The SS to win with....

[sphilipp8]

2 Championships - 2 elites - Yount and Trammell. Actually picked up the 1990 Trammell on waivers. He played 115 games for me.

[Outta Leftfield]

5 championship teams:

1 Ozzie
1 Ripken
1 Trammell
1 Fernandez
1 ULW/Guillen

so,
A) 4
B) 0
C) 0
D) 1

6 95-win teams with no championship
4 Trammell
1 Ripken
1 Fernandez

so,
A) 6
no B, C, or D

Overall, that would give me 10 out of my 11 top teams with premium SS, with 5 Trammell, 2 Ripkens, 2 Fernandez and 1 Ozzie

[Hakmusic]

Would love to hear from some more managers, especially top ranked managers who have a bunch of championships before I start summing things up. I'd like to see if my theory is valid.

[YountFan]

Concepcion
Ozzie
Griffin
Griffin/UL Washington platoon - twice
Schofield
Yount

Other on 95+ win teams
Ozzie
Fletcher/UL Washington platoon
Yount
Ozzie (60m)

wow Ozzie is a winner

[quote:a6de63ee21]Overall, that would give me 10 out of my 11 top teams with premium SS, with 5 Trammell, 2 Ripkens, 2 Fernandez and 1 Ozzie[/quote:a6de63ee21]That is because the drop off after the top few is big, so if you cannot get them...go cheap!

[AdamKatz]

championship:

Oquendo

Team in finals:

Ripken

Lost Finals:

Oquendo
Templeton
Smalley

Lost Semi-Finals:

Oquendo
Trammel
Ripken

Missed Playoffs:

Guillen
Uribe
Larkin
Smalley

That does not seem entirely helpful but maybe .75 SS aren't that good after all (although I usually dont have a .75 SS unless my other SS reveals a bad card, which is a bad place to be in to begin with)..

[AdamKatz]

5 Champions:

Dejesus/Washington platoon
Concepcion
Yount
2 Larkins

95 Wins:

Dejesus
Concepcion
Ripken
Uribe (107 wins!)

Under 85 wins:

Yount
Larkin
Templeton
Ozzie
Ripken

Well, I am the aforementioned manager who started this discussion with Hak and it is the teams that I have had do badly that are the reason for my argument.

I usually play in power parks and my favorite SS right now is Smalley. I have played Yount and Ripken several times and have first picked Yount in live drafts and would trade Smalley for Ripken and Ripken for Yount in a second because I know I am "supposed" to, but the truth is I am not sure that is right. Yount is supposedly the holy grail of players but lets face it -for close to 8 million dollars you are, at best, getting the offense of a 5.5-6million dollar 1B or Corner OF. Sure you are geting great defense at SS, but that is alot of cash. How many "Big Dogs" can you afford on a team?

Here is the big problem I have encountered. You take Yount and you realize you have his "bad" year (unfortunately this has been the case for me more than 20% of the time I have had Yount-and his 4R year-which I have had 2 other times-is pretty anemic against lefties). You go to drop him and realize that there is nothing available anywhere close to Yount's .788 OPS year and you would lose a million dollars dropping Yount to the 80%/90% rule. Besides, what would you spend the extra cash on anyway? Hopefully most of your other positions are relatively set.

If you shoot for a top 1B or corner OF and get his bad year, you can drop him and hunt for a cheaper guy who can do real well. you can recover from a bad card reveal for a 1B or OF. If you get Yount's bad year, you are, in some way, stuck paying close to 8 million for a guy with a .788 OPS. That is a really deep hole to dig yourself out of. And even, if you get a good year, hes only producing as well as an avg. Rice or Parker or Hrbk even.

I used to not draft 1Bs because here are always good 1Bs available but the fact is every dollar you spend on a 1B, ofense wise, feels like 2 dollars at any other position (or 5 dollars at SS or 2B)

[Outta Leftfield]

A question I think we face is the problem of the self-fullfilling prophecy. A manager's top win teams and championship teams may reflect his style of picking SS's as much as anything else. I pretty much always try to get a premium SS, so it's not surprising that 10 out of 11 of my top teams have had premium SS. On the other hand, YF likes cheap SS if he doesn't get Yount, so it's not surprising that most of his top teams feature either Yount or a cheapie or cheapie platoon.

