Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I have a Petco team in a division with one Safeco and two Shea's. There is one other Petco team in the league, the rest are hitter's parks or even.

I typically go with four starters with * and a good bullpen. I'm wondering if I should change to a rotation that uses spot starters based on whether I'm in my park or these lefty-weighted parks.

Also, hitting - should I gear up with more lefties than usual?

Any thoughts appreciated.

yes and yes.

even though petco favors LHBs, it is more important in Shea and Safeco to throw Lefty SPs. I would pick up a few less expensive LHP spot starters like Lee, Wolf, Halama depending on how much you can free up in $$$,. Also consider the reverse righyt starter types (Traschel, Eaton). Count how many LHBs the other teams have in line-ups to determne whether reverse lefties might be effective (Lowry types).

On the hitting side, make sure you have 2-3 LHBs who can bat against LHPs (think Casey, Overbay, Kotsay, surhoff (maybe), gload (have a decent back-up) etc.) make sure that they have 'N" power against LHP if possible (but not crucial given that you are in Petco).

Lastly, if possible, since you will most likely face a lot of LHP starters thrown by the safeco/shea teams (check their rosters and count them up), see if you can spring for 1-2 RHBs you MASH/DESTROY LHps (marrero, Quinlan, ordonez) from a hits (not OBP) point of view and who are NOT too dependant on BPHR.

also, look at Willis and Rogers.