New Players: Model of Skill Acquisition

Competent

Moving to competent implies you have developed an ability to formulate effective plans in order to achieve your goal of building winning teams. You now have enough experience and frame of reference to make conscious decisions about what works, what doesn't and why. You are also moving forward among the larger crowd of experienced players, who are also trying to push forward themselves. Things do not get any easier from here.

If I were to sum up the goal of building winning teams in a bumper sticker slogan, it would probably be something like "Maximize Net OPS". It's not catchy like "Have A Nice Day! ", but it's the main goal in SOM Online.

The problem with maximizing OPS is that the full field of managers, each trying to do the same thing you are, a lot of times come to the same conclusions about which players they want.

Eddie beat me to the punch in the other thread, but I have found that having a theme (for lack of a better word to describe it) allows me to seek OPS producers with a twist. I target players which build toward my theme, keeping me out of the high traffic lanes competing for the usual high draft choice selections.

I have won rings with every one of the following "themes":

PITCHING

The Secret Formula ($6-5-4-3-2)
5 Stud Starters
4 Stud Starters
3 Stud Starters
SPs Who Are Also RPs
3 Stud Relievers
2 Stud Relievers
Allow Fewest Hits
Allow Fewest Walks
Allow Lowest Total Bases

HITTING

The Secret Formula ($9-8-7-6-etc)
Beane Count (net BBs + HRs)
Balls In Play (net strikeouts)
High Injury
Net GB/FB Ratio
Most Hits
Most HRs
Most BBs (and best net BBs)
Most SB
Most Doubles
All 1s on Defense
All 2s on Defense
All 4s on Defense

My go-to theme has always been The Secret Formula, in my opinion the single best way to put your team in contention to win a ring. The sound fundamentals with a spread out salary construction make it easy to seek out lots of different kinds of players at the full range of available prices. Poor auto drafts can be re-built rather easily, because you didn't rely on a "I need Trout at all costs" theme that can be easily ruined when another manager gets him ahead of you.

But flexibility is also a function of experience, so you need to keep fielding teams in order to maximize your ability to recognize how to plug a gap with a player no one else wants.

There's really no getting around this - if you want to be good you have to play a lot, and you might have to be willing to experiment quite a bit along the way.

A basic advice I would give to beginners is to avoid 500 k players altogether. Most of them are so bad that they are really costing your team a few millions, perhaps more if they play regularly. Unless you understand how to read cards, stick to the 0.51M-0.75M for utility players or cheap relievers and up to 2M for bench players used in platoons or who backup a lot because of frequent injuries (up to 3M if you expect your utility player to play almost every game because of a team with very high-injury prone players).

I guess another related, but more fundamental advice, that I would give to advenced beginners is:spend wisely. Spend the money on players who play/pitch, and spend least money on players that play rarely or pitch useless innings.

While obvious, this advice is more difficult to implement than it seems. You know you'll need at least 9 hitters, perhaps a bit more if you use platoons. But the difficult question is how much pitching do I need? To answer, look at the quality and at the endurance of your starters, the quality of your defense, and bear in mind the effect of your stadium and those of your divisional opponents, and try to ask yourself, how many quality relievers do I really need?

A few (easy) examples:
a)I got in the draft three stellar *SP (7) pitchers, including Kershaw and Scherzer. I play in a low-hitting stadium and my opponents' stadiums are roughly neutral. Answer: I won't need a lot of innings of my relievers. So I might as well found a fourth stellar pitcher, to make certain that I will really need only one good reliever. Spend the rest on cheapies relievers (say 2 on cheapie specialists and 2 on mop-up function). So your pitching pyramid might look like:

SP1-10M SP2-8M SP3-7M SP4-6M SP5-0.5M
RP1-3M RP2-1M RP3-0.7M RP4-0.6M-RP5-0.6M,
that's 37M or so on pitching.

b) I miss on my high quality SP. I play in Coors, and my defense is so-so. Answer: you'll need a lot of innings from your relievers. So you might spend high money on at least two relievers, settle on cheapie starters who are good value for your stadiium.
SP1 3M SP2-3M SP3-2M SP4-2M SP5-1.4M
RP1-5M RP2-5M RP3-2M-RP4- 1M- RP5-0.6M,
so 25M on pitching. But that strategy works only if you can spend the rest of the money on offensive players. If you can't, you might change the configuration of your pitching sqaud, go with better starters, but then, drop the second 5M reliever for a 3M reliever since you won't need as much innings from your bullpen as you expected.

Both make perfect sense in my opinion, despite being very differently.

Awesome to hear from you!!

Eddie beat me to the punch in the other thread, but I have found that having a theme (for lack of a better word to describe it) allows me to seek OPS producers with a twist. I target players which build toward my theme, keeping me out of the high traffic lanes competing for the usual high draft choice selections.

I have won rings with every one of the following "themes":

Obviously all J-Pav wrote above is interesting, but not all the approaches he lists are actually "themes," they're just approaches. If all those approaches were themes, then every team would be a theme team. A theme is:

"The particular subject or idea on which the style of something (such as a party or room) is based."

