Help needed, desperately!

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2005/team/team_other.html?user_id=18965

This team is a bust. My first Wrigley and rubbish. Any ideas? I have picked up another LHB to help me on the road (Patterson) but he and Uribe are now injured and we have lost 7 of last 9. I am totally at a loss what to do. This is the least successful team I have had so far but want to try wrigley again in near future, hopefully with more success.

[mfsleeze]

I think it's fairly simple. Your division opponents built their pitching staffs to shut down right handed hitting, and every one of their best hitters (Bonds, Helton, Thome) is a lefty. That's tough to counter with a Wrigley lineup. I'm currently playing my first Wrigley team in '05 but I played there several times in '04, so I've had some hits and misses.

The logic I use is to make my LH bats "count" so teams will hesitate to throw the Weavers and Beckets of the world (there are a lot of sub $2MM 5R+ guys who turn into studs against Wrigley teams). For example, my current Wrigley team only has 3 LH batters, but they are Helton, Damon and Willie Harris (I may have gone with 1 more but my division opponents don't have a lot of righty-killers). Compare that to your Giles, Patterson and Rollins.

Giles is the only one of the 3 I'd consider for Wrigley and even he's not great with his BPHRs being suboptimized. Patterson is a train wreck, and you may be stuck with Rollins because he's one of the best all around shortstops - but with just a quick look maybe qksilver would be willing to swap Guillen for him - I'd take the hit on defense to have a top of the lineup offensive guy to play vs RHP given your offensive struggles (and he'd probably be happy to have Rollins in Shea).

I would work hard to find a CF replacement for Patterson (even David Dejesus would be a huge upgrade with 42.8 OB chances vs RHP as opposed to 27.6 for Patterson - which is worse than Jay Payton who is a .93 possible platoon mate for Patterson (in other words, the guy you would platoon to play vs LHP is still better vs RHP than Patterson is). I know defense matters but preventing runs from scoring isn't as much your problem.

I'm also a huge Ruben Sierra fan this year, but only in the appropriate park, which yours isn't. So I'd have to give up some cash somewhere else to fix that problem. I'd suggest dumping Saenz to start - it's too much to pay for a platoon vs LHP when you won't see a very high % of LHP with a Wrigley team.

The other thing I'd think about doing is dumping Kolb - granted you've had bad luck with his numbers, but since you have Izzy you don't need another R1/C6 at that price. I'd rather have an equally priced R2 - you are getting too many innings out of the back end of your bullpen. I think I'd be fine with your starters, but I'd try the tweaks to your SS, CF, DH and RP I suggested and see what happens.

Good luck. I'm probably just feeling good because I've been very lucky so far and started out 8-1 with my Wrigley team.

[JOELKING]

My two cents,

I would consider trying rev Lefties at home, and balance your hitters with more high OBP hitters that are lefthand hitters, example : casey, comes to mind, I would go with 4 hitters that are lefthand, but not dingers hitters , and then balance the hitters from that point on. you must have at least two bashers from the right-side and one from the left side, covered the rest with HIGH OBP guys, i think you might see better results that way.

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

Thanks a lot for spending time to look at my team guys. I see a lot of sense in what you are saying. I made a mistake picking up Patterson and Kolb and I shouldn't have bothered, but I was rushed for time and made a rushed judgement, kowing I was away for a few days. I haven't given up on this team just yet but will take a lot of the information I have received into hopefully picking a better team next time. I worry about defense too much sometimes I think and often do not balance my teams in the best way. I also worry about lineups quite a bit when drafting but have still never had a proper lead off man, hence Giles leading off when he should be #3 or something.

[durantjerry]

I am in your division and some of your problem was landing in a division with another RH stacked Wrigley team(not mine). I also drafted Beltre(kills rhp's), Cota, Arod, Berkman, Beltre and added M Sweeney when I saw 11 of the 12 SP's in the division were RH. The other Wrigley had less LH hitters facing RH pitchers than you(2), making it fairly easy to grab some cheap RH SP's. Add to this that my team is pretty good and the other non-Wrigley is maybe the best in the league, then even when playing at home, there is a good chance that all three teams within your division are better suited for your park than yours. IMO, you should have broken from the normal Wrigley approach at the start of the season when you saw how your opponents teams were lining up and made some adjustments.

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

Thanks for the answer durantjerry. I'm still pretty green at this game and should've really looked at the other teams a little more, before the season started, rather than now with the 20% loss on any dropped players. Maybe better luck next time

P.S. It may say All Star next to my name but I have no idea why. I've only been playing for 5 months. Suppose it is something to do with the number of teams I have...stupid really, cos it makes me look like an expert. I'm not.