First 18 games

How much does the first week of the season, six games against each division opponent, equal number at home and away, less likely for injuries to be much of a factor, reveal about what will happen the rest of the way? It's only 11% of the season, but if you've only won 5 or 6 games out of the first 18, does that mean your roster strategy is doomed to failure? Or is there a glimmer of hope that, even after a bad start against the teams in your division, your team will turn it around and make the promised land of a playoff berth?

I always like to take a hard assessment of my team after the first week of games. If some players are hitting / pitching far below what they "should" be doing, I assume they will improve as the season goes along. But especially if I have a losing record at home, we're having trouble scoring runs, or the pitching staff cannot seem to hold a lead, there must be some glaring problems with my roster construct, and that I need to find out the reason and make some changes if necessary.

Thoughts?

The first thing you DO NOT want to do is start dumping players and taking the salary hit. Those with less overall salary are doomed to the bottom of the division. Tweak lineups, settings - ANYTHING but dropping so called BAD players for better ones. This has been preached to Barnstormers "newbies" seemingly forever.

I have changed out slumping players on several of my teams, many times improving my W-L record. I completely understand your reasoning, but after say 100 games of non performance, I just need to make a change. Plus, I like to experiment.
Now, as I begin the second dozen teams of my Strat 365 journey, I am much more inclined to sit tight and play the wait and see game. I'll let y'all know how that goes!
peterc1956

I agree wholeheartedly with Moose on this. I am in a few leagues right now where people are dropping players left and right, and if they want to play with 85% of the salary of everyone else, they can, but they will lose. Winning after dropping a massive number of players is the exception, not the rule.

I think this game should include a disclaimer like advertisements for investment funds do.

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results".

The only thing that predicts future results is what is on the card and the randomness of dice rolls. Since randomness cant be predicted by definition, the only thing you can do is get the best quality cards and hope randomness works for you. If adding a lesser card leads to better results, it just means that randomness was way in your favor.

I dont know why this one bugs me the way it does. I just see teams make these huge numbers of transactions and all I can do is shake my head.

I agree with Moose. My last team started out 3-15 and with only a couple of roster tweaks won the division. Pay attention to the odd stats like dice rolls (the majority of rolls for my opponents were off their hitters cards, and for my batters most of the rolls were my opponents pitcher cards) and stats that don’t make sense like Mickey Mantle walking once in 18 games…

I also think the first week doesn't mean that much, you can't judge how good your team will be with such a small sample size. Most of the time, every team in the division has between 6 and 12 wins. Big deal. Things get very interesting immediately after that initial 18-game stretch, because then you play 90 of the next 114 games against the rest of the league. That's where you can see how you actually measure up, before the final 30 games or so in division.

Moose is right, of course, as a general rule particularly after only 18 games but I have found that there are some nuances:

1. You discover you made a mistake. For example When your ballpark leans lefty favorable for HRs and that certain switch hitter’s card has a ball park homer but you thought it was against righties but it’s actually against lefties.

2. That $5 million bench player you thought was going to be a big contributor has 3 AB’s in the first 30 games because of changes a couple of teams made in your division while your underfunded bullpen is getting rocked.

3. A 15 game injury hits a player and you are in a pennant race late in the season. And a replacement is available that’s much better than your back up.

4. Or an injury occurs to a player with multiple cards and you have the available cash to pay the penalty to drop one card and pick up another one for the same player making the injury go away.

5. You thought it made sense to accept a player’s weakness but that weakness has cost a few games and you say “I don’t mind continuing to lose in this league but if I lose another game because of an Eddie Stanky error I’ll be very upset.” Admittedly this one is emotional, not logical.

6. In case a newbie finds this thread, Moose’s view does not apply in mystery leagues where you need to constantly evaluate results for clues to the mystery card. This post is In ATG forum so this is understood but wanted to have it recorded anyway.

Anyone have any other exceptions to the general rule?

Moose is right, of course, as a general rule particularly after only 18 games but I have found that there are some nuances:

1. You discover you made a mistake. For example When your ballpark leans lefty favorable for HRs and that certain switch hitter’s card has a ball park homer but you thought it was against righties but it’s actually against lefties.

2. That $5 million bench player you thought was going to be a big contributor has 3 AB’s in the first 30 games because of changes a couple of teams made in your division while your underfunded bullpen is getting rocked.

3. A 15 game injury hits a player and you are in a pennant race late in the season. And a replacement is available that’s much better than your back up.

4. Or an injury occurs to a player with multiple cards and you have the available cash to pay the penalty to drop one card and pick up another one for the same player making the injury go away.

5. You thought it made sense to accept a player’s weakness but that weakness has cost a few games and you say “I don’t mind continuing to lose in this league but if I lose another game because of an Eddie Stanky error I’ll be very upset.” Admittedly this one is emotional, not logical.

6. In case a newbie finds this thread, Moose’s view does not apply in mystery leagues where you need to constantly evaluate results for clues to the mystery card. This post is In ATG forum so this is understood but wanted to have it recorded anyway.

Anyone have any other exceptions to the general rule?

7. When you realize you totally miscalculated the Lefty/Righty balance of your opponents and need to make your team stronger against one side or the other.

8. When you realize that the understaffed bullpen you thought you could get away with is costing you lots of games and have no choice but to make some moves.

9. When you are in a super tight divisional race coming down to the wire and need to "tweak" your team specifically to beat a divisional rival.

10. When all hope is lost for the season and you just want to try out a player you've had your eyes on but never pulled the trigger on.

Moose is right, of course, as a general rule particularly after only 18 games but I have found that there are some nuances:

1. You discover you made a mistake. For example When your ballpark leans lefty favorable for HRs and that certain switch hitter’s card has a ball park homer but you thought it was against righties but it’s actually against lefties.

2. That $5 million bench player you thought was going to be a big contributor has 3 AB’s in the first 30 games because of changes a couple of teams made in your division while your underfunded bullpen is getting rocked.

3. A 15 game injury hits a player and you are in a pennant race late in the season. And a replacement is available that’s much better than your back up.

4. Or an injury occurs to a player with multiple cards and you have the available cash to pay the penalty to drop one card and pick up another one for the same player making the injury go away.

5. You thought it made sense to accept a player’s weakness but that weakness has cost a few games and you say “I don’t mind continuing to lose in this league but if I lose another game because of an Eddie Stanky error I’ll be very upset.” Admittedly this one is emotional, not logical.

6. In case a newbie finds this thread, Moose’s view does not apply in mystery leagues where you need to constantly evaluate results for clues to the mystery card. This post is In ATG forum so this is understood but wanted to have it recorded anyway.

Anyone have any other exceptions to the general rule?

7. When you realize you totally miscalculated the Lefty/Righty balance of your opponents and need to make your team stronger against one side or the other.

8. When you realize that the understaffed bullpen you thought you could get away with is costing you lots of games and have no choice but to make some moves.

9. When you are in a super tight divisional race coming down to the wire and need to "tweak" your team specifically to beat a divisional rival.

10. When all hope is lost for the season and you just want to try out a player you've had your eyes on but never pulled the trigger on.

Super guilty of number 10. I call it the “Bake McBride against lefties” syndrome.

I think there are a couple of other mitigating factors.
1)Size of the budget -the larger the budget the less
Of an impact .
2) The size of the penalty when replacing players
A heck of a difference between a 5 percent hit and a twenty
percent hit.
I’ve seen teams totally gutted just to change the makeup .
I’ve had some success making changes early on when it’s
apparent I’ve made some miscalculations as to the proper
makeup of the team
For the most part I agree with previous sentiments
Changes should come judiciously.