Perfect Team Strategy Help?

[bdawg]

I've put together a really good PT team - 100s, not the cheesy "Live" guys, but non-live greats with hitting/eye/etc ratings over 110 in most cases. Honus Wagner, Babe SE 1923, Frank Thomas, Kaline, Berra (everyone has this Berra card), Brett, Hornsby, the good Mantle, TOTY Bieber, Walter Johnson, HL JV, HL Spahn, Finley, etc., and a good set of bullpen and backups. I'm in a Gold league now and the competition is stiff. I'll face off with teams who look like they have worse cards than I do by the ratings, and yet they destroy me. I play the Left/Right splits and try to match up best I can. But my team just feels like it underperforms repeatedly.

It's FAR worse in the tournaments. I have played tourneys for about 3 weeks straight now, about 3 per day on average, and literally I've been swept (or pretty close to swept) almost every single first round except one, where I made it to the semi-finals then got swept by a team that looked far worse than mine. I don't get it.

I get that this is a game and it's a series of random numbers that get generated to simulate each game, theoretically based on ratings, but I just don't understand how I can be this unlucky. Like, this feels like playing roulette and betting red or black 100x in a row and hitting maybe 5x kind of unlucky. My only thought is that people are playing some strategies that are giving them huge advantages. Like someone's developed a good set of sliders for the strategies that gives them a 20% boost, and everyone else knows about it but me.

What gives? Has someone written up a good set of strategy sliders in these forums? Sorry I tried searching, but the search feature on these forums is like web 1.0 horrific. I'm literally about to just bail on this mode and give up at this point.

[bdawg]

Oh, and why is it players like Ichiro SE, whose contact is only 96 (96L/96R), somehow hits a pretty consistent over .290 avg (often into the .310s+) in gold leagues, but my Mantle HL with contact 106 (106L/107R) hits .240-.265? What the heck? The only stats Ichiro beats Mantle at is "Avoid K's." I'm simply led to believe that Avoid K's is somehow THAT big of a factor in average?

Then there's the Bagwell SE everyone uses, that magically hits 35-40 HR in gold leagues with a 113 HR rating (129L/108R), while my Babe Ruth SE 1923 with a 134 HR rating (137L/133R) hits 30 or less on a consistent basis? Is there some sort of hidden rating that's not provided? Seems like some players consistently outperform others despite having lower stats.

[MrCubby]

Originally Posted by bdawg

Oh, and why is it players like Ichiro SE, whose contact is only 96 (96L/96R), somehow hits a pretty consistent over .290 avg (often into the .310s+) in gold leagues, but my Mantle HL with contact 106 (106L/107R) hits .240-.265? What the heck? The only stats Ichiro beats Mantle at is "Avoid K's." I'm simply led to believe that Avoid K's is somehow THAT big of a factor in average?

Then there's the Bagwell SE everyone uses, that magically hits 35-40 HR in gold leagues with a 113 HR rating (129L/108R), while my Babe Ruth SE 1923 with a 134 HR rating (137L/133R) hits 30 or less on a consistent basis? Is there some sort of hidden rating that's not provided? Seems like some players consistently outperform others despite having lower stats.

One thing I've learned this season is that Control as a pitcher is way more important than last season. Last season Movement seemed to be the #1 stat. I will also say that players with significantly higher power than contact seem to underperform. Especially if the have a low avoid K rating (Like Ruth). That Bagwell card is very good, but struggles above Gold League against Righties and is more of a platoon card.
Middle inf defense is also a huge factor. Having great gloves up the middle like SS, 2B and CF are huge as well. Range is the top defensive stat you should be looking at. I believe Catcher defense also plays more of a role this season. Yogi is solid at gold level and serviceable at Diamond. I platooned him with Manny Sanguillen through gold league as Yogi is really bad vL. Just some suggestions. I've definitely had some under performing teams before and it can be really frustrating. Hang in there! I'm sure others will have some suggestions as well.

[MrCubby]

Originally Posted by bdawg

I've put together a really good PT team - 100s, not the cheesy "Live" guys, but non-live greats with hitting/eye/etc ratings over 110 in most cases. Honus Wagner, Babe SE 1923, Frank Thomas, Kaline, Berra (everyone has this Berra card), Brett, Hornsby, the good Mantle, TOTY Bieber, Walter Johnson, HL JV, HL Spahn, Finley, etc., and a good set of bullpen and backups. I'm in a Gold league now and the competition is stiff. I'll face off with teams who look like they have worse cards than I do by the ratings, and yet they destroy me. I play the Left/Right splits and try to match up best I can. But my team just feels like it underperforms repeatedly.

It's FAR worse in the tournaments. I have played tourneys for about 3 weeks straight now, about 3 per day on average, and literally I've been swept (or pretty close to swept) almost every single first round except one, where I made it to the semi-finals then got swept by a team that looked far worse than mine. I don't get it.

