Thu Apr 10, 2025 3:07 pm
Well, there is no one way to guarantee success. You can put together a good team a lot of different ways. Some of my thoughts:
- Pick players for your park, but adapt to your division. E.g. you have a left park w/ all lefty starters, but if the other teams are stacked against LHP and weak against RHP, you may need to make some changes.
- Defense is overpriced. I'm not saying its not important but you will pay a premium for 1 ratings. You'll have to make up for that by cutting costs somewhere else. E.g. my finals team had the least amount of $ spent on pitching and I'll say a bottom 3rd defense, but still was able to finish in the top 3rd in ERA and mid pack in terms of total runs without any 1 rated defenders. Of course, the counterpoint to this is JimmyJames team which had several mid priced 1 range players and was still able to produce an above-average offense.
- Platoons. I'm sure everyone is familiar with platoons and that they are a great way to squeeze more value out of a lineup. However, you can be vulnerable to RP. E.g Exwallman has all lefty SP and has backed that up with a strong group of RH relievers. If you are behind when the RPs come in or get into a situation where you have to do a lot of pinch hitting, you may not be able to muster much offense late in the game if you have a lot of very slanted hitters.
- Relief pitching. This may be the hardest part of the game. If you spend too much on RP you are just throwing $ down the drain because the RPs will not pitch enough innings to be worth their salary. If you spend too little, your RPs are going to get fatigued often and you will be blown out often. You need to be on the razors edge of spending just enough so that the RPs are not getting fatigued too often, but are getting used enough to justify their salary. Its a tough balance and is dependent on how much you spend on SP and defense, and what park you are in.
