Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:00 pm
First off, your team is better than 12-30. But to me, it's obvious that there are some major flaws.
The four biggest flaws for me are:
1) the lack of on-base at the top of your line-up.
From what I saw, you played most of the season with Kinsler and Jackson at top #1-#2. Both have less than 30 pure on-base chances. That's way, way too low. This mostly explains the lack of rbi production of Freeman (your #3 hitter, with only 12 rbis in 42 games--that's less than 50 rbis for a full season, despite hitting a respectable 14 dobules and 6 hr). I wish you had gotten a player with more on-base than Smith, and now that is done, I would probably go with Smith leading off, followed by Werth #2 and Freeman #3 vs "regular rhp" and I would go with Werth as your lead-off man and Freeman as your #2 vs "reverse rhp". Make sure you turn off Werth and Freeman's ability to hit-and-run--you lead the league in hit-and-run attemps, and I suspect that Werth's B rating in H-R might be overused.
Also, you have D.Young in your roster, with no obvious use (assuming here that Smith is your lf and Cruz your dh or vice-versa). So you might consider dropping Young and Jackson to upgrade with a better cf.
For the record, I know the Tigers did combine Kinsler and Jackson at the top of their line-up for most of last year, but a) the reality of a 30-team league is different than the reality of a 12-team league; b) the top of the Tigers line-up wasn't exactly a strength for the Tigers last year, but a weakness in a 30-league team will certainly be a flaw in a 12-team league c) the Tigers didn't hesitate to trade away Jackson because of his lack of on-base production.
2) too many right-handed hitters with no obvious advantage to this.
If at least you had a stadium that gives an edge to right-handed hitters, I might understand why one would go with 7 right-handed hitters, but since you went with Kaufmann, you only expose your team to be beaten by extreme pitchers. And since you play in a league with very good players (ArrylT, JoetheJet, and the like), it was easy for them to set up cheapie pitchers like Beckett and Capuano (a reverse extreme lefty) against your team--and they went 4-0 against your team. This said, the teams that have Beckett and Capuano don't have a sixth pitcher to set their rotation differently--in other words, the coaches were able to set their line-ups so that Beckett and Capuano faced your team twice in their first 18 games, but it should be more randomised in the next series. And now that you have Smith, perhaps you better not spend to correct the unbalanced line-up--unless perhpas you can grab a better cf than Jackson.
3) your best relievers aren't used.
Why spend 4M on Chapman if it is to sit him on the bench. Overall, you seem to have too much patience on your starting pitchers as well. You have a good rotation, but it's not a stellar rotation, so you should have your settings set up so that your best relievers are on the frontline if a game is on the line.
4) overall selection
Like others said, your player selection does not seem to be optimal for Kaufman, and Kaufman is pretty neutral anyway. But since this was a serpentine draft league, I know it's harder to make optimal choices--I guess you've been in a learning process.
