Griffith Squad - Comments Wanted

[gkhd11a]

Well, Based on what I see I would:
Pick Up Riggs Stephenson for LF you need the OBP and he is better and more balanced than Cleon

Pick Up Geronimo and Walker for a L/R platoon
pitching

For the infield I would go with White/Lansford platoon at 1B or else keep Cepada. If you don't go with White/Lansford then you'd need Charlie Keller in LF to give you a top of the order Lefty bat. Lansford has over .500OBP versus lefties. If you use him marked avoid righties defensive substitution White that can be very effective

2B Evers/ Defensive BU Gallego as late inning replacement. I have tried a lot to use Doyle because of his bat and speed but it never works out too well because of his weakness against lefties and 80 million is too weak to platoon. (In a 100 million league you can use Doran/Doyle effectively)

Chapman at SS - he is vastly better than Peck

3B I would pick up Mathews

C Dempsey or Gibson if you'd like a little more offense

You need lefty pitchers Garcia must go Mantle and Brett will beat you sensless. Need lefty pitching for them. Myself I would cut Camintz and Garcia and pick up Russo, and Lanier(if my choice was more hitting I'd use Hiller) and then use the money saved to either upgrade to the hitting choices or move to pick up a lefty reliever/starter type to put in the bullpen. Other middle value pitchers are Norwood Gibson, Pat Dobson (for Griffith type parks only, Curt Simmons and Doc Crandall.) I kinda like a Cicotte,McClain/Dobson for the teams I need righty and a Russo/Hiller/Simmons as my pitchers for lefties and set the per game starters. Russo or Hiller can swing in for Dobson in bomber parks. I think it is imperative you render Brett and Mantle impotent and with lefty pitchers their value is around 6.5 million for Mantle and 4.5 million for Brett. Combined with Geronimo's and Meusel arms you take thier power away and turn them to station to station hitters. If you'd like to go more this way I'd look at it in more depth but this allows you to arrange your pitching to your oppenent so the felxibility makes up for the wasted $'s

I haven't actually priced this out but I would start moving toward that type of team, this would give you one type of the order lefty hitter (keller or Lansford) Good Even lefty power hitter, a platoon pwer hitter with speed (white, who will do very well at the bomber park in your division, good defense arms in CF and RF.

[OdysseyTigger]

[quote:19fb69806f="F.O.X"]
You seem to want me to upgrade defensively at almost every position but these suggestions would strip me of all my hitting. I had Geronimo in Forbes and he barely hit .200.
[/quote:19fb69806f]

You are right, what was I thinking?

Bad defense, ball park home runs on hitters cards, and no relief pitching - that's how you win in Griffith, yup.

Sorry I tried to help.

[JUMA]

You can lead a horse to water....

[memphisjohn]

FOX,

Listen to hese guys. Doyle's defense is going to kill you. There is a very small margin if error with small ball teams. Your pitching staff, if set up correctly is going to have an ERA around 3.00. Your SP should complete about 1/2 to 2/3 of the games. All 4 should pitch over 300 innings.

Good defense is what makes them effective. I don;t have the stats, but I would bet that Doyle's defense adds 20-30 points in OBP to every batter. That means his OBP needs to be 160-240 points better then whoever you replace him with (assuming the replacement is a 1 at 2B).

I would dump Cepeda. On a small team, you need OBP more than you need HR. I am doing an experiment with a traditional small ball team with the exception of Aaron. He has zero HR in 15 games. Cepeda will be a significant underacheiver with those BR HR's and no walks.

So, improve your D at 2B, get some one liek Ludurus or Hernandez or Judge at 1B. (unfortunately I don;t know how to check free agents in some one else's league - it seems some of the experts know...)

[memphisjohn]

Here's a similar team I had. It started out 80-46, then had injuries and fizzled in the playoffs, getting swept in the finals.

50 HR's total.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg2/team/team_other.html?user_id=56066

[F.O.X]

I had a small team that won 87 games and I was trying to fine tune it a little for my next team. That team had the best pitching in the league and so so hitting so my thinking was to shift a little away from pitching/fielding toward hitting just ever so slightly. That team has a 3.19 ERA

So instead of Alexander, Pfeister, Brown and Cicotte I drafted:

Camintz
Cicotte
Garcia
McLain

A little less pitching.

That team had:

C Sanguiilen
1B Judge
2B Avila
SS Bowa
3B Weaver
Cf Geronimo
RF clemente
LF F. Robinson

Team stats were .275/ .388/ .319


We'll see what happens this time. If it doesn't work then I will shift the other way toward better pitching/fielding.

[gkhd11a]

I'm sure you can see the difference in the 2 teams. In the first one you had the 3 top pitchers and an ACE 4th with stud fielders in the outfield. I imagine if you had the same team and replaced Aliva with a better defensive 2nd baseman and Robinson with Meusel you would have won 90 games.

However, this could be a good learning experience and perhaps your strategy will pan out. Certainly few veterans would try your combinations, normally but not always veterans can pick out how a team will do but experiments that you are trying can lead to combinations not usually thought of.

Good Luck

Charlie

[F.O.X]

Just an update...I followed some of the advice here and dropped Meyers for Gibson at catcher.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg2/team/team_other.html?user_id=76446

The team started very slow but rallied and is now 47-37, one game up. I kept Doyle and Cepeda but picked up Henderson and Dropped Crawford (I'm sure you guys will jump all over me for that) but I felt I needed power against lefties. I also upgraded Pagan to Chapman at SS.

[GREGKOESTER]

I'm surprised the team is over .500. But it is hard to knock it if it is winning. Trey, what does the rest of the league look like? Is he in a weak div? Just think where this team would be if O.T.s advice would have been heeded. Probably over the .600 mark. It wouldn't have needed but only a couple of runs to win a game. But hey, it's winning. Good luck. :shock:

[F.O.X]

Here is my division:


http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg2/team/team_other.html?user_id=79011

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg2/team/team_other.html?user_id=79666

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg2/team/team_other.html?user_id=78507