Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Every time I see a season, it seems like at least 3 of these 5 guys are free agents:
Brandon Phillips, Dustin Pedroia, Ben Zobrist, Shane Victorino, Andrew McCutchen

What's the matter with those guys? In your experiences, have they performed badly? What would be the best stadium to use those guys?
Thanks,
Lev

Phillips is the only one I would take.

the problem with the other 4 are they hit nothing even close to what they should. To pay all that money and then get half of what you expect (not what their real life stats are, but what the card should hit), and see it over and over, people now know just to stay away and don't waste your $$.

geekor wrote:Phillips is the only one I would take.

the problem with the other 4 are they hit nothing even close to what they should. To pay all that money and then get half of what you expect (not what their real life stats are, but what the card should hit), and see it over and over, people now know just to stay away and don't waste your $$.

I see that, but the problem is.. What lower $$ 2b and CF options will preform better? Upton? Jennings? Maybin? The only enticing 2B option I see is Cano

So I drafted Pedroia in my first league here. Was excited about having his OBP lead off my lineup. Is Cano realy a better 2B option?

I guess what I am asking- are those players' underperformance vs their card real? Is it a HAL bias or bug? Or are people just occasionally burned by the down side of probability and avoiding them irrationally?

A lot of their value is defense, McCutcheon is doing ok for me. hogh OBA. One downside I guess is that he is a 3L and the majority of ABs are usually against righties. I've seen many OFs underform on offense the Uptons, Swisher and Parra for example.

The thing that jumps out at me is they are all overbalanced towards lhp's. Since they will see about 2/3 rhp's, they have an obvious flaw.
Phillips-He is high priced and I rarely use him unless I have to. Another disadvantage is that his home park was Great American, so his power does not translate well to his card such as someone who hit those HR's in Petco. That being said, whenever I check out his OBP vs rhp's on another team it always seems to be half decent. It's tough to pay $8.00+ for someone who won't be a star, but you could always do worse than a 1 e6 with 600 PA's at second base.
Perdroia-similar to above except a better player. I have had him put up some real nice numbers such as:
625 106 200 41 2 17 88 86 117 35 10 5 A 1-14 .320 .399 .474 in Kauffman($80/101 wins). I think the problem is that in a bad Pedroia season he is also capable of putting up numbers similar to what Phillips would achieve and then you are back at paying an excessive price for someone who is not achieving star level offensive production.
Zobrist-I like Zobrist. I think he's a little underappreciated because he will never achieve a real gaudy stat line such as the one referenced above. However, he is a threat in a bunch of offensive categories. I like him in power parks and use him often. Here is a nice Fenway season($100/106 wins):630 97 173 40 3 18 90 85 156 10 4 8 B 1-15 .275 .362 .433. Playing RF comes in handy every once in a while.
McCutchen-He has been horrid the few times I have tried him. I would not use him.
Victorino-Similar to McCuthen, but I do see him on the 1st page of the offensive players every once in a while. Still is a "1", e0.

lev.cohen wrote:

geekor wrote:Phillips is the only one I would take.

the problem with the other 4 are they hit nothing even close to what they should. To pay all that money and then get half of what you expect (not what their real life stats are, but what the card should hit), and see it over and over, people now know just to stay away and don't waste your $$.

I see that, but the problem is.. What lower $$ 2b and CF options will preform better? Upton? Jennings? Maybin? The only enticing 2B option I see is Cano

There's a good amount of guys with solid defensive for 3/4 mill that will put up similar offensive numbers as those guys. Not great numbers still, but similarly terrible.