Is this team really this bad???

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1583992

Any advise would to greatly appreciated...

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1583992

Any advise would to greatly appreciated...

1) Lineup not ideally suited for Wrigley which BP effect favors Righty Home Runs and Lefty singles
Happ a good fit, Not good fits are the Yaz nephew being a lefty slugger, plus a few right hitters without power.

2) Pitching staff is a mess. #1 problem is waste of payroll in bullpen. Nearly $8 million for only 45 innings out of Baez/Greene. Brice/Drake who are getting more innings than you want because they are your only R2 guys. Degrom and the 2 others pricey starters should be eating up a lot of innings.

3) Your offense doesn't compensate for poor defense.

The most glaring issue I see is too many innings going to Arrieta/Wainwright/Beeks and not enough utilization of your bullpen studs.

I am currently 54 games into my most recent season, my top 3 relievers have thrown 120 innings (2.2 per game). Felipe Vazquez is at 41.1 innings pitched. My R2 dude set as a middle reliever is at 52 IP.

You are 77 games in (vazquez 26 ip) and your top 3 relievers have thrown 71 innings (less than 1 per game). You are on pace to give your top 3 relievers maybe 150 IP, my squad 360. I think strat pitching squads can survive fairly well with 9 pitchers (but bear in mind I'm just on my fourth squad....so take that into consideration).

Nothin’ for nothin’ - this team is second in the league in pitching.

The team is 24-25 when any of the top 3 starters start, and they average 7 innings per start. 2 relievers should be able to cover the six innings they leave on the table.

The team is 9-20 when anyone other than the top 3 starters start the game. That would be enough for me to tweak something, either trying to upgrade the #4 starter at the expense of an arguably underutilized bullpen or attempting to find more thump in the lineup.

It certainly doesn't help to have the poor luck with Realmuto and Vazquez, but Castro, Newman and Rojas have 653 ab's between them and produced just 53 runs, 43 rbi's and 4 hr. That doesn't cut it today, even in fake baseball, (and it's not like you can describe them as elite defenders). That's my unsolicited 2 cents (I guess it was solicited?).

Good luck to your team in the second half, you appear to have caught a difficult division.

too much money in bullpen. games may be out of hand by the time u get to the pen.

defence is pretty bad. if they cannot outhit their bad glove then tighten your middle defence..ss 2b cf. of arms are weak and not stopping anyone from circling the bags aggressively.

lineup is almost 30 hrs behind what the pitching staff has given up.

HOW CAN YOU SAY DEFENSE IS WEAK
NEWMAN 2B --3
ROJAS SS -- 2 PLAYING SHORTSTOP V LHP AND DEFENSE BACK UP FOR ROSARIO WO IS A 3

MY OUTFIELD
YASTREMSKI 2(-1)
MERCADO 2(-2)
GARCIA 3(-2)

I HAVE A RECORD ON 4-13 ON 1-RUN GAMES

HAPP PLAYS 1B V RHB AND IS 5 OF 16 IN DEFENSE X SPOTS

U would think u would have a great one runn game record with all the money on bullpen arms. That is a tough record. Is it bad “beats” or a team design issue. Maybe u are playing catch-up. Maybe u don’t have enough offence. I guess u have to break it down. But it is good sample. As far as response to my defensive observation, it is just my two cents. But I do have a really big sample size of teams and championships. Lots of ways to win in this game.

First, thanks for posting your team Brian. Rate my team threads (while always welcome) are few and far between these days.

Your defense is not that that bad. The problem is most of your defenders are cheap guys with limited offensive capabilities. In the battle of Runs Created vs. Runs Allowed you are currently on the losing end.

It looks like you made a trade. Again, kudos! Those are rare mid-season. Canha will do well for you.

The overarching problem with your team, as others have mentioned, is the pitching. $40M is generally to much to invest in hurlers. Shoot for $32M. Put some of that RP money into your offense next time.