it is definitively harder to win with just offense than before.

[MARCPELLETIER]

That said, I would never play with 4s in key spots in defense---perhaps this explain your current losing record.

The main reason is because some players are rated for being dh. A player like Peralta is being priced for being a dh. If you play him at defense, there is a negative value that is hidden in the price, so to speak. It's about the same logic as if you were playing ARod at dh. ARod is being price to be play defense. If he was priced to be dh, he wouldn't cost this much. So you lose value by playing ARod at dh. With Peralta at ss, it's the same logic, but the other way around.

There is also an additional cost for playing of-4 in the field. In Strat, there is a real gap between of-3 and of-4. I don't know the details about TSN pricing system, but I am pretty sure that TSN doesn't weigh that gap.

Also, playing a catcher with a combination of bad arm (+3) AND bad T (T-17) is a dangerous combination. Both Greene and Fick have this rating. I don't how much of the 14 errors come from throwing, but I guess a lot of them have transformed singles into triples, plus some runners scoring from third. This can easily turn into a costly operation.

I don't mind too much about a +2/+3 catcher, but it's better to check the T-rating, or to compensate with negative hold pitchers. Piazza, for one, always had good T-numbers.

[bigmahon]

I think the main reason why people occasionally toy with the idea of playing 4s at SS here in cyber strato land is that we don't see the rolls or have the fielding charts in front of us at all times. Anyone who's ever really played the board game knows what playing a 4 at SS can mean.

Having said that, I have used Peralta at SS once this year, and the team did reasonably well. It's definitely not a novel concept. :wink: I'll try to find the link.

I'm convinced that there are more ways to win than ever now, which is one reason (pricing being the other) that you see overall winning percentages coming down.

[visick]

I gotta agree with big here.

As a kid playing the board game, 3's @ SS were seldom used. 4's were unheard of. But...back then in the 70's, SS's were usually all glove/no stick.

I recall using Campaneris alot and also Burleson.

Obviously in today's game, the SS position has changed. Even in Strat. I may use Young at SS every once in awhile, but I will team him up with Hudson and use no more than a 2 in CF.

I also compensate for 2B and CF. If I use a 3 in CF, I'll use no less than a 2 @ 2B and SS. 2B too.

FWIW...When I see a 4 defensively, right away I'm thinking DH.