First timer looking for some opinions

[Marotta007]

Funny you mention that Aray....I just traded him. I put out the offer yesterday and I got one I think makes me a much better team overall. I was offered Edison Volquez and Mike Aviles for HanRam and Glen Perkins. I made the move to get Volquez and immediately dropped Aviles. I then dropped Garret Anderson for some cap room and swapped Jamie Moyer for Braden Looper (needed a 3 day starter). Those moves gave me the cap room to pick up Stephen Drew for SS.

I think overall I should be better offensively, defensively and my pitching staff is better. My rotation went from Billingsley, Buehrle, Moyer & Arroyo/Perkins to Billingsley, Buehrle, Volquez & Looper. Drew is better than Ramirez defensively and I'm sure he'll do better than the .212 average Ramirez had put up.

[Marotta007]

So in 234 AB's for me HanRam hit .214. 6 games after the trade he is hitting .421 with 3 HR and 5 RBI for the new team. Clearly he needed a change of scenery. I'm going to be mighty pissed if he all of a sudden snaps out of it and hits the way he should have. I know it's a tiny sample size but it still eats at me seeing that. I suppose it doesn't help that Stephen Drew is hitting .192 since replacing HanRam.

I'm still having alot of fun here but certain things I've seen kinda bother me. I mean, Hanley Ramirez is a career .300 hitter and for him to be at .214 after 230+ AB's just doesn't seem as realistic as it should be. I understand it's a roll of the dice based on the cards but still. I understand it's certainly possible for this to happen in real life but the chance of it should be much smaller here. It seems that many people have also said that he tanked for them in their league as well.

[chasenally]

Word of advice. HAL hates 100 win seasons and kicks them out in the first round. Get 99 and stand pat. You are well on the way to a very big season. Yes I am still watching it unfold. Mike

[Marotta007]

Here's some more salt in my wounds. A.J. Burnett, who I reluctantly cut last week since he was 4-6 with a 5.87 ERA, is now 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA for his new team. To top it all off, he just beat me in the third game last night to prevent a sweep.

As far as the 100 win season goes, I won't lie. It's certainly a number I've started looking at now that we're almost halfway through the season. Considering my lead in the division, unless something goes terribly wrong in the second half I probably would consider resting some of my more injury prone players in the last 2 weeks of the season. We'll see.

[Marotta007]

Things are well in the Evil Empire these days. The team is on pace for 104 victories, my latest pickup (S. Drew) is hitting .300 with 4 HR and 17 RBI in 90 AB's and Grady Sizemore is on pace for a historical season. Not only is he on pace to go 50-50 but he is in contention for the Triple Crown. He leads the league in HR by 5, RBI by 1 but is second in BA by a healthy margin (35 points).

[RICHARDMILTER]

Keep up the good work. One thing though, I would not count on 104 victories(even if you are on that pace). Hal has a way of evening things out,...if only just a little bit. Be happy that you built such a nice team, because anytime you can make the playoffs against this type of competition you are doing well. Good luck.

[chasenally]

bump 8-)

[Marotta007]

So my SS situation has been in shambles every since I let HanRam go in a trade. Volquez has pitched pretty well so it hasn't been a total loss. The problem is that Stephen Drew was performing terrible (.280 OBP and a sub .700 OPS) as HanRam's replacement and I had to let him go. I've picked up Tejada who's also off to a slow start. The real kicker here is that the INSTANT Ramirez left my team he caught fire. For his new team, in the exact # of games he played for me, he is hitting .312 with a .912 OPS. For me he hit .214 with a .750 OPS.

I guess what I'm wondering is whether or not I literally traded him as he was about to go on a tear or did the proverbial change of scenery have something to do with it. Are things like that common here? Have any of you seen THAT kind of turn around from a player just changing teams? stadium wise he went from Yankee Stadium to Busch Stadium but that seems awfully drastic for a park effect.

I'm able to carry the poor offense from SS since the rest of my lineup is doing very well but having some more offense couldn't hurt.

One more question I have has to do with injuries. I've been ravaged with injuries lately and I'm curious if injuries increase towards the end of the year to simulate wear & tear or if it's just a coincedence. Both Carlos Lee & A-Rod (my 3 & 4 hitters by the way) have both missed a ton of games recently. I've had 2 separate instances for each where they were out for 8-15 games then came back, played 1 or 2 games and then got hurt again. The team has survived it but it's cemented by thoughts of benching/resting guys for the last 3 or 4 series of the season so they're healthy for the playoffs.

[AeroDave10]

First of all, your team is 83-49, so I really wouldn't worry about too much. It's tough to have a much better winning percentage than that in SOM.

I think one reason your team is so successful is that Grady Sizemore, a player who has historically underachieved in SOM, is playing unbelievably well (.321 / .406 / .677 with 42 2Bs, 46 HRs, 111 RBIs and 129 Runs :shock: ) and Glen Perkins, a $.50M SP, is 8-1 with a 3.64 ERA.

ARod doesn't have 600 PAs, so he can go down for a 15 game injury at any time, and Carlos Lee has a 3 injury rating, so it's expected that he'll get hurt. Werth is another guy who should miss some time, as well as the catchers. Just make sure to rest these guys once you've clinched the best record in the league.