What Should I fix?

[CHARLESBELL]

I go out of town and this team goes 5-16 while I am gone. Dead last in the league at 21-36. Is this a dead horse or is there anything I can do with this team? Other div parks are Petco, Turner, and Citizen's.

Lineups are:

LHP
Pierre, dh
Freel, lf
Jones, 3b
Saenz, 1b
Drew, rf
Michaels, cf
Larue, c
Guzman, ss
Cora, 2b

RHP
Pierre, dh
Freel, lf
Drew, rf
Mauer, c
Pickering, 1b
Mueller, 3b
Michaels, cf
Guzman, ss
Cora, 2b

Pitching is facing only slightly more RHB than LHB, although Madritsch is facing overwhelming numbers of RHB. Hitters are facing about twice as many RHP as LHP, although none of the lefty hitters have done much against them save Mauer. Of course, they're even worse against LHP.

Note that it is an auction league and my FA options are going to be pretty restricted. I did capture the market on catchers, with burke, lopez, and ausmus available and not much else among the hitters. Pitchers carrera, wood, and sunny kim could also be brought up.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=17364

Any help pointing out what's broke with this team would be appreciated.

[cummings2]

Are the lefties that you are facing reverse straight or neutral?

I think the team should right itself out. Can't really see much of a problem, probably just a few unlucky rolls. I'd try Drew 3rd vs Lefties with Chipper 4th and Saenz 5th...I know Saenz has a couple of negative $ but I wouldn't be playing Saenz for his singles...so what if he looses two and his avg. dips a bit, at least I have some HR potential BEHIND two big OB guys.

Right of the top of my head I think this is how I'd play it:

Vs LHP
1 Pierre
2 Freel
3 Drew
4 Jones
5 Saenz
6 Larue
7 Cora
8 Michaels
9 Guzman

Vs RHP
1 Pierre
2 Drew
3 Mueller
4 Mauer
5 Pickering
6 Michaels
7 Guzman
8 Cora
9 Freel

Basically I'd just try to make the turn from bottom to top with speed so as to not clog Pierre on top when the lineup turns . It's a tough one because of Pierre's high DP you don't want Freel doubled up. if you are loosing a lot of one run games I'd try little balling the second slot, Play Guzman who is a pretty good bunter behind Pierre so as to get to the guns with a man on 2B.

I'd try protecting Drew a bit more otherwise his OB will be to waste and they'll walk him on often.

I know it's not the most orthodox or pure of lineups but IF I were to change the lineups that you have now I'd try the above. As far as getting a different player...if you can get a hold of a true #7 High SLG, low(er) OBP with good clutch...otherwise I'd hold on to the team you've got.

[CHARLESBELL]

Thanks, cummings2, I like your point about finding a way to protect Drew better. He is definitely drawing a ton of walks (3rd highest in the league).

It's interesting in how you set up the LHP lineup, but I might try something a little different, like this:
freel
drew
saenz
jones
michaels
larue
pierre
guzman
cora

Pierre would basically start a new top of the lineup at the #7 hole, while drew's high OBP vs LHP would be put to better use.

With RHP, though, it's hard to see how I would get more power/total bases behind drew than what I have now with mauer and pickering. And I would be very vulnerable to reverse RHP if I started the lineup with 5 lefties.

One thing I am struggling with, related to your comment about adding a slugging/clutch player is how to play PNC with it's BPHR rating of 7/7. I'm toying with the idea that burke might be a more consistent producer of extra base hits than mauer in PNC with his +6 clutch and despite his w power rating. That might allow me to do something with the pitching, such as add a reverse lefty SP to balance with madritsch. Or bring in Lopez as the dh and put pierre in CF.

If I could swing the salaries then a burke/lopez lineup vs RHP might look like this:
pierre
freel
drew
lopez
pickering
burke
mueller
cora
guzman

Would that be any better?

[cummings2]

I like your alternate lineup better than the one I toyed with. I like the idea of starting a new order with the 7 slot. Haven't tried it so don't know how it would work but at first sight you do seem to avoid some gb As and move runners up. Sounds pretty good, will have to try it.

