Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

... probably don't spend much time on the discussion boards.

But the way one manager in my league tackled the challenge we all have of using the same amount of salary cap available went horribly wrong, and I think it can be instructive especially for those new at this simulation game.

In my experience, the overwhelming majority of teams finish the season somewhere between 90 wins and 90 losses. If you happen to win more than 100 games, you're not only lucky but probably skilled at constructing a winning roster. On the other hand, if you team loses more than 100 games, you've probably done something wrong. Many times impatience kicks in and we churn through a multitude of add/drops trying to find a better combination of players when in the end all it does is leave us at a financial disadvantage with teams that left their opening day rosters mostly intact. But sometimes our concept of what we need to succeed here is poorly executed. I invite you to take a look at this roster as an example.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1417071

This team is heading toward something in the ballpark of 50 wins. This team kept the same roster all year. You'll notice the four main components of his strategy:

1) Strong starting pitching in a pitchers park
2) Lights out relief pitching
3) Outstanding infield defense
4) No injuries

His plan succeeded in avoiding injury; only Carlton Fisk went down, 3 times for a total of 5 games. But his stellar RPs did not pitch many innings, and the one with the most IP had the lowest salary. Plus, the pitchers park and strong defense didn't seem to translate into a low ERA.

Some observations (for salary caps $100M or less):

1) Do not put too much of your salary into relief pitching, unless you also economize on the starting staff. A proven effective winning strategy is a quality RP rated at least R3 or R4 that pitches a ton of innings, backed up by a mid-priced R5 reliever to pick up the slack when your top guy is fatigued. But spending over $20M in a $100M league on 4 relievers on top of $30M for a starting staff is doomed to failure.

2) A few hitters without injury risk are great, but you'll also pay a premium built into their salary for the peace of mind knowing you won't have to rely on bench players. We are required to have a minimum of 13 hitters. In a DH league that means your 4-6 bench players are totally unnecessary dead weight. It's an effective strategy to have several 3- or 15-game injury risks in the starting lineup as long as you have backups that won't stink too bad if called upon to fill in for an injured player. You might as well have useful minimum salary players to back up the best players.

3) Strong pitching & defense teams can do well if they are paired with high value inexpensive hitters. Spending $50-55 million on pitching means you have to be very creative spending the remaining $45-50 million on 9 hitters and the bench. I've seen a lot of teams do really well with a similar strategy, the only difference being a greater investment in at least 3 top starting pitchers above $9-10 million each, and economizing on the relief corps. Starting pitchers in the $7-8 million range are more unreliable in a $100M league, and the cash spent on 4 excellent RPs that pitch only occasionally will cut into the amount of money available to spend on hitters who will play in every game.

I hope this helps those who need it the most ...

probably should just ask this manager, in case you havent already, if its okay to post his team.
Ive played with this person in some high cap leagues and am guessing he was thinking of the RPs from that league more than maybe at this cap.

Other than that, very instructive post.

Salty

I do not want to criticize anyone, I honestly think this manager had a very good construct for a winning team in concept, all it needed was a tweak here or there to be competitive, it's not a "joke" or "experimental" team. I know we get tired of guys asking us, "What do you think of my team?" but in this particular case presenting the team to the collective wisdom of the SOM players here for their opinion before the season started would have helped avoid a few money management pitfalls.

It amuses me that supertyphoon created this thread, for reasons that I hope to make clear shortly. I too am in the same division as he and the manager whose team he thoughtfully dissected. I find his analysis to be incisive and spot on but quite beside the point of my post here.

But first, allow me a brief digression. I noticed, about a year ago, that an unnamed manager who I both respect and consider a friend and who is a successful veteran (somewhere in the top 20 in lifetime SOM on-line wins) was kicking some serious butt in any of the 100M leagues I would (randomly) enter. One of my weaknesses, is that I don't usually pay much attention to my opponent's draft tendencies, except at live drafts where said tendencies are very much in one's face because of the draft format. Anyway, I noticed that my friend kept drafting the same team, in the same park, over and over again. Because I am by nature competitive, I decided to enter every 100M league that I saw him enter first, essentially to see if I could do better than him, given a very precise knowledge of his tendencies which I could use against him. I used to do this to Nev back in ATG3 and 4, not because he drafted the same team each league but because the player pool was smaller and he clearly had certain players that he regarded as "his." As a confirmed contrarian, this amused me then and continues to amuse me now. More recently, regarding my aforementioned friend, I believe that I was pretty successful at this, at least my friend no longer was guaranteed the best record in the league and I picked up more than my share of rings in these leagues.

Anyway, supertyphoon became a person of interest to me around the time this league started and manager ratings were restored, largely because I noticed that he has a .550 atg lifetime winning pct. We have subsequently hooked up recently in two more 100M leagues, by the second team I noticed that he too had the same draft card as the first league we play in. In the second league he is currently 24-6 maintaining a torrid pace right out of the gate. I am struggling at 17-13 after some recent setbacks. In the third league he is 5-4 and I am 4-5 but there I drafted a team knowing what he would be drafting - in any event it will be interesting (at least to me) how that league turns out.

Bottom line, I am just curious what motivates someone to draft the essentially the same team repeatedly. Personally, I love it when I actually notice it is happening but it has never actually occurred to me to want to engage in the practice.

Because winning is addictive!

I enjoy redrafting some of my championship teams, or teams that won 95+ and went down in the playoffs.

I'm more puzzled when I see managers redraft the same team that I've gone against before and they won 78 games...

whoopycat

I always seem to miss a key player or three...and even though that team and the replacements I use might be successful, I still would like a shot at getting those key players on my next card...If at first etc.

OR I look at a strong 95+ win team...and see what little tweaks I could use to make it just a little better...


btw..

I think supertyphoon started out as nexrad and then played under some other name too, but I could be mistaken..and yes he's played the same type of team for quite awhile now.