I'm not sure there's a demonstrable advantage either way--though of course, I still like my approach and use it most of the time. And there does seem to be a lot of success, above, with the premium SS's. There's no doubt in my mind that that approach can and does work for managers who favor it.

I do like Smalley though, and have used him on occasion, either when I missed the premium guy I wanted or, once, in a sub 4M league. Smalley and UL Washington were offensively outstanding as a SS platoon for a sub 4M team that made the playoffs. And the team with The UL Wash/Guillen platoon above was one of my best ever.

One question that might be interesting is--if it were down to Smalley or Burleson, who would you take--the bat or the glove??

[Hakmusic]

While I understand Adam's contention that you can do really bad with a premiere SS, and nothing in this exercise disputes that, it was the argument that a Smalley, Franco, or even Hojo at SS was a great bargain because the hitting can overcome the defense.

My thought was that you can be misled because teams could do pretty well with Smalley, etc, at SS, but to win a Championship, or be a "great" team, you had to have a 1 or 2 at SS. Not necessarily a "premiere" SS, but a 1 or a 2. I further agree with Yountfan to an extent, with the "if you can't have Yount, go cheap." I agree with it to an extent because he advocates Smalley as part of that, and I don't. To me go cheap means Concepcion or one of the under $1 million 2 guys (DeJesus, Uribe, etc.)

So my hypothesis was that to have a good team, a good hitting 3 def SS could be fine, but to have a great team, 1 was best, a midpriced 2 was next, an premiere 2 (Ripkin/Larkin) or a really cheap 2 (under $1 mil) would be even, and that a 3 of any type would be last.

I think the numbers so far, and this quick poll is far from conclusive, somewhat bare that out. Smith, Yount, Trammell, and Fernandez, all 1's, are the top 4. Smith is actually outpacing Yount, and both are far ahead of Trammell and Fernandez. While Concepcion is right up there, Ripken and Larkin did a lot better than I expected. I thought, given the same D, their offense didn't justify the price, and it would be hard to win a championship with them because of what you would have to give up more elsewhere. I think the under $1 million guys made a good showing, even though none of them in particular has won a lot, as a group, there are a lot of great teams with them. There are more championships with Smalley than I expected to see, but as a whole, the 3 defense group, didn't fare well (no Franco at all)

About 60% of the "great" and championship teams had a 1 at SS, about 34% had a 2, and only 6% had a 3.

Now it can certainly be argued that this is because so few teams play a 3 at SS, so the sample is biased, but I would argue that while there are far fewer teams that play a 3 at SS than a 2, I've seen a lot of teams with 3's, so its not as though they aren't out there.

so, nothing conclusive from this, other than after Yount and Smith it gets muddy.

Here are the numbers:

18 smith
16 yount
9 trammell
8 fernandez
7 Ripken
6 Concep
5 Larkin
4 Burleson
4 Smalley
2.5 Dejesus
2 Guillen
2 Uribe
2 Griffin
2 washington
1 Templeton
1 Oquendo
1 Owen
1 schofield
0.5 Fletcher

[AdamKatz]

For the record I Never said that HoJO was a good idea at SS. I dont even like Franco. In a power park, I like Smalley alot. his numbers for the price are just that good. I would prefer the under 1.00 "2" SS over any other "3" SS. Ive just been drafting Smalley recently without even trying to go for a premier SS so I can spend the money at other positions.

[Hakmusic]

>>
One question that might be interesting is--if it were down to Smalley or Burleson, who would you take--the bat or the glove??
<<

I personally woudn't take either of them, I'd much rather have Concepcion, better stick then Burleson, better glove then Smalley. If he wasn't available, I'd go to any one of the under $1 million/2 defense guys before I'd go with either of these two.

that's me.

By the way, One of the things I think is interesting about this is that I don't think that you could do this with any other position. I don't think there is another position that could come close to having the top two guys represent over 1/3 of the "great" teams, and the top 4 represent 55%.