Ultimate Strat League Chat

[Jeepdriver]

Well my guys have finally gotten things together and have played in the past week like I thought they should be playing. Offense now 1st in runs scored, and the intangibles seem to be falling into place.

I "don't think" I would have made any moves, but will say Jet's ratings and comments about my team (offensive especially) made me stick it out with the bunch I had. In retrospect I think I was getting a lot of bad rolls and bad hops the first few weeks. So thanks Joe. :D

Still a long ways to go though, we've still played less than 100 games. Plus, myDivision looks to be the strongest Division, so it's going to be a battle the whole way. Cool. 8-)

[joethejet]

Jeep,

Glad to be of service. :roll: To be honest that's why I hesitate to post things some times. I'd rather see guys start cutting. It inevitably hurts most teams.

Wish I could say the same about our team. It's been a combination of bad luck and bad performance. It's hard to believe that we can't win two from a horrible Yeahs team, but there it is last night, two losses. :( :?

Carl,

I hear you, your team and our team are the two under performers so far. You're even farther behind than I am, but at least you're in a tough division. Wish I could say that. The Wings are good, but the other two teams are pretty bad ratings-wise.

Update actuals posted below. i didn't rebalance for pitching usage or moves.

Some surprises remain. The Central is way over performing their ratings (except for Jeep) due to their ability to win close games. JPavs pitching (for reasons we discussed ad nauseum) continues to over perform the ratings. Team too for the same reason.

Offense is pretty close cept for us and Carl (Monsters) Saints are scoring more than expected.

Pitching Us and Carl are again, stinking it up. Intersting that the Saints D is under, but their O must be scoring just enough. Hell Yeahs HORRIBLE D isn't costing them, yet.

I would expect that the Monsters will get back into the WC race, and that Jeep will run away with the Central. JPav has too big a lead to get caught, but I think his record will come back to the pack. Pale Hose will make a run for the WC, but don't know if their pitching alone can carry them home.

In the West, the Wings will either win the division or be in the WC race. We're playing so poorly that I don't know that we can catch them or not or get in the WC race. Hopefully we can find a way to beat the bottom two teams in our division and gain ground that way. <sigh> We've smoked the BoSox, but have trouble with the Yeahs and the wings.

[code:1:30bf0ac265]
Team Ov Ovrl Rtg Rec Dif
HoDaddy 2067 5 1 4 W
25Bucks 2417 1 2 -1 C
BufWing 2299 4 2 2 E
FCoZips 1980 8 3 5 C
RoadRun 2448 1 5 -4 E
Osaints 1818 9 5 4 C
Monster 2389 3 6 -3 W
PalHose 2075 5 6 -1 W
Tornado 2075 5 7 -2 W
ChMusic 916 12 7 5 C
WBoSox 1689 10 9 1 E
HelYeah 1003 11 10 1 E


Team Of O Rtg Run Dif
25Bucks 8160 1 1 0 C
Tornado 8123 1 2 -1 W
HoDaddy 7881 4 2 2 W
WBoSox 7820 5 4 1 E
BufWing 7823 5 5 0 E
RoadRun 7935 3 6 -3 E
Osaints 7673 9 6 3 C
Monster 7913 3 8 -5 W
FCoZips 7744 8 8 0 C
PalHose 7393 11 11 0 W
ChMusic 7334 11 11 0 C
HelYeah 7108 12 12 0 E

Team PF P+F Rtg Run Dif
PalHose 5319 1 1 0 W
HoDaddy 5814 6 1 5 W
BufWing 5525 3 2 1 E
FCoZips 5764 5 4 1 C
HelYeah 6105 10 4 6 E
RoadRun 5487 2 6 -4 E
25Bucks 5743 5 6 -1 C
Tornado 6049 9 7 2 W
Monster 5524 3 9 -6 W
Osaints 5855 7 11 -4 C
WBoSox 6131 11 11 0 E
ChMusic 6418 12 12 0 C
[/code:1:30bf0ac265]

[joethejet]

Wow, we actually won 2 from JPav. Maybe all this complaining is helping out. ;)

Jet

[pkwmati]

Hey, gang

I'm (Canal Fulton Zips) staying in the thick of both the Central Division and Wild Card races but from what I have seen in the discussion threads the consensus seems to be that I should fall by the wayside.

I'd be interested to get a critique of my team. I think my team is reasonably well put together, especially considering my ballpark. And I think my team has underperformed to a degree (I guess we all think that). I've been hit relatively hard with injuries, although I suppose that is not to be unexpected considering I have Mauer, Kaz Matsui and Manny.

Don't worry about me using this info to make moves to improve my team. I lost both Mauer & Kaz for long strecthes recently and looking to grab some type of improvement there was obviously slim pickings on the waiver wire. I'm committed to playing the hand I've got.

