Newbie Serious Help

.....How do you determine where players hit in the batting order?...... Stack all your hitters who favor righty then put the evens and left favored at bottom of lineup?.....

This one.
You want to have your best players at the top of the order so they can have more AB's as the game goes along.
Put a speedster/or high on-base guy, at lead-off. 2nd batter should have low DP's. 3rd and 4th are your best hitters.
And on down the line-up. Pretty much like real MLB.

Some good advice here. I would keep Kelley though. Just set him on "avoid lefties" and "quick hook" and "max 1-2 innings"
He's a pretty good ROOGY for 59 cents

First, you only get a 5% penalty during the first 40 games. So tweaking your team and losing up to maybe a million or so in salary is not that big of a deal (but distinguishing between systemic problems and just bad luck can be very hard to do).

Looking at your players, there are several players I think are problematic: Stanton is a 6 injury so he will get injured A LOT and that will be a headache; Bogarts is great offensively but he's only a 3 defensively and generally you like a 1 or 2 at SS; Harper is expensive and very mediocre against righties with a poor batting average and only 4 BP homeruns; Rosario is a 4 in left field and I at least prefer not to play with any worse than a 3 in left (rules are made to be broken of course but a good rule of thumb is no worse than a 1 or 2 at SS, 2B or CF--SS has 7 X chances on the pitcher's card; 2b 6, 3b 3, C 3, 1b,RF and lf 2--but even though lf only has only 2 X chances out of 108 those misplays put a strain on your pitching and if youre going to use a 4 in left he better be awesome offensively).

Your overall fielding is bad; you're converting 66% of your X chances which is bad (you would like to be closer to 80%, if not over). You need better relief; a couple of R2s in the 3-4 million range are better at getting guys out than those 2 million guys. You are not getting Giles in enough. I would put him as set-up and closer and check do not relief before 8th inning and in team strategy put regular for closer use not maximize.

As far as line-ups go, J-Ram does have not enough on-base to be batting at the top of the order. Stanton, despite his reputation, does not have enough power versus righties to bat clean-up. First five hitters against righties might be: Stanton, Santana, Merrifield, Bogarts, Rosario. Against lefties Pillar does not have enough on-base to bat lead-off, think I would go Santana, Bogarts, Harper, Stanton, Pillar.

Good luck!

First, you only get a 5% penalty during the first 40 games. So tweaking your team and losing up to maybe a million or so in salary is not that big of a deal (but distinguishing between systemic problems and just bad luck can be very hard to do)....

I have been only been playing mystery leagues for well over a year, and they indeed have a only 5 percent drop penalty in first 40 games. However, last time I played in a single season league, the standard drop penalty was 20 percent as soon as the first game was played. (Yes, I know the penalty can be changed in customer leagues.) Has the standard drop penalty for single season leagues (in which the OP is playing) been changed?

It's been that way for a few years, don't remember when it was changed.

Looking at a few old teams...I believe in standard leagues it started in 2015. Boy, it was tough being a new player dealing with a 20% drop right out of the gate.

Freeman thanks for the advice. Question for the next time I play/draft. What would the ideal bullpen staff look like? Looking for numbers not names. Such as One R1/C6, a R2/C2, a R2, two R1s. I pretty sure I went with too many one inning closers.

Probably should also ask how much you would recommend spending on players in the bullpen since you mentioned 3 mil for a couple good R2s.

Thanks

Probably easier to show than describe. My last four 2019 teams:

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1573617
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1575232
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1577637
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1578728

First, you only get a 5% penalty during the first 40 games. So tweaking your team and losing up to maybe a million or so in salary is not that big of a deal (but distinguishing between systemic problems and just bad luck can be very hard to do)....

I have been only been playing mystery leagues for well over a year, and they indeed have a only 5 percent drop penalty in first 40 games. However, last time I played in a single season league, the standard drop penalty was 20 percent as soon as the first game was played. (Yes, I know the penalty can be changed in customer leagues.) Has the standard drop penalty for single season leagues (in which the OP is playing) been changed?

Sure about that? The drop penalty can be chosen for each league. I just checked list of open leagues and it’s the usual 5/10/20 for the single season leagues.