2 Petco teams

[cummings2]

OK Canuck, I have some time now so I'll chime in with some initial thoughts and then I'll have time to review lineups and other teams in league to get a better idea of what's going on.

First my usual disclaimer with Petco: My only team there did horribly so I am in no way whatsoever professing to know anything.

Also in re: to Petco the best advise I always give is to read Luckyman's thread in the strategy forum: The importance of ballpark more to it than BPs.

Final disclaimer: In no way do I like to even suggest dropping players, if for whatever reason we mention a player or two in an unfavorable way by no means do I suggest dropping him.

O.K. now.

First thing I did was to just take overall salary figures to see where you stand now in relation to the Wolverines, to my surprise it was the Wolverines that had the lower salary, you lost 8.568 Mil through drops and PUs, in my taste it is a bit high, I usually max my losses at around 2-2.5 Mil...still the team won, so good job rebuilding there. Your current team, the Wildcats has a healthier 77.944 salary so the edge goes Wildcats there.

Now, when it comes to the W-L record of the team a lot of factors outside your team come into play, for example if one team plays in a league full of Coors and Ameriquests the results will be quite different from another duplicate team that is in up against Safecos and Dodger Stadiums. Opposite defenses, managerial tendencies, lineups, bullpens... for that I'd like to go through the team links in more depth but at first sight:

I took some basic team and individual stats to run some numbers: Here the problems start becoming more apparent: The Wolverines had an ERA of 4 and WHIP of 1.29, both a bit high IMO for Petco. I'd aim for an ERA under 4 and a WHIP under 1.20. But the Wildcats have an even higher ERA (4.23) and WHIP (1.31) when I checked the stats and wrote them down your ERA was 4.71 and WHIP 1.38 both waaaay to high for a Petco team. However since then you've gone on a pretty good 12-3 run so: Congrats on that :!: 8)

Why? well for one (to echo Socal) Loretta in 2B is bound to hurt your pitching, Socal is right, every time Loretta's defense is challenged there is a chance he'll let the ball through, make an error or make a great play. There'll be some singles your pitchers let through with the wildcats that with the wolverines' Cora would've caught, but in the stats sheets they just go as hit vs pitcher. In general I think Socal is very much right in his observations. Though Izturis is a defensive improvement on Clayton, Pierre and Loretta are downgrades on Cora and Kotsay. BTW I don't have the defensive comparison charts link handy but I don't think Amezega is THAT much of an improvement over Loretta in 2B, he is a 2 but e24 or something like that. Check the charts if you can between the two of them and Cora and you'll see what socal was refering to.

Now that takes us to the pitching. With the Wolverines you had 28.75 mil allocated as opposed to the Wildcats' 24.44. If you see it from a certain POV, every 10 games:

Wolverines pitch Schilling 3 times, Westbrook 3 times, Eaton and Milton twice, in comparison the Wildcats are sending Halladay, Greinke, Washburn, Capuano and Sabathia twice. I know Schilling was a late addition but between him and Westbrook you had a good chance of winning 6 out of every 10 games. With the Wildcats only Halladay gives you a solid shot, that's a loss from 60% to 20%. I think Greinke and Sabathia are a good fit in Petco...but so are Eaton and Milton so that's a wash. But by having two stronger arms leading your 4 man rotation the Wolverines had the chance of using Very, Very effectively your two big guns in the pen (Gordon and Nathan) whereas the Wildcats' weaker top to bottom rotation will extend Gordon and Rivera to the point where more often they won't be available hence the higher IP count of Sanchez and Riske.

Now one problem I see with Greinke and Capuano is that whereas they have several BPHRs that become moot in Petco they also have some direct hit HRs so that might not be too good to have.

Anyway, onto the offense:

I think the Wolverines had a slightly better source of natural OBP, which I believe helps a ton in Petco. Kotsay, Abreu, Berkman, Thomas & Cora come to mind. BUT your OBPs are somewhat similar .347 for the wolverines vs .343 of the wildcats AND your SLG is higher with the Wildcats .436 vs .391 of the Wolverines so... this poses an interesting question:

How can you have two teams, pitching staff yielding at the moment fairly similar stats:

Wolv vs. WildCs
ERA - 4.00 vs 4.23
WHIP - 1.29 vs 1.31

Offense slightly better in one:

OBP - .347 vs .343
SLG - .391 vs .436

And still have a rough time with the team with the better offense?

All I can see now is that the Wolverines were a fairly efficient team. It's numbers indicate that it should've scored 743 runs, in actuality it scored 740, that's pretty even on efficiency, the Wildcats' on the other hand have a fairly inefficient offense: The stats indicate you should've scored 409 runs whereas you've scored only 375. Thats a differential of -34 runs. When I first gathered your stats 15 games ago your differential was at -25 so the gap is growing.

