200 mil Salary CAP - TIPS-TECHNIQUES

Deeper pens mean the R4 are less valuable vs R1 here as opposed to at lower caps

The expensive 7L to 9L and 7R to 9R guys can be used here in platoons. Use Hodges or Allen in righty parks against lefty pitchers etc.

Injuries are less onerous since you have more expensive back ups.

Ditto ditto. Campanella, to take this example--he has a 2-injury, is much more valuable with a 6M back-up than in a low-cap league with a 1M catcher who will start 30 games, so he is easily among top 7th-8th best catcher of the set, except perhaps in extreme lefty parks.

My #1 rule actually is to try to get one of the top 7-8 best players as my starting player for every position (4 of the best 32 pitchers at both sp and rp). Beyond the 8th ranked player, with potential platoons and stadium adjustments, and considering that the talent gap between the 9th highest salary and the 15th is pretty slim, much smaller than between 3rd and 9th, I feel less pressured to make a hasty pick (during life draft) once my 7th/8th ranked player is gone so I wait until late in the draft to complete my roster. Carter might have the 9th highest salary among catchers, but a platoon of Haller and Of course, what you want to avoid is to start the season with, say, the 17th ranked player at any position, because then you are in big trouble. So I keep an eye open on my open roster spots during live draft, but I prioritize the positions where I can still draft one of the 7th/8th best player.

I never used autodraft in 200M, but I would use a similar logic (put a very high pick on a top infielder, but spend two picks on roughly 12th ranked players low on the list). But of course, you have to consider reputation. Lajoie and Morgan (especially, in Morgan case, if his 5R card is used with a nice platoon) are great bargains, but if you can't use a top 2 spot for any of them and your highest spot is 4th or 5th, you might settle for Barnes or Collins, both of whom are still among the top 6 best among 2nd basemen.

As Outta says, c-2b-ss are much less deep than centerfielders. There is almost a 2M difference between the 12th best ss and the 12th best of. That makes Larkin (10.62M, 2.6M over 8M) more valuable than a 12M like Speaker.

Since teams can spend on platoons, offenses are on average better against lh starting pitchers. If you play in a neutral park with regards to lefty-righty balance, consider at least a penalty of 0.5M on the value of a starting lh compared to a starting rh.

My best advice at 200M: don't play in the same league as me unless your last name is Ferry or Kroeze (or a VERY short list of top managers including the two guys who made the two most recent posts on this thread). My next best advice is to completely ignore the folks that bemoan bad drafts at 200M as a death knell for your playoff chances. I am quite certain that the size of the current player pool allows for a high likelihood of draft independence with regard to playoff chances -for highly skilled managers at least - even at unlimited caps, much less 200M. I used to not like auto draft high cap leagues as prior to ATG 7 a bad auto draft was very, very difficult to recover from even at 140M. That is so no longer applicable.

But, there are still potential problems with high cap auto drafts. Yes, you can now get a highly competitive team even if you only got 5 picks out of 25, however you are still vulnerable to the occasional guy who fills up his draft card with with top three round picks and then gets 10-15 of them. It happens, not often but enough to really suck when it does. For those folks who attempt such a strategy, it probably blows up in one's face 9 times out of 10 but is now actually a viable strategy given the draft independence one experiences with ATG 8. So even if you have a disastrous draft 9 times out of 10 you can recover to at least be a viable playoff contender and that makes the "be a hog" strategy of getting everything on your wish list viable, because if you get it you are going to be the best team on paper.

For this reason, I chose to play in one of the 200M live drafts. There your fate is much more in your own hands, the downside is your draft strategy is totally transparent and thus subject to widespread imitation.

Either way a skilled manager will be in the hunt for the playoffs and the less skilled will likely need some serious luck to overcome the skill differential and that is the case no matter what the cap.

With regard to general strategy at 200M I have been guided by the Willie Keeler school of hitting: "Hit 'em where they ain't." In other words try to actually get your listed draft picks. Having done 100's of live capless drafts, I know which round players "belong" in so I often try to select picks at least a half round lower than they deserve to be picked as I have found that this is the safest strategy to get a good team.