I get that this is a game and it's a series of random numbers that get generated to simulate each game, theoretically based on ratings, but I just don't understand how I can be this unlucky. Like, this feels like playing roulette and betting red or black 100x in a row and hitting maybe 5x kind of unlucky. My only thought is that people are playing some strategies that are giving them huge advantages. Like someone's developed a good set of sliders for the strategies that gives them a 20% boost, and everyone else knows about it but me.

What gives? Has someone written up a good set of strategy sliders in these forums? Sorry I tried searching, but the search feature on these forums is like web 1.0 horrific. I'm literally about to just bail on this mode and give up at this point.

You can also adjust individual player sliders. I've done this before for each player and you can also override your "global" strategy" so if you have Baserunning set high but Yogi is a bad, slow baserunner, you can turn his baserunning slider down independent of the rest. Same thing for bunting etc. Not sure how much this helps but it probably won't hurt.

[bdawg]

Originally Posted by MrCubby

One thing I've learned this season is that Control as a pitcher is way more important than last season. Last season Movement seemed to be the #1 stat. I will also say that players with significantly higher power than contact seem to underperform. Especially if the have a low avoid K rating (Like Ruth). That Bagwell card is very good, but struggles above Gold League against Righties and is more of a platoon card.
Middle inf defense is also a huge factor. Having great gloves up the middle like SS, 2B and CF are huge as well. Range is the top defensive stat you should be looking at. I believe Catcher defense also plays more of a role this season. Yogi is solid at gold level and serviceable at Diamond. I platooned him with Manny Sanguillen through gold league as Yogi is really bad vL. Just some suggestions. I've definitely had some under performing teams before and it can be really frustrating. Hang in there! I'm sure others will have some suggestions as well.

Thanks man, appreciate your thoughts. I just don't get some of the results I'm seeing. Like, why is my Brett consistently hitting in the .240s with 15-20 HR at gold level, but I see in his history that he hit around .280 with 25+ HR at diamond level several years in a row for another team? There's something I'm not taking into account here.

Like, does the game automatically dock 30 pts from the batting average of a player you put 7th in the order? It seems to. That seems totally lame, and contrary to the whole rating system. I've even seen Ichiro hit around .250 if I put him last in the order, but at the top he'll hit .290+.

Speaking of Ichiro, why do players like Ichiro and Bagwell consistently outperform their ratings? Are there any other players that outperform their ratings that I should look into? I'm grasping at straws here. My team should be great and it's mediocre, at gold level. Yet, half my team has played well consistently at diamond level for other owners, so something's not right.

And wtf, I'm looking at a different PT owner who is playing Nellie Fox HL (86), who has a 74 contact (65L/77R) and a 102 Avoid K (87L/107R) and the guy has hit .280+ for this team for 5 years straight, and he's playing him 9th in the batting order. Wtf? I'm so confused. My Brett (110 Contact, 95 Avoid K) is hitting .229, and hit over .250 for me once in 5 seasons.

Please tell me there's something I'm missing here. If I'm literally just getting bad rolls of the dice, just tell me.

[Catchthedamnball]

Basically there's this hidden rating, the BABIP rating. I'm not an expert on it because it's somewhat confusing, but I'll try to explain it the best I can and I'm sure others will swing by to clarify it.
Three things factor into it; contact, power, and avoid Ks. CON raises it, while power and AvK lower it (this stands to reason. More CON means better quality of contact, more POW means less batted balls that stay in play, and more AvK means more balls in play which lowers the percentage that go for hits). So guys like your 23 SE Ruth with monster power and contact that is somewhat lower aren't going to cut it because their BABIP is not good.
On the other hand, AvK is still very useful (aside from the obvious appraisals like Tris Speaker where you observe that having a lot of everything makes for a good player). While it technically lowers BABIP, it also raises the floor on the player's batting average because they're putting bat to ball and getting hits more often aside from the times it goes flying over the fence.

As for your observations about batting order, that seems to me like a mixture of confirmation bias (i.e. random noise) and differing performance based on each manager's park factors/platoons.

[bdawg]

Originally Posted by Catchthedamnball

Basically there's this hidden rating, the BABIP rating. I'm not an expert on it because it's somewhat confusing, but I'll try to explain it the best I can and I'm sure others will swing by to clarify it.
Three things factor into it; contact, power, and avoid Ks. CON raises it, while power and AvK lower it (this stands to reason. More CON means better quality of contact, more POW means less batted balls that stay in play, and more AvK means more balls in play which lowers the percentage that go for hits). So guys like your 23 SE Ruth with monster power and contact that is somewhat lower aren't going to cut it because their BABIP is not good.
On the other hand, AvK is still very useful (aside from the obvious appraisals like Tris Speaker where you observe that having a lot of everything makes for a good player). While it technically lowers BABIP, it also raises the floor on the player's batting average because they're putting bat to ball and getting hits more often aside from the times it goes flying over the fence.

