New “why does my team suck?”

Too late to do much much but why is this team so bad? Last in league in pitching yet I spend a lot of money on pitching and it seems a good fit for my stadium.



https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1538774

1. Don't hit righties well enough
2. Way too much money in the pen (I take this one back, didn't notice it was a $140M league)
just my opinion of course

Strong fits for your stadium at $140 cap:

Degrom
Tekulve
Napoli/Brown combo
Sheffield LF/RF/DH

so/so fits for your stadium at $140 cap:
Lincecum
Colavito
D. Allen

weak fits for your stadium at $140 cap:
Tiant
Percival
K. Daniels
Alfonzo
McCutchen

horrible fits for your stadium at $140 cap:
McClain
Marshall
K. Hernandez
Cozart/Wills
Gilkey

1 - You spent too much $$ on too manycards that are not bang for buck production
2 - outfield defense is too weak for this cap
3 - Sheffied is the ONLY hitter worthy of batting in TOP 5 spots in lineup (he can bat #1 or #2 or #3)
4 - Napoli and Colavito are decent #6 hitters....the rest don't offer any BANG to a Hilltop Stadium Lineup.
5 - D. Allen is only solid if facing 40% plus LHP....otherwise not a great choice at this cap.

I'm no expert, but I would not have dropped Dale Murray... He's quite the hot commodity. And he's the guy that should have 100+ innings right now instead of Marshall.

Too many METS is never a good thing

...sorry, I'm a Mets fan I'm allowed. We suck.

In "theory" you picked the right defense behind those pitchers.

Bad dice

not to make light of your plight - but I don't think I have any useful Ideas anyway, - but/because I have decided that my teams suck because I draft and GM them during the season

I am usually at a loss on how to play an extreme offensive park like that...and with a 140 mlion cap. Yikes!

I would think with a righty power park you would want pitchers that dont give any BP homeruns to righties. The perfect pitcher for that park (I think) would crush righties, maybe give up some power to lefties but few baserunners. At the very least...no BP homeruns to righties. So no Tiant or McClain.

And then load up on right-handed power. You have some guys...but not enough. Exploit your park to the max. There is a little bit of cross favortism--the park favors lefty bp singles and righty bp hrs--but the big advantage is righty hrs.

Also, why no 10+ million hitters. Other teams have Bonds and Ruth. Seems like you would want to get a couple of those kinds of hitters in a 140 cap league.

Your defense is good (77% of X chances) but not exceptional. I'm not sure if that's the way to go in a 140 million league in a extreme offensive park, anyway. But a low 80% is more what's needed.

Something went wrong with your pitching. Percival only has 30 innings. You need to tinker with the settings. And Marshall gives up too many runners. Your relief either needs to dominate one side and just be used for a batter or two...or just be extremely expensive and give up nothing to both sides. I dont think you spent too much on relief...but you probably need two tops guys averaging an inning each. And then maybe some cheaper guys that totally get one side out. Your one effective guy is not pitching and the one who is pitching is getting clobbered and you are getting a lot of innings from cheap guys that of course that are getting clobbered, too.

In the future, you might go to Diamond Dope and tinker with your line-up to see how it does in your park. If you have time, compare it other teams in your division and see how they do. That might tell you that you need to change things up a bit.

you need to renegotiate Percival's contract without
the clause that that let's him nap until 1 out in
your oppenent's last ABs when you have the lead -
I would eliminate any and all 'settings' you are using
on/with your RPs - HAL loves to foof with your head on
how you think the pen should be run - he just effin' will
NOT do it - I tried to get him to be reasonable all the
way back to ATG2 - I have given up and now just try to
have someone he can pick against LHH or RHH (helps to have
at least 2 effective vs. LHH, my opinion) and then let him
do his worst - at most, use a Sambito or Madden as a lefty
specialist, but be sure to have 2 or HAL will give one a
hangnail if you make the playoffs - I wouldn't use Bennett
in that role

