Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Alright, I am having a very hard time getting my head around this team. My draft and waivers were dreadful and had to piece this together. I should mention most of the parks in the league are pitchers parks which made me revamp my thinking a bit. Anyone with a free moment please give me their thoughts on this!

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/in ... am/1103388

Loobee

I'm in the same league with you (different division) and my draft was dreadful too, a got bunch of poor fielders I didn't want, though this only my 2nd team and I am still very uncomfortable with drafting---I would have liked Encarnacion, but just had nothing to trade I could see--when I look at a couple of those teams looks like they had $90M to spend to me.

Look to trade Encarnacion for any LH power hitter you can find. It will be hard as high priced players are hard to trade. If you can't do it look at Free Agents that hit for power from the left and drop him for 2 or 3 that can hit.

Your first and only mistake was taking Progressive Park. If you want a heavy park slanted L or R you need to draft live so you can get those players. In an auto draft you can end up right where you are and that is well &%#$!@! Sorry you didn't get the players that you wanted but everyone goes for LH power hitters as you almost always bat against RHP 66 percent of the time and everyone grabs them high on the draft list.

Live and learn and as I always tell people as they are getting the crap beat out of them watch the teams that are winning and see what they are doing. This team will get killed and for that I am sorry but you can also learn from the teams that are winning. 40 % of my teams make the playoffs because I followed the vets and watched how they built a team. I have lost 100 games and I have won a 100 games. Most of my Championships have come from the wildcard and the teams I loved the most have got their ash kicked and the ones I knew were crap have won it all.

This year I have 6 teams going and the one I thought was going all the way is fighting for .500 and the one I thought would have trouble is leading by 12 games. You will build teams you think can't win and watch them go all the way.

I never dump players unless I can trade them but your team is in trouble and you might want to mix it up some so you can learn. Just don't do it early and most important often! You are only 0-3 and you might just sweep tomorrow and be 3-3. Mess with the settings and see what happens. Better to learn this when you might not do well then when you are in a playoff race and it cost you.

I hope this helps some
Mike

Cheers for the advice. Point taken on the Progressive field thing. If the draft went slightly in my favor I think I would of been alright but I really got cheesed in the draft and waivers. I did not get to set any of my teams settings yesterday so the 0-3 result was from using Hal as my manager ( lost internet last night before I could set anything).
There is not much available on fa for lefty power. Ethier, Bruce, Heyward is about it.
I will give it some time and maybe a team that I look at and makes me go blech may do something haha
Thanks again!
Lou

One of my favorite teams was one of my first online. It didn't make the playoffs, but the season definitely turned around after I made some trades. It was a 2007 league:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/152802

Back then I was more sentimental than scientific- it would be interesting for me to go back and re-analyze it now. The big trade I made was acquiring Chipper Jones (2007) for one or 2 of my starting pitchers (and some other players back and forth). The team was 29-46 through the first 75 games, and 48-39 through the last 87 games. It didn't get the team into the playoffs, but it was lots of fun.

What I did then that I should do more of now is aggressively pursue trades. It takes time though, and a willingness to be turned down several times till you find someone who is willing to trade, and has a need that you can fill (a win-win). But trades are definitely the way to go unless you are in a 5/10/20 drop penalty set-up. (As it was, I still burned $2.5 million through player drops!).

Good luck sebastian!

Either make a trade or try to grab one of (Heyward Ethier Bruce). If you can't trade Encarnacion, cut him for one of those guys and move Swisher to 1b. Who is your DH? there might be some cheap options for a lefty bat at DH (Lowrie). Sorry about your draft. This is why Proggresive scares the hell out of me!

STEVE F wrote: This is why Proggresive scares the hell out of me!

yea I said that at the beginning of the year (SOM year). There just isn't enough LH Power bats to go around. Going with Progressive field is ballsy, as it's very easy to get a bad draft and be sunk in that home park.

That said, Either (in a platoon if possible) would have been a better choice, with moving Swisher to 1B, before the season started. If you are in a 5/10/20 league, I would still do that move tbh. If you're in a 20% cap league, don't make moves until necessary, make trades. Though most people won't make trades for at least a week or 2.

TBH, I would try to package Melky with Encarcion, to get at least 1 LH power bat (1B, LF or RF). Melky is "w" power as a LH hitter, that isn't helping you either. Take a loss (trade 2 for 1, where your 2 good pieces for their 1 good and whatever trash they want to send with it) but make sure that 1 is someone that can really help (Fielder, Moss, Hamilton etc)

Thanks guys!!! I enjoy doing trades but seems like most can't be bothered and I have come across a few that don't even respond when I ask of they are interested. Guess not everyone can read english haha. I will try and swing a Melky/Encar deall first and see if I can't work out something. If nobody wants to deal I will probably drop him for Heyward or Ethier and move Swish to first. This is a no DH league btw.

Loobee

Went ahead and picked up Ethier and added S Hairston as the platoon after dropping Encarnacion. Will see if I can find any takers for Melky.