As for your observations about batting order, that seems to me like a mixture of confirmation bias (i.e. random noise) and differing performance based on each manager's park factors/platoons.

I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't seem to make much sense from a reality and statistical standpoint. Your batting average for balls in play should be focused solely on the balls you hit into play. Your strikeouts and your home runs shouldn't factor into that, and same with your ratings for strikeouts and your ratings for home runs. It's like rolling a D6 and removing all the 1s and 6s from the results. We remove X outcomes from the results, they don't factor into them.

Besides, why is my George Brett playing terribly on a consistent basis just for me? I don't get it. He's a monster with C/GP/HRP all over 110 and aK 95, and his Eye at 72 (still decent), which should only affect walks if it's defined the way it sounds. I refuse to put him 3rd or 4th in the order with the quality of other guys I have on the team. Brett's vsR this year is .257 and 9HR in 315 AB. That's absolutely mediocre for his ratings, but it's been a consistent theme for him and others on my team.

It just seems like there's something I'm doing that's affecting performance. I've tried various "strategy" slider combos with little effect.

I'm not trying to be a whiner, and I appreciate the advice, but I just don't get it. Or rather, I don't like it. If there's a hidden factor that is not reflected in the player ratings or some combination of them, that's unacceptable to me and makes buying players based upon the visible ratings ridiculous and almost shady. So I'm holding out hope that it's a strategy problem on my part.

[Catchthedamnball]

Originally Posted by bdawg

I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't seem to make much sense from a reality and statistical standpoint. Your batting average for balls in play should be focused solely on the balls you hit into play. Your strikeouts and your home runs shouldn't factor into that, and same with your ratings for strikeouts and your ratings for home runs. It's like rolling a D6 and removing all the 1s and 6s from the results. We remove X outcomes from the results, they don't factor into them.

If you look at the statistical calculation for the actual BABIP stat from fangraphs, it's calculated using the equation (H-HR)/(AB-K-HR+SF). So yes, striking out more often does empirically improve BABIP by lowering the number in the denominator, and hitting more HR does empirically worsen BABIP by subtracting from both the numerator and the denominator.

[bdawg]

Originally Posted by Catchthedamnball

If you look at the statistical calculation for the actual BABIP stat from fangraphs, it's calculated using the equation (H-HR)/(AB-K-HR+SF). So yes, striking out more often does empirically improve BABIP by lowering the number in the denominator, and hitting more HR does empirically worsen BABIP by subtracting from both the numerator and the denominator.

I getcha. Yeah I was not thinking straight with that. But it still doesn't explain the oddities I'm seeing.

[QuantaCondor]

Of the cards you listed, here's my view as a player who has competed in and won PeL, talking about how these cards would compete in diamond and PeL (speaking in general terms, probably most PeL players would agree with these assessments):

Honus Wagner - No version of him is considered a top-tier card. The SE is fine, the new Peak is a bit better, the old non-peak is not good

Babe SE 1923 - This is just not going to play at high levels; power gets worse because of a thing called league normalization. Basically, on top of power making your BABIP worse, the league has roughly the same amount of HR it has to pump out every year. The higher you go, the more POW the league has, so your HR% scales down quickly since there are many more POW mouths to feed leaguewide (and you still lose out on BABIP). If you don't have a boatload of avoidK, then having low-ish avoidK is going to kill a lot of your production.

Frank Thomas - fine budget card, good vL, but not good vR and not even a top level vL DH either

Kaline - This is probably the most competitive of the cards here so far, but still isn't something people run at the top levels because of some marginally better options

Berra - Probably worse than FOTF Mauer, perhaps worse than the new SE Simmons also. He's not terrible but better options exist

Brett - This is a top level vR 3B, no issues here (although strictly speaking SE Boggs is the best 3B now)

Hornsby - assuming it's the FOTF, it is an elite card, no qualms

the good Mantle - I don't think there's a "good" mantle at the highest levels. The OF has a lot of righty options to kill LHP, and then guys like FOTF Griff, SE Ashburn, even the new SE Rose are better vs RHP

TOTY Bieber - I think he's fine, he's not like mega elite but as pitchers go you could do worse (depending on park factors)

Walter Johnson - assuming it's the FOTF, yep elite. Otherwise, really not that good

HL JV, HL Spahn - All kinda third-tier filler cards relative to the top stuff

Finley - probably a fourth-tier card

I think this looks like a team that could maybe make the playoffs in gold as a WC or so, but would get demolished in diamond. Looks like you have a lot of nonlive historical perfects, but the set of them that aren't necessarily the best of the best.

