Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:53 pm
I am phasing out of the Strat community, but I enoyed a good competition when I see one, and this championship was one of the best. I was delighted to see its unfolding.
Congrats to Cristano, the best GM in the field. He repeated a Finals presence, and let's not forget that he has made the Championships season in the 20XX in the last 3-4 years, although he seems to come up a bit short in that format (I clinged to the idea that I have been the only player making the playoffs in both championships in the same year. A loser trophy, but hey, when your a Bills fan, you kinda accomodate yourself with any idea of success).
Clearly, Cristano developed a computer-based system to analyze players that is the best in the market. Of course, his system is as good as the information there is in it: I am not convinced that Cristano knows that Juan Samuel has four fewer hits than what his card (and what Diamond Dope) indicates, but we didn't get a 1-9 result on Samuel's card in the Finals, so that issue didn't play out in the Finals.
What amazed me from Cristano's performance this year is that, with all due respect, I find Cristano's managing skills sometimes a bit rough on the edge (for example, I know he doesn't manage on a daily basis, although he perhaps makes an exception for the championship, and doesn't exploit his opponents weaknesses as much as he could) but his managing was at his best this season. This team had the best bench I ever saw from a Cristano's team, Cristano made the most out of it, and his bench responded well also when Seymour got hurt in the Finals: one homerun, five rbis, and no harm defensively (Runnels dropped a ball in the lf that didn't cost any run).
I already wrote in the past that the best strategy to beat a 4-ace-low-power-stadium stadium is to opt for a one-sided extreme powerhouse stadium, which is exactly what the Druid went forward with. Cristano's team finished under ,500 this year in such stadiums (when I put Fenway in the mix) and lost all three games in Hilltop park during the Finals, whereas he managed to grab one last year in Shea Stadium.
I wonder if another weak spot of the 4-ace strategy is that the 4th strater has much fewer impact in the playoffs, with only one game in both series. One might argue that Cristano used the same strategy last year and he won the Finals, as we know, but I would argue that it was a bit different: last year, his 3rd/4th starter were Marechal and Joss who have a different profile, cardwise: Marichal is vulnerable in right-handed park, and Joss is not. So at least there was a little advantage last year to go with these two pitchers. But this year, Radbourn was clearly the #4 no matter the opponent.
This said, going with a much weaker #4 does make a team more vulnerable to NOT making the playoffs. Cristano's team behind Radbourn went 24-16, which was pretty solid for a #4 spot. It would be a challenge to go with a weak #4, in a team with no relief, and still manage to get in the playoffs. This said, it's been now the three straight years that Cristano's teams underperfom with regards the Pythagorian records. And I think this is not only due to luck. I think that with the lack of a good reliever, starting pitchers in the 4-ace strategy tend to get overabused and pitch tired with the game on the line at the end of some games. So perhaps a weaker #4 starting pitcher along with a good reliever could get back in the Win column a few games that are now lost because of pitchers being overabused. Anyway, just some food for thought.
Congrats to the Last Druid. My judgment over the Druid is the exact opposite of Cristano: I think he is the best manager in the game, although, from a GM point of view... let's put it this way, we didn't always agree on the value of players. This said, his roster, this year, was full of players I love, with perhaps the exception of Mays; and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Druid chose Schmidt as his third-baseman, one of my favorite player, and whom Druid didn't set as high a value as I did. Truth be told, though, regardless of how the Druid sees Schmidt, he was the perfect fit for his Hilltop line-up: the best 5th hitter his line-up needed, and Schmidt's 4L perfectly mixed with Mays 3R and McGwire 4R. But still, I was glad to see Schmidt rise to the occasion: he finished with the most runs created of Druid's team and finished among the top nominations for MVP in both the season and the playoffs.
Also, as a GM, the Druid made the right moves twice: first when he changed his mix of dh to get Frazier and Dave Johnson, and second when he didn't panic when his team reached the ,400 level base and remained with his set of players. As a manager, the Druid used Frazier and Johnson at their best, Frazier finished with 28 stolen bases in a limited role. But let History remember that the Wrong Stuff had Lou Frazier playing second base in the Finals' last game, and Counsell was the dh. Amazingly, Frazier made 2 of the 3 plays he was involved in---on top of my head, I would say that the success rate of a 4e71 second baseman is less than 25%. What is the probability of having 2/3 in this scenario? Sometimes, you need a bit of luck.
A few words on the other players. Hallerose repeated basically the same strategy than last year, a Forbes Field team with cheap pitching and lots of good hitters. This strategy led him last year to be one out away of getting in the Finals and beating Labratory who became the eventual champ. But the success this year didn't materialize. Not getting Sutter is certainly one issue: House allowed 14 more runs for 70 fewer innings. His defense allowed almost 300 runners to reach the bases--in comparison, the two Finals allowed fewer than 200 extra runners each, and there were no bench players to come up and replace the bad gloves. For a cheap rotation, that's a lot to handle. But I think the bigger issue I have with his team concept is spending 16M-17M on six starting pitchers that together barely got 600 innings. That's a lot of spending for not many innings. If I used this strategy, I wouldn't get a second top reliever: I would rely on my starting pitchers to take the extra work in the bullpen and get at least 800 innings from my 17M investment. Or I even consider spending less---but make sure I have the best offense in the set.
It's been a while that I have learned to never bet against a Labratory team, and he came close to realize another miracle with a team that I didn't had the quality to make the playoffs. At the end of the day, his Bonds-team (Bonds being his very first pick) faced too many lefties, and his team finished terribly, 29-52, against them. Benching Bonds against the tough lefties was certainly a bold move: but by my account, Bench remained on the bench for 15 games as a healthy scratch--that's a lot of games. This said, when Bonds did face lefties, he did poorly: so I am not so sure how Labratory could have solved this situation.
Mesquiton had his own version of the 4-ace strategy and went for a by-the-book Minute Maid team: 9 right-handed power hitters. The bad side of this strategy is too much uniformity, his team couldn't adapt in certains situations---heck, his team went 1-3 against John Halama, for cr**sake!! A couple of nice platoons to go along with Randolph and Uggla could have allowed his team to grab some extra wins. But the biggest culprit of his lineup, I believe, was the lack of a good on-base player at the top of his lineup. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Dykes and Wells finished the top 1-2 in outs in this league.
Hats off to eastern: I thought his team would win 60 games max: he managed to get 77.
A final word, this time on djmacb's team, which didn't make the playoffs. I thought this team could perhaps be the best when the season started. I loved his players selection and I liked his cheap platoons. But a couple of things here and there cost him some wins, and altogether, these were wins that he needed to make the playoffs. First, Walter Johnson just had a bad season: there is no reason for him not to be among the top 10 pitchers. Second, some bad luck with the homerun rolls: 1 out of 38 is anormally low, even considering a League Park stadium. A 25% success roll (which is what his pitchers allowed) would have given his team 8 more homeruns, perhaps a win or two. Third, perhaps too much money spent on the bullpen: over 7M on 4 relievers that pitched as a group roughly 300 innings with an ERA of 6,00 is not a good investment. Finally, some bad clutch results. Ashburn, for one, finished with 11 clutched outs---hits that became outs. 11 outs in clutch situations, that's a win or two. And this is not simply bad luck: his opponents continously walked intentionnally the hitter behind Ashburn in order to face him (Sanguillen was among the leaders in intentional walks---not exactly a dangerous hitter, but his clutch was worth it). Lajoie got only one clutch hit, and led the league with 21 intentional walks. So clearly, his opponents were trying to play around his lineup.
