Makeover for a wildcard run: Knocked Out!

[Jablowmi]

At this point in the season, it is unlikely that there are very many SP cards that are untouched or otherwise not painful to look at. If Outta makes the playoffs, Alexander's replacement will start one game tops. Yount will start in all. Again, I wouldn't have dropped Alexander or anyone else if they were performing, but he and Trammell were average or worse. Outta was paying $2M too much for Trammell and probably $1M or $2M too much for Alexander. Now, he's paying some scrub SP the $2M Alexander earned for (likely) close to the same results and Yount a lot of $ to be Yount.

[Outta Leftfield]

The choices are tough at this stage. As Jablowmi indicates, the expensive pitching cards are pretty grim to look at at this point in the season. Some of these pitchers have had multiple trials and have bombed out over many innings. Most of the good cards of expensive pitchers have already been located and are locked in on other teams. There are probably still some good cards out there, involving good seasons that have had bad rolls--but which ones are they?

I've found that late in the season, you can sometimes have more luck looking for the one or two good seasons on the cheaper cards that haven't been explored. For example, this year, I struck paydirt with Lea (1.99M). It involves trial and error and takes some luck, but if you hit the right cards, it can save your season. As it is, I've had pretty rotten luck with my pitchers. I only have one starter left from the beginning of the season and have attempted to fill various slots with multiple tries. I like to give a starter 6-8 starts before dumping, but this late in the season, you don't always have that luxury. I now have 3 solid guys. If I get lucky, I might yet fill one or two more slots by seasons end--or game 142. At this point, I've got to take some chances, it seems to me. And if your pitching is bad, sometimes you can hit your way out of it.

All that being said, I got swept last night, after having a great run with the team I had. So maybe my risky scheme won't work. Still, I try to take a prudent, step by step approach to team building, solving one problem after another until the team is set. But late in the year, if you still haven't solved all your problems, maybe you just have to take your chances and hope for the best.... :D :wink:

[Semper Gumby]

I lack the playing experience as everyone who had posted here. So, I won't be a good judge of historical results but I merely offer this perspective.

What I did see in Outta's team is its critical vulnerability being pitching not that Alan Trammell isn't hitting the ball or killing rallies with GIDPs.

Moving from [b:c5f595a4fb]Trammell's 1e17 [/b:c5f595a4fb]to [b:c5f595a4fb]Yount's 1e24 [/b:c5f595a4fb]didn't make his pitching issues go away. If anything, the appreciable gain in Yount's bat could be easily diminished by his glove. Moreover, I didn't recall Outta discussing Yount's prior splits. I presume he had been hitting LHPs better - and that doesn't help Outta or Yount as this team is facing ~67% RHPs.

Presuming it is Trammell's worse year, he is iron with 600 PAs as compared to Yount's worse year with sub-600 PAs. If it is Yount's worse year, then Outta is really up the creek without a paddle as his only SS rated player is [b:c5f595a4fb]Bob Bailor[/b:c5f595a4fb] 4e31. Thus, he could be in the playoffs without Yount and his glove. :shock:

In reviewing his pitching, the area where he could make improvements is in his relief corps. Besides [b:c5f595a4fb]Roy Lee Jackson's [/b:c5f595a4fb]great card, Outta's other arms are bringing fuel to fire vice putting it out.

Sure he drops a struggling Davis along the way but that means an even cheaper replacement with an unknown card. I could see retiring Davis and then using the money to grab one SP and another RP. I probably would have left Alexander alone since he can pitch more often than not and just monkeyed with his controls more.

Again, I don't play this game much but I sense that the middle priced relievers are available.

Of course, we'll see what happens soon enough.

[Outta Leftfield]

After a sweep last night, the wildcard race seems to be boiling down to three teams in my division--the Phanatics (a talented rookie manager) and Murders (A'sWinTheSeries) are in the lead at 72-57 and I'm one game back. The next-closest wild card contender is 66-63. So two teams in this division are likely to go to the playoffs and one will go home. It should be an interesting race. Again, thanks for all the help which has helped to put me here. :D

My Cats4 now have a lineup that, as far as I'm concerned, is set--at least, I don't plan to mess with it any further. I seem to have a reasonably productive player in every lineup spot against both RHP and LHP and I can't always say that. And I'm satisfied with my bullpen, led by RL Jackson and L Andersen. I'm expecting one of the new trio of Garber/Martinez and Mohorcic to step forward--and three good RPs is really all you need to cover the critical innings. You can get by with two if one is a workhorse like Jackson has been.

