Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I recently participated in a few franchise type leagues (Dodgers, Giants, etc) with 200m and 300m salary caps.
I was excited about them at first, but ultimately found them to be unenjoyable. No matter how good a pitching staff and fielding team I put together, even the best pitchers in baseball history got killed.

Before I write off the concept entirely, I was wondering if anyone has tried franchise leagues with a lower salary cap, maybe the standard 80m, and if the pitchers had a better chance in that format. I really don't find it to be enjoyable when my whole staff has 7.00 era's.

Thanks for any thoughts you might be willing to share.

Franchise Leagues are ALL about the cap. Must find a cap that enables each franchise to be competitive.

Hello,

I am new to SOM and was really having trouble learning the cards and parks and all the mechanics behind things. I tried the franchise leagues and, for me, it added a degree of stability to allow the time to understand the game better-less moving parts. For example, if you have the Tigers - you got a set of players that make it easier to assess the parks, lineups, what relievers your park needs, and which cards 'work' and which cards really 'work' under different situations. In auto drafts- I never get the players and in live drafts it happens all too quick. Essentially, it gave some time to think and plan as I learned thee game. I see these leagues as the 'farm' system before jumping into the advanced leagues.

I since been going back in to high cap draft with much better success (albeit not great). after that- I will work on lowering the caps which I think is terribly difficult to learn. heck I only have ~30 seasons under my belt.

yes the ERA are high but that high cap- not necessarily franchise leagues.

A few years back I organized a five-season decades-themed franchise league, with a cap of $80MM in season one and going $10MM higher each season. Each season, the league-wide ERA was modestly higher. At $80MM it was 4.39 and at $120MM it was a touch over 5. The steps up in between were of consistent size.

If you’re looking for statistical accuracy on an individual player level with 365 or any baseball sim, you need to make your player pool representative of a real-life season, including a significant number of average and below players. A cap of $70-$80MM is about as high as you can go in that context.

I don’t think statistical accuracy is the primary goal for a majority of 365 ATG players. It’s more about the challenge of unlocking winning card combinations at various caps. I prefer lower cap leagues because I like “realistic” results, but when building a roster, I always wish I had just a little more money! The ATG set is filled with, well, hundreds of ATG yearly performances, and like a teenager left alone at home for the weekend by his imbibing parents, it’s hard not to invite friends over and hit the liquor cabinet.