Deadball Era Team Advice

I am currently playing in a 5 year type historical league pickling players in 5 year increments.

I'm normally an Earl Weaver 2 walks and a three rum homer guy ,but I tried to go out of the box and draft a high average, great pitching , zero power, deadball , speed team.
the results haven't been great
We play in Griffith 24 and actually have a significantly worse record at home. Out lineup leans slightly to the left side,
The team was getting thrown out too much on steal attempts,(.680) and I found many of those guy's with high steal totals were thrown out quite a bit historically or had no caught stealing totals and were heavily penalized(despite having aa ratings sometimes), so I set it for conservative stealing and the percentages creeped up(about .711 now). I have the running at very aggressive and that has worked out, I have hit and run and bunting at at conservative as I found that because these guys had high ratings to that regards they were making too many hat and run and bunting attempts .
Even set at conservative we are close to the league lead in hit nd run attempts.
I don't want Ty Cobb and his .420 average bunting in the first inning. But maybe I'm wrong. I always felt if you played for one run that's all you'll get but MAYBE these sorts teams need to do just that. My starters are all quality but two have team only have an 8 endurance and our bullpen is pretty non existent. I have the 4 man starters set at quick hook f3

Any advice on this kind of team?
Thanks so much in advance
The settings
Should I have chosen an even more friendly pitchers park
We only have a 16 run differential , but we are 11 under 500, could it just be luck?
Any advice would be really great. I know it's hard to give away trade secrets , so I'll take any advice you'd care to give.
I'd like to try this again, but with better results.

Let me know and I can copy this to the ATG Forum where you may get more advice than here.

That would be great

If you go into Hitter Prefs you can set certain guys to never steal/bunt/hit and run. Your instinct that Cobb should not be bunting or hit and running is absolutely correct, only the weakest hitters should be doing those things.

The most successful team will almost always be set up like a softball team...good luck

Hit and run is a good option if the batter is going to hit .220 but definitely a bad choice for Cobb.
I wish hitter preferences had a "hit and run every time" option for bad hitters.

This is exactly the kind of team egvrich runs! Hopefully he will see this in the forum and give you some advice on the running game. As far as your pitchers, set the to f0 and slow hook. Is this a DH league, better for 4stud starters and no pen, HAL cannot pinch hit for your pitchers. laboratories comment about bunting and hit and run is spot on, set guys you want swinging away to not do both of them. Check very conservative for H&R and conservative for bunt.

My advice: four ace starters, set to F0, minimal bullpen. Find three or four core higher salary guys guys (depending on whether it's a DH league) and then the rest are platoons. Defense up the middle is critical. Don't spend too much on bullpens, bench players, relievers.

This is all great advice and really appreciated

Hi Mark,

In addition to the advice already offered re: your questions, I'd add the following.

1. All of your decisions also depend on the league makeup. Consider the weight for intra-div games proportionally. You should be geared for your home park as that is 81 games, but if there are two lefty parks and rosters in your division, you need to adjust slightly for that.
How to do this practically: Add up all the games by park, including the 81 in your own, and determine the park weights for the season. You can also do this for opposing pitchers and lineups, but that is less precise because rosters change.

2. I noted you said "low power". Deadball/smallball teams aren't necessarily low power--they are low ballpark HR power. But they should be high XBH power. If you aren't getting more hits, more doubles, and more triples than your opponents, you will have a rough time competing. Also the baserunning and steals count here too.
How to do this practically: Look for the pretty orange and purple colors on the cards . (or count, or use DD)

3. Consider the anatomy of a typical 3 out inning--that is--you should aim to be be able to score with a single hit in an inning. A walk. followed by a stolen base or a productive out. Then a SINGLE**. A properly constructed smallball team can consistently score 5 runs a game against anyone.
How: Do not ignore the value of productive outs and the devastating effects of bad outs. This goes for pitchers too. A #2 hitter shouldn't just have low gbAs. Should also not be a lot of strikeouts, popouts, lineouts etc. SINGLE** vs SINGLE can be big--can mean a single scores a guy from 1B if running aggressively and the batter can get to second.
Pitchers should be the opposite. They should have lots of bad outs compared to productive outs. Not all are alike so don't ignore types of outs.

4. SPEED. SPEED. SPEED. No slugs on the bases. You don't have the HR threat so you need to keep innings going--which means no slugs on the bases. Aim for nothing less than a 13. Always VERY AGGRESSIVE on base running--watch your stats against some opponents, but unlike stealing, this one is usually best pegged to the max for smallball if the team is well constructed.

5. Stealing. I would never go past NORMAL for team setting otherwise they will be stealing 3B and home way too much. In fact, conservative is the default here--tweak it to normal for poor arm/hold teams. But don't ignore guys who use catchers with high throwing errors. Run them ragged--so even with the max -5 CA/Pi combo, may still be worth leaving at normal if the CA is a T-20--depends.
Important though--for guys with high good lead/bad lead stealing chances like Cobb, I check them to steal more.

6. Lineup. Given the above, fine tune. That #2 hitter we discussed--think of the effect you create if your #2 guy is a great base stealer and has lots of gbBs. So even if you lose your lead runner, you have a steal threat on the bases again. Try not to set a lineup that gives away three innings a game with 3 terrible hitters at the bottom. You can't afford that with small ball.

7. Do not underestimate clutch on a smallball team. It is very rare I worry at all about clutch unless I have a few big studs and many scrubs, or a high OBA smallball team. It still shouldn't be a primary concern, but if you constructed the team correctly, you will likely have many instances of RISP more than usual, and probably also may more LOB. So sprinkle a clutch guy or two around the 5 or 6 hole. Consider the threat of IBBs here too else your top hitter may get bypassed if Douthit is hitting behind him with his -15 clutch or whatever it is.

8. Do not get caught up in run diff. With a smallball team, it is not a reliable determinant. It can be, but not always, so I ignore it for this type of team. Who cares if you win 3-2 and 6-5 then lose 11-1. It is still 2 of 3. Of course, if it is not working out that way, you have a problem. So in your case below, I don't think it is necessarily positive to be +RunDiff. Really depends on the team and the league it is in. Though by all means that is not an endorsement to take cap hits with FA drops. Maybe a trade--but only take a FA drop if it is in the 5% period and you are 100% sure you know your weakness and how to mitigate it. ie, almost never makes sense until after intra-div play at the start (18 games) and as close to the 40 game limit as you can stand to watch. Anyone who says they are successful regularly taking cap hits are either (1) playing in weak leagues or (2) are ignoring the lost upside they threw away. Or both.

9. OF arms. Recommend one stopper (-3 or greater) and another who is at least a negative.

Good luck--I love smallball...it can be fun to be beat boppers that way as most choose to win with the HR. But it can be a narrow margin to consistently win with it.