Advice, thoughts on why this team failed ...

Thought this was one of the best teams I'd put together.
It won 72 games and went 13-33 in one-run games.
Anyone have any theories why?

(Sorry ... have to include link ... cant' figure way to clip and paste screen shot of team)

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1443177

EZ you hit 225 hrs and gave up 328! high cap leagues annihilate pitching

Thought the pitching was actually decent, starting with Pedro and Tiant ... both 10M plus.

the high salary cap degrades pitcher performance. if you play high cap leagues get used to it. Murray was amazing for the cap

Just plain not enough good hitters. I'm guessing your ERA was in the top 3rd for a 250M league. With only 4 $10M+ hitters, and two of them being traditional underperformers in Harper and Walker, there just isn't enough offense. Carew as 1b, Appling at SS, Alomar and Carter - all decent hitters but not great values and not enough studs to outscore opponents in that format.

I think your problems are the following
#1) Dale Murray - you have one of the best pitching cards in the game and he only pitched 56 innings and 3 other relief pitchers had more innings. John Wetland should only have been facing lefties, he faced more righties than Dale Murray faced batters - the use of the bullpen was probably 10 losses alone in your one run games.


#2) Left field - Being forced to play Averill out in LF as a 3 instead of at center and having a true left fielder,even if their fielding rating is 3 was a mistake I feel. I would have used the 9.99 Cobb card as my DH or RF and Averill in CF.

#3) Catcher - Carter is fine - versus left handers and as a defensive substitute against a bad defensive catcher who hits right handers well - you just needed a better catcher for playing against right handers.

#4) Appling is a weak at shortstop, you played the 13th or 14th best shortstop in the league and did not help you defensively nor do much offensively, probably would have done better with Vizquel and shortstop for defense the 1E4 version which is the version you should have had to be a defensive sub for Appling on an ongoing basis.

#5) Bob Feller - this goes with #1 why even have him on the team - HAL is going to want to use him and he is nowhere near as good as Dale Murray. He should just have been cut, every player you use should have a strategic advantage of some sort in high cap leagues, if they don’t have one you are better off cutting them.

#6) Along the lines of having strategic value - Ron Leflore is worth more in a 200 Million + League than Tim Raines. WIth 17 players you have the luxury of utilizing a pure pinch runner than can grab bases. Vince Coleman should be first choice but Leflore is much better than Raines.

#7) You were only successful on 66% of your steal attempts whatever your steal rating was it should have been one lower, conservative or very conservative until you get 75% success and just take the bases that gets you, getting thrown out only costs one close games.
#8) I don’t know who you gave up to get Larry Walker but I suspect you got the worst of that trade

Thanks. Very helpful

Ugh, those high cap leagues are ridiculous, though in fairness I play a couple times a year. Anything more than 100 million dollar cap is just dumb, in my opinion. I wish I could be more helpful.

I will tell you the guy who said, "Easy because you gave up more HRs" is not very bright. My playoff teams always give up way more HRs than my team hits.

This team of mine gave up 100 more homeruns than they hit and still we won the championship in an unlimited salary cap league:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1421249

Notice my saves and blown saves are almost identical to your team's, sometimes it is just luck, or bad luck.

You definitely should have gotten more innings out of Dale Murray. And I suspect some of the other advice about your SS and others is good advice.

I would like to see the data that Bryce Harper under performs compared to others at his position and price.

I can see why Larry Walker under performs, he put those numbers up at Coors.