I am a bit lost as to what Lopez we are talking about that you'd bring in as DH?

I don't know about dropping Mauer...His INJ would concern me but I always hate it when he plays against me, he's always killed me, I also like his arm and defense...Burke, I like him catching actually so it's nothing against playing him.

My main thing with clutch and stuff like that to make sure that I don't replace a player that looses a couple of low hit singles because of his -$ and replace him with one that get a bonus single or two but that won't hit anything any other time. Clutch IS important and IF I can have it for me I'll do it, BUT let's remember that it is in effect WHEN a runner is in scoring position AND there are two outs, to be honest I don't think I'd drop Mauer for Burke for offensive reasons, for INJ reasons maybe. for salary reasons maybe but that's it. Are rallies stopping at Mauer?


I think you've got a pretty good team now, defense is not stellar but should be enough and the offense should post much better numbers.

If you don't mind my asking how are you loosing most of your games? Falling behind early, Late inning B-Pen Collapses, Trashed 10-1, by a run or two, with many left on base, with few hits, critical caught stealings?

The reason why I ask is because before I make roster moves I like to see where/how I am loosing my games to find if it is just lucky/unlucky rolls.

[CHARLESBELL]

If I moved mauer it would only be because I thought my offense would be better with him than with mauer. His injury roll was a risk I accepted when I took him, and larue is a capable platoon/backup if he plays to his card. And mauer is hitting .326. So that probably answers my own question. I'd still like to get a consistent hitter into the lineup like burke, so I'll look at how to do that without needing mauer's salary to do it. I also think I need a reverse-lefty to pair up with madritsch. Teams are really stacking the RHBs against him and he's been terrible (2-9, 8.21 ERA, 2.07 WHIP).

As far as how the team is losing, the games have not been that close since the team is not scoring. Scored 2 or fewer runs in 9 of 21 games last week. Only two games in which more than 10 runs were scored, one a loss and one a win. Of the 14 losses, opponents scored at least 5 times in 11 of them. With a .230 BA and .313 OBP the team doesn't have many baserunners to leave on base.

Kolb is 8 for 10 in save chances with one loss. I thought dejean might be getting into too many games, but he has appeared on average about once every three games and his IPs aren't that high. Even kolb, strictly in a closer role, has more innings. The SPs fail about as often as the pen does. Lawrence and burnett have not pitched particularly well, but even Schmidt can't win a game with this offense. Team is just two short of being the lowest scoring team in the league.

Oh, and the lopez I meant is javey lopez. But even if I wanted I couldn't get his salary to fit.

Thanks for the advice, you've given me several ideas on looking for the core problem. It may be that the offense will come around (I hope). This is my first time this season with this type of ballpark; it may be that I just have the wrong players for this park. Maybe someone out there could give me some pointers along those lines?

[CHARLESBELL]

Decided to pull the trigger and get burke's bat on the team while keeping Mauer. That meant releasing larue and michaels (who was hitting .199 in full time play as the CF). Here is how the lineups look now:

vs LHP:
freel, lf
drew, rf
saenz, 1b
chip jones, 3b
burke, c
guzman, ss
pierre, cf
cora, 2b
ramon martinez, dh

vs RHP
pierre, cf
freel, lf
drew, rf
mauer, c
burke, dh
pickering, 1b
mueller, 3b
cora, 2b
guzman, ss

I am working on getting a better dh vs LHP and possibly a reverse-lefty SP to match up with maddy and "encourage" opposing managers not to overload their LHP lineups with RHB against him.

Thoughts on those lineups?

[cummings2]

I printed the L/R stats for your team and I am going through them as I would for my team. One thought on the Madman facing RHB.

In my experience (which isn't as rich as MANY SOM players) LHP will face about 70-75% RHB while RHP will face about 55% LHB...I think the Madman is facing about the average of RHB that I usually face when I play LHP. I know that they're batting about .367 against him...I am sure that'll change.

I've been toying with this formula to calculate OAVG. So far it has proved to be fairly accurate (about a 10% margin of error). Will tell you what the OAVG calculates with the Madman in my next post. I usually try it for cheaper SP (1.5M and under), Even though I am currently playing him in two of my teams haven't calculated his projected stats.

