Why Did My Team Tank ** AKA I Can't Win At This Game **

Not necessarily, it's just at that point you have so much money that you basically have to spend on the bullpen haha. But below $200 I prefer to spend on full-time players.

Ah yes, makes sense!

There’s many ways that can work. With The s6, s7, 8 etc fatigue rating …. Dh leagues alot of people will load up with 9’s and change the pitching settings so the starters play 95% of the innings or so. Then they cheap out on the bullpen with lefty and righty specialist. It’s a good strategy one I often use as well. In non dh leagues starters will get pulled for pinch hitters and stuff so the 9 isn’t as important. A staff full of 7’s will get the job done or a mixture of different ratings.

Not necessarily, it's just at that point you have so much money that you basically have to spend on the bullpen haha. But below $200 I prefer to spend on full-time players.

Thanks for the help, I'll try with this method next season!

Another important bit of advice is to check out your players on the website http://diamonddope.com/card_reader.cfm
This site gives the actual performance stats in different parks for all of the Stratomatic players. If you're considering a particular player in a particular park, you can see how many runs they're expected to create--or in the case of a pitcher, how many runs they're expected to prevent.

The DiamondDope "lineups" feature offers a quick way to see how a particular set of players is likely to perform in a particular park. I think this is an essential resource.

Another way to learn about how to build a successful team is to look at the winning teams in the annual Barnstormer Tournament. The tournament features six events played at different salary caps, and the team results for the 2022 tourney are published here: https://365.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/43

I'd suggest checking out some of the championship teams in the 80M leagues and check out what they're doing right.
I hope this helps.

something that got lost here after the first comment: it's important to understand that once the season begins, as a general rule, you should not drop players at these lower cap levels. do not drop players because they are in a "slump." these players are not humans who get the yips or depressed or hung-over; they are algorithmic automatons. dropping players only reduces the value of your roster, i.e. makes your team worse. dropping players during the season is only justified if you were so high when you made your roster that there were errors made in your initial construction egregious enough to justify taking the penalty to fix them (in which case you're screwed anyway).

Some of the wizards here can make hay with mid-season roster moves, but do not try this at home. Others will point to times they changed their rosters around and were successful. These cases are merely the vagaries of statistics. Over time the house always wins.

I beg to differ on the dropping point, my team was 4-13 in a leage with you as division leader and I made the following changes:
Sat, 1/07 Ball State Cardinals added Delahanty, Ed (1894) - 8.85M
Sat, 1/07 Ball State Cardinals dropped Chance, Frank (1903) - 6.24M
Sat, 1/07 Ball State Cardinals added Kamieniecki, Scott (1998) - .50M
Sat, 1/07 Ball State Cardinals dropped Feliz, Neftali (2010) - 3.78M

I needed a more reliable and potent middle of the lineup hitter so I switched dropping relief pitching Since then 67-54 (.553 winning avg), I am still 4 games out of a playoff spot, but I have chances! Changes must be strategic not random.

Yes, that's a good example of a change that probably legitimately improved your team. Since it's a DH league and you have decent starting pitching you probably didn't need to spend 3.78 on Feliz, so I can see how changing him out for Delahanty made you better. (i.e. you probably weren't going to get full value for Feliz but you very wel lay for Delahanty). The key here in my opinion (for the benefit of the original poster) is that 1. you made the change quickly (within the early, lowest penalty period) and 2. it was targeted and strategic, addressing a roster inefficiency created at the initial construction. Of course, you would have been better off starting off like this, with a little more spare change to play with, but the move makes sense.

My only concern is that it will corrupt the youth. To new players I reiterate: don't try this at home!