Here is a recent example of a 200M autodraft. Outta leftfield started the league and the two of us had the best drafts. I stuck to my aforementioned strategy and was fortunate to garner a ring, despite Outta leftfield having the best run differential. He simply had the misfortune of landing in a stronger division. I chose a park I have never played in because my first round pick was Mantle and he needs a balanced bomber park to maximize his value. Despite losing him, I did get Speaker as consolation, so despite being mega superstarless, I did get most of my other picks and that was enough- this time. With the exception of Barnes and Kiner, I had few, if any, of the better guys at each position. But my platoons were quite productive!

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1448950
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/432621

One last tip. I have first pick in the live draft next Wednesday night. It won't be Ruth

I added a 4th Live Draft for Tuesday the 27th, same time. Possibly due to advice here to do LD over Autodraft. Once the event is officially announced Friday evening, the LD leagues will be watched carefully and more will be added if needed. Keep in mind that it's best to get in the LD league with the most players in it already if you can be in place at that time, as people in LD leagues that don't fill before a deadline will be FORCED to move on over to an autodraft league. - thanks.

my tips:
1. don't play in a league with me and use my strategy haha (also keep in mind I am leaving out 1 or 2 pieces to this strategy, do not wanna give you my whole hand)
2. you want a good card, draft the best c,1,2,3,s for 1-5. Then mix top 5 sp and top 5 rp for the next 10 picks. Platoon the OF and dh for the rest of the picks
3. DON'T DROP PLAYERS, the difference between 7-8 mil players in this set to 10-12 and some of the 9's is amazing, even if your studs are not producing, hang onto them

BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT
4. AVOID LIVE DRAFTS, unless you have done them and know how they work. I will tell you from someone who has done more than 50 live drafts at high caps (which is minimal compared to some)......the "strat-brat pack" (strat usuals) will get better teams through this method because they know the player card set inside and out....when one of their picks is taken, they have half-dozen replacements ready and lined up......when a newbie misses a pick, that usually starts a cascade of picks you don't want or are drafting too high in fear of others taking them.....MANY MANY disasters if you do not know the set well enough. You will be drafting against guys that have been LIVE drafting 200 mil teams every Friday for the last like 2 years....

most of them on the boards will tell you to live-draft.....because they know they will get better teams than list drafts since they can count on 3-4 maybe 6-7 teams who will mess up the live draft.

YOU WANNA EVEN THE PLAYING FIELD, DO NOT DO LIVE DRAFTS, AUTO LIST A SOLID CARD LIKE I MENTIONED.

expect team whip to be around 1.35 to 1.45 and team era around 4.5-5.5.....when you see numbers over that, then your in trouble.
aim for a .350ob/.500 slugging if your a small ball player like me

Barn 2015 200 mil
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1405709

24-team 200 mil
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1412665 (so you can see the platoon effect)
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1428964 (again platooners)

2016 barnstormers 200 mil (i drafted this card like i wrote in this message)
http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1432631

MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER, YOU ARE DRAFTING A CARD OF REPLACEMENTS! IF YOU PICK ANY OF THE TOP 10 SALARY GUYS AT THEIR POSITION, CHANCES ARE YOU WILL GET THEIR REPLACEMENT....SO PLAN ACCORDINGLY. WHEN YOU LIST GIBSON 1.....AND MISS.....YOU WILL FALL ALL THE WAY DOWN TO A 7 MIL C.....NICE WASTED PICK AT 1 HUH!

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Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:13 pm

Re: 200 mil Salary CAP - TIPS-TECHNIQUES

PostThu Jun 22, 2017 6:42 pm
Here is another recent live draft team of mine: http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1451075

Part of my reason for posting it is it contradicts some of the well-intended, but not necessarily accurate, information already posted on this thread.

First off, I had the 11th pick overall and took Brett. A platoon player on my very first pick. and he had a not great year, although combined with his platoon mate at 3b -Mel Ott - they did put up some respectable numbers

Then my starting rotation was 4 Lefties, although backed up by two hard righties and one reverse righty. Sacrilege!!

Didn't get a top 8 2bman at a supposedly thin position.

I did have a nice OF with a Hamilton/Burks platoon, Charleston and Harper as well as my Stargell/Fielder dh platoon.

Wagner is by no means the best ss at 200+, especially in my park. Think I got him a tad early in the 5th.

Koufax (6th round pick and my first pitcher) led the league in wins with 24
Kershaw (8th round pick) led the league in e.r.a.
Dave Smith (10th round pick and 1st reliever led the league in saves.

