The tortoise and the hare

I am sadly seeing a pattern playing out in all my leagues. In my sixties league I had a winning team and a division lead at the 100 game mark, but in spite of no major roster moves inexplicably started losing regularly and finished below .500. Now I find that pattern repeated in my 70s league, and so far, the front end of the pattern in the 80s and 90s. Is it a bad thing to have a fast start? Does it generate a false sense of security that results in other teams improving and eventually surpassing the front runners? It certainly seems so in my case.

Great question and while I am relatively still more inexperienced, I have found this to be true - you may be getting the best of teams prior to their improvement. I would never want to fix what is not broken but it’s important to see how other teams transactions are working out. If it looks like some teams have landed some better pitching, especially in division, or hit on some huge platoon advantages, you may need to look to see how your team can still improve.

Last season, my crappy finals team picked on Franky with lefties early on, but by the end he had three epically soul crushing vs lhp cards that rendered that early strategy moot.

I’m the mystery format you need to constantly improve your team because your opponents certainly will be. I usually start the year with a seven man rotation trying to find three pitchers that work. I’ll swap the others in and out until I find a workable rotation so you beat me early but I will be better later in the year partly because I know which players to use off the roster and partly because I’ve improved some of the deadweight. Even if you have a good squad figure out which ok Ayers are not using a good card and replace them

There is always the sense that you don’t want to mess with a good thing if you get off to a good start. But barterer2002 makes an excellent point: other managers are going to be constantly scouring free agency looking to improve and come back from behind you in the standings. In regular leagues there are always a manager or 2 who find success by making little or no moves all season. In this tournament that strategy will almost never work in the long run.

The team that wins it all isn’t always the best team at the quarter pole or halfway mark; it’s often the team that made the right moves during the season and adjusted to the league around him/her.

So fatigue can be a factor? Does the SIM take cumulative plate appearances or IP into account?

I do think that other players scouting my team and making roster moves is a big part of the story, especially in the sixties league. I was in a division with two other owners who are now in the top twenty. Obviously I played an unbalanced schedule. Only they know if they made moves to specifically counter my team, but we were in a three way tie for first after 100 games. They both went on to make the playoffs and I finished below .500.

So fatigue can be a factor? Does the SIM take cumulative plate appearances or IP into account?

I do think that other players scouting my team and making roster moves is a big part of the story, especially in the sixties league. I was in a division with two other owners who are now in the top twenty (rigged splits and color me impressed). Obviously I played an unbalanced schedule with them. Only they know if they made moves to specifically counter my team, but we were in a three way tie for first after 100 games. They both went on to make the playoffs and I finished below .500.