First 80's Team- Where Did I Go Wrong?

[Minoso Express]

First 80's, First SOM team. It was enormous fun and halfway through the season I finally got lineup sorted out; adding Guerrero, tweaking the order and platooning properly helped some but obviously not enough. First in team pitching (3.93 ERA; 1.30 WHIP; 633 ERs allowed) and dead last in team hitting (720 runs scored, stone-cold last in HRs and RBIs but 3rd in BA and 7th in OBP). So with this team, what could I have done to do better? Any and all comments are appreciated so I hopefully don't make same mistakes with my next 80s team.

(Outta Leftfield-- sorry you lost in the playoffs. I was rooting for you to go all the way.)

Thanks, guys.

[Minoso Express]

Would help to post the link. Here goes:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=64939

[seanreflex]

It looks like for your first ever team, you showed alot of patience -- not too many moves through the course of the season. Adding Guerrero was huge.

Obviously, if you were dead last in hitting, it had alot to do with your ver low SLG number. You need some hitters in Dodger that will produce some SLG and drive in some runners, like Guerrero did over the last 100 games for you.

You need 3 or 4 solid SLG guys in your lineup. guys that have alot of natural HR power (non # HR) on their cards are good here -- guys like Glenn Davis come to mind. 80's nation should be able to chirp in on who else has these kinds of good ower #'s. Canseco and Tartabull probably also fit that category, though they have their own drawbacks (injury for Danny, poor fielding for both).

130 errors isn't all that great -- where did you finish in the league in fielding? Strong SS and 2B up the middle to go with Kirby in CF may have helped.

All in all a pretty darn good 1st season. Join one of the many theme leagues you'll see on the boards here. You'll have a lot of fun. There's a great group of managers outhere in 80's land.

Good luck,

Sean

[seanreflex]

It looks like for your first ever team, you showed alot of patience -- not too many moves through the course of the season. Adding Guerrero was huge.

Obviously, if you were dead last in hitting, it had alot to do with your ver low SLG number. You need some hitters in Dodger that will produce some SLG and drive in some runners, like Guerrero did over the last 100 games for you.

You need 3 or 4 solid SLG guys in your lineup. guys that have alot of natural HR power (non # HR) on their cards are good here -- guys like Glenn Davis come to mind. 80's nation should be able to chirp in on who else has these kinds of good ower #'s. Canseco and Tartabull probably also fit that category, though they have their own drawbacks (injury for Danny, poor fielding for both).

130 errors isn't all that great -- where did you finish in the league in fielding? Strong SS and 2B up the middle to go with Kirby in CF may have helped.

All in all a pretty darn good 1st season. Join one of the many theme leagues you'll see on the boards here. You'll have a lot of fun. There's a great group of managers outhere in 80's land.

Good luck,

Sean

[bjs73]

[quote:22da056384]So with this team, what could I have done to do better? Any and all comments are appreciated so I hopefully don't make same mistakes with my next 80s team.[/quote:22da056384]

I've built teams like this that have won championships for me. I like the strong pitching squads myself. Sean pointed out that a little more slugging in your lineup could have done you some good and that is true. However, when the slugging isn't there you've got to compensate in other ways.

Teams like yours need a good 1-2 punch in the bullpen. You are going to be faced with many 1 run games and your team will need to win these affairs to be successful. Having a bullpen closer that is super reliable is the key. (Not to mention a solid setup guy as well.) While your starters had pretty good years, your bullpen gave you 13 losses. And that only accounts for the guys you finished the year with. It looks like you made some moves on relievers though? Perhaps, it was a reliever that accounts for 15 of the team saves that I can't see? Who did you drop and why?

Irregardless, the bullpen saved games for you 37 out of 80 times making it a clean 46% where they sealed the deal for you. You need at least a 50% rate in my opinion with a team that doesn't score a lot of runs.

Here are some of examples of some of my low slugging teams that have been successful for me:

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=12010[/url]

This was my very first TSN team. They scored 738 runs and gave up 635 ER. Two good starters, 1 very good S/R, 3 very reliable bullpen guys. Eck was the star for me here. Couldn't have done it without him.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=30936[/url]

This team had better slugging than the previous one. The SP was very solid and having Gossage post 53 saves was the key. It lacked a good setup crew but the starters compensated mostly for that.

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=52279[/url]

This team had serviceable starters but an awesome 1-2 punch in the bullpen. The team didn't post many high scoring games so I heavily relied on the bullpen to seal the deal for me. Sutter's 60 saves is the current 80's record.

All three teams won a championship for me. The last team had a very meek .389 Slugging too. As far as I know, it could quite possibly be the lowest slugging championship team ever so far in the 80's game?

