Why is my Safeco offense so bad?

[durantjerry]

I wasn't sure my team was good, but I thought my offense was. I never played safeco and was practicing for the Jaser D finals, as I have to play there. .228 team BA with three starters under the Mendoza line after 90+ games and another one pretty close. If anything, I thought I overspent on offense.
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[cummings2]

Hey there Fatty, we missed you at the LOTO league. Hope to be in another league with you soon.

Anyhoo, taking a look at your team...woof! hard to tell why the team is struggling so much, guess lots of bad rolls.

A few thoughts though:

You have 24 bunt attempts (2 SQZ) and 14 Hit and Run attempts, though the number of plays 38 is low and the success rate is quite alright, my feeling without going too much into the numbers is that the bulk of those plays are being executed by Eckstein in the 2 hole. I think that might be a bit questionable since if he bunts or H&Rs with one out on it will trigger (if he moves Abreu to 2nd) Pujols' neg. clutch and then Thome's Neg. Clutch and then Mabry's Neg. clutch...and then Varitek's Neg clutch.

The bottom of your order is giving you such abysmal numbers that the turn is bound to be with 1 out and no men on, in that case Abreu's BBs and Ecks sacs can work a bit against you. I know that the first time up Eck can spare you from Pujols' gbAs but I think you're paying a price when the lineup turns,

I guess that what I'd do is Either go with Eck leading off and Abreu 2nd or Drop Eck to the 9 hole and move Thome to 2nd, hopefully his OBP will bounce and Pujols will have more to drive in.

In general the team is clearly underperforming offensively, even for safeco that does a big number on some teams. Your team should bounce.

The only other thing I see is that given your team's high whip, especially considering the park and the arms you have...maybe Eck is hurting you there too.

After going through your player's H&R and Bunting rating I am pretty sure it's Eck that you have to re-position. [i:232c645a49]Maybe[/i:232c645a49] but just [u:232c645a49][i:232c645a49]maybe[/i:232c645a49][/u:232c645a49] Mabry is trying some bunts...or leave the lineup intact and make sure that you tag Eck to "Do Not Bunt" and "Do Not H&R"

[cummings2]

Another thing I've tried with some success when I have a lineup that has fairly bad clutch is to place "stoppers", i.e hitters that will stop rallies with two outs no matter what, either with a HR/Double or with an out. In your case Koskie and Patterson would be good candidates, they won't walk to prolong the inning and trigger Mabry or Varitek into negative clutch situations, they'll increase the chances of having the not so hot clutchers to hit without any penalty, and hopefully increasing the chances of maximizing the productivity of your lineup.

Just a thought though.

BTW, oddly enough the overall productivity of your lineup is not terrible, you [i:bcbdd3335d]are[/i:bcbdd3335d] a few runs below your estimate...but not that much, I think it's around -17

[cummings2]

O.K. Fatty,

Just to double check that what I just wrote had some merit I went ahead and looked at your lineup taking into account BP effects and clutch hits.

In the case of playing at home and in clutch situations your lineup goes through the following adjustments in rolls, where the first figure is $and > singles and the second is BPHR

Vs. RHP
Abreu
Eckstein
Pujols -11, -4.8
Thome -5, -2.8
Mabry -14, -2.5
Varitek -11, -1.75
Koskie -4, -2.8
Hudson -9, N/A
Patterson -12, -1.05

I Didn't calculate Abreu and Eckstein since I believe they help turn the clutch on but are not particularly affected by it.

I got to these figures through taking out BP and $ singles and treating BPHR as direct hit HRs split 1-13 for LHB and 1-8 for RHB. I am doing all of this by hand, with the cards and without a calculator so double check the numbers with the disk before trusting my goofy math skills.

However, first thing that pops into mind is to suggest moving Mabry away from the 5th spot where his clutch might come into play more.

Interestingly enough Randa, who is a +clutcher and has almost none BPHRs isn't having a rough season, I guess his stats help validate this point a little bit.

I've only played Safeco 2 or 3 times, if memory serves me well, one of those teams was my first championship. I'll double check in a mo, but what I remember doing was having some natural source of HRs coming from the right, I think it was Sexson and Glaus and with that have LH sources of OBP, Kotsay, DeJesus and I think I had Dunn as well, can't remember now.

Anyhoo, the point was to have natural BPs from the right, good vs. LHP to avoid slanting too much to the left (which I think you are doing a little) and use the park as much as I could with two or three hitters only -Kotsay and Dunn (?)

Interesting lesson to be learned here is the importance of clutch in relation to BP supressed OBP/AVG. Since the park supresses hits, outs are more likely to occur and therefore clutch is slightly more likely to come into play.

What'cha think, maybe I'm missing something.

[cummings2]

OK here's the team, I did have Dunn and Larry Walker whom I had forgotten I had.

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[Jerlins]

I've had some success with Safeco this year. It's definately a pitcher friendly park. Veritek for one, is not ideally suited for Safeco, he'll get turned around too often to his strong side, which the ballpark negates. Mabry's good for Safeco, Pujols is Pujols, though you would have been better served with spending high $ on a left handed hitter or two. I've had the same success with Thome as you have, so I won't go there.

You should be hitting better, but not a whole lot considering the park. The players I've had the most success with in Safeco have been Dunn, Wilkerson, and Matsui. Anyways, still time for it to turn around. Good luck.

[durantjerry]

I think varitek is ideally suited for Safeco. He has power vs rhp's and hits for high average/OBP vs lhp's.

[aircrewcdh]

Going into the season you had 8 guys with minus.350 OBP averaging .314OBP(avg salary 2.325 MIL), add in Safeco= simulated results of: (Not counting Puhols or Abreu) Avg OBP .283. Im sure Im pointing out the obviuos.