Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Had a terrible autodraft, waivers went just as bad. In a division with 2 other Progressives. Pitching options thin. After waivers I've been grabbing any LH I can get, until I decide what I'm gonna do. At this point I don't have a true CF (Harper). FA market is thin.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1113910

I feel like I have extra players or extra cash. I'm considering consolidating Harper, Guitierrez, and Colvin into Trout. Not sure how he'll do in Progressive. With the other Prog teams, wondering if I should add another RH bat (Ruggiano, Longoria)?

Thaks for looking.

Hi. Here's my 2 cents.

Re pitching -
1. Hang onto your L balanced LHP.
2. Watch out for the Hustlers. You need to have a couple of RHP to face them, because they hurt LHP. However, they represent only 1/3 of your divisional games. If you can, I would *consider* swapping Cahill for a cheaper RHP who still doesn't give up lots of ballpark home runs against LHB. I realize that there won't be many RHP who fit that description, so don't drop Cahill if you can't find a replacement who fits that description. I want to swap Cahill for a cheaper RH pitcher, to free up money for point # 2 for batters below. Then, I would plan your starts (using the per-game starter screen) to try to match up your RHP versus the Hustlers, and your LHP versus the Bleeps and the Lumber. Capuano helps a little with that because he can start every 4 games. Sometimes you can use that to manipulate your per-game starters to get the right guys starting against the right teams - RHP versus Hustlers, LHP versus the others.

Re Batting -
1. I would NOT swap your power LHB for Trout. 2 reasons - A - you MUST build your team to play in your home ballpark. There are only so many power LHB in the set, and if you give them up, you will likely find that other players may snap them up - especially your division rivals! and - B - Trout is an R balanced hitter, and you are going to face a high % of LHP from your division rivals - especially from Lumber co.
2. Instead, I would drop Ackley, and start Quintanilla at 2b. I would try to drop Cahill for a cheaper RHP who still doesn't give up BP homeruns to LHB, as stated above. With the dollars from those moves, I would try to get a very L balanced platoon hitter for the 3b position (platoon with Chavez) and your outfield positions (platoon with one of them). I like Gutierrez and Kinsler as platoon hitters. Get 2 more guys who are heavily L balanced like that, in order to mitigate the lefty pitchers that you are going to face.
3. Green and Kinsler seem redundant, since they are both 2b who are right handed platoon hitters. I would drop Greene if I can replace him with a right handed platoon hitter at 3b or outfield.

I LOVE all of the lefty power hitters you have. Don't let them go. I like them all for your team. Platooning is the key to overcoming the high % of lefty pitchers you will be facing, IMO. Gutierrez and Kinsler are key guys for you.

Thanks for the advice:

My lineup(I'm still tinkiering with the order) vs. RH
Jaso
Ackley
Ethier
Morneau
Jones
Chavez
Desmond
Harper
Baxter

I just picked up Colvin, so he's kind of on the bench. I guess I could duump Baxter and Ackley and use that for a RH hitter to platoon somewhere. I was gonna use Kinsler @ 3b, but could move him to 2b.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/te ... ht/1104144

Here is the left-right splits for a team that I had that was in a somewhat similar situation. They had one division rival at Progressive (not 2), and their other division rivals were in Nationals, and Fenway.

What was really interesting about this was that my division rivals had relatively few RH batters, and were relatively L balanced hitters (hit lefty pitchers somewhat hard, like the Hustlers in your league). So I used 4 RHP and 1 LHP, with the RHP being all L balanced. The RHP actually faced about 60% left handed batters. It was a small cap league, so I spent very little on my pitching staff, to keep $ for my batters. The key here is that the opposing hitters prefered left pitchers - otherwise I might have had another lefty pitcher or 2.

On the batting side of things, there was a really high percent of opposing lefty pitchers - about 45% (see Fielder's splits)! So, I made sure that I had players that hit lefty pitchers well. I had Gutierrez as well, and he hit .292/.363/.572 overall, but he hit .326/.403/.701 versus lefty pitchers. The at bats versus RH pitchers would have been later in the game, once the RP's come in. Injuries for Gutierrez DO hurt. But being a platoon player somewhat mitigates the damage from injuries. The injuries are another reason why you want 3 or 4 platoon RH batters, to mitigate injury issues for Gutierrez.

You'll need to have another look at your division rivals between waiver draft and season start, to recheck their ratios and balances.

BTW, the Lumber right now have what appears to be 6 starting R batters vs RHP. You might need another R balanced RH pitcher like Floyd, if that's how their ratios stay - subject to the concern about giving up ballpark homeruns to LH batters. It's generally hard to finding a pitcher where the balance (R balance) and ballpark home runs go in opposite directions.

HizzyForShizzy wrote:Thanks for the advice:

My lineup(I'm still tinkiering with the order) vs. RH
Jaso
Ackley
Ethier
Morneau
Jones
Chavez
Desmond
Harper
Baxter

I just picked up Colvin, so he's kind of on the bench. I guess I could duump Baxter and Ackley and use that for a RH hitter to platoon somewhere. I was gonna use Kinsler @ 3b, but could move him to 2b.

IMO, Kinsler's e rating at 3b is too high to play him there. He'll make errors frequently at 3b.

Consolidated Baxter, Ackley, and Greene into Longoria. Picked up Chacin. Still not sure about pitching. Wondering if need Storen or use his salary for another starter like Sanchez or Turner.

I'm happy I could help, and offer my advice as to how to look at it. I should probably let someone else chime in. More than anything else, I wanted to share with you how I look at these things. In a 12 team league, divisional match-ups are big, because you play almost 1/2 your schedule against divisional rivals.

I'm happy to share more ideas in a general way, but I'd rather let you carry on with your team. If you have questions other than specific player questions, I'll pitch in with those!

Good luck!

Hope to see you in a league sometime!

gbrookes,

I'm in your PC5, but not the same div so I'm sure you will help me also

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1113088

I'm Progressive and 2 other div teams are Fenway and Great Am.

Do I care about their parks or just focus on Progressive power?

Every RH HR hitter I a dd is one that gets killed by his home park.

Can't tell if I'm in a good or bad position...

bertolett wrote:gbrookes,

I'm in your PC5, but not the same div so I'm sure you will help me also

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1113088

I'm Progressive and 2 other div teams are Fenway and Great Am.

Do I care about their parks or just focus on Progressive power?

Every RH HR hitter I a dd is one that gets killed by his home park.

Can't tell if I'm in a good or bad position...

Hey bertolett!

I REALLY can't give specific advice in a PC tournament league!:)

General advice - sometimes what I do is calculate a weighted average of the ballparks that I'll be playing in all year long. Since you play half the games at home anyway (obviously), and since there are a few Progressive and Busch ballparks, you will likely find that the wieghted average is still skewed in favour of lefty hitters, in terms of ballpark effects.

Of course, you still need to consider what your division rivals are doing in terms of L-R handedness and L-R balance, for both pitching and hitting. That is a separate consideration that needs to be layered over top of the ballpark effects. If all of your division rivals had 100% lefty pitchers with an average balance of 6L, for example, this would induce you to put more $ into L balanced right handed hitters, for example, even if they suffer in Progressive. This is a relative and general statement - you have to weigh the pro's and con's and find the right balance for your own team.