Team assessment - bad start or bad team?

[CHARLESBELL]

This is my third 2007 team, but my first in a hitter's park. I'm only 24 games in but a limp offense and the near complete rout of my LH hitting has me worried enough to ask for advice on whether this is just an anomaly or if this team has serious problems. Ryan Howard is doing fine, but teahan, duncan, and edmonds are making mendoza (as in mendoza line) look good at the plate (abreu was just as bad but shows some recent improvement). And they are all seeing plenty of RH pitching.

Other div parks are cell, jacobs, and dolphins.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=4547

It's a vet league so those guys are probably just out managing me. :-)

Here's my current lineups:

RHP
abreu
german
howard
thames
teahan
duncan
lieberthal
edmonds
gonzalez

LHP
arbreu
german
howard
ross
byrnes
teahan
thames
lieberthal
gonzalez

[durantjerry]

Your offense is underperforming and it has to crank on all cylinders to carry a weak defense and a weak pitching staff. I think this year either your pitching has to be decent or your defense has to be good(at least up the middle) to do well in a hitting park, so even if your offense is up to par I think you will have trouble getting much over .500. Your defense is OK up the middle, but pretty weak in the corners, making it questionable overall. This would be especially true in a vet league IMO.

[Detroit-Tigers]

This looks like the druid class before the last buff :)- a total mess! Actually your team looks ok, but you have a lot of BPHRs in your SPs. I know it is difficult this year, but can you do any better?

Was A Gonz hurt for a long time? Or are you benching $3.40M?

Otherwise I like what I see- I would personally try for a little more LH power, but looks ok.

[CHARLESBELL]

Thanks, guys. I know I'm straining the defense here, and the 21 errors in 24 games is telling. Gonzo was my attempt to plug that hole partly, but yes, DT, he went down for 15 games right out of the starting gate. Defense may be my downfall, but I was betting that the offense would overcome it.

This was a live draft league and the pitching is pretty picked over. I had to overpay to get a good setup (league) as a result and to try and compensate, but if league and carrasco and duscherer can get enough innings I hoped it would mitigate the issues with the starting staff. So far they are performing. I'll dig through the FA again to see what's out there, but I think this is about as good as I can get it.

On another lefty bat, that would give me 6 in the lineup vs RHP. My best bet there would probably be to see if someone wanted Thames power and that might let me upgrade my corner OF defense as well. But div opponents are pretty well stocked with LH SPs and I don't want to weaken my LHP lineup too much - already starting 3 lefties there, even though they hit lefties pretty well. Really think I should go there?

I'm in real trouble, though, if ya'll think that even if the hitting comes around it's not going to be enough to keep this team in the hunt.

Let me see what's available SP wise and see what ya think.

Oh, and DT, of course as soon as they buffed feral druids I went and made my druid moonkin. I'm always the "wrong" kind of druid. ;-)

[CHARLESBELL]

A quick look shows that zduke and mbatista are available, both with better BPHR numbers than say zito and santana but scary in other ways.

Ironically, the cell team just dropped duke and his 8.18 ERA and 2.05 WHIP. Today. He also earlier dropped Lowe, who I lost in the draft and settled for Maddux. I hammered both those guys in the few games where my offense showed up.

PS - What would you think of a thames for swisher deal?

[geekor]

I've had League win 20 and 21 games for me the 2 times I've used him, he's great.

I think one problem is you insistence to go LRLRLR, which is wasting people away in wrong spots of your lineup. If 2 people are near equal, then go ahead and make it LR, but no reason to bad German 2nd vs R for example, when Abreu is much better in the 2 hole and Duncan is a much much better hitter vs R than Thames. Also you team on average is short in pure hits, average less that 24 hits per person. That will stifle your offense in pitchers parks.

I would go:

vsR: German, Abreu, Howard, Duncan, Thames, Edmonds, Tehan, Lieb, AGon
vsL: Abreu, German, Byrnes, Howard, Tehan, Thames, Ross, Lieb, AGon

Vs R it's pretty striaght forward. Vs L, well it's kinda muddled in the middle. The top 3 are easy (Byrnes is your best hitters vs L), but then you have Howard, I guess is a good 4 with his BP Hr's, but then do you go Tehan, who has good tb's but low hr's, or Thames, with good hr's but low tb's? Ross with hsi clutch, Hr's, but not much else is a good #7.

[CHARLESBELL]

Thanks, geekor, will give the lineup changes a chance. I like the way that looks.

[CHARLESBELL]

Ok, the team is 20-25 and the hitting has improved a bit (thanks to the lineup tips), and the errors have dropped as well (8 in the last 21 games) but should I stick it out or make some moves? The team isn't getting any closer to getting out of last place. I can't fix everything, but I did come up with two options addressing the lack of pure hits and the defense.

Option #1 - Release gonzalez, start wilson full time (ss2 vice ss1, but need the cap room). Release Thames, replace with Carlos lee (DH). Release german, replace with carroll (2b-2 vice 3, still has decent OBP), release duncan, replace with church (lf-2 vice 4, lose BA but LF is a hard position to improve on). End result is much improved D, better BA, loss of some HRs.

Option #2 - Gonzo, german and thames still released, but duncan retained. thames released for konerko instead of lee. Overall hitting is better in this option, and konerko improves 1b-4 to 1b-3 on D. That moves howard to DH, but puts duncan in lf (lf-4, e18). I'd get langerhans for late game defense.

FA release cost is currently 10%. Asked for trade input on league mail in case a deal could be made, but if not - Thoughts on the options?

[Roscodog]

bad pitching

[visick]

I'm no expert charlie, but here's my 2 pennies worth...

I think your guys are getting hurt with the 2 pitching parks in your division.

Couple the parks with the [b:020fb64598][size=18:020fb64598][color=red:020fb64598]7[/color:020fb64598][/size:020fb64598][/b:020fb64598] LHSP's that they have and Howard, Teahan, Duncan, Edmonds and Abreu (sort of) are either neutralized or sitting, I presume.

You have only 2 guys with 30+ hit chances. (German/Byrnes)

That might be OK if every park in the division or 3 of the parks in the division were hitting parks, but they are not.

Guys that I would look at and are available are: Diaz, Quinlan, Del. Young and Endy Chavez.

Option 1 thoughts: You gotta keep German. He's a table setter for you. I'd dump AGonz and keep Wilson. Not crazy about Carlos Lee. I'd dump Duncan for Chavez though...Quinlan can DH in this situation.

Option 2 thoughts: Again, German has to stay. Theriot, who is available, can DH and isn't as BP dependant as the rest of your guys.

Good luck...

visick

BTW- Your pitching isn't helping matters either, but it "should" get better.