Barnstormers Finals - Updates, comments, etc

Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:36 pm
It's been great to follow these 12 fantastic managers so far.

It appears that three teams have acheived some separation, and then there are eight teams in the main pack.

Hallerose is at 43-26, tied for best record in the league. Also has a large divisional lead in the East. I find his success to be doubly impressive given that he is also a dominant force in the 60s/70s/80s/90s formats, and sports an absurd .572 winning percentage overall. Reminds me of Marc's double Finals run last year (BS & 2016 year). Hallerose chose to go small ball with a nice set of matchup-oriented starters. Sutter has been killing it out of his pen.

Cristiano is also tied for best record in the league, with 43 wins so far. Although he also chose a small ball format, he went with 4 dominant starters. Cristiano somehow has three starters with 11 wins each, and Delahanty has been a dominant force in LF.

Cristiano and the Last Druid are tied 3-3 in their head-to-head matchups so far. Obviously I don't count Last Druid out of anything--keep in mind his team is leading the West currently!

Labratory sports 40 wins and is just a few back of Central division leader Cristiano. He has a lefty power team in the friendly confines of my favorite (former) park, Shea. Hecker has 11 wins, and Bonds has an OPS of...over 1300 !!

The middle pack: Eight teams have between 30 and 35 wins right now (and the Daedrics are just one win streak from joining this middle group). Four of these eight middlers are in the Western division, which is a major toss-up right now.

On a personal note, I am rooting for Matt and his Chumps. If his injury prone platoon (Smith/Brown) gets and stays healthy, that might jump-start a run....

Overall, very impressive group of managers! It is mucho fun "watching." Good luck and lots of fun too all. For any that care to share, I would love to know what your thoughts or comments are so far!!!!

Chompsky

From: tersignf
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2018 11:07 pm
Re: 2017 BS Finals (as of March 21, 2018)


Wed Mar 21, 2018 3:51 pm
That's a cool rundown. Wow impressive finals group.

Since I love smallball, it is definitely interesting to see the two somewhat different successful approaches by hallerose and Cristano.

One team using >45% of salary on pitching with starter focus. Other team >32% using situational starters and quality reliever focus.

I was surprised that the 46% pitching salary team still had overall traditional strong D (C/2B/SS/CF 1 ranges, OF arms etc). Dominating shutdown D further enhancing those dominant pitcher cards. But the offense is optimized and sufficient so far.

Based on the pitching investment, equally surprised to see the 33% pitching salary team having a lesser defense but getting enough pitching/defense to win games. I would have expected reverse situation regarding the fielder ratings approaches. Thought I read it wrong.

Both similar offenses producing 2B/3B power as expected and above average speed, though one favors stolen bases more than the other.

All 12 teams are well constructed of course. Good luck to all as it is still pretty early.

Playoff Race at 120 game mark...as they approach the homestretch. Just a few more games before the balance of games are all in-division!!


EAST
Halles Heroes BS-F 73 wins gives a 17 game lead in the division!! Playing at Forbes 57 (17/17 1/1), and using a stable of mix and match starting pitchers, complimented by a strong bullpen. Sutter has 17 wins and 23 saves. Wagner has been up and down, but specialist Linzy, while hittable, has done just enough to remain perfect (7-0, with 4 out of 4 in save opportunities). 257 doubles so far. I’m loving Hallerose’s platoon Prothro with his .357 batting average and .447 OBP. Last note: They have 742 walks!


CENTRAL
Cristiano1 barn17-F 71 wins in a very competitive division. Home park is League Park 11 (13/17 1/1/). CK went with 4 dominant starters and it has paid off so far—he’s only had to use the bullpen for 25 innings, but more importantly he holds down an ERA south of 3.35. Yes, he has Morgan, Carew and Delahanty, and they have had solid season…but what caught my attention is Meusel. Impressive offense to go along with his range and arm.

Chamonix Rooters 66 wins (leading the wild card race currently). Using a lefty power park, the Rooters are led by Dutch Leonard (20 wins). The LabRat uses an interesting combination of S* and non S* starters effectively. His 2004 Bonds has an OBP of .472—wow.

Beavertown Barnstormers 62 wins. BD Ward’s Barnstormers are trying to close the gap on the Rooters in the wild card race. It’s not easy to make up ground in that Central Division. With so-so pitching, the Barnstormers compete by hitting! They are third in walks and bombs (240), a lethal combination. Babe Ruth is outdoing himself—sporting a Slugging Percentage of .790. Yes, really.

Murders Row 61 wins. Yes, they are in fourth place in the Central—but they are very much alive in the wild card race. Mjruth is playing in Minute Maid, and uses an interesting group of 5 SP* starters to match up nicely against opponents. Platoon Brouhard is killing the lefties (.370/.410/.740 split).


