by MARCPELLETIER » Wed May 03, 2006 2:27 am
Hey, David,
As I am in your division, I won't tell much!!!
But I will say what I believe is the most important thing: when you go with a neutral stadium like yours (Metrodome), and you get in a division like ours that has two lefty stadiiums (PNC and Amquest), you have to "play the opponent". The idea is: your opponents will fit their teams for their stadiums, so they can hardly fit their teams against their opponents on top of that. You are in the reverse position: you have no disadvantage with regards to your stadium in going heavy in lhp or heavy on one side, but you can guess how your opponents will go.
Concretely, in our division, it means: load your team vs lefty pitching (even if this means being more right-handed pitchers), and get reverse rhp and strong lhp.
This way, you will be in position to dominate these teams at home, and you still have a good chance to win against these teams on the road or against the rest of the league.
So, to come back to your team, I think that you have some players that can work with this logic (Hernandez, Halladay among SPs, and Suzuki and A.Ramirez in your offense), but I think you haven't gone as far as you should. Your opponents will benefit of their stadiums. To compensate, you have to get extreme teams (teams that cumulate 18L-20L in pitching and offense).