Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I'm sure similar discussions have happened over the years, however, please have patience and share your insights.

I'm in a $140M ATG7 league.

I've decided to go with Woody English (7.25M) and Rod (10.33M). The question is which to play where.

BACKGROUND - Going with the cheaper ARod over the 10.63 since the other teams in my division only have 1 Lefty Starter and 1 Lefty reliever (no lefty closers in the division). 6 of the other 8 teams outside the division also are heavily righty slanted. BTW I play in Minutemaid.

English ss 2e21 3b 2e13 ARod ss 2e8 3b 1e12
I think in a sub $100M league where GBA is more common on the less expensive cards the I would play ARod at 3b, going for more GBA.

However, at the higher money cards, with GBA becoming less and less common, am I better off with both 2's and only 21 errors or with the 1 at 3b and 33 combined errors?

Can one of you experienced old timers throw me a bone here?

Thanks

is ripken available?

I think in a sub $100M league where GBA is more common on the less expensive cards

No. Common mistake by newbies. All pitcher cards have the same number of gb(ss)x where fielding rating matters no matter what their cost is. And if the pitcher has gb(aa)A on the card your shortstop rating/cost is irrelevant.

Now if your mind is set on using the Arod card you are I would play him at third. Now whether you stick with English or find a different shortstop is for me a separate discussion. Is there a theme reason or whatever that forces you to go with English?

If not there are several in that there are a number of shortstops that provide better defense with somewhat similar offensive abilities.

I guess I'm confused.

I thought errors were generated on the pitchers card through GBx that the error rating determined the odds for that infielder to commit an error.

I thought double plays were determined through the infielders rating and to check for double plays that came from GBA's which are NOT on the pitcher's cards but on the hitter's cards. As a general rule (many exceptions to this generality) the cheaper the hitter more common to have more GBa's and the more expensive the player the less common, since the fields tend to get used up and less room for GBA's (especially for $8m+ hitters). Since most of the hitters in a $140 million league are above $8million I've noticed few of them have many GBA's. To back this up in the $120 and $140 leagues there are substantially fewer ground into double plays and yet about the same number of errors committed as in cheaper leagues.

Now if that is true, and your experience is that the 1 at 3b is better than giving up 13 more errors then I guess I need to weight 13 errors vs. 5 more double plays by playing ARod at 3b....about a wash.

My teams is full of Batting average, HR's and slugging, but short on walks. I hate to waste batting average in the lead off spot and prefer WALKS as a cheaper way for OBA, that's why I was thinking about Woody at leadoff. not enough LHP in the league to consider Ripken for SS.

Here is the link to the roster pre-waiver.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/823285

Tentative plan for a lineup:
SS English
1B Foxx
LF Bonds
DH Belle/Ray Boone platoon
CF Delahanty
3B ARod
RF Sosa
C Need to pick one up in the waiver
2B Need to pick one up in the waiver (pickings for a decent leadoff type are slim)

I have been offered Eddie Collins for Delahanty (a fair offer) and Collins would fit the bill for lead-off, but then I'd be left looking for a righty CFer to fit the minute maid scheme with good defense Andruw Jones only righty, but not ideal for a 140 league, my experience is he's less than a .300 OBA and death to turning over the lineup. Should I trade for Collins and roll the dice in cf? I could easily find a good defensive ss to bat 8th or 9th with decent OBA.

Still I'm confused about the errors vs. GBa's. Once again I thought errors are generated off of pitchers cards which are FIXED regardless of the Pitchers salary, While GBa's are found on the hitter's cards and vary dramatically between hitters and price ranges. Why else would GBa's be lower in the 120 and 140M leagues?

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf ... atfldg.htm

More DP's are turned by a better range infielder in addition to the GBA's. As you go from a range one to range four, you end up with more failed DP attempts, resulting in a force out at second and batter safe at first. These come from the GBX off of the pitchers card.

Hope this helps.

Going from Arod to Woody at 3b would be going from a 1e12 to 2e13. According to the charts an increase from 4.6 to 7.8 for a 3.2 increase in TB/Game and from 3.9 to 6.5 for a 3.6 increase in H+E/Game.
Going from Arod to Woody at ss would be going from a 2e8 to 2e21. According to the charts an increase from 5.1 to 8.8 for a 3.7 increase in TB/Game and from 5.8 to 10.8 for a 5.0 increase in H+E/Game.

Am I correct in reasoning that I would be penalized slightly less in playing Arod at SS and Woody at 3B?

To make sure I've got this both Errors and Dp's are generated from the pitcher's GBx which is consistent year to year and set to set. In addition, more DP's can be generated from hitter's depending on their individual GBA's which is in addition to the pitcher's GBx? Did I get that right?

BTW - Could you post a GBX chart. I've looked on line and haven't found one.

Sorrry to be such a pain, but trying to figure out the nuiances of fine tuning defense. I understand trading defense for offense and vice versa has been a heated debate for decades. However, I figure that comparing straight defense for defense from position to position can be proven mathematically, and these charts you provided do just that.

BTW - if anyone has any input as to whether I should pursue trading Delahanty for Eddie Collins to get my OBA guy to bat leadoff and then tossing Woody back and getting a .390 OBAish ss with good range to bat 9th would be better please chime in. I provided the link to the team above. The team has it's waiver's tomorrow afternoon.

GBx odds are: Out of 108 possible dice combinations off of the pitchers card; SS 7/108, 2b 6/108, 3b 3/108, pitcher and firstbase both 2/108. So concentrate your defensive attention to short and second as a general rule. But if your second base man is Rogers Hornsby, who cares if he is a 2-17? Of the hundreds of teams I have played in this online game, I have almost never gave the GBA's any consideration.

I just finished a face to face dice rolling league and off of the top of my head, more than 70% or so of double plays come from the GBx chances.

GBx odds are: Out of 108 possible dice combinations off of the pitchers card; SS 7/108, 2b 6/108, 3b 3/108, pitcher and firstbase both 2/108.

I was aware of these odds. I haven't played the board game in close to 20 years. Played hundreds of times in the 80's. I know that each game had a GBx chart that you refer to for the result when GBx is rolled. I'm wondering since you posted the other useful conversion chart in the previous post you might also have a link to the GBx chart. Just wanted to take a look at it again. It also include the Fly-X charts too if I remember right.

Anyway if you have access to the link, thanks in advance.

I have the board game charts but no link to it. Also no scanner to copy my charts either. Seems to me that the fielding charts and other types of game play info should be available to all in the help/info section under game rules. I saved that other chart I posted from back at the old Sporting news site when this subject came up before. Maybe someone else has more helpful links available.

Good luck