Strategy Discussion

thanks for an interesting discussion. i took some bumps early on but now i expect to make the playoffs in most leagues or at least come close and have finally been racking up some championships. here are my observations (based purely upon the small sample size of my experience):

most surefire way to secure a playoff spot, but NOT to win a championship, is to have a team tailor made for an imbalanced ballpark (e.g., stack a bunch of lefty power hitters at Shea '71). my history with this sort of team is to have the best record and run differential in the league then get smoked in the first round. i'm getting more sustained success having a few key players (maybe one star and a few value guys) exploit the ballpark and then even out the roster for better road success.

fielding: i like to think of the overall times each position is tested. a 2b/ss gets (very roughly) twice as many chances as 1b/3b, so if you have a below average ss, good fielding at 1b and 3b can balance that out. same goes for CF and the corners. a good fielding center fielder and mediocre corners is similar to 2 good corners and a mediocre cf. since there are some reasonably priced 1b, 3b, rf and lf with decent offense and great defense, you can go for offense up the middle and punt on defense there and still be ok.

also of note is how many fielding (x) rolls are on your pitchers' cards and at what positions. if your pitchers don't strike guys out and you have a bunch of 3 and 4 range fielders, you're screwed. don't trust his ostensible WHIP.

i agree that chasing homeruns leads to frustration. i've had teams that lead the league by over 60hr but it was basically 8 guys with 50 solo homers each and several teams ended up scoring more than mine. get guys with OBP to set the table!

i still can't bear NOT to spend on my bullpen, but i've gotten smarter with that. one strategy is to have 2 good starters that can be expected to finish a fair share of games, 2 crappy starters on a quick hook and a 6 inning max, and one stud reliever at r3 or better to finish the crappy starter games. (one step further, although it robs you of one start by an ace in the regular season: stagger the rotation to good-bad-good-bad so the reliever gets rest in-between). this can get you into the playoffs but you better get lucky with those crappy starters when you get there.

in general i disagree with the 'don't spend on your bullpen' philosophy for the simple reason that outs are cheaper in the bullpen. you just need to spend smart on your bullpen.

trying to rely on righty- and left-specialists ends in tears.

learn the tricks to manage your bullpen so the $.50 guys filling out your roster don't get into games (won't get into it here but much has been posted in the past about it)

something else i've done, but don't know if its the most efficient strategy, is immediately filter out all position players with an injury of less than 1* when looking for my starting lineup. now i don't have to spend any money at all on the bench (there are decent enough pinch hitters and runners at around $.50) and am spared the heartache of kal daniels going down for 15 games.

fact of life is the more i play the more i recognize the need to actually look at the details of the player card - the stats, Bal L or Bal R, and even the colored bar do not tell as accurate a story as i would like.

Hey, I just won my first ATG championship tonight, so I guess it gives me the right to speak in this thread

rburgh wrote:

7. Defense up the middle is underrated. Range along the lines is overrated, although error ratings are still important.

rburgh is obviously a very accomplished manager and I agree with most of what he wrote, however I completely disagree with the above statement. I think defense up the middle gets plenty of concern for almost all SOM players who are not new.

I think it's still underrated somehow. Otherwise, how can you explain that Larkin is available late in 4-5th rounds in 200M or 140M live dirafts. Same story with Morgan. I probably overshoot--I picked them both with my latest two teams--one in League Park where Vaughn would have probably a better choice and in MinuteMaid-like stadium where Nap Lajoie would have probably be better than Morgan, just couldn't pass on them with picks as late as 4th round when they should be gone earlier.

Some mention has been made of matching pitchers to parks. Would someone please clarify this? Thanks.

Some mention has been made of matching pitchers to parks. Would someone please clarify this? Thanks.

for example, if a team plays in Shea '71, which favors lefty homeruns, teams often stack their staff with lefties and pitchers that don't give up any ballpark homeruns (BPHR) to lefties (the "#" on the card is a BPHR). conversely, in a power-poor park like forbes field or petco, the # will always turn into an out, so it's not a bad thing. if you're playing in Shea with a lefty staff your opponents (whose roster is not tailor made for your ballpark) will often have more rigthies in the lineup (and all switch hitters will of course bat righty) - in the meantime you've got 6-8 lefties in your lineup with N power and BHPRs on their cards. This gives you a very strong advantage at home.

