.50 SP strategy

Under a million pitcher is not quite the same as a.50 pitcher. There is no value in .50 pitchers. But if you believe there is, please keep trying this strategy. You are more than welcome in my division.

Might have used one .5 pitcher--Sparkman--a few years back but yeah it's more like an under a million strategy. Speaking of which...have another one! Discretion is advised before viewing...the $11.23 wonder slugs!

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/index.php/team/1608029

Radagast-- I think the thread may be mislabeled. It's more like "pitchers under $1", which in common vernacular, are referred to as ".50" pitchers. All managers, save for beginners know that .50 guys are unviable to start.

All the team examples have pitchers .9 - .6 ( none actually using .50 ). So, the defacto discussion here is not ".50" pitchers, it's "cheap pitchers under $1M"

The more dynamic/interesting discussion is not about .50 pitchers specifically, it's can you win with a very cheap SP staff? Which is important if the results are consistent. It's not really my bag, but I'm interesting in knowing more about it in case a team uses it in my league.

I am in process of trying it. I faced Freeman in tournament. Since I am on outside looking in, I thought I would try this strategy.

Lots of pitchers good against opposite hand. Also I went RP with low hr chances, but bad luck so far. Britton has given up 9hr in 23 innings.... and he doesn’t have a homer on his card.

Also too many solo homers.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1606847

Any ideas from guys who have done this with success?

The way I conceive of the strategy is get really cheap starters that I can pull really quickly and then have elite relievers (who dont cost nearly as much as elite starters) come in and finish the last four or five innings. With the extra money from a cheap staff then get a good power/on-base/defensive team. With that in mind--and remembering these are just the way I like do things, there are a lot of different ways to do things that work, everyone has to make up their own mind--I would make the following observations:

(1) Citizens is probably the best park to run this strategy as it has low bp singles. That and having a good defense is necessary (imho) to ensure those cheap starters dont completely blow up;

(2) You chose R1s. I prefer R2s to make sure I have enough innings. But it looks like your relievers are doing pretty well. But that might not work if you had your cheap starters pitch less.

(3) I like S4s (usually). They pitch a max of 5 innings. And normally I have relief quickly on all mycheap starters. The idea is to get them out of the game quickly. The problem is that Irvin, Snell, and Heaney are better than S4s. There is no right answer here; just have to decide which works best for you.

(4) Youre only converting 71% of X chances. I think, given cheap starters, you want to be 75-80%.

(5) You talked about solo homeruns. To me, you need some guys with higher raw power numbers (7,8,9,10 non-bp numbers) along with guys with high on-base. Some guys might have only 4 non-bo hrs with 7-8 bp hrs...but then they should have a high on-base. (Urshela is definitely not a good fit for that park.) You might have a few cheap guys like K. Cron or B Miller who have a lot of power but dont have great on-base... but they are balanced by guys they do. Of course, Trout or Yelich have everything. I think team on-base stats of at least .320 in your results (youre at .305) is what you want and you should be way ahead of the opposition homerun totals.

Good luck!

Thanks freeman,

Do you think you need 1 D up the middle? I am playing Goodrum as SS vs lefties. 3 e36 but hitting so well. Where is the trade off point? I am playing Torres at 2nd instead of short so a 2 vs 3. Playing Acuna in Left so 2 not 3 also, Kepler in CF. I definitely agree the 71% is not good enough.

Thanks for the insight especially on R1... I didn’t see the forest for the trees. Did not even realize I had done that.

I agree about OBP.. i think it is probably number 1 stat for hitters. I try to get 40% hit chance on their card or close for both hands if everyday, and platoons that at least against their hand.

What I do is look at Dean Carrano's chart and try to get a total of about 0 to +3 (or so) runs. (Well, for this strategy). I am a little less focused on defense for my line-ups against lefties because thats only 20-25% of games and when you platoon it's difficult to get really good defense so you may have just to sacrifice defense sometimes to avoid having a player start who cant hit lefties. Anyway 0-3 runs allowed I think will get me around the right percentage of X chances. Obviously, it's easier to do that if I have 1s at 2b and ss but whatever combination gets me there. Torres is a nice option but I would balance him with more defense somewhere else.

Thanks again. I will look up Dean Carrano’s chart.

Good luck in our league!

No problem. Good luck to you as well!

Well, after reading what Freeman and JPav had to say about my roster, I was sitting 34-44, last in my division and a -90 run differential. I set out to improve my defense while holding onto my sub 1mil pitchers. It worked! I won a bad division but finished with 84 wins going 50-34 .595 and reducing my run deficit to -31. So there is hope with a cheap SP staff after all as Freeman suggested.