Tips?

My basic tenets for success (loosely defined and I need to say it or I would question why I play).

1. Hit Right handed pitching well- 65% of the time u will have a righty starter against you. 6-8 leftie or switch hitters in your lineup will help tilt the games in your favour. U can often get cheap L/S hitters with +R ratings that can power your lineup. sometimes they are 1 dimensional (no speed no glove), but thus they are cheap and of good value. Spend your $$$ on this lineup.
1 (a)- due to the above, u will need to utilise righty hitters who can dominate lefty hitting. Try to find these hitters who also have an extra quality- multiple positions, defensive excellence as a late inning replacement, sb talents.
2. Strong defence in middle (mentioned before). Take a lesser bat for 1 defenders in cf 2b ss. this really helps the pitchers.
3. No one cares if you are a yankees fan (or whatever). Use Mookie betts to win!...don't NOT use him because he is /was a red sock.
4. I like my teams to have an overwhelming theme...lots of power, maybe all A base stealers, maybe all 1 defenders. My theory being that it will not work against every team but I can overwhelm 7-9 of them.
5. Do some mining...find value cards. I used to love the Pete OBRIEN 2016 card. cost was 0.62. he was a 5R hitter and would produce 45 hrs/90 rbis albeit with a 190 avg/220 obp. but that is money saved for elsewhere. Imperfect for some but PERFECT fo me.

Figure out who the value players are at every position, and get as many as you can on your team.

How is this done? A few managers crunch the numbers and come up with their own ratings but how would the casual manager determine the value players? Any hints would be appreciated.

Great question! No easy answer.

I don't have my own ratings system, I do have the book but tend to just eye the cards.

I good idea for a casual player is scan the leader boards of several leagues, you'll start to see the odd cheaper priced guys showing up over and over.

Also, don't be scared of poor defence up the middle if the price and offence production make up for it! As an example, one of the best "value" guys I've ever used was 2017 Stephen Drew at SS. A 4e12 for $3.46. I rode him all the way to the Players Champ finals game 7!

tip 1

Sort the players by position--and OPS, then OB, then Slug and pay attention to def--note the graphs under the cards, BP HR/ SI are not included in the graphs for 2019 nor HBP in any year. Add in those # for HR in your park and imagine a little more OB overall on the graphs.

tip 2

requires some little math-----or buy the Strategy Guide Strat prints each season or as a spread sheet--it does the math below for you.

Count indiviual cards as HR=5 Triple =4 Double=3 single=2 BB/HBP=1 ------- this is what I call OPS in card chances. it can be separated as OB + Slugging where OB is anything that gets OB and then traditional Slugging of 4 bases for HR 3 for triple etc.

a HR on roll of 7 = 5x6 or 30, a HR on 2/12 = 5x1 or 5 and so-on

A single on 7 = 12--- 6 for the total bases and 6 for the OB, ---where a HR is 24 for the TB and 6 for OB

a split chance on 7 of HR1-8 DO 9-20 = 2.4 X 5 + 3.6 x 3 or 22.8

AS I said the Strategy guide does this for you--and every player is in that book for that season.

good cards add up around 100-- some super cards as high as 150-- avg. about 80 I guess.


By the way 216 possible rolls each AB. 108 on batter card and 108 on pitchers car- though 30 on pitchers cards are always fielding chances.

tip 3

The chart below give defense allowed in card chances--add Per G columns and substract it from offense that player produced

https://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/bt ... atfldg.htm

tip 4

value guys are those that seem to be a bit better than the price--this just takes experience, what park to put them in, etc---you don't want a cheap, mostly HR guy in AT&T for example. He belongs in Citizens type parks.

The best tip I can offer you is this...

Figure out who the value players are at every position, and get as many as you can on your team.

By value I mean players that outperform their price tag. They can be any price point $0.50 - $15.0M!

Rank them highly on your draft list. in other words, don't be afraid to put a 2 or 3M player first on your list. There are always great star players left in the free agent pool. The value guys win in this game.

Good luck.

Michael.

How do you determine who the ‘value’ players are?

I asked the same question and mbertolli responded a couple of posts above yours.

(1) Platoon players. You take a lefty 6R combine them with a cheap righty 6L and that should provide value.

(2) Reverse lefty starters. Because we can stack line-ups, there tends to be a lot of righties against lefty starters.

(3) 1 defensive players under a million that are not totally awful offensively. Last year Engel a 1 CD and Arcia a 1 ss

(4) 8 BP homerun guys. Everyone knows I think to get players for their park. Well, guys who have 8 BP hre provide the most value in a power park.

(5) The reverse side of this is guy who are 30 40 50 on their base ratings before ballpark adjustments (hits, hits plus walks and hbp, an total bases)--guys who have few BP homeruns for a pitcher's park. By the way, the Baseball Ratings Guide is an invaluable.
resource for this info for what $15?

(6) Use bad defensive guys at DH. Strat makes an adjustment so not to make a guy like Alvarez too cheap but there is still value in using a bad defensive guy at DH.

(7) Guys under a million with a lot of power. On my ATG team in an extreme power park I picked up Bob Thurman to be used as a DH against righties. --he cost .73. He is a bad defensive player but he has ten base homeruns. Put him in Polo Grounds he has 18 homeruns out of 108 chances on his card. He hit .220. .296 .524 with 36 hrs and 62 rbis.

(7) Looks for mistakes. Last year Strat made a mistake in valuing R3s. You didnt need to crunch numbers to see that a guy like Strahm with an under 1 whip who did not give up that much power was a good bargain at 3.83.

(8) Starting pitchers who give up low power or low hits or are good against one side. Guys that can be manipulated to be better in your home park. I think low power in general is just better given the uber power line-ups out there.

(9) Guys that stand out for some reason. Matt Olsen had 19.5 base homeruns in the 2017 set. And he only cost 9.69. That was an obvious deal. In the 2018 set Max Fried cost under a million but he was a lefty better against righties, 34 innings with only 26 hits and a 1.37 WHIP (he walked 20 guys), and only gave up 3 homeruns. That's a clear bargain. Aroldis Chapman cost 4.29 in 2018 set and his WHIP was barely over 1, he is a C6, and the only thing on his card was walks--no homeruns or hits. That's a bargain to me. Most relief guys if they cost under 3 million and have a WHIP of 1 are going to have big power problem. Maybe there is a guy that doesnt for some reason. Maybe there is an injury prone guy that got dinged too much. I am not going to crunch numbers but I think I can spot obvious bargains. Somebody who compared to other players with similar price tags is better. That's not to say necessarily that the player is priced wrong, but maybe just due to how I think the player will do in the game based on my experience. Typically, I dont want blah hitters. They should have big power, or high batting average with good power in a pitcher's park, or great on-base with power (power park) or be great defensively. Preferably really good at something offensively and good defensively.

(10) Scarcity. A big difference between ATG and 20XX is scarcity. To me, certain players get enhanced because once they're gone you just cant find a replacement. Center field always seems to be an issue for my teams. I think a scarce player has enhanced value.

Thanks to everyone for the help.