Again, no mega superstars but a very solid team with only a substandard 2bman and the worst bullpen I have ever used at this cap.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1442666

Another recent entry. I had 10th pick I think and didn't like any of the hitters available so I ended up taking Maddux and Pedro in the first two rounds and got lucky in round 3 with McGwire and took Walsh in the 4th. Only ended up 2nd in e.r.a. but, despite none of the top hitters except maybe for McGwire, who is basically a platoon player at this cap, I was 2nd in runs scored.

This team illustrates the "go with the pitch" approach to high cap live drafts. You take what the draft gives you. Outta Leftfield made a good point about keeping in mind the park categories you haven't used. So far there were three low cap events and I burned the small ball parks and the neutral (still managed a small ball team). I have the lefty and righty leaning parks and bomber parks left and with 1st pick overall I believe I should do some damage and can still adjust my team and park on the fly if necessary.

Oh btw, one can do quite well at this cap with small ball teams but it helps to be the only one. If you have two or more small ball teams the talent gets diluted fast and there is so much power around that it is very difficult to remain competitive.

Didn't get a top 8 2bman at a supposedly thin position.

You're wrong there. Alomar in your ballpark is easily in the top 8...I have him 6th for League park, ahead of Boone and Gehringer, I think (going from memory). A top 8 for one GM in a given player might not be the same than another one in another ballpark.

Then my starting rotation was 4 Lefties, although backed up by two hard righties and one reverse righty. Sacrilege!!

I did say lefties were a disadvantage in a neutral park, but of course, in League park, it makes perfect sense to go with 4 lefties. I also LOVE the idea of going with 6-7 SP and micro-manage depending on the matchups.

I did have a nice OF with a Hamilton/Burks platoon, Charleston and Harper as well as my Stargell/Fielder dh platoon.

Wagner is by no means the best ss at 200+, especially in my park. Think I got him a tad early in the 5th.

Some nice platoons, and another player in the top 8 at a key position...so a typical succesful, actually!!!

I had pacoboys post in mind re the lefty issue.

I have the Joe the Jet's ratings too. And Alomar does look good on paper, especially the intangibles not factored in on Diamond Dope: his defense, moderate power and speed are excellent. But what I have that few if anybody, certainly not you, has is a vast number of leagues played in at 200M+. I can confidently state that Gehringer's 9.11 card routinely outperforms any card of Alomar's. Alomar is an infamous underperformer at high caps and given the prevalence of parks favoring handedness, his switch hitting is a liability in many leagues. And quite frankly, this is not just my assessment, it is reflected in nearly every live draft I have participated in based on how late he is available. He is shunned for a reason, he just doesn't produce enough offense to warrant a draft pick before the 12th round usually; and he routinely goes much later than that. A Sandberg 5R platoon with Homerun Johnson in any park remotely friendly to righties (Polo for example) will destroy Alomar in comparative production. The other piece of the Alomar puzzle is in high cap leagues the value of ballpark homeruns become inflated in value because of the prevalence of bomber parks and he just doesn't have enough #'s. And it is interesting that Joe the Jet's ratings always assume that 50% of the games are played on the road parks, with all away parks averaged as a 1-8 HR on the ballpark homers. But in many high cap leagues this assumption is flawed because bomber parks are just more valuable at these caps and most of the regular guys who play high cap leagues know this very well.

Mark, let's put your unequivocal assertion that I am wrong, in my assessment of Alomar relative to the other second basemen, to the test. Join me in a live draft league with the condition that you must draft Alomar in whatever park you like by Round 10, a reasonable place for a top 6 pick at a key position that you claim is defined, in part, by scarcity of talent. And let us also stipulate that I have to draft Sandberg or Gehringer -take your pick - also by round 10, which in my opinion is also a bit of a handicap, but a serious advantage relative to Alomar. Also, let's make it interesting. Who ever has the worse record of the two of us in the proposed league, buys the guy with the better record a five-pack.

Now that my team is drafted, there's one tip I forgot.

TRADE. Unlike lower cap leagues, it is likely you will have enough cap space to trade and you can find trades that will improve both teams. Most teams end up with a few players that are too good to cut but don't fit their park or the roster.

I'm reluctant to share my secrets, but I have discovered a foolproof strategy for the Barnstormers $200m event: play in all 6 events so my record from this one will be dropped.