Patience, young Jedi!

Every once in a while, I believe it's useful to post a reminder on the boards to newer owners the importance of patience. The reflex can be easy to drop guys who aren't performing, but that leads to the cycle of roster destruction through constant moves to try to "upgrade" lower performers and eat the FA cost penalty.

The point is this - superstars who stink early are still superstars. Don't drop Maddux because the ERA in his first 4 starts is 9. Don't switch Mantle cards because he's batting .190 through a week and incur that 700k penalty. Don't swap Lajoie for Barnes just because Lajoie is cold at the start - Lajoie is better. And, if you dump the cold starter, you miss the hot streak that will push his stats back to normal.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1680294

Using the 13.22M 6R Barry Bonds card in Huntingdon in a 140M league. To say his start was cold was an understatement:

Games 1-18: .177 BA, .242 SLG, .572 OPS, 1 HR, 4 RBI
At that point, his OPS was 96th and his SLG 99th (last) in the league, behind such legends as Larry Bowa and Ozzie Guillen.

1 week later, here is his card:
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/player/39 ... 292/459856

In the last 21 games, his splits are: .410 BA, 1.075 SLG, 1.676 OPS, 14 HR, 34 RBI

This has been a public service announcement from an old man who's been playing for a long time.

Amen to that and thanks for sharing.
Wisdom always appreciated.

What a great league that is!

well said treyomo. I see it too and it kills me.

I had a newbie tell me that the reason he drops so much in 140m league is that a lot of times the 7m player outperforms the 9m- My advice draft the 7m to start

It would be nice if they would read this and consider it, but I doubt that is going to happen.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1672647

Here's a good example of patience, IMHO ...

This team started out 4-20. I seriously considered blowing up the roster and bringing in fresh players, but ...
Realizing that the player cards weren't going to change - and I had assembled what I thought was a highly competitive team, any changes I made would make this team worse.

A less experienced me would have been dropping players left and right, and this team probably would have lost 100+ games as a result. And I used to do exactly that when I first started playing this game. Only after being counseled by some of the great and helpful vets in this game, did I learn to be patient and let the cards play out.

Ultimately, the only change I made was to clear my lineups and let HAL set them for me on a game to game basis. And HAL went 77-61 after the slow start. Sometimes, not making any moves can turn out to be the best move one can make.

Not saying that this result is what will always happen - but I'm proud of this team for getting back to break-even at the end of their season.