Interested in your thoughts and analysis.

Thanks

[Jeepdriver]

Mr. Zip, I'm not very good at analyzing other teams, not even good at analyzing my own, but you have been a very annoying pest and I wish you would go away. J.K, you have been doing very well, I see no reason you won't be in the thick of the race the entire 26 miles.

[JOHNORDILLE]

I am convinced HAL is on drugs. I come back yesterday and see my lineups vs. lefties and righties were totally changed. Somehow HE put Derrick Lee on the bench. He started 2 players in positions they never played before. I had 5 starters injured at one point, when they came back, 2 of them got injured as soon as they got back. These 2 players have been injured several times this year.

Almost all of my offensive players are underpeforming, regardless of what any metrics say. My pitchers are also underperforming for the most part.

WTF was HAL thinking putting Donnie Murphy, an infielder, in left field, with a regular left fielder on the bench? The same thing he was thinking when he put Feliz behind the plate? Or the same thing when he started Utley at first base and had Lee on the bench?

[joethejet]

PM,

Well, it's not like your team is terrible, but you have over performed your rating compare to some other teams (or they have underperformed <shrug>) . It's interesting that your O and D are about where they should be, but you're getting more wins than expected. Some of that is the +5 in one runners, but bottom line is that you have a negative run differential and you're 9 games over. That's a pretty good sign that you're getting just enough to win and the breaks when they count.

Some thoughts about your squad.

Starters:
Hudson is solid, but a bit expensive due to the lack of HRs on his card. Smoltz is also decent enough. The other three are Hard RHP who are going to be dependent on the lineups they face. Decent, but not spectaular. Maybe in this league with fewer LHB they'll be OK.

RPs

Not sure why you're carrying 7. Generally that will take IP from your better pitchers and you're better off upgrading to 5-6 RPs. Saito is great, but for 6.5 mil you've only gotten 55 IP from him. The rest of the guys are worth what you paid for them.

Lineup

It's very injury prone as only Pujols, Cabrera and Lee can avoid 15 gamers and you have 5 guys with 2 injury chances or more. The ratings take this into account so maybe you're avoiding the injuries to some extent.

You're really not very good v RHP, certainly not as good as your record versus them is. And you're very good v LHP.

You have 2 guys who give you almost nothing v RHP (Matsui, Viz) and two who have decent OB, but nothing else (Taveras, Manny). It's even worse when Mauer goes down as you have to play Bard. You *should* be destroying LHP however.

Defensively Omar, Albert and Kaz keep your D rating average and make up for 4's at 3b, LF and RF.

Having some speed helps you some.

In summary, it's a decent team that needs to stay heathy. I would say that your offense has done better than expected v RHP so far.

One guys opinion.

Jet
www.angelfire.com/games5/joethejet

[joethejet]

Spock,

do you have your subs set up on the lineup page? I've not seen Hal be that off. Are you sure you know when guys were injured?

Jet

[JOHNORDILLE]

[quote:92d09bf296="joethejet"]Spock,

do you have your subs set up on the lineup page? I've not seen Hal be that off. Are you sure you know when guys were injured?

Jet[/quote:92d09bf296]
Yes, I really don't have many subs set for positions at all. I get 3 guys a night hurt (maybe more, really), and if Lee were out, he should have gone right back in, but for several games I noticed he didn't start but would enter the game later. My son was born this week, so I didn't notice this until after the fact.

[JOHNORDILLE]

[quote:5f33d83b74="MrSpock29"][quote:5f33d83b74="joethejet"]Spock,

do you have your subs set up on the lineup page? I've not seen Hal be that off. Are you sure you know when guys were injured?

Jet[/quote:5f33d83b74]
Yes, I really don't have many subs set for positions at all. I get 3 guys a night hurt (maybe more, really), and if Lee were out, he should have gone right back in, but for several games I noticed he didn't start but would enter the game later. My son was born this week, so I didn't notice this until after the fact.[/quote:5f33d83b74]
Lee was injured in Game 99 for 3 games. In game 103, it says he subbed for Renteria late in the game (Utley moved from 1st to 2nd, Renteria probably got hurt for the 10th time this year).

No changes were made to my lineups in between, HAL should have reinstated Lee into the starting lineup at 1b automatically.
Instead, he must have changed my lineups as 2 slots were showing as empty, and never put the players back.

If HAL is going to give us this type of effort, he has major flaws that need to be worked out. I know some have said he used to be a lot worse, but it should be so basic to return an injured starter to the lineup. In fact, since the slot was empty for 1b, shouldn't he be able to choose the best available player to fill in anyway?

This is just one example of some of the odd stuff that has been happening. The number of injuries is insane, and it is the same 3 or 4 starters, plus another player here or there.