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Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:35 pm
by Backfire
I'll show one of my worst teams in a while, please let me know why you think I had a bad season. I usually try some different things each league and this time it didn't go too well. I have some ideas about what I did wrong but I'm curious what you all think :) P.s. I do realize some of what I did was questionable but I prefer to try things out and suffer the consequences for the sake of learning haha.

Team
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1719683

League
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/464762

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 7:58 pm
by Mattw0909
I’m not the best at determining this probably but with a quick overview…. Was Beaz playing short? A 3 range could be deadly there. Also You were last in obp but first in hrs I’m guessing a lot of Solo home runs were hit. And aside from clipboard the bullpen struggled. I could be 100% off but that’s what jumps out to me

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 8:05 pm
by Backfire
Thank you. I had E Scott as shortstop for the first time. I was tempted to try him as a cheap alternative to some of the guys I usually take, I believe Crosetti was gone. I was surprised my pitching didn't perform that well but there is a lot of volatility in a right HR park so I felt that part may have been bad "luck" :D But perhaps I selected my pitchers wrong. My OBP was pretty bad, that's a good point.

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 8:13 pm
by Hack Wilson
For strengths and weaknesses, I always check how my team is doing vs. L or R, both hitting and pitching, and how many batters faced and plate appearances for both. Looks like your team had sub-.300 OBP against both L and R, that's a red flag. You had power, but gotta get those guys on base for the big three run homer. Pitching-wise, you faced a lot more lefties than righties, did worse against them than righties.

Just my quick take. :)

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 8:29 pm
by Backfire
Interesting insights, thank you. I might as well say now that I did a very risky experiment that I would never do but I ran out of time building my team and decided to try it and see what would happen. When I built my team in some haste I realized I had no suitable leadoff options against righties. After inspecting the team I felt McGwire would be my best option. He did surprisingly well but that's where a lot of the one run shots came from. The OBP turned out to be terrible for my team and I did underestimate how detrimental that would be.

For pitching I had 1L on three of my starters so I was weighted against them slightly. I was around .500 or better most of the season but went on a skid near the end, at no point did I feel any dominance. Seems like I had some bad injury issues as well. But I definitely made mistakes with this team, if I could do it over I'd have had a proper leadoff vs righties and more OBP. Fun to hear what you guys think!

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 8:42 pm
by Hack Wilson
Power teams need OBP to be successful. Like you, I made a similar miscalculation with a recent team -- has power, lower OBP than I prefer (.323). Turns out basically a .500 team, and that's not good enough -- https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1725508

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 8:51 pm
by Backfire
We gave in to the temptation of power lol. I agree with the OBP. Too bad we can't rewind the clock a bit and make a few tweaks to see what would have happened. Btw you made an excellent point about how I did worse against lefty hitters, I didn't notice I faced so many. Should have stacked more L Balance in retrospect.

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 9:09 pm
by Hack Wilson
Also, I've found that power teams -- lefty or righty home parks, or bomber parks either hand -- need a slugging average of .500 or better. My team above was .488 or so, I believe yours was .465. A good plus-.500 slugging average with decent OBP in a power park of either L or R, or bomber straightaway, will produce winning results.

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 9:22 pm
by Backfire
Interesting observation. I had thought I could get away with it because I had 37M into pitching, which is a lot I feel. The idea was to often be able to shut the opponent's offense down and have unmatched homerun power. I see you had about 23M in pitching.

Do you ever rebuild team concepts with tweaks to see how it goes? I have won some rings that way (perhaps coincidentally of course). I do have some specialties but I generally prefer to explore more strategies so I don't get bored of the game. It can lead to some bad results but in theory should make me a better player in the long run. I like the excitement of whipping up a new (to me) creation and seeing how it will perform. Generally goes a bit differently than expected be default!

Re: Team Critique

PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 10:00 pm
by Hack Wilson
Every team is tweaked, because we don't always get the players we exactly want. But the overall concept for power teams, lefty teams, righty teams, small ball teams seems fairly constant. Lots of tweaks within those concepts depending on available players.