Skill or Chance?

[rossarino1]

Thanks. You know how fans are. It's what have you done for me lately.

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=5923

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=4252

[maligned]

I'm guessing the A-Rod discrepancy has something to do with who you're facing in your division. A division full of solid righthanded pitching can render a Minute Maid team impotent.
On another note: you really need to do something about your bullpen settings. You're getting massacred because Duaner Sanchez and Ron Villone are throwing so many innings. If I were you, I would immediately set Sanchez to avoid lefthanders, quick hook, max 1-2 innings. I would immediately set Villone to avoid righties, quick hook, max 1-2 innings. The consequence is that those innings will get distributed to your good relievers. Reyes' current ERA is a total aberration. He's only thrown 30 innings so far. If you set him to do setup against righties and lefties and leave all his individual settings alone, he'll throw a ton of innings from here on out and his ERA will come way down.

[rossarino1]

Here is who I have faced in my division. johan santana x2 zito x3 contreras x2 towers x2 duke x2 webb x3 maddux x2 willis x2 sabathia x2 garcia x3 arroyo x2. Even if I concede all the games against bal r pitchers it adds up to 14 losses.

As for the relief p, I do have villone set to avoid rh and sanchez to avoid lh. I had benoit the first third of the season. My intention was to use him in middle relief and spot start. For some reason hal wouldn't bring him in. Villone and sanchez kept getting hammered. I finally got rid of him and picked up reyes.

[bomp helium]

I like these long discussions but I feel a little rude butting into the cocktail party at 4:39 a.m....

nevertheless...I suggest getting six of you together, three on each side of the debate, and starting a league with each of the six managers getting two teams...one of the two teams is a blind autodraft, the other is put together and managed with all the skill you think you got...and then you play out the season, micromanaging one team to the hilt, with HAL running the other team, and see what happens...

if, for example, in all six cases the managed team outperformed the unmanaged team, you've got something...repeat the experiment four times and you've really got some data to begin to draw soft conclusions...

of course, if the "unmanaged" teams are consistently better, it may be just "luck"...or, more frighteningly, it could be that HAL is actually the best manager out there...

a chilling thought...

my personal thoughts?...it has to be SKILL...but not neccesarily in "managing"...I would think back-engineering the pricing structure might be the key...finding the flaws in the inexact science of pricing will increase your "value per dollar" players and will therefore increase the potential of your team, which may or may not be realized (due to luck)...

it's 53% skill, 39% luck and 8% HAL...not factoring in astrology, of course...

helium

[rossarino1]

I believe you may be right. From my limited experience it seems managing the draft and waiver period may be more important than managing your team during the season.

In the case of A-rod for example. Through 48 games he was ba .200 and my record was 17 -31. Over the last 51 games he has raised his average to .254 and my record is slightly better at 21-30.

I'm guessing he will probably finish the season with numbers close to those he had for my last team. But the damage has already been done. His numbers over the first half of the season have contributed to a losing record from which I most likely won't recover.

Slumps are a part of baseball and can happen to the best players and even teams. So should I draft a player like A-rod along with his salary knowing he may bat .200 for half the season. I would imagine you could spend your money more wisely.

If I draft Roger Clemens for comparable $ and he slumps he only slumps once every 4 games. My theory dujour is to draft p as they are less susceptable to slumps. Plus you can manage the slumps by using the quick hook. I've drafted a new team with more pitching/hitting balance. It's my first Petco team. My next step is to consult the astrolger!

[emart]

I feel compelled to visit this thread one last time - one more swing at the dead horse.

Skill or chance is the question?

So, as an example of how I see that this game has changed in 05-06; there is a team in my league that started the season with a fairly decent team. Within a few days of game #1, he started dropping players and adding others, despite a .500 record, and only being a few games out of 1st. I kept an eye on things because I only see this occasionally, and because this used to be the proverbial kiss of death for a team in prior years.

Well, we're over halfway into the season, and this manager has dumped over 45 million worth of salaries, collecting various players that often don't fit his park, and that are then dumped again for others. He has some decent players, but has turned over almost half of his team.

AND........He is still at .500, has a positive RD, and is in contention!

Go figure.......

I'm done.

[wavygravy2k]

I think the efforts taken to discourage "super reliever" strategy might be playing a role. Let's revert back to the 2003 engine.