I thought is was Javy Lopez but I just couldn't see how the move would work so that's why I was a bit confused with it.

Man o man your new lineups look nasty/filthy good on paper. I am sure they'll do good. I like the way you line up your big guns with plenty of protection behind and OBP/speed in front.

Way to go!

[CHARLESBELL]

Anything you come up with on your analysis would be great. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but the new lineups didn't help much last night as the team was swept by the division leading team. And madman was raked over the coals again, going 3 IPs and giving up 8 runs.

Just going to have to wait this out and hope for better results on the dice.

[cummings2]

Congrats on the sweep. Hopefully things start rolling your way after going through all these numbers things make a bit more sense to me. I haven't played with most of your players so I got a bit familiar with their cards.

A lot the rolls are clearly not falling yur way, for example Madman has not a single HR in his card yet he's already given up 10 in 67 innings, then I ran some numbers on him with this formula I told you I am toying with (taking into account only YOUR home BP ratings and the defense playing behind him vs RHP) his OAVG came up as follows vs L: .232 vs R: .246
As I told you I am still trying to figure this formula out before I trust it so much, so far it has been fairly accurate, usually a bit under the actual season long numbers by about 3% but there are the odd ones that do skip to almost 10% difference to the estimated stats. The defense and visiting BP ratings are numbers that keep throwing things off.

Anyhoo, then I saw Mad's s with you...wapoooh! RHB are hitting about .380 against him.

I know it kinda sucks to put it this way but: sometimes you just have to tip your hat...obviously the hits are coming from the hitters card, at least most of them.

Now as far as the players are concerned I think that Burke was a very good PU as well as Helms. I Guess you're are facing a lot of reverse righties because the numbers are quite low throughout your team BUT you do have a very heavy LHB lineup vs RHP.

I toyed with some lineups, this is what I came up with:

Vs. RHP
1 Pierre
2 Drew
3 Mauer
4 Pickering
5 Burke
6 Guzman
7 Mueller
8 Freel
9 Cora

My logic is that this way Pickering's heavy set of Sac FLies are better used and Burke's Clutch might come into play a bit more often and also lowering the number of times that Mauer's neg $ comes into play. I'm not too thrilled about Guzman's 6th slot. But after looking ar Mueller's card I think it's best to find a way to get to Mueller w/o the clutch coming into play other than that if you look at his card w/o the $ hits he is actually left with only two pure hits most likely doubles but only TWO, the other ones are BP singles or hits with less than 50% chance of coming up as hits. At least Guzman has 4 pure hits. Yes he has the DPs and he doesn't walk...if we are worried about Mueller's neg $ it means there are two outs so Guzman's DP damage is minimized and Mueller can start the next inning when he has a higher chance of getting a hit and his OBP might be useful. Another way of working Mueller is to hit him 2nd or third to use his OBP but then we'd lose Pickering's Fly Bs, Mauers neg $ comes into play, and we risk getting to Burke w/o clutch coming into play...hmmmm Anyway, then Cora and Freel start the turn to the top.

VS LHP

1 Freel
2 Helms
3 Drew
4 Saenz
5 Burke
6 Guzman
7 Ch. Jones
8 Pierre
9 Cora

Similar thinking came into play with this lineup. Chipper is different than Mueller, I don't think it's the neg$ that is the problem but the heavy dose of BPHR and PNC are a funky combo.

But given the oooooofensive display you've been putting up I think you should just let it roll the way you've set it up...obvously you can't argue with two sweeparoos, your Lineups are clearly working fine.

Hopefully the good times keep rolling!!!

[CHARLESBELL]

Thanks, nothing like a 6 game winning streak to change the mood. And madman had a good outing last night too. :D

It's still too early though to know if this is a temporary thing or not.

I'm truly baffled by the dismal performances from the platoon of mueller (.161 BA vs RHP) and cjones (.206 BA vs LHP) so I'll have to look at your data more closely. Don't want to mess with the lineups again just yet though.

I'll keep my fingers crossed and see if this team can come back from 16 games under .500.