HELP!

my ballpark heavily favors lefties (19 hr L- 5 R). lineup vs L is fine.Vs r, Gibson. Gehrig, Biggio and nomar are set c to ss. That's 3 R batters already, max for my park. 3b is santo away and caminiti at home. Stargell ln Lf and Ortiz at dh (my 2 big HR men. Torriente should be in CF for D, "speed" and OB (only the 3rd +60 ob in the lineup). That leaves Musial, Giles, Ott, Manny for rf. Musial has the most hits on the team and great turnaround, but a +1 arm for rf. Giles has the 2nd highest OB on the team. Ott has a -2 arm and is adequate at bat. Manny can play at at +R HR parks. This leaves us about 20 OB under 540, with about 60 non-ballpark HR, about 7 short of our goal. I've looked at McGraw at 3rd for OB, but he can't beat out santo once you include defense and crunch the numbers. our pitching is both excellent and deep. we have no speed (biggio is.. the only player on the roster +15!). I could get mathews or chipper for 3rd-Dibble is my 4th r reliever and expendable. What can I do?

in your park,grab matthews and use his 8 mil card as quick as u can!

I looked at mathews (8mil), but once you include defense, even in my ballpark, and crunch the numbers caminiti beats him out both vs lefties and righties. Santo also beats him out vs right. I used the basic runs created formula based on 216 plate appearances (30% of a full season). The question remains, who should I play in rf vs right- Musial, Manny, Ott or Giles (in cf with torriente in rf)?

check the numbers again. is your ballpark Griffith 11. it fits the numbers you listed. If so Mathews is much better (NERP or RC) vs R than Caminiti

ok- lets look at caminiti vs mathews against right handed pitchers. First we look at the defense. Third base X should come up about 90 times over a full season. Mathews, a 3e31 will give up 18 hits and 31 e, while Caminiti, a 1e27 will give up just the 27e. The difference is 22 in favor of caminiti. Since we are basing this comparison on 216 plate appearances (30% of a season) the 22 turns into 6.6. I add those as hits to caminiti's totals to equalize the two players. Once I add in ballpark hits and bp HR, plus a nomormalized expectation of what the pitcher would give up (18.3 total bases and 17 ob) we get this:
caminiti with 109.45 total bases and 77.6 OB with 138.4 outs totaling 39.32 runs created, 7.67 per 27 outs. Mathews has 118.15 total bases and 73.45 OB with 142.55 outs totaling 40.18 runs created,7.61 per 27 outs. There's only a nickle's difference between them, but the nickle goes to caminiti. When you also consider that cam is faster (12/11), is an * base stealer unlike eddie, and has fewer gbA (13/19) that settles it. And there are the X double plays, with 1's turning 70% of them. I did not expect this outcome.

But Eddie Mathews doesn't care about the numbers and will out perform him 8 out of 10 times in league play.

I don't have access to my own ratings, so I can't doublecheck about Mathews, but I do notice one mistake in your calculations.

Say that Mathews will allow 18 hits and 31 errors. Part of hits will be straight singles, part will be single + errors, and you will also have straight errors. Roughly 12 straight singles, 6 si+err, and the rest --25---straight errors. If we leave aside two-base errors, the net difference vs Caminiti (27 errors) will be equivalent to 16 hits--10 singles and 6 doubles, not 22 as you assume. On the other hand, Caminiti will turn more double-plays---roughly 6 more dp--than Mathews.

To your other question, if rf includes facing both lhp and rhp, it's hard not to favor Musial. Arm is not ideal, but still, +1 is within my level of avceptation...

Thanks for the feedback. I realize your point about single + error, but because the difference in errors was only 4, and mathews gives up hits 20% of the time, that amounted to a reduction of Mathews mistakes of 0.8, which i then could have counted as doubles.I felt it was a wash and decided on the simple approach.On the RF issue I've decided to follow your advice and play musial come hell or high water! At least vs lefties he'll be in LF where the +1 arm is less damaging. I thank all of you for the feedback. Season starts tonight! You never quite know. Last season I had Howard Johnson, who hit .283 with 38 HR and 29 2B in 400 ab. However, he did not turn a single dp in X ground balls.

Why would you play Stargell over Musial in LF? That's insane! HR be damned!

Also, Giles can't play RF. CF and LF only.

So your choice in RF becomes Manny vs. Ott - I'd use Manny vs. LHP and reverse RHP and Ott vs. RHP and reverse LHP.

I am with the crowd on Mathews vs. Caminiti. That nickel's worth of difference goes away when you realize that $8 million Eddie hits LH against everybody and Caminiti has to hit RH in your park against lefties. There is a small tactical advantage to having a full-time player at a position vs. a platoon or switch-hitter, it helps to neutralize reverse pitchers.

Why would you play Stargell over Musial in LF? That's insane! HR be damned!

Also, Giles can't play RF. CF and LF only.

So your choice in RF becomes Manny vs. Ott - I'd use Manny vs. LHP and reverse RHP and Ott vs. RHP and reverse LHP.

I am with the crowd on Mathews vs. Caminiti. That nickel's worth of difference goes away when you realize that $8 million Eddie hits LH against everybody and Caminiti has to hit RH in your park against lefties. There is a small tactical advantage to having a full-time player at a position vs. a platoon or switch-hitter, it helps to neutralize reverse pitchers.

absolutely right or maybe left on all counts here.