03 team, Shea, all lefties, does it stand a chance?

[gross54]

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2003/team/team_other.html?user_id=135443

giveing a all lefty team a whirl..Do I have a chance to be good or will I go down in flames.

Any advice is more than welcome.....

[Coffeeholic]

Mornin' gross54!

You've chosen one of my favorite themes in all the seasons of SOM.

I like quite a few of the players you've chosen, but do have a few suggestions:

[b:9369348016]PITCHING:[/b:9369348016]

I'm not crazy about your pitching, esp the starters.

The 2003 game is one in which there are a number of cheap match-up SP's which are great values. You already have 2 of them in Lima and Rogers. If I read the FA pool correctly, there are still a few others which are available: Fossum; Tejera or Ford; Reynolds or Lidle. One of my favorite approaches to 2003 is to combine 1 superb SP* (Hudson looks like he's still available) with a bunch of cheap match-up SP's, and a very strong bullpen. Marte is just perfect for Shea as your set-up and closer, but I think that you'd be better served with Cormier rather than Wagner as Cormier will pitch more innings for you than Wagner. One more dominant RP would finish your bullpen. Normally I'd look for Soriano or Donnelly, but since neither seems available at this time, Schoenweiss looks to be the best alternative. So your pitching staff would look somethink like this: Hudson; Lima; Rogers; Fossum; Reynolds or Lidle;Tejera or Ford; Cormier; Marte; Schoenweiss. If you can work a trade to add Darren Oliver; Kirk Saarloos and/or Dustin Hermanson to the mix they would be excellent additions to you cheap match-up options, and of course if an upgrade of Schoenweiss presents itself, that would be nice also.

[b:9369348016]LINE-UP:[/b:9369348016]

I believe the above suggested changes in your pitching staff would free up some salary to make a few improvements in your line-up: I really like Helton; Palmeiro; Edmonds; Abreu and Chavez. Going all lefty is very risky however, as you present your opponents with easy pitching match-ups (like Fossum or Hitchcock). A nice rule of thumb for lefty (or righty) dominant parks is: 5 LH hitters (power types); 3 RH hitters (OBP types); and 1 SH/Platoon with power from the left side/OB from the right side. Looking at the options available in the FA pool, I'd recommend the following: Swap Young for Davannon. Davanon is a great value, never goes unused, has better "D" in LF (try to avoid 4's in the field if you can), and is a great option either at the top of your order or lower down; Swap AGonz for Cabrerra... Cabrerra's not a super value, but in Shea he's a pretty good fit and he never get's injured. Swap Cora for Hairston. Hairston's a great fit in Shea, but is a high injury risk, so you need to get a decent back-up (Neifi Perez). Finally, Swap AJPierzinski for one of the OB RH catcher's still available, first choice being Kendall if you can afford him, second choice being Phillips.

Hope this gives you some things to think about?

Best of Luck!

[durantjerry]

Here are a couple of championship 2003 Shea teams. I don't remember who was good, but these may help. Both led their leagues in RS.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2003/team/team_other.html?user_id=40749[/url]


[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2003/team/team_other.html?user_id=43261[/url]

[doctrcpa]

Here is a link to a 2003 theme team that I had in Shea that was all LH. Any kind of success from Affeldt and I would have made the playoffs!

I think Shea in 2003 was my favorite year park combo.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2003/team/team_other.html?user_id=45116

I felt that Zito and Garret Anderson were musts for me in that park.

[Coffeeholic]

Mornin' Gross... see you've gone with many of my suggestions. I think you're looking pretty good!

Looks like Darren Oliver is now available, he's an excellent option for you... maybe you could swap either Ford or Tejera for him (the thinking here is that both Ford and Tejera are reverse LH'ers, while Oliver is more of a straight-up lefty and quite effective in hitters parks. Oliver paired with either Ford or Tejera will give you more options when trying to match-up vs. your opponents line-ups) My fav is Tejera, but you should look at your opponents line-ups/satdiums to determin which you'd like to keep?

I still like DaVannon on this team, I think that if you swapped Young for Davannon, that'd allow you to upgrade Castro to Rollins at SS?

A few salary efficiency notes for you to consider:

1) Kendall is a 600+ plate appearance catcher (max 3 game injury), so you could save a few $ by downgrading Wilson to a $.50 cent back-up catcher (saves $.16 mil). Barajas might be a nice option here, as his "D" is very good and you could use him as a late inning defensive replacement for Kendall.

2) Palmeiro, your DH, can double as your back-up 1Bman, so don't worry about this.

3) Instead of Hinske, find a $.50 cent back-up at 3B (saves $.23mil). Hansen still out there (he also plays 1B and is LH'ed to boot)?

4) If you go with Rollins, he is a 680+ plate appearance player, meaning his maximum injury potential is "remainder of the game", so this is a position where you would not have to worry about a back-up. I think that with the maney saved on Hinske and Wilson, you could swap Izturis for a nice back-up 2Bman (maybe Carroll) to cover for Hairston when he goes down?

One last note: I see that Jeepdriver has Donnelly. He'd be great to have on your pitching staff. Jeep's not likely to part with Donnelly, but you could try offering Kendall and Schoenweiss for Donnelly and AJP, just on the off chance that Jeep really needs a top of the order guy. If he accepted, you could then swap out AJP for Phillips (or keep AJP if you so desire).

This team should be a lot of fun for you to play. The idea is to really maximize your bullpen (maybe 200 IP's from each of your 3 RP's). Hudson will pitch deep into the game every 4 days, thus allowing your RP's some rest. You'll really have to study your "per game starters so that you can best use your cheap match-up guys. Most of the time these cheap SP's will be on "Quick hook", but every so often the match-up will be so favorable that you can remove this restriction. Keep in mind that you're not going to get perfect match-ups every single time you throw one of these cheap SP's out there, but through judicious use of the "per game starter" option, you should get pretty decent usage from these guys.

I think that if you can upgrade Schoenweiss to someone like Donelly or Dotel or Soriano (probably doing so at the expense of downgrading Kendall to Phillips), that you could easily win 95-100 games with this team!

[gross54]

As the season nears, I have made many changes. Thanks Coffee

The one move that I just couldnt do was to drop Young. I did have DaVannon on the team for a little while, But I just couldnt drop Young. My last 03 team in Vet Young did 290 40hr 380OBA IN kaufmen he put up a nice 314 34 394 So I have some love for him...

My per game pitchers are set.

I am ready


Thanks