WEST
The Wrong Stuff 65 wins The Last Druid leads the West, using Terrapin Park. While he is beating Cristiano in head-to-head matchups, Cristiano has 6 more wins. Keep your eyes open because “stuff” keeps disappearing, as this team steals anything not nailed down. 215 bases pilfered. TWS has great pitching, second best only to…yes, Cristiano’s Barn17-F team. TWS has build up a 6 game lead over the Aces and Bombers in the division—but a run by either of them would get them right back in the race for the division, as the wild card may prove out of reach.

All three first place teams are in High-1B / Low-HR ballparks. That works especially well as this is a pitchers' league - there just aren't that many places favorable to homerun hitters. Check the ballparks...

East
Forbes '57 (17-17-1-1) - Halles Heroes BS-F
PNC '05 (16-10-10-4) - Darwin Barnie Chumps
Polo '11 (2-8-7-16) - Big Blazing Machine
Forbes '09 (8-8-0-0) - Skyrim Daedrics

Central
League '11 (13-17-1-1) - cristano1 barn17-F
Shea '71 (3-3-19-4) - Chamonix Rooters
League '34 (15-11-16-2) - Beavertown Barnstormers
Minute Maid '05 (3-11-3-16) - Murderers Row 7

West
Terrapin (14-14-2-1) - The Wrong Stuff
Wrigley '59 (4-5-4-17) - Arlington Aces
Polo '41 (0-0-20-20) - Beltway Bombers
Dodger '64 (4-7-1-1) - Delta HEAT

League Average Pk (8-9-7-7)

If anyone's watching this league, I bet we're going to see a lot more teams spending 40%+ of their cap on dominant starting pitchers, because won-loss records aside, cristano clearly has the dominant team in this league.

In terms of pythagorean record, cristano is 12 games better than the Halles Heros (78 wins to 66 wins) and considering strength of schedule, cristano is looking even better as Central division is by far the strongest in the league.

EAST Division: -184 runs
CENTRAL Division: +228 runs
WEST Division: -44 runs

Power Rankings:
1. cristano1 barn17-F (+165 runs)
2. Chamonix Rooters (+74 runs)
3. Beavertown Barnstormers (+36 runs)
4. The Wrong Stuff (+39 runs)
5. Halles Heroes BS-F (+60 runs)
6. Arlington Aces (+28 runs)
7. Murderers Row 7 (-47 runs)
8. Beltway Bombers (-26 runs)
9. Darwin Barnie Chumps (-44 runs)
10. Delta HEAT (-85 runs)
11. Big Blazing Machine (-86 runs)
12. Skyrim Daedrics (-114 runs)

Beaverton may well miss the playoffs despite having, arguably, the third best team in the league!

While I am certainly grateful for the encouraging words about my team, I have long felt that run differential and pythagorean won loss records are misleading stats, being most often cited by teams that finish out of the running.

At the end of the day, the most important stat is the won loss record. Through 126 games, 11 of the 12 teams have home records above .500. Conversely, just two teams are above .500 on the road. Not surprisingly, the three teams having the best road record have the most wins.

My team, currently 24-39 on the road, and the remaining teams hoping to challenge for a wild card spot, are going nowhere unless they start to win on the road.

With 18 road games and 18 home games remaining, my team will have to go no worse than 9-9 on the road and step up its .635 home winning percentage to about 14-4 to get to about 87 wins if it hopes to have a realistic shot at the wild card, and in my division, and given my team's performance thus far, that's a pretty tall order. But like Yogi said, "it ain't over 'til it's over".

may I get a link to this league?
tia

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/league/436138

A few comments on earlier posts.

1. Cristano's model of cannon starters and no bullpen is the poster child for huge run differentials in relation to W-L record. Why? Because it often loses to a late inning rally, which gets terminated when the winning run crosses the plate.

2. Teams with high injury risk players tend to do really well when those guys don't get hurt. Why? Because they typically have their card values discounted by the normal number of games they should miss.

3. 33-47% pitching is not really a huge spread. I have seen teams win with over 50% on pitching and I have personally won rings with under 25%. This is more a function of the screwed up pricing structure of this set than any strategy, although you can generate a lot of offense from a bunch of cheap platoons and a few guys with big clutch ratings and good cards. See some of BruceF's old teams for details.

4. People whose ballparks are far from the league average drastically underestimate how much of their precious ballpark "fit" they have to give away to be competitive.

5. When you decide to spend big on pitching it's lunacy to run stone gloves out in the field in the core positions, there are a lot of very experienced managers here who don't understand this.

6. Copying someone else's team is a fool's errand. First of all, NONE of these managers got their dream team. Second, they all set HAL up differently than you do. How can I say this? Because there are dozens and dozens of settings available, the chances of any two managers using exactly the same settings are spectacularly remote. And many of these managers are among the small minority who DO understand how to adjust their rosters for the league environment as a whole. They would not want to have the same rosters in a league full of bomber parks, for example. I didn't start winning consistently until I learned this. (Not about copying teams, about adjusting my rosters.)

I guess being 24 games over .500 in the finals when I'm negative 200 on rolls makes my team middle of the pack. Maybe I should pitch Sutter more in blowouts to improve my run differential instead of saving him for high leverage situations.

I think I addressed that.