Saberhagen & Co. updated....

[abilton]

Should I drop him? This is my first season so im hesitant about dropping him, but he has been getting absolutely bombed lately he has allowed 34 hits, 23 ER in his last 19 innings. He pitched great at the beginning of the year, but now hes getting rocked he is now 2-5 and has pitched 61 innings (I am at Royals Stadium), and there are plenty of other options on the wire: Leibrandt, Candiotti, Danny Jackson, Stieb.... Should I pull the trigger or be patient? My team is doing pretty well but he is my one glaring weakness.

Heres my team so far:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=72901

[bjs73]

You should hold on to him for now. My opinion. The best thing to do with evaluating pitching is to bench mark his stats against the league average for WHIP and ERA. I can go further on this but it will have to wait until I get a little bit of free time later today or tonight.

[abilton]

Sure thanks.

[bjs73]

I think you should retain Saberhagen for now because he really doesn't appear to be the weakest link. It's hard for me to tell without actually knowing for sure but it appears that Juan Samuel may be your full time 2B? Or he may have been the starter at one time?

In addition to that, it appears that B. Jackson and J. Canseco man the corners for you also?

All of that trade off in defense does come back to take a bite into the pitching staff eventually. Especially in a singles friendly ball park. Here is a link to a message board where defense was broken down to show what you could expect over a season in terms of giving up basehits: [url=http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=70332]Defense Wins Championships (in Strat-O-Matic).[/url] The original author broke it all down into expected runs allowed by position and I haven't confirmed the calculations yet but I did reply with the probability of what you could expect to give up in terms of basehits a little later in the thread.

In a nut shell, a "4" at 2B when the gbX is rolled on a "7" in any column on a pitcher's card will result in a little more than 48 (extra) singles during the course of a season. You can hide poor outfield defense in the corners as I'm sure you are aware but there is also an equation for what you can expect there as well.

Actually, your pitching staff is coping quite well despite all of this. I personally like Saberhagen for his low BB's. I've had his '87 card 5 times and his '89 card once. His '87 card has been all over the map for me in terms of performance and some of it looks quite a bit like your stats. It's a good card though.

What I like to do is zoom out and look at the league team average for WHIP and ERA and bench mark it against my pitching. It gives you a real perspective of what's it going to take to win some ball games. At 1.31 WHIP, despite the recent trouble, I'd guess that he's still running better than 50% of the league. Which should be good enough to hold on to for now.

Most of your pitching staff is geared towards getting RH batters out based on the splits. Saberhagen is showing his strength against lefties so that creates some balance.

What I would do is drop Boone as your backup catcher and drop some more offense into your lineup. Is Seitzer your current DH? Can W. Wilson be replaced and the salary be used to buy a suitable replacement + a better DH? Pettis gives you the same type of numbers but with a better OBP (most of the time) as the numbers you're getting now out of Wilson.

You could also try to trade one of your good starters, including Saberhagen, for some hitting talent as well. If you can get your team OBP up around the .335 range or beyond, I think you'll be in business.

[abilton]

Thanks for all your help. Saberhagen pitched well again last night so hopefully hes back on a hot streak. I see what you mean about defense, I have moved Lind into 2B for now, I know he cant hit a lick but maybe that will help aid my WHIP until I can find a better option. I was considering what you said and my hitting has been very inconsistent, Jackson and Canseco have been very streaky but Breet and Cooper have been very consistent. There are a few better options out ther for 2B/SS how about dumping quisenberry? I could use Reardon as my closer, dump Seitzer and Boone and improve my MI. Im hesitant to drop Canseco or Jackson for another OF but I will take a look and see whats there.

[bjs73]

If you are willing to let go of the Quiz (with a good stat line like he's having right now) maybe you could package up him and Lind or Samuel or anyone to a team in need of some relief help?

Do you have any teams in the league that are offensive juggernauts but lack good pitching? Maybe open up a conversation or two.

Lou Whitaker, if he could be had in such a deal, would boost your 2B problem. You already have a good platoon mate in J. Cruz for him. See what Sweet Lou is doing for some other team and maybe make an offer. Lou gets on base in all of his years.

I've traded for Ryne Sandberg's worst card before - knowing full well what I was getting into - because I had the money and the means to do so. It was a big upgrade over my other 2B situation and I needed the slugging.

I ended up getting J. Clark's .300 card and R. Camp's good relieving card in the deal too. So I upgraded all the way around. I overpaid for the worst card but it was all relative to me because there was nothing else viable and it was an upgrade after all.

Just so you know, I'm currently "experimenting" with a 4 at 2B on one of my teams too. Except I tried to build the team around being an offensive juggernaut. I was planning to score enough runs in the Kingdome to try and compensate for the weakness. I just thought that since you're in Royals and your hitting was suffering that it'd be best to not give the other team an inch on your current strength in pitching.

[abilton]

ok I can throw some offers out there, dont know if i will be able to get a trade done though. Frank White just got dumped what about him at 2B?

[Outta Leftfield]

This team looks excellent to me. If you're a first time manager, you may not realize just how good your pitching staff is. A 3.60 team ERA after 51 games is fantastic! Often ERA's are one run (or more) above what you see on the card because of all the great hitters you've got to face, so a team ERA like that is amazing. And you could be doing a lot worse than Saberhagen as your worst pitcher. His WHIP is good for a Stadium like Royals. In fact, your team WHIP is outstanding for this park!

I would keep him. If you do decide to dump him, strongly consider Stieb, if he's still out there. He's almost always worth a try. He has only one bad year and it's easy to spot because the platoon runs contrary to his normal reverse platoon.

One thing you might consider, though, is beefing up your hitting. I would drop Boone for a .75M catcher and maybe look to beef up your offense elsewhere. You're hitting a lot of HR but a .254 BA and .314 OBP is pretty anemic for Royals, where BA and OBP should be high. Maybe you could trade Canseco or Jackson for a high OBP type.

[abilton]

Thanks, yeah I figured my team was doing quite well. Until recently my ERA was actually around 3.00 but I have been getting shelled the past couple of nights.

[abilton]

Ok I made a couple of moves tonight to try and upgrade my defense which I think is a good strategy. I dropped Boone, Seitzer & Lind and replaced them with Pettis, Reynolds, Newman. With these new players I was able to shift Wilson back to LF with Pettis in CF, and Canseco slides back to DH. Reynolds being my improvement at 2B. There are a few other nice options out there McGee CF, Larkin SS, and Frank White 2B. These guys all cost quite a bit more so I stuck with the smaller moves. Heres what my new lineup looks like:

1. Wilson, Willie (S) LF
2. Tettleton, Mickey (S) inj C
3. Brett, George (L) 3B
4. Canseco, Jose (R) DH
5. Cooper, Cecil (L) 1B
6. Jackson, Bo (R) RF
7. Pettis, Gary (S) CF
8. Schofield, Dick C. (R) SS
9. Reynolds, Harold (S) 2B

I still think 7-9 looks pretty weak to me, I would like to change up Schofield but he has been doing suprisingly well so far. I am experimenting with Reardon as my closer tonight to see how he does,but dropping Quiz would free up a big chunk of cash. Anyways keep the feedback coming its a big help.

Thanks