Champs: Who is your highest priced offensive player?

just finished off a championship tonight with mccutchen and wainright as my top 2 highest paid players. mccutch hit a pitiful .184 in the playoffs but the rest of the team picked him up big time. if not for his mvp regular season I miss the playoffs by a wide margin.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1415723

just finished off a championship tonight with mccutchen and wainright as my top 2 highest paid players. mccutch hit a pitiful .184 in the playoffs but the rest of the team picked him up big time. if not for his mvp regular season I miss the playoffs by a wide margin.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/sim/1415723

Interesting how a $-million-per-year SP pitcher performs about as well as an under $1-million-per-year SP.

verlander plays way over his card imo, but you have to spot start him carefully. in the finals clincher last night hal took him out with a no no going thru 7. the game wasn't close so i'd like to have seen him make an exception there.

Thanks for suggestions! Especially milleram.....this will probably be my last 2014 card set team but getting much better results, having tried to build the team around total pitching and defense. I got started on this team by setting the computer draft option at 50-50 pitching vs. hitting balance and then made changes. Picked up Carlos Carrasco mid-season after another team cut him. Having Michael Cuddyer (DH) and Jose Abreu (1B) for offense has helped us eek by so far.

Lessons learned:
1) pick a concept and stay consistent with it
2) get a good pitcher's park if you're investing heavily in pitching
3) 5-day starters on the whole cheaper than 4-day starters, for equivalent stats
4) quick hook and innings limits for the starters gets the ball in the hands of the stud long relievers. This time around, I'm getting about half my innings from Cory Rasmus and Jean Machi (what a bargain he is!)
5) defense matters! (unless you can put up a hell of a lot of runs)

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1418347

thanks guys
steve

Thanks for suggestions! Especially milleram.....this will probably be my last 2014 card set team but getting much better results, having tried to build the team around total pitching and defense. I got started on this team by setting the computer draft option at 50-50 pitching vs. hitting balance and then made changes. Picked up Carlos Carrasco mid-season after another team cut him. Having Michael Cuddyer (DH) and Jose Abreu (1B) for offense has helped us eek by so far.

Lessons learned:
1) pick a concept and stay consistent with it
2) get a good pitcher's park if you're investing heavily in pitching
3) 5-day starters on the whole cheaper than 4-day starters, for equivalent stats
4) quick hook and innings limits for the starters gets the ball in the hands of the stud long relievers. This time around, I'm getting about half my innings from Cory Rasmus and Jean Machi (what a bargain he is!)
5) defense matters! (unless you can put up a hell of a lot of runs)

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1418347

thanks guys
steve

see you in the 2015 set. I think rasmus was a great bargain as well this year. he gave me very consistent innings of low 2's era over a few seasons. I shifted to all * starters this year and my performance improved quite a bit. not sure if they are the reason though. I think if you get a couple of the higher priced ones they are worth the cost overage when compared to comparable none * pitchers. with 40+ starts during the season they just get to provide more quality innings for you. its my very non scientific opinion.

I liked this thread, so I thought I would post again to it with a new question. I'm fairly new at this game. Here is the 2014 team that I'm currently playing:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1417038

About a week ago, I decided to release two SPs who had high high ERAs and Whips, and replace one with Lester and the other with a much cheaper SP in Cole Gerrit. The team is flawed, but it was playing 3-4 games above .500. The trouble was that it was losing pretty much every time the 4th and 5th SPs took their turns in the rotation.

My theory was that if I could upgrade one of the SPs then would have a better chance of winning 4 of 5 games. The team plays in a hitters ballpark, Coors, so perhaps it was a ridiculous thing to try anyway.

Anyway, it blew up on me. After that move, the team went on a 1-10 run and at one time I had 4 starting fielders on the DL. Everything went wrong right.

Has anyone else ever had that happen? In real life, if a GM makes a big move and dumps the wrong players, it can kill team chemistry and send the team into a tailspin. Does Hal every do that or was it just pure chance?

I liked this thread, so I thought I would post again to it with a new question. I'm fairly new at this game. Here is the 2014 team that I'm currently playing:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1417038

About a week ago, I decided to release two SPs who had high high ERAs and Whips, and replace one with Lester and the other with a much cheaper SP in Cole Gerrit. The team is flawed, but it was playing 3-4 games above .500. The trouble was that it was losing pretty much every time the 4th and 5th SPs took their turns in the rotation.

My theory was that if I could upgrade one of the SPs then would have a better chance of winning 4 of 5 games. The team plays in a hitters ballpark, Coors, so perhaps it was a ridiculous thing to try anyway.

Anyway, it blew up on me. After that move, the team went on a 1-10 run and at one time I had 4 starting fielders on the DL. Everything went wrong right.

Has anyone else ever had that happen? In real life, if a GM makes a big move and dumps the wrong players, it can kill team chemistry and send the team into a tailspin. Does Hal every do that or was it just pure chance?

Dumping players should be a last resort. The waiver/free agency period in preseason is where your moves need to be made. As for your team some glaring problems. If you want to drop a player look at the roll count first. Cashner actually had a 201-170 count in favor of the hitter so some of his trouble was not his fault.

1) you have a mix of SP* (4 man rotation) and SP (5 man rotation) pitchers. In most cases stick to either 4 SP* or 5 SP rotation.
2) Too much spent on bullpen and too many innings being pitched by RP. Stud starters like Sale and Kluber should be set to F8 or F7 so they stay in the game longer and complete games.
3) Too many week singles hitter. You need to maximize BP# chances in Coors. Many losses at home because your team is not designed specifically for Coors.

As for your original question. With varying rotations your #4 or #5 starters could wind up facing an opponent's #1 or #2.

For some reason...Hal has something against Gerritt Cole. He's been terrible every time I have seen him used.

Oh, you're in my league...actually in my division. My team sucks. No, your team looks fine...wouldn't change a thing. Well, I think you might should get some sub 1 million pitchers--they do well in Coors.

that's my take on it, the *, no * thing did you in. too much spent on your 2 * pitchers. they should be pitching at least half your starting innings instead of a baseline of 40%. in the verlander league of mine you commented on I rotated 2 sub million * pitchers in the 3rd spot. I used spot number 3 because my bullpen was usually pretty fresh after my 2 studs took their turns.