Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

First of all, this has been a blast playing. A lot of fun and the strategy is very cool to work through. I do have a question for anyone who has an opinion on this thought.
I have a player through 40 plus games that is not performing very well. Ive played him in every game and he is probably underperforming his card a bit, but if I kept him the whole year, his stats would probably approximate one of the worst years on his cards (he is currently at 205 avg and 8 hr, so he could probably reach his 230 avg and 24 hr's at the end of the year). First of all, can a player just through the course of the year just have a bad year, regardless of their card?

Secondly, there is a player who I could pick up on waivers who has a card with less hr potential, but who's lowest card isn't any worse than the player that I have. Do I roll the dice and hope I get a new player with better possible potential or just ride this out? It isn't going to hurt me financially either way so I guess I just wouldn't mind some input on what sounds like the smart play.

Thanks.

Answer: it depends. Usually, making a change and incurring the penalty hurts you in the long run. However, sometimes changes work and are positive. If, for instance, the more expensive current player is not a good fit for your park or in your division, a change may help.

You don't mention how this underperformer has been rolling, either. Sometimes a hitter will get a long string of rolls on the pitchers' cards - or vice versa - and so the poor performance isn't really a reflection of the card at all. Can it last a whole season? Sure - I've had whole teams finish a season under water by 100 rolls for BOTH pitchers and hitters, but that's not usual. If you think this card should perform better in your park and with the rest of your lineup than the available sub, I'd stick with it. If not, switch. Almost any switch once the season starts has some risk to it. Like Andy said, it depends on a lot of things.

Hey guys, thanks for the input as it is much appreciated. I guess I will just learn as I go forward. It sure is a lot of fun though, I enjoy it.

peytonsdad wrote:Hey guys, thanks for the input as it is much appreciated. I guess I will just learn as I go forward. It sure is a lot of fun though, I enjoy it.

If you post a link to your team the answers will be more specific. Click the SIM MISC on your team page to see the dice roll distribution and other important stats.

I think it is my fault picking a player that wouldn't perform well in a park. it is Graig Nettles in Oakland Coliserum. I really thought that he would be a good player for the park, decent defense and didn't need to carry he offense; he just needed to be part of the team, if you know what I mean.
He got injured last night and I actually found out he has his best card so maybe it is just on me to realize that it is hard to expect a guy to live up to a card when you put him in a place where it is harder for him to succeed. Live and learn I suppose.
Thanks again everybody

If you know you have his best card, don't cut him! One of the worst mistakes new managers make is letting a player go because he is "slumping." Once you know what card you have (and if you're in a single-season league you always know), base any decisions based on the card and not on performance.

I probably tinker with my teams too much. The concern is that with a lower salary cap the team will be at a disadvantage against high salaries teams. But we all start out with 80 million dollar teams and yet some teams win and others don't. And it's not all about ballpark fit, either.

I tend to look at many offense's hits, bbs, and hrs and compare that with how much my pitching is giving up. How do you combine those categories together to figure out how well you're team is doing? Just multiply the difference between homeruns by 1.4, multiply the difference in singles by .48, and the differences in bbs by .32. Now we don't have doubles and triples given up by pitchers so it's not a complete picture but it's something (of course +- runs scored is an even simpler picture).

The way I figure it if I'm losing the combined battle in those categories then I need to do something. There's something wrong in how I put my team together--batting average is too low, I am too weak against lefties, my on-base is too low, there is a hole in my pitching (starters are too weak, my defense is too weak for my pitching, I don't have sufficient relief given my starting pitching, etc), my team is mis-matched with teams in my division, etc.. There are so many ways a team could go wrong. Yes, you have to consider whether it's too small of a sample, but if there is a problem in team design there is no reason to wait too long.

Assuming I know that the player is good for the park, that their runs created numbers are good--I am not going to just cut the player because of a slow start. But I look at the overall team and try to remedy team weaknesses. Of course there may be a mis-match between team and park. Sometimes I looked at runs created figures (like for Miguel Cabrera) and decide that a player is just not as good in Strat as those numbers would suggest. But usually I look at the overall team to try and figure out what to do.

Every team I put together looks like a championship team prior to the first pitch. But once it gets on the field (with rare exceptions) weaknesses become apparent. And at least up to the 40th game I am willing to take a bit of a salary cap hit to fix them.