New “why does my team suck?”

Brad, disagree with all of the formulaic approaches to "what you need to win at..." You don't need any particular sequence of hitters in the 2-6 slots to win at Hilltop at 140. The fact that there are so many winning strategies is what makes the game fun and I believe that absolutizing formulaic approaches simply limits the exploration of many of these possibilities. For example, with Freeman's post about the team in question only getting outs on 77% of defensive X rolls and somehow needing to get at least 80% is utterly ludicrous. Everything is a trade off. You sacrifice a little defense and if the offense generated as a result scores more runs than you lose with the lesser defense, well that is what wins games, scoring more than the other guy.

Gilkey is still fine at 140. Our boys problem is that he lacks any 10M players to offset the 8-9M players. For example, a Gilkey, McCutcheon, Mays OF should be more than adequate.

I'll give some recent examples, my last two 140M Hilltop teams to finish are:

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1545701

These team only has two hitters over 10M and Trout barely made that cutoff.
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1576746

Here is a current atg 9 team that has six games remaining in Royals 90 at 140. 7/9 starters are sub 10M.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1582296

Bruce is right and I am wrong.

I clearly don't know what I am talking about.

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. Some responses:

Tiant - he has a better record at home than on the road.
McLain - ok but I am surprised that the minor sliver of bp hr’s for tiant and McLain would be of such a concern.

Percival - agree. He has been great at home. I will try Patrick’s suggestion.

Gilkey has been terrible even against lefties. But he’s -18 on rolls. I’ll look for a replacement anyway.

Marshall started off great but why is he not a good fit for hilltop? No bp hr’s.

Daniels at home has been great. 326 .373 .609

Ashburn, Thomas, bishop not available. I had ichiro but dropped him. I’ll snoop around.

I’m 60-78 , .435. I’ll report back at end of year.

Hi Casey,

Cool that you got so many responses--lots to consider. And you did ask a direct question! You got player recs already and are deep into the season, so I will just offer a general thought. What I think is important in Druid's response (and others I presume) is the idea of optimization: you can construct a winner or a loser any number of ways and in this case you've not optimized your roster for your park.

Take Daniels.
The problem is not that Daniels will suck at home. The problem is his salary includes $ value for all those BPHRs, which he will not take advantage of for at least half the season, plus road games in similar parks. That means you have less money to spend on getting a premium RH power hitter who has 8 BPHRs that would get used. Think in terms of opportunity costs...any number of people could have that stat line at home, but probably for less money.

This logic of exploiting the card values can be applied across the board. The small differences of a few BPHRs or BP singles may not be much individually--but neither is a few wins over the course of 162, or the average margin of victory over 162 games. Heck the difference in a .300 hitter and a .200 hitter is one hit every 10ABs. But it adds up in long-run statistical outcomes. Even an excellent team may only average scoring 1.5 runs more than it allows.

The bottom line is for 140M you have (1) many otherwise good cards not optimized for your park for which there are better options at the price point and (2) a lack of dominant game-changing hitters to tilt the scale. At 140M you face great pitching--your guys are great for 100M or so--and I love McCutchen (and previously Gilkey at least price wise), but you are highly vulnerable without blue chip lights-out guys--unless you have an entire lineup of McCutchens. But in Hilltop your lefties are purely for getting on base and maybe a little natural power. Protection and baserunners for your power hitters. I like a lefty for every 2-3 righties in Hilltop on average, but depends on the opposing pitchers and parks.

Think of it this way--in your home park, you may not be fielding the most optimal team in all game matchups. That's a problem. Are you fielding more salary every night at home than your opponents, geared to your park? And the other point made was that it is about winning--whether 8-7 or 4-3--whatever the balance is and there are many ways to do that. But everyone here seems to agree--you cannot give away salary on things you aren't able to use.

Interestingly enough, Hilltop seems to be the ballpark I have the most success in...but did not consider BPHR when picking my RH HR hitters.... then I checked them and they all have the 6+ BPHR ....lol I am a smart dummy...hahaha...learn something new all the time...THANK YOU!!!!!

"Freeman's post about the team in question only getting outs on 77% of defensive X rolls and somehow needing to get at least 80% is utterly ludicrous."

Well, allow me to retort...

In 20XX it's not an uncommon strategy to load up on 1s in a pitcher's park. My observation is that such strategies have a decent record of success. Why would this be so? It would have to be based on the theory that run scoring is not perfectly linear, that adding offense in a pitcher's park would not produce as many runs as they would in more of a hitter's park. Otherwise, why bother with getting exceptional defense? You might have bad defense but you'll just outscore 'em, right? I think also poor defense causes impossible to anticipate problems with one's relief staff, as well.

So while Strat accounts for the cost of a 1, you get value because all those 1s TOGETHER reduce offense more than Strat anticipates in a pitcher's park. And the advantage you have is based on how much higher of X chances you get over your opposition. I am not sure what the average X chance percentage recovery is but clearly an 82% gives one a significant edge over most teams while 77% is a more modest edge. That's about a 45-50 runner difference.

I said I was I was skeptical that investing in great defense was that great an option at 140 million in that fairly extremely hitter's park. I dont think an exceptional defense is necessarily going to have a bonus when offenses are scoring so many runs. And then I said if you were going to try it that 77% was not good enough as a strategy.

Below is an example of an exceptional defense strategy used in ATG in the first round of Barnstormers (85% of X chances)

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/fielding/1571562

There are all kinds of strategies and I agree that you cant reduce them to a few, simple formulas. But in order to succeed at Strat you need at max out at what youre doing. And that was my only point about 77%. If youre trying to gain value from defense, that's not good enough.

Sometimes or many times the answer is the other teams are better.

Threads like this appeal for assistance are often what brings new forum readers here. To me, historically, they are some of our finest examples of community outreach. It warms my Som heart to see this every time.

I hope this particular newbie is not the only inexperienced player to read and think about this thread. Great food for thought here.

Thanks for bringing this back to the top. I promised an update at season’s end and here it is.
Since I was out of it I did some desperate/ fun moves in part based on the advice I received and wound up worse that I started. Wound up at .415 down from .435. My moves and the results:

Ditched marshal for Tatum who got crushed. 7.29 in 21 innings.

Alfonso for Panik, he with the 4 injury. Stayed healthy but he sucked .246 .270 .410 In 61 ABs.

Dropped overpaid wills for brinkman. No surprise that brinkman sucked (and of course Cozart got injured) but the extra cash for Tatum was ...well...see above.

Dropped McLain for Nomo who went for 8.91 ERA in 34 innings - agree it’s a small sample size.
My one bright sPot: I cut Gilkey for Conine who went .273 .375 .500 .875 in 48 ABs.

I appreciated all the suggestions . No need to tell me what an idiot I was on these moves - it was fun anyway.

Threads like this appeal for assistance are often what brings new forum readers here. To me, historically, they are some of our finest examples of community outreach. It warms my Som heart to see this every time.

I hope this particular newbie is not the only inexperienced player to read and think about this thread. Great food for thought here.

I just discovered this thread in 2023. Thank you all for sharing so many perspectives!