1st Coors Team: Advice Request

[1crazycanuk]

[quote:21606fd274="rgimbel"]I like your lineup it will produce I also like your starters however in coors you need a good bullpen a lot of games will end up 13-10 and your bullpen will get a lot of innings I think you need two reliable guys in the pen cut benson and figure out a way to add to your pen. the major diff I feel between petco and coors is that your starters no matter how good they are get less innings you can get away with a crappy bullpen in petco not in coors[/quote:21606fd274]

I don't know how starters get less innings in Petco but I do agree that you need a better bullpen in Coors.

[1crazycanuk]

I would try to trade Lilly and Martinez, drop Eldred and Neal and try to get Gordon. I'd rather have Gordon (R2) who's more Even than Leciester and Blaine, etc.

[1crazycanuk]

[quote:dc97582c6e="socalchiro"]Canuk:

There is no "only way" to win in Strat. This is the conventional way to play in these parks.

"Anyone can pitch in Petco". This is not necessarily true. Yes you can go with cheaper SP's if you want that have BPHR's on their cards. But if you then play a team in Coors with these SP's, they'll get rocked.[/quote:dc97582c6e]

Well this contradicts all I've been told then. :? This game gets more confusing by the day. It shouldn't now though...now that I have figured out the game is subjective and people all have differing opinions.

[visick]

Canuk:

My advice to you is to visit Moose's records page. I do, frequently.

Take a look at some of the team records.
Check out their W-L records as well.

This will give you some idea as to the makeup of some winning teams. Granted, we don't know if these teams won it all, but you can definately see who finished in 1st. place.

[1crazycanuk]

That's a good idea. But it still doesn't change the fact of what I have been told all along since I started playing this game.

[maligned]

[quote:5b980711f3="1crazycanuk"]"My thinking is this: In pitcher's parks, go for lesser pitchers and spend the money on hitters. In hitter's parks, go for lesser hitters and spend the money on pitchers. Makes sense to me. If anyone can pitch well in Petco, then shouldn't it follow that anyone can hit well in Coors?[/quote:5b980711f3]

That's exactly what I thought when I started my first Coors team. I built a $21mill 4-man rotation, added a $1.75mill hard lefty sp/rp to do spot starts, spent $10mill on 3 quality relievers, and filled in my bullpen with 2 cheapies. I had a combined grand total of 3 HR chances per 1600 rolls on my 4 starters and 3 regular relievers' cards. Then, I spent $45.5mill (a few mill less than normal for me) and bought up the middle defense and a ton of guys that all had BPHRs to maximize value at every position, thinking I would get sufficient OBP in my park to take advantage of all the HRs.

It was total mediocrity for several reasons:
1. Starters do not pitch late in games in Coors. They give up such high WHIP values with all the extra BP1Bs that they all get yanked early. I'm still finishing up with this team, and Doug Davis is averaging about 4.8 innings per start for the season. My three quality relievers were pitching many innings with tired arms and giving up huge WHIP values themselves. I dealt my two higher-priced starters long ago.
2. No matter what park you're in, TSN just does not value WHIP and OBP enough. You have to take advantage of it and build your teams around this. Even though I wasn't giving up many HRs with my original team, the WHIP was high enough that teams were producing runs against me.
3. Like someone else said, the way you theoretically "maximize" value in Coors is to get the BPHR guys. The problem is that it's difficult to find guys with a ton of BPHRs that have good OBP. My OBP was ok, but it wasn't as good as my opponents'. I was completely outhomering them, and doing exactly what someone said: hitting a million solo shots and being completely inefficient offensively. Meanwhile, my opponents were feasting on my guys with slighly higher WHIPs, and getting enough HRs off their own cards to keep things flowing nicely.

Eventually, I was able to deal my high-priced starters and invest more $$ in my bullpen and OBP. My ERA has come way down, even though I am using theoretically weaker starters. I now have 3 matchup guys that I mix and match, plus a couple $4mill * guys. Then, I have 4 quality relievers instead of 3. I've done better the last 30 games, but it was too late after floundering half the season a few games below .500.

[goredsox33]

LA BEAR... i think you should trade ALL you best players to me!!!!

:)

[1crazycanuk]

Hey maligned...wow you put a lot of work into building that team and didn't get much reward eh? It's nice to see that someone else thought the same way as I did, but I do see where you're coming from and why my thinking wasn't the best when it comes to Coors. Thanks for sharing that and better luck next time.

[ROBERTVOZZA]

In the past, the way to build a good Coors or this Year AMQ team is to have great fielding up the middle(SS, 2B, CF - preferably 1 range) with as good hitting as those fielders can have. Lots of OBA in the 1-2, a great OPS in the 3 spot, and SLG. in the 4-5-6( a little clutch wouldn't hurt either.)

Seldom does anyone debate that you need good middle D and great hitting at Coors.

The debates have usually centered around Pitching. In the past, teams went for the best value SP's(And matchup SP's - esp. 1 Hard RH and 1 Hard LH SP paired with a hard reverse of each side.) Your 2 best SP's should be as close to even as possible. But the key to Coors has always seemed to be the pen. A couple of tough, hard, cheap, specialists - set on avoid the weakside and quick hook(ie. Brower, Fultz types) to follow the extreme SP's from each side and get important rally killing outs in the middle.

Then have your best(most expensive pitchers set for the 6-8th innings(Gordon, KRod, Ryan, Mahay types) for setup or to actually close it out - these could be followed by a good 2 side closer(Rivera, Wagner etc. ) Or, what I prefer - 1 very tough less expensive closer for each side(ie. Smoltz, Mesa, Wickman/Walker, Rincon, etc.)

The key is to use the hard SP's (8R/9L) from each side to discourage stacking a side followed by the hard specialists to shut down the opposite side in the early middle innings. Then your best RP's can setup for the closer(s). What you hope is that your best SP's with the middle balance can win and stay close in a majority of games - which also helps to have at least a couple of decent SP's for road games.

hope that is helpful...It isn't so much that I have won a lot at Coors, but that I have been beaten by a lot of them over the past 4 years. :wink:

[1crazycanuk]

Excellent advice robvoz. Looks like you've learned a lot from getting hammered by Coors teams.