any advice appreciated

[MIKEHROMOWYK]

hi guys,1st team i've done here. currently 6-9 pending tonights results, would appreciate any advice anyone has to improve my team. thanks.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=21150

[goredsox33]

First thing I would do would be to gfet rid of the 2 non - SP*'s you have and go with a 4 man rotation. Then I would use some money to revamp the bullpen a little bit.

[visick]

Strat is very different than fantasy baseball.

You need to spend the full amount of $ on 24 guys. Or 25/26 if you're gonna platoon.

Pitching wise:
Webb, Haren and Santana are a solid 1-2-3 start to your staff. Buerhle is terrible this season, as is Hennessey. Is O'Connor available? Either grab another *SP or 2 other SP's to fill in that 4th. spot. If you grab another *SP, you'll need a $.50 SP to meet the Strat requirements. Bury him on the bench so that he never pitches.

RP:
I like Wickman, but not in your park. He's more of a hitting park closer. However, don't dump him. Neshak is brutal on righties, but sucks vs. LH's. Jenks is OK ONLY if he sees lefties. Have them avoid their bad side.

Villareal is a good innings eater in your park, but in a pitching park you really don't need an innings eater. Bray is terrible. Capellan is a favorite for me.

Hitting wise:
I'm not sure what you are doing with so many hitters.

I'd go with Loney, Polanco, Furcal and Lowell. You'll need a good back up for Polanco though.

Chavez in LF, Jones in CF (not a good choice here for your park) and Freel in RF.

Your catching situation is terrible. You need help here.

In pitching parks, look for guys with lotsa hits on their cards. High BA guys. Guys who hit 2B's. Guys with lots of #'s on their cards will not do well here. You will however need a good slugger or 2 to move guys around the bases.

[Stoney18]

Redsox & Socal are correct. SOM is all about how you spend your $$.

Since you have 4 *SP then you don't need Hennessy. Garza fills your required 5th SP spot and it's good that he has an R rating and you can use him for mop up. In RFK you won't need as deep of a bullpen and can drop one.

Nomar is a waste of $4.5 millon if you are only platooning him against lefties. Loney is okay versus lefties and usually your seeing a smaller % of them. Unless a player has a very large split left versus right I don't like to platoon much. If I do it's with cheaper players.

Here's a thread that helped me quite a bit when I started with SOM.
[url]http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=9842[/url]


One key thing is not to get too drop happy. You lose salary each time and it's hard to compete with a $70M salary against $80M. Which brings up Socal's other point. Spend every $$ you have. Get the best players you can in your starting lineup.

Good luck.

[MIKEHROMOWYK]

thanks for the advice, o'connor and capellan are both taken, but i was thinking of using the money from releasing nomar and buehrle on a c? what do you guys think. martinez,martin and barrett are all available

[LA Bear]

C = McCann

He's a stud in a pitcher BP

[MIKEHROMOWYK]

mccann is gone,any other good c's

[LA Bear]

If playing where runs will be stingy, I'd prefer a catcher defensively that does not help get guys to 2B. Of the 3 offered, only Martin would be a match for me.

The next thing to look for is chances to deliver a hit...for Martin it's about 25 chances per side. Is the a better value on the noard without a + arm. Someone like Redmond would be a good fit IMO if you'll see plenty of LHPs...that's why I like McCann so much as he's a lefty....

[MIKEHROMOWYK]

thanks aray, i took most of your advice. i got a few loose ends i wanna get rid of (prado,molina) but i think my team now is a lot better then it was on day 1.