So now the problem is boiling down to my 4 & 5 starters. Ruhle has been up and down--two decent outings and two where he didn't get out of the first inning (one out, total). I'm going to give him at least one more start and see what I have. The other guy is Schmidt, who got bombed in his only start. Again, I'm going to give him a bit more time, but I'll have to make a decision before game 142. Since I've got .6985M in spare cash, I could trade in Ruhle for a 3M+ pitcher. Among the unused SP cards are Zahn, Honeycutt, Robinson, Wilcox, S Davis, D Palmer. Does anybody have any experience with and/or preferences for any of these guys, esp in Fenway. They're all new to me. Zahn looks tempting because, although none of his years are outstanding, he's got 4 viable years and that's what I'm looking for as time runs out. (However, to afford Zahn I'd have to drop both Ruhle and Schmidt--otherwise I'm just short. So I'll only do that if I can't get a decent performance out of either of my present 4/5). I do have a backup .75M option if all else fails. Any other opinions?

Thanks,
OL :D

[Semper Gumby]

Outta,

I'm following along with a keen interest -

I see that Yount's hitting but it ain't showing up in RBIs but he does need to work on keeping his butt and glove down!

Good luck - I see playoffs for you if he does

[Outta Leftfield]

Thanks for the interest--and it should be lively race. For me the race will probably turn on whether I can get decent pitchers to fill my 4th and 5th starter slots--that, and whether I can get some favorable rolls.

The jury is still out. Since the three contending teams for the two playoff slots will be going head to head for the next 30 games, it should be a fair trial--and at least I'm in the hunt for now :wink:

[Outta Leftfield]

Well, I got knocked out on the final day in the wildcard race, ending up four games back when I didn't get the double sweep I needed. I did make a run of it however, and maybe finished better than I should have, with a 85-77 record but just a 838-816 run differential.

Gumby's critique may have been right--I finished 2nd in runs scored but 9th in ERA, so maybe I should have been working on pitching. Still, my ERA was dropping steadly in the final games--I think I finally found 5 decent SPs (Dravecky, Candy, Lea, Shirley, Burris), but lost some pitcher's duels at the end. It sure was a challenging pitching staff. I just had 3 pitchers left on my team from the original 10--and everyone I dropped was TERRIBLE. Yount, however, was quite productive, with a .953 OPS in 151 AB. I think my mistake may have been not in picking up Yount but in my handling of Will Clark. I ended up with not much to show for dropping him, and his ultimate replacement, Putnam, was awful. Sykes was on top of that one.

Also it was a tough division--the two teams ahead of me both made the playoffs, so I had to try to get ahead of two of the best teams down the stretch and didn't quite have the horses.

Here's the team in case you want a final glance:
http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=68599

Thanks again for all of the advice, encouragement and helpful thoughts! :D

[rookssa1958]

And apparently everyone gets knocked out once in a while (except Panzer Ace.)

[Outta Leftfield]

[quote:59f66d2766="rookssa1958"]And apparently everyone gets knocked out once in a while (except Panzer Ace.)[/quote:59f66d2766]

Yes, the rest of us really can't win 'em all. On the other hand, I got one of my best drafts ever in the Panzer Ace challenge. [b:59f66d2766]And[/b:59f66d2766] I'm not in his division, fortunately. Still, it's a super-vet league and I'm going to need a lot of luck just to survive. In case people want to follow that battle, here's my team, and you can scroll to see the others.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=72920

Panzer's team is Monty Panzer's Trojan Rabbits.

[Jimmy_C]

Outta...you went down swinging and fighting and you almost sqeezed it out. You could have just played it safe, keep a clearly underperforming Thrill, not taken a risk, and just quietly piffed...

You took a calculated risk and enjoyed the excitement...take names on the next go-around.