Take a peek and tell me what you think.

[Minoso Express]

... and many thanks for your thoughtful analysis.

Sean, I wound up with a .978 fielding percentage. Two teams had worse percentages, there was one other team at .978 (that team made the playoffs), a group of five at .980 and the rest ranged up to .985 or so. Gary Templeton singlehandedly cost me (he made 28 alone) in this area. But the options I had were worse and through most of the season he was very reliable leading off against lefties, so...

Both you and bjs very cogently laid out the case for better SLG., albeit coming at it from different perspectives. Thank you for that. Also, I think I will stay away from Dodger Stadium next time. I have a very strong bias for great/good pitching teams in general and one of the things that bjs's teams illustrate is that team construction in conjunction with stadium is key. Well, we all think we know that but... in my case, I could have opted for a better fit with all my doubles and singles hitters than Dodger's and still have a solid pitching park.

bjs also had at least two guys on each of those teams who had brilliant OBP, usually the 1-2 guys-- again, something I did not have or especially try to have on my first team. I had some decent OBP but not great OBP. (Or if there was great OBP it was one-sided and the platooning didn't quite fit or work.)

As for my bullpen, you're both dead right. I didn't draft for a stud closer and it hurt me all season. Those 15 saves you don't see on the final stat line all came from cheap arms I went through for most of the season, looking for one who would be a keeper. So those were distributed, 3 or 4 each, amongst a number of unspectacular arms. Lopez had brilliant stretches as a setup guy, then would tank in 5 consecutive appearances. Ditto Moore and Brusstar. It wasn't until I picked up Knepper that there was more of an even keel setting up. But by then, it was too late.

bjs, let me ask you another question if I may. In your experience of building this kind of team, is there a particular park you think best suits?

Thanks again, both of you, for your terrific posts.

[Panzer ace]

You had some very expensive platoon players. This left you very little cash for the rest of the line up. You spent little and got little production from 2b, SS, 3B and RF. You may want to go cheaper when you platoon and upgrade the other positions.

[AdamKatz]

I used to think Templeton was a good card. Good avg and range for cost. But, his OBP is no good and he makes alot of errors, as you learned. Also, one of his 2 above .300 years is a 3L. I think you are better off, and I have seen more people play, most of the .75 2 range SS and spend the money elsewhere. Truth is, I think there are only 9 SSs better than the .75 SSs and one is a 2B (Oquendo). (I don't like Bowa either and I am undecided on Gagne-good SLG, bad OBP)

As for power in Dodgers, Id love to here more of the experienced player's opinions on sluggers there. It strikes me that you would be over-paying for most sluggers. I think most sluggers have a about 50% BPHRs (although I have done no statistical analysis). I think you want to play sluggers from Oakland and LA where there BPHRs are not intended to deliver alot of HRs. McGuire and Canseco, for example, always have high HR totals.

That being said, I am new to this too, and this may be the most ill-informed message ever posted.

[AdamKatz]

As to what stadium to put this team-it depends on exactly what you want to do. There are two types of teams that are very similar. One, an extremely strong pitching team with hitters that concentrate on OBP. The other is a very good pitching team with hitters that concentrate on AVG and OBP. (I am sure that the true veterans on this site have figured out how to get an amazing pitching team with hitters that hit for average and power and obp and can field-but as for me, I haven't figured out a way to afford the superstud pitchers on the same team as Pucket, Guerrero and Hernandez). The first type of team goes best in Oakland I think. Royals goes best for the second type of team. The Astrodome and Dodgers are also popular. Your team looks more like the second type, which is usually better, in my opinion, if you work at, or get lucky at, finding an SP in a good year, as you did with Witt. Hoyt, in particular I love in Royals with the 1-2 BPHR. Hoyt gives up alot of BPHRs (that is why he is so cheap) but has a great WHIP. He is still good at Dodgers, but will give up more than 50% less HRs in home games at Royals.

[Minoso Express]

Kevin, the autodraft threw me Oquendo and I stuck with him and stuck with him and ... nothing. No hit, no nothing. Shuffled him around in the batting order. Still nothing. So by the time I dipped into the FA pool, Templeton was the best available option. I'm still unsure of who I should go for in my next 80's game, given that I'll probably go for super stud SPs first so Trammell and those guys won't be available to me. Thanks for the tips on which power hitters suit a park like Dodgers in SOM. I have so much to learn.

Adam, you've sold me on Royals for my next experiment. I've been watching the boards and quite a few experienced managers like Royals for the reasons you outline. Sounds like a great fit for the kinds of teams, in all likelihood, I'll continue to build.