Keep an eye for what is making the Wildcats' offense a bit clunky, look for high # of DPs, high numbers of caught stealing, bunts, sqeeze plays, Hit and Runs and the likes. In Petco, where runners are at a premium you have to make sure your "productive" outs do not come back to bite you in the tukus. A word related to this: I haven't checked your lineups but if you have a big bat with a B Hit&Run rating behind a good OBPer with a * rating make sure the big bat is not trying to hit and run, I think Rolen and Casey are both Bs.

If you want to paste here your manager tendencies page we'll take a look at it. I'll go through your lineups later to see if I spot something.

However:

You have gone on a pretty good roll lately so I guess it's just best if you keep doing whatever you are doing, you can't argue with a 12-3 run :D 8)

I think my rant has gone on for too long now, will chime in later.

All best of luck.

[1crazycanuk]

Thank you for your indepth help Cummings. I really appreciate it and wish I knew enough about this game to have seen all that myself. My pitching on the Wildcats is not the greatest, I know. I had a good run recently but the pitching could cause me to have a losing streak as well. I may try a drop/add or two in the pitching department and see about trading Loretta/Pierre but I don't think I'll drop them.

thanks for your help as well socal. I like Pierre for his speed, etc. but I realize his defence is a liability. I'll have to figure something out.

[1crazycanuk]

I only had one offer but I didn't really want to take it. So I just dropped Loretta and Pierre for Cora and Hunter. Should be better defensively and I wanted to have some extra money to work on my pitching. I dropped my worst reliever too so I will try to build up my pitching staff now.

I hate dropping players but sometimes you have to. :( We're coming up to the deadline and I didn't do so well against my division at the start of the season so I had to do something. I rebuilt another team (Wolverines) so hopefully I succeed this time as well.

[cummings2]

Hey there Canuck, just saw the moves...you pitchers are bound to swarm you with some sweet lovin' before tonights series.

I understand you reluctance to make changes and I agree with it. If you remember my final disclaimer up there was precisely that...not suggesting drops in any way. Hope all this work on your behalf and that its from here to the playoffs 8)

Will keep checking back.

You've had a pretty amazin' run the last two weeks, here's hopin' its a continuing trend 8)

[1crazycanuk]

LOL thanks Cummings. I'm trying to decide between adding Byrd or Brown as I face many righty hitters in my division. I'm having a hard time deciding which is the better option. What should I look for in deciding which one to take? Byrd is better against righties but he also has more extra base hits on his card and is worse against lefties. I guess I should just gamble and pick one of them eh? I did have to make some changes though...I face RJ and Clemens tonight. :shock:

A word about my lineups now...I have Cora batting second. He's probably not ideal there but there's really nobody else to put there. I have Ford leading off, Cora second, Rolen third, Ramirez fourth and Casey fifth. Maybe my inefficient offence is due to my batting order?

[1crazycanuk]

I'm wondering if I did the wrong thing. Lost 6-1, 3-0 and 7-3 last night (to the best team though and against RJ and Clemens). Hunter did alright but Cora got 2 base hits in 15 at bats. :( Hope he picks it up.

The 7-3 loss was in 16 innings with Rivera pitching 7 and a third innings for the loss. I guess that ain't so bad.

[1crazycanuk]

Yep...I think made the wrong move. :cry:

[cummings2]

I know you've had a couple of tough series...but we'll see. I don't think you'll get eye popping stats from Hunter or Cora, but your ERA will continue to go down. Don't worry...yet.

Will chime in later with some thoughts on your lineups.

Personally though I think it won't be too easy to see in individual hitting stats, your two main moves to help your defense will really help provide some consistency to your pitching. You'll be fine, just two hard luck series.

[1crazycanuk]

Thanks Cummings. You make good sense. It's expected over the course of a season to have some bad streaks. If they help to bring the ERA down then anything can happen I guess.

[1crazycanuk]

Lost two out of three last night to the worst team in the league. I changed my batting order to this:

Lineup vs. LHP
CHANGE THIS LINEUP
1. Ford, Lew (R) LF
2. Tucker, Michael (L) RF
3. Rolen, Scott (R) 3B
4. Ramirez, Manny (R) DH
5. Casey, Sean (L) 1B
6. Estrada, Johnny (S) C
7. Hunter, Torii (R) CF
8. Cora, Alex (L) 2B
9. Izturis, Cesar (S) SS

CHANGE THIS LINEUP
Lineup vs. RHP
CHANGE THIS LINEUP
1. Ford, Lew (R) LF
2. Tucker, Michael (L) RF
3. Casey, Sean (L) 1B
4. Ramirez, Manny (R) DH
5. Rolen, Scott (R) 3B
6. Estrada, Johnny (S) C
7. Hunter, Torii (R) CF
8. Cora, Alex (L) 2B
9. Izturis, Cesar (S) SS

CHANGE THIS LINEUP

I figure that Hunter is perfect at 7 and Cora had to come down. Tucker seems perfect at 2. What do you think?