The game has gotten much more competitive due to all the card choices available IMO. The team are much more competitive and regardless of lefty/righty/bomber/small ball, there are enough cards with an overall profile (natural HR power/hit chances/speed) that can negate opponents home park advantages. As always OBP is king when building offense and you have to tailor you team to your park first and division and take your chances from there. Defense is very important IMO. esp at higher caps and you don't want to give away extra hits and AB's to teams that are loaded at every position. The margin b/w winning and losing teams is very slim. pitching is key. The balance between how much you spend on pitching/hitting is key at any cap, 140 and under.

Some mention has been made of matching pitchers to parks. Would someone please clarify this? Thanks.

for example, if a team plays in Shea '71, which favors lefty homeruns, teams often stack their staff with lefties and pitchers that don't give up any ballpark homeruns (BPHR) to lefties (the "#" on the card is a BPHR). conversely, in a power-poor park like forbes field or petco, the # will always turn into an out, so it's not a bad thing. if you're playing in Shea with a lefty staff your opponents (whose roster is not tailor made for your ballpark) will often have more rigthies in the lineup (and all switch hitters will of course bat righty) - in the meantime you've got 6-8 lefties in your lineup with N power and BHPRs on their cards. This gives you a very strong advantage at home.

To illustrate. here is a list of eight pitchers, which differ in the following: three are lefties, and they differ by how they allow BP homeruns (Koufax to rh, Grove neutral, and Antonelli to lh) and five are rhp.

Name	P (bal)	Price	BPL	BPR
Koufax	L (1L)	9.76	0	2
Grove	L (1L)	9.18	1	1
Antonelli	L (5R)	6.44	6	0
Marichal	R (2L)	9.71	1	4
Verlander	R (4L)	8.61	1	4
Catfish Hunter	R (3R)	7.85	3	1
Gibson	R (4R)	9.72	1	0
Paige	R (2L)	9.41	0	0

Here is how my rating system rates their salary, roughly based on a 100M-140M roster (no weak hitters, assuming that teams are a bit strong vs lhp, assuming 2 platoons or switch hitters per 9 hitters, assuming a ratio of 53% lefty hitters vs rhp; neutral assume a 1-9 rating for both singles and homeruns, across lh and rh)

Name	Sal in SOM	MySal in Neutral	Sal in MinuteMaid	Sal LeaguePArk
Koufax	9.76	9.62	8.55	10.56
Grove	9.18	9.05	8.25	9.70
Antonelli	6.44	6.19	5.97	6.21
Marichal	9.71	9.71	9.43	9.84
Verlander	8.61	8.48	8.04	8.79
Catfish Hunter	7.85	7.47	7.91	6.98
Gibson	9.72	9.65	9.84	9.15
Paige	9.41	9.60	9.68	9.28

By far, Koufax gets the biggest bump from going to League Park (a Shea-like stadium), almost increasing his value by one million. Grove gets better as well, but not by as much. A large part of this increase comes from the fact that they will face fewer lh hitters than rhp. Conversely, Koufax and Grove get the biggest hit when put in Minute Maid, both are almost 1M worse in Minute Maid than in a neutral ballpark. Antonelli also faces fewer lh, but his 6 ballpark HR vs lhp decreases his value in League Park, making him a stable value across stadiums. Catfish Hunter gets the largest decrease in League Park, with Gibson just behind. Marichal and Verlander get marginally better in League Park, but the increase in value is not as large as for lhp. In fact, Verlander is the only pitcher among rhp whose value changes by more than half a million when pitching in Minute Maid compared with pitching in a neutral ballpark (both assuming 52% of lefty hitting). So there is probably a gain of 4-5 wins to select the "fittiest" right-handed pitchers to Minute Maid.

Some folks also argue that you should go with strong rhp (pitchers with 4R-5R balance) in MinuteMaid-like stadiums, but I disagree, you should really look at your divisional lineup compositions and make your selection based on your rivals. To take Gibson and Marichal as an example, I do have Gibson better than Marichal in Minute Maid (9.84M vs 9.43M, assuming 52% of lefty pitcher), but Marichal becomes the better choice, even in Minute Maid, if opposing teams have 57% lefty hitters. So, even though your homefield is MinuteMaid, if you have two opposing rivals in your division that go crazy with lefty hitting, Marichal is a better choice over Gibson, despite his 4 BP vs rhp. Of course, a better choice in those circumstances might be a a reverse rhp with no ballpark (case in point, Maddux and Clemens are the better values for Minute Maid with 66% of lefty pitching among 9M+ SP*).

Bullpen: Whenever I see a couple of $4M+ relievers against me, I rub my hands in glee, because I will have $4M+ more in SP or hitters who are guaranteed to be in the game. Check what $4M turns your 4th or 5th SP into, or your #6 batter.

