My first team post

[chasenally]

I would like to get some ideas as to what people think of my first 99 team. I am at Wrigley and the 3 others are at Kauffman (S 1-10,HR 1-10), Arlington (S 1-14,HR 1-12 1-9) and Camden (S 1-3,1-6, HR 1-8, 1-11). I don't know how much power is needed for this year and I might be short of it. Thank you.
http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=245840

[apolivka]

You need more power, particularly right handed power. Cirillo, Ordonez, and Glanville are weak at least one way. Ochowa and Boone are not particularly good fits for your park with very few BPHRs. Manny's good, as is Giambi. Your catcher leans very heavy towards leftys, so make sure you will see some. Glanville will probably hit anywhere even though he's not a great fit.

Your three righty starters have a LOT of BPHRs for being at Wrigley as does Johnstone. That needs immediate attention. Your bullpen will get a ton of work in 99. I'm not a big fan of a lefty closer at Wrigley, but not your biggest worry. I would not have three .50 cheapies in the pen, they will get a lot more work than you think, so I would spread the wealth around the pen a bit more.

Good luck!

[chasenally]

apolivka if you are monitiring the site how did I do. Can't do much about middle D but did upgrade power and some pitching I hope. Thank you for the help. Mike

[apolivka]

Benson is a GREAT pickup. I like Lieter and Sele is OK. Lieber's six BPHRs against leftys scares me in a bomber park, but Wrigley is only 1-11 that way, so maybe it's OK.

Your pen would still scare me in 99. Is this a no-DH league? Your pitchers will get get rocked at Wrigley. Frequently. Expect a lot of early exits for your starters and you need your pen to be able to absorb them. Here's your pen:

Closer: 5M
Setup: 5M
Middle: 1.5M
Scrub: .5M
Scrub: .5M
Scrub: .5M

That's 12 million in your pen, but for what's likely to happen, it's highly non-optimized. I would much rather see:

Closer: 4M
Setup: 3M (but can close)
Middle: 2.5M (best place for your lefty)
L Specialist: 1M (one of these guys should be able to close too)
R Specialist: 1M
Scrub: .5M (a S only guy)

Sheffield was a good roid pickup, that gives you at least 3. :)

[chasenally]

To followed it as close as I can. I like it. Wanted to keep my middle infield intact for DP's. Thank you for your help. I am excited to get this thing going. You have been very helpfull. I know that I need my RHH to have power and my left to have base hits. My catcher will be facing 14 LHP starters with 6 in my division. I like his arm as 2 teams have plenty of speed. Again thank you for your help. I will let you know how I am doing. Mike

[apolivka]

Looks like some significant improvements. Hermanson was another good pickup.

Fassero has a R3 rating, and will pitch a decent number of innings. You might want someone there who is not rated as a reliever. I like that your two best relievers are R2, cause they will pitch a ton of innings. When I'm playing in a Bomber park, you need to beware the "mopup" role. If someone goes out and scores 5 in the first inning or two, HAL will put in your mopup guy. This team should score 5-6 runs per game, so you don't want to let HAL give away a game too early, so don't let a guy like Patterson or Fassero do the mopping up.

Didn't Randall Simon hit the "racing sausage" in the head with a bat once? A true classic moment in baseball history.

[apolivka]

Looks like this team is doing fairly good, even thought you got swept last night. :( You are outhomering your opponents 25-16, which is what you want to see at Wrigley. I would expect your team OBP to go up a bit as you have several guys off to slow starts and that should help score a few more runs.

One thing I don't like is your top two relievers have pitched 8+ innings so far, and the rest of your pen has pitched a whopping 25 innings! That is really bad. You need to go check on your relief pitcher's roles and make sure Lowe and Chouinard are listed #1 and #2 for both setup and closer. I'd also have Chouinard as #1 for middle man. Basically you want those two guys pitching about 50-60% of all your relief innings. Your other guys combined ERA is around 9!

With your staff in your park make sure closer usage is at "regular" and bullpen usage set to normal or maybe even aggressive.

[chasenally]

I had Lowe set as closer and could not get him in the game so I set him up as "set up" and Chouinard as closer. I thought if you added too many settings to a pitcher HAL would not know what to do with him and just leave him out :oops: . I set both Chouinard and Lowe to set up and close and Chouinard as middle man with Venafro and Patterson as specialist. The other relievers haven't done too bad. Most of the damage was when Sele went down after 2/3 of an inning and they got hammered for 7 runs and when Leiter had already given up 8. Very happy with Sheffield and Giambi THANK YOU! I picked up Glaus who hasn't done much but with dropping Cirillo I was able to make my pitching staff much better. The guy that swept me last night is on a 10 game streak so what are a gonna do. Thank you for checking in on me and a belated Merry Christmas to you and your family and Happy New Year. Mike and family.
p.s. I did see a clip of the sausage hitting Simon on This Week in Baseball and it was quite funny. If I remember he got a lot of flack for that. I think he got suspended :roll: .

[apolivka]

Merry Christmas as well.

Basically, in your situation, you want to put as many restrictions on Faserro and Patterson as possible (Avoid their bad way, quick hook, max 1-2 innings, don't use before 8th, etc..) and don't put them in _any_ roles. NOT even mopup. This way, HAL will keep them out of most games unless you end up using more than 4 relievers.

Your mid priced guys, Venafro/Carrosco you also put on most restrictions, but I would put them in their appropriate roles. (lefty/righty specialist and probably Carrosco as mopup)

Then your high priced guys NO restrictions at all, but slow hook them and put them in the MOST roles. Closers/setup/middle/tied and late/tied and 9+. You want to pound as many innings out of these guys as possible. 140+ innings out of each of them is very doable and desired.

In general, I don't use the "Don't Relieve B4" setting since I actually think HAL does a better job without using it.

[chasenally]

The pitching is working great now. Hermanson had a 1 hit shutout. Hoping the wins come soon. The guy ahead of me is on a tear :twisted: . This is a fun league 1999. Thanks Mike