Player selections

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Okay, I'm getting addicted to this game. I do not want any strategy secrets or specific players with this question.

I ask, how many of you draft the same players most of the time or do you sample new ones? A percentage estimate, maybe?

The reason I ask and wonder, is that after my third team, I seem to follow the pattern of new players for draft, then after 20 to 80 games into the season, turnover high, with many former selections from my prior teams added.

I know there is no set way to play. I'm just curious if it's my drafting or a progression of finding the correct team to the park I pick for home and then the league.

Thank you for any clarity and Happy Holidays to all!!

I have seen people play many teams in the same ballpark and draft the same players over and over. I guess if the only thing that matters is winning a credit it makes sense. However, I never play the same ballpark in a particular set. I choose a park and then try to build a team to fit that park which causes me to use different players.

Eddie,

Thank you for your reply to my post. I have now selected different parks with different players. It seems that I get the incorrect players or just cold ones. But, I agree with you about having fun, maybe not a title.

Have a great day and Holiday Season.

....The reason I ask and wonder, is that after my third team, I seem to follow the pattern of new players for draft, then after 20 to 80 games into the season, turnover high, with many former selections from my prior teams added.

Welcome to the game BroncoM. Generally speaking, it's best not to cut players and add new ones once the season has started because of the financial penalty. You want as much of your $80M on the field as possible.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Okay, I'm getting addicted to this game. I do not want any strategy secrets or specific players with this question.

I ask, how many of you draft the same players most of the time or do you sample new ones? A percentage estimate, maybe?

The reason I ask and wonder, is that after my third team, I seem to follow the pattern of new players for draft, then after 20 to 80 games into the season, turnover high, with many former selections from my prior teams added.

I know there is no set way to play. I'm just curious if it's my drafting or a progression of finding the correct team to the park I pick for home and then the league.

Thank you for any clarity and Happy Holidays to all!!

I pick different players according to the strategy I choose. I do like to try out new strategies.

Couple of tips
1. The quality of the defense you put on the field will affect your pitcher ERA's. You end up paying one way or the other if you don't have adequate defense and/or good pitching.
2. Double plays matter. Learn how to count double plays on hitter card (bad) and pitcher card (good).
3. Ball park home runs matter. If your park is a home run park and/or others in your division are home run parks, you don't want your pitchers to have a lot of ball park home runs on their cards. Conversely, you would want your hitters to have home runs on their cards. In pitcher parks with a good pitching lineup, OBP is relatively more important for your hitters (those walks, singles and stolen bases add up to vital runs in pitcher parks).
4. Strike outs matter. Pitchers with a lot of strike outs (dark grey) on their cards, mean your defense isn't tested on those at bats.
5. Rule of thumb: every 1 extra injury risk subtracts about 6-7% batter appearances for a player. Example: a 5 injury risk player on average would only be available 65-70% of the time.
6. I've read somewhere in the forum that a defensive range step up from 3 to 2 or 4 to 3 is equivalent to about 8-10 errors. Example 2e18= approx 3e10.
7. Generally, don't use more than one 4 range outfielder and your CF should be at worst a 2 range. Order of importance for fielder defence: SS, CF, 2B then Catcher and 3B. Arm is most important in RF and at catcher. A catcher with +arm combined with pitcher with a + hold rating will mean more stolen bases against you.
8. Make a friend of the Player Set Browser for understanding how different players have performed throughout the season. but be wary of SP or RP's with few innings pitched (don't trust data if less than 50 IP).

Incredibly great advice listed above. There are many paths to success. I would add the importance of not digging a hole for yourself by constantly dropping players who are not performing. Try to trade first. I like to choose a strategy and see it through to the end. I have faced teams that dropped to five million under the cap. It is permanently losing a 5 million dollar player to injury. Others will disagree with my philosophy. As I said there are many paths to success.

4. Strike outs matter. Pitchers with a lot of strike outs (dark grey) on their cards, mean your defense isn't tested on those at bats.

Not sure about this one. I believe defense is only tested on X chances and all pitchers have the exact same X chances on their cards. If a pitcher has groundball (a)'s on their cards then those are double plays (assuming runner on first) no matter how poor your defense is.