Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

After having wrapped up my division in the regular season, is it wiser to sit some injury-prone players or to go for the #1 overall seed of the league? That is the question and here are the particulars: I am currently the #2 seed and only 1 game back of the #1 seed of the league with 6 games to play, but would like to rest Choo (inj 4) and my catcher Baker (inj 2) as well as some other low AB players. I would hate to lose them for the next level and like my chances against the all 3 playoff bound teams. While homefield advantage would be nice throughout, is it worth the risks?

What are the general guidelines when in this spot?

MightyQ

Tough decision. Having home field is definitively an advantage, not only because of the stadium, but also because the engine gets a slight edge to the hometeam.

But you should also consider how your team will fare against the wild-card. Do you prefer to play the wild-card team or the other divisional team? This last option should settle the issue in one way or the other way.

you should also check which team holds the face to face edge. Are you really half a game back, or one game and a half back.

Thanks for the input Marcus, I really appreciate it. There is certainly a lot to consider when taking into account our head to head matchups and while I would love homefield advantage throughout I am guarenteed the #2 spot and homefield in the first round. This is one of those situations that I am kind of glad to be in, rather than on the outside looking in. As of now I am going to sit my injury prone players and hopefully stay healthy for the playoffs. I have seen teams that have lost valuable pieces of their team due to injury down the stretch and fall in the playoffs. I will keep you up to date on the happenings.

MightyQ

Good. I do the same usually starting game 153, depending on how things developed.

Well after resting my players, I got the #2 seed overall, however, I am paired up against the wildcard team and not the other divisional winner. I have checked the other leauges that I have been in and this seems out of the ordinary. Granted the wildcard team had a better record than the divisonal winner, but are they, the wildcare team, not considered the #4 seed? Has HAL done this sort of thing before?

Mighty

yeah, i believe it's a new rule of recent implementation.

It is to prevent playoffs teams from facing division rivals in the first round.