My First Team

Here is a link to my first strat o team. I've spent a lot
Of hours on this and would like some thoughts and advice to
Make sure im not doing anything seriously out of whack.
I'm going out for dinner but will post my lineup ideas later.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1025650

Thanks mates!

Looks very good!

I haven't played Coors (or HR parks) much, so other managers might have some better insights and player suggestions than I do.

One observation (not necessarily bad - could be very good), one suggestion, and one question -

Observation - you should destroy lefty pitching. Your team is oriented to that. If you face 30% or more lefty pitching (approximately) you should do very well with that aspect of your team. Anything above 23% should be good for your team.

Suggestion - I think Parra has too little power for a left fielder at Coors. I would suggest players like Seth Smith, Matt Joyce or Jason Kubel at left field. I realize Parra has great defense, but I think at Coors Joyce or Smith would be good choices. With the $ savings you could get another platoon hitter (but then you're pretty tough on lefty pitching already) or a relief pitcher, or an upgrade at either a position player or pitcher.

Question - who is Dayan platooning with? If it's Rizzo, then Butler will be playing 1b with poor defense. That might be a good plan, but it's something to think about. As an alternative, he could platoon with a more R balanced hitting left fielder like Joyce or Smith or Kubel, like I was saying above, and then play Rizzo at 1b against lefties anyway. That way Butler is your DH against both LHP as well as RHP. Dayan isn't great defensively in LF, but he's probably a little better than Butler is at 1b, defensively.

Good luck! Should be lots of fun!!!

Question - who is Dayan platooning with? If it's Rizzo, then Butler will be playing 1b with poor defense. That might be a good plan, but it's something to think about. As an alternative, he could platoon with a more R balanced hitting left fielder like Joyce or Smith or Kubel, like I was saying above, and then play Rizzo at 1b against lefties anyway. That way Butler is your DH against both LHP as well as RHP. Dayan isn't great defensively in LF, but he's probably a little better than Butler is at 1b,

My idea was to platoon Dayan V with Para in left field. Para is a nice 1D in left with a -3arm so I figure para would get all the righties and sub in for defense late when Dayan I done crushing lefties.

Two areas of concern 1) below average fielding at 2b and SS. 2) The bullpen -not sure what their roles are. your top guy is a R1/C0

Two areas of concern 1) below average fielding at 2b and SS. 2) The bullpen -not sure what their roles are. your top guy is a R1/C0

I thought evereth Cabrera was decent defensively.
I know kipnis is a 3 but for his price I thought his hitting
Was solid and not to bad defensively that it would kill me.
As for bullpen, still working on the settings but from reading
I was thinking of letting HAL do the bullpen work. Set a few guys to short hook (the cheapies)
And let Hal work out who gets the saves. Bad idea? The CO isn't ideal but he's
Got no Bp hrs or singles and i figure there will be a lot of lopsided games
Do a closer wouldn't be as important. Thoughts?

they are not horrible on defense, but 25 errors is a lot for a SS if you get no offense out of him. One thing is there doesn't seem to be a backup SS or 3B-an injury will result in an iron glove replacement by HAL. Since your backup catcher is a throwaway, you might look into on with higher injury rating.

I like your team. I agree with some other posters about SS. Cabrera is not the ss for Coors. I wouldn't worry about Kipnis, he is good enough defensively and his offense will justify it. If it were my team, I'd replace Mijares with a real hard LOOGY i don't care how bad he is vs righties. You need one LOOGY who's only job is to get a lefty out. (disclaimer, I just don't like Mijares for whatever reason)

Yes, I have not yet picked my backup cheapies incase of injury I've been playing around with my team the last week so I figure I'd get to those guys in once I was settled on my starters and bullpen.
Questioning Cabrera at ss but do not have much $ to work with since I like pretty much everyone else on my team.
Thanks for the thoughts, I've got some thinking to do (have a 5 hour wait before my connecting flight) so I have time to do some research and tweaking. Thanks mates and any additional advice is always appreciated

If it were my team, I'd replace Mijares with a real hard LOOGY i don't care how bad he is vs righties. You need one LOOGY who's only job is to get a lefty out. (disclaimer, I just don't like Mijares for whatever reason)

I was thinking along the same lines, don't get a good vibe from Mijarus as a lefty specialist or loogy as you call him hehe so my two choices that I like are Scott downs at .52 mil or Javier Lopez who is 50 mil and 9L. I read not to pick up .50 players so am a bit skeptical but the card looks better vs lefties to me. What do u think mate?

depends. Lopez has slightly better numbers vs lefties, but Downs (c3) has the ability to get an out or 2 in a save situation,, which also counts for something