I don't think you have enough LH table setters - he isn't
my guy, but it seems others like Ashburn,
my guy would be Max Bishop in your park, maybe Roy Thomas
but Bishop is expensive and most people shy away from a
table setter who isn't a candidate for the Olympic
100 meter sprint, Thomas has a long term endorsement
contract with a company that makes of gloves out of a
lead/tin alloy

not sure I can go with the assessment of McCutcheon you got
earlier either - he is hitting .292 and barring a pair of
15 gamers seems sure to get 40 taters.

surely there is a cheaper back-up than Maury Wills at ss
who is also closer to Cozart in 'profile'


not sure that I would take PAs from Alfonzo to give to
Rodney, since most of Alfonzo's PAs were against
RHPs anyway

also not sure I would spend over $4 for a 4+2 2 injury risk
(Daniels)

you may also notice that Hernandez has little hope of
driving in as many runs as Killer had by the time he
reaches the same PA count, though it seems you thrashed
a little at first I might have stayed with Aikens

I would never use a 4 at 2b at that cap and only
reluctantly at $60M I also think you may have pulled the
trigger on Ward and Bartlett a little quick

The primary advantage that I see with Hilltop is to be able to calibrate your offense to take advantage of any imbalances on your opponents teams' - particularly pitching but also their park effects.

For example, if there are a lot of hard righties in your league and division you can draft lefty singles hitters who do better against righties to take advantage of that pitching imbalance. I generally like to have two as a default but in cases where there are a lot of opponents with hard righties, I might go as high as four lefties or switch hitters in the starting lineup vs righties.

You nevertheless want a predominance of right handed hitters who with considerable power and hopefully high OPB as well. Conversely with pitching you want pitchers with ballpark hr's vs lefties but not against righties.

The good news is there are more than a few parks favoring righthanded power hitters in your league and just a couple that favor lefties. The rest seem balanced with no real small ball parks.You want a starting staff of guys like Scherzer, Ramon Martinez, DeGrom etc. and then a hard lefty reliever or two to use your starters on quick hook vs lineups of predominately lefties when you are on the road. At home you can F6 each of your hard righty starters. BTW Tekulve is a great pick for this team.

Your team doesn't have a lot of guys that I normally use. Gilkey was a superb value in Hilltop in ATG 8 and he is still good, just no longer an outstanding value. Disagree with Brad on his value in your park. Colavito and McCutcheon are fine flanking Gilkey, just not optimal. No problem with your OF defense that I can see. Your SS platoon is creative but also sub optimal for 9M. Ditto for Alfonzo and Scott who cost you 9M also. I would have gone for Bill White and George Burns or Shano Collins as a 1B platoon instead of Mex, doesn't hurt to have White's speed against righties. That assumes you want a 1B in the sub 6M range. I would prefer a Beltre/Rollins platoon at 3b or else Mercer and Beltre. I have used platoons with Brown at lower caps but he could see too much plate time with Napoli's 3 units of injury, and that is not something I would want to experience as manager of this team.

I don't think you have horrible fits anywhere. I'd use McLain in a pinch depending on park composition although he is not ideal because of the ballpark hr's ve righties. Daniels is not a good choice for your park. a 450+ OBP lefty would be better. Why pay a premium for Daniels' power that you can't use. Bottom line though you spent too much cash on pricey lefty killers and not enough on pricey righty killers.

Hope that helps some.

Your team doesn't have a lot of guys that I normally use. Gilkey was a superb value in Hilltop in ATG 8 and he is still good, just no longer an outstanding value. Disagree with Brad on his value in your park.

Bruce, Gilkey WAS an adequate bat for $100 million cap in Hilltop, but a HORRIBLE choice for $140 cap....at $140 you need 5 stud hitters to bat #2 thru #6 and he's got Sheffield and then borderline guys like Napoli + Colavito and that's it....I wouldn't pay $8.5 million for a weak #8 hitter at $140 cap that plays mediocre defense for the cap.

When I put together a $140 cap team I think carefully how each of my batters fit the slot they are going to bat in and Gilkey is a sub par #1 thru #6 hitter.....Sheffield is roughly the same price as Gilkey and his 4(-1) in LF compared to Gilkey 2(-1) is a small price considering the 200 OPS difference in their production and the flexibility of Sheffield that you can bat him #1 or #2 or #3 with confidence that he will produce.

Too many players are in that $6 to $9 million zone that have poor production.