Defense: Should you have better def. in Petco than Huntington Ave., or less? Think about it.

Budget: $60 and $80 are all about value. It isn't enough to know the best player for your park/div./league, you have to know the best value players by position, including their platoon value and defense. That's harder to determine than is Cobb or Dimaggio best in your cf. $200M is all about how well you do in the draft. I think $140M is the optimum balance between value and performance, but it's too rare to specialize in, so that leaves $100M. Try to learn to do well there.

Parks: If you can't name a great value 3b for a $60M league or a great plt in cf at $200M off the top of your head, I suggest you play in a neutral park until you can. Turner at 8-8-8-8 gives you the full player set to choose from, and you can adapt your team to the other parks in your div., rather than have to optimize your team for your park. It leaves you the full deck and still hurts the pure singles teams and the pure HR teams. This used to be heresy here, but the deck is so big now, the problem is learning player values.

There's a lot of good advice here.

Good luck,

Hank

also of note is how many fielding (x) rolls are on your pitchers' cards and at what positions. if your pitchers don't strike guys out and you have a bunch of 3 and 4 range fielders, you're screwed. don't trust his ostensible WHIP.

The X chances for all pitchers are the same.

Someone wrote:

Bullpen: Whenever I see a couple of $4M+ relievers against me, I rub my hands in glee, because I will have $4M+ more in SP or hitters who are guaranteed to be in the game.

Believe me I used to feel this exact same way, and much of the time when newer general managers are spending 4 plus million on relief pitchers in an 80 million dollar setting, it is a waste of money, but not always. I learned quickly, that money spent on the bullpen not only doesn't have to be wasteful, but when done the right way can actually be a huge value.

An interesting thread. I used to freely share advice and insights on the boards, which would drive Nev crazy. Later I came to agree with Nev and adopted his approach which is to mentor anyone who asks for help but to do so privately. The list of guys I have personally privately mentored is like a who's who of ATG luminaries. I'm not saying this is due to my influence, I think it is more that people who are serious about the game and want to excel naturally seek out any way to improve their understanding.

So I am not going to offer any public strategic advice on this thread except for this: I find it is helpful to adopt the attitude of a student rather than a master. I like to pit myself against guys who are doing very well. Earlier this year I started playing a lot against two opponents who had .550+ ATG 8 records. One of the managers, after about 10 leagues of competing against me now has an ATG 8 winning pct. in the 520's. The other guy is still in the .550's although I have managed to win a number of rings against him while giving up only one or two rings to him. I think our overall win pct in those leagues together is probably well north of .560. Anyway, my point is that I decided to deconstruct why this opponent does well and I came to certain conclusions that I then have incorporated into my own teams. I present the results below for my most recent completed teams. Two of the rings and the one team with a losing record are in Andy Cummings' franchise leagues where one is constrained in one's choice of players so they don't allow me much freedom to construct the kind of teams I want. But the other teams have all worked out well, although actually winning a ring is still a bit of a crapshoot.

New York Giants ALTSS1 $90M CHAMPS ANDY'S ALT7.0 Season #1 Polo Grounds '11 2nd 83-79 6.0
The WRong Stuff ATG8 $100M CHAMPS Point of the Mountain Minute Maid Field '05 1st 87-75 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $999M lost Semi-Finals Viva Las Vegas Sunday Night Li... Ameriquest Field '05 1st 94-68 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $200M lost Finals JCP Memorial VII Polo Grounds '41 1st 99-63 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $120M CHAMPS The Long and Winding Road League Park '34 1st 89-73 -
New York Yankees ALTSS4 $95M CHAMPS ANDY'S ALT6.0 Season #4 Yankee Stadium '41 1st 94-68 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $165M missed playoffs Sumpin' Dif'rent -LIVE-no DH Minute Maid Field '05 1st 87-75 -
Boston Red Socks ALTSS6 $95M missed playoffs ANDY'S ALT4.0 Season #6 Fenway Park '41 3rd 80-82 7.0
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $160M CHAMPS Late May Live $160 DH League Park '34 1st 90-72 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $160M CHAMPS $160 DH Memorial Weekend Live... Comiskey Park '60 1st 96-66 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $100M CHAMPS 100 DH Forbes Field '57 1st 94-68 -
The Wrong Stuff ATG8 $999M lost Semi-Finals Live Summer of '16 Minute Maid Field '05 1st 91-71 -
St. Louis Cardinals ALTSS7 $100M lost Semi-Finals ANDY'S ALT3.0 Season #7 Sportsman's Park '20 1st 91-71