So, while his all 4's team based on an idea of terrible defense would be a theme team, his teams based on strategic approaches--e.g. his Secret Formula teams and his stud starters teams--would not.

Either way, those teams were all obviously successful, and his further expounding on how he constructed them will help the newbies (and some others) in the league.

Eddie beat me to the punch in the other thread, but I have found that having a theme (for lack of a better word to describe it) allows me to seek OPS producers with a twist. I target players which build toward my theme, keeping me out of the high traffic lanes competing for the usual high draft choice selections.

I have won rings with every one of the following "themes":

Obviously all J-Pav wrote above is interesting, but not all the approaches he lists are actually "themes," they're just approaches. If all those approaches were themes, then every team would be a theme team. A theme is:

"The particular subject or idea on which the style of something (such as a party or room) is based."

So, while his all 4's team based on an idea of terrible defense would be a theme team, his teams based on strategic approaches--e.g. his Secret Formula teams and his stud starters teams--would not.

Either way, those teams were all obviously successful, and his further expounding on how he constructed them will help the newbies (and some others) in the league.

I just want to say let's net get bogged down in the difference between "themes" and "approaches".

Let me say that I am THRILLED and EXCITED to see the lively contributions to the theories on strat-o-matic and baseball run production (and prevention)!!!

Also very thrilled to see the gaming community really starting off 2015 in a great way!!!

Either way, those teams were all obviously successful, and his further expounding on how he constructed them will help the newbies (and some others) in the league.

- Well said!


(200X) moderator

GBrookes,

I wasn't getting "bogged down" in anything. We've been discussing theme teams in the other thread. So, what we all mean by "theme" is a relevant subject. If we can't discuss among ourselves what we as a group and/or we as separate individuals consider "theme" teams, the subject becomes irrelevant. If players don't want to discuss the subject, and want every approach to be a "theme," I'm fine with that. However, if we are going to separate theme-teams from non-theme-teams, we need to be able to discuss what a "theme" team is.

I appreciate your trying to prevent conflict. However, there is no conflict here, as I was considerably respectful of J-Pav's post, and my point was entirely relevant.

We've all been in different theme leagues. I've never been in an approach league.

Maybe we can get a sign up thread for an approach league that sounds interesting.

If you haven't been in an approach league, you've never played in a league at all. Every manager takes a particular approach with every team he builds. Every manager does not, however, come up with a particular theme when he builds his team. You clearly never grasped the meaning of the word "approach," but I will give it to you here:

"a way of dealing with something : a way of doing or thinking about something"

Now, a theme, as I posted earlier, is entirely different. It is not just a way of dealing with something, it is a way of dealing with something based on a particular subject or idea, such as an all-injury-prone team. As, I noted, many of J-Pav's posited themes were just approaches, not themes drawn from a specific subject or idea. As I mentioned to Gbrookes, if we are to actually determine what is a theme-team and what is not, we have to determine whether the team comes from a subject/idea or just an approach.

So, would you like to intelligently weigh in on the subject, or do you just want to post snide troll posts?

I think everyone gets the gist of what I was saying, but to distinguish a theme for an individual team (like maximize the Beane Count) from the theme of a theme league (like Iron Glove, ie all 4s on defense), I'll go with "motif" (a dominant idea or feature).

As an example, I think I posted this team earlier: http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1385609

This was a team where I set out to maximize SLG in a pitchers park. That meant lots of doubles and fewer home runs, although it turned out to be a lopsided league featuring eight hitters parks. Weirdly enough, three of the four pitchers parks managers made the playoffs...

Anyway, I just sorted the columns for doubles and looked for guys with fewer home runs (Salty, Johnson, etc) mixed in with a few studs (Hanley, Tulo, McCutchen) who could hit the long ball as well as lots of doubles. A couple of platoons, a couple of low budget values, a pinch runner...presto...the "Maximize SLG in a Pitchers Park Motif."

It almost worked too, except HAL did not like my team very much (16-25 in one run games and -4 off of the pythag record).

I think everyone gets the gist of what I was saying, but to distinguish a theme for an individual team (like maximize the Beane Count) from the theme of a theme league (like Iron Glove, ie all 4s on defense), I'll go with "motif" (a dominant idea or feature).

"Motif" is a great way of separating individual theme teams from theme-league teams, although both are still theme teams. I would still consider, and I think J-Pav eventually would as well, teams such as his stud starter teams or Secret Formula teams as non-theme teams. They are teams with smart particular approaches, but they do not come from dominant ideas or subjects. If such "approach" teams are theme teams, then all teams are theme teams, and no teams are theme teams. So the line has to be drawn.

Anyway, I'll move the theme topic to other threads, and let J-Pav continue his Competent Player analysis.

To be accurate. the so-called "theme" leagues are actually "conditional" leagues. Your players and/or BPs must meet certain requirements. J-Pav is providing a "template" or "blueprint".