Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I just don't get the $60 million leagues.


Now, both of my teams looked crummy to me but hey they are $60 million right?

Is there a different mind set and strategy to $60 as opposed to $80?

Can you share a link to your team pages?

There aren't that many big differences between $80 million and $60 million leagues. However, here are a few thoughts for things that might be different:

-For your pitchers, you may find that you are facing more "W" power hitters. Other teams may try to cut salary costs by using more "W" power hitters, especially when they are located in pitcher ballparks. If this is true for your $60 million leagues, then you may find that having pitchers that have slightly more homeruns allowed on their cards will do relatively better than they would in a $80 million league that has fewer "W" power hitters starting.

-For your base stealers and base runners, you may find that you are facing fewer strong catcher arms or outfield arms. This is another area where opposing managers might try to cut costs by accepting weaker arms, or avoiding the high $ of a strong catcher arm or outfield arm. Same thing for opposing pitchers' hold ratings. Therefore, you may find that your base stealers will steal more, and your baserunners might take extra bases a few more times than in an $80 million league.

Generally speaking, you should see your hitters' and pitchers' strat performance be closer to what their real life stats were, playing in a $60 million league (than you would in a $80 million league, where often the strat performance is slightly worse than their real life stats). The reason for this is that an $80 million salary cap is probably going to allow you to field a team that is a better-than-average real life team, whereas a $60 million cap team is likely slightly worse than an average real life team. (My estimate is that an average MLB team might be equivalent to around a $70 million cap). If you are playing opposing teams at $60 million, your players should generally perform slightly better than their real life stats - but not by much. Maybe about the same as their real life stats.

Hope this helps. If you send me your team pages, I'll give you some more comments.
Geoff

What Geoff said! To put it another way, you can think of a 60m team like a real major league team. You want to have 2-3 stars to carry the team and fill in with complimentary players. You will need to go cheap at a few positions. For example, I went cheap at SS with Yunel Escobar. Doesn't hit much, but he catches the ball.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/811746

This was my first attempt

Stab number 2
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1025574

I'm no expert here, so take this info with a grain of salt...

Team #1:
Right off the bat, you're in a hitting park and you've spent only $34 million on hitting.
Now matter what the league is (60/80/100 etc...), you've got to beat people by out slugging them.
With more than half your $ tied up in your pitching, you're not going to do it.

Team #2:
You're in a lefty HR park. That means you want to maximize your team with lefty power bats and at the same time, NOT give up lefty homeruns.
There are more RHP's than LHP's. So you want lefty bats that mash RH's. ie. playing to your park. Lefty bats MAXED out with BPHR's. You don't have any.

visick

tony best wrote:http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/811746

This was my first attempt

Not only that, you're stacking 4 LH SP and then your lineup, weak as it is, is much better vs LH SP, which you've taken most of. In every set it's typically easier to kill LHP than RHP, there are lots of cheap LHP mashers out there. Unless in a LH leaning park, there is never a reason to have more than half your pitchers be LH.

In any league, you are going ot face, on average, 70-75% RHP. You faced 25.9%. You only had 1 hitter, priced over 1 mil, who was geared towards hitting RHP. That doesn't work, in any park.

Couple that, with what Visick said, almost half your salary on pitching. Typical winning teams will have about 30-35% tied up in pitching.

All those taken into account, there is a reaosn why it didn't fair that well.

tony best wrote:Stab number 2
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1025574

Better looking that the first team, but....

too much in pitching and some mis-matched pitchers. Shields and Mortensen shouldn't be in any Progressive team.

Where is the OB% on this team? Who is batting 1st and 2nd in the lineups? I don't see anyone to get on base at a decent clip.

No LH hitters with maxed BP HR's

Soriano is a great cheap DH in hitters parks because of the BP HR's, in your park they are near worthless. Plus it looks as though he's getting time in the Field?? a 5!!! That's is a huge mistake. there is no reason for him to be playing LF.

So yea, some team build issues with this team as well.

Vets may want to chime in here,
I believe ideally you want to spend about 37% on pitching (80 chances divided by 216)

STEVE F wrote:Vets may want to chime in here,
I believe ideally you want to spend about 37% on pitching (80 chances divided by 216)

In J-Pav's annual Secret Formula, he usually suggests spending between 29-32 mill on pitching in an 80 mill cap. That's about in the 37% range, so Steve is in the right ballpark. I would suggest spending about the same % on pitching in a 60 million league

Btw, I usually spend more like 22 million on pitching in an 80 million league, because I just like offense.