=================================

As for the basis of these evaluations, it looks like you have a ton of power and not as much avoidK as you might want. Like catch said before and I kind of said, your POW falls away aggressively as you go up the levels in terms of contributing to your batting average. BABIP is also roughly constant; a BABIP stat will generally give you similar BABIP results at all levels. As a result, avoidK (assuming your BABIP isn't terrible, like a guy like Yogi) really ends up driving your batting average at all levels.

So that Ichiro you see might have lower CON, but the CON stat you see isn't inflated by POW at all; it's all raw BABIP and avoidK that won't fall off as you go up the ranks. Similar with SE Ashburn, SE Rose, FOTF Gwynn, Pop Lloyd, Boggs, Roger Connor; they build their CON stats on BABIP and avoidK which is a lot more robust and resistant to top tier pitching.

There's still a time and a place for POW -- a guy like Brett or Hornsby or FOTF Griffey can still be awesome. But a lot of players with big POW are going to fall short if they don't have some other things going for them.

EDIT: If it isn't clear, the reason I and others like avoidK isn't because we prefer players don't strike out. I don't care how my players get out. But it's an interaction with the engine; avoidK ends up becoming more important to get pass the strikeout check against pitching with big stuff, and you will end up dramatically suppressing the fraction of time you get to put the ball in play if you can't get past that check consistently.

[QuantaCondor]

Also, as a follow-up: What park factors are you running? At this level, you really should be choosing a specific set of park factors and building your team around it if you want to maximize your performance.

[bdawg]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

Of the cards you listed, here's my view as a player who has competed in and won PeL, talking about how these cards would compete in diamond and PeL (speaking in general terms, probably most PeL players would agree with these assessments):

Honus Wagner - No version of him is considered a top-tier card. The SE is fine, the new Peak is a bit better, the old non-peak is not good

Babe SE 1923 - This is just not going to play at high levels; power gets worse because of a thing called league normalization. Basically, on top of power making your BABIP worse, the league has roughly the same amount of HR it has to pump out every year. The higher you go, the more POW the league has, so your HR% scales down quickly since there are many more POW mouths to feed leaguewide (and you still lose out on BABIP). If you don't have a boatload of avoidK, then having low-ish avoidK is going to kill a lot of your production.

Frank Thomas - fine budget card, good vL, but not good vR and not even a top level vL DH either

Kaline - This is probably the most competitive of the cards here so far, but still isn't something people run at the top levels because of some marginally better options

Berra - Probably worse than FOTF Mauer, perhaps worse than the new SE Simmons also. He's not terrible but better options exist

Brett - This is a top level vR 3B, no issues here (although strictly speaking SE Boggs is the best 3B now)

Hornsby - assuming it's the FOTF, it is an elite card, no qualms

the good Mantle - I don't think there's a "good" mantle at the highest levels. The OF has a lot of righty options to kill LHP, and then guys like FOTF Griff, SE Ashburn, even the new SE Rose are better vs RHP

TOTY Bieber - I think he's fine, he's not like mega elite but as pitchers go you could do worse (depending on park factors)

Walter Johnson - assuming it's the FOTF, yep elite. Otherwise, really not that good

HL JV, HL Spahn - All kinda third-tier filler cards relative to the top stuff

Finley - probably a fourth-tier card

I think this looks like a team that could maybe make the playoffs in gold as a WC or so, but would get demolished in diamond. Looks like you have a lot of nonlive historical perfects, but the set of them that aren't necessarily the best of the best.

=================================

As for the basis of these evaluations, it looks like you have a ton of power and not as much avoidK as you might want. Like catch said before and I kind of said, your POW falls away aggressively as you go up the levels in terms of contributing to your batting average. BABIP is also roughly constant; a BABIP stat will generally give you similar BABIP results at all levels. As a result, avoidK (assuming your BABIP isn't terrible, like a guy like Yogi) really ends up driving your batting average at all levels.

So that Ichiro you see might have lower CON, but the CON stat you see isn't inflated by POW at all; it's all raw BABIP and avoidK that won't fall off as you go up the ranks. Similar with SE Ashburn, SE Rose, FOTF Gwynn, Pop Lloyd, Boggs, Roger Connor; they build their CON stats on BABIP and avoidK which is a lot more robust and resistant to top tier pitching.

There's still a time and a place for POW -- a guy like Brett or Hornsby or FOTF Griffey can still be awesome. But a lot of players with big POW are going to fall short if they don't have some other things going for them.

EDIT: If it isn't clear, the reason I and others like avoidK isn't because we prefer players don't strike out. I don't care how my players get out. But it's an interaction with the engine; avoidK ends up becoming more important to get pass the strikeout check against pitching with big stuff, and you will end up dramatically suppressing the fraction of time you get to put the ball in play if you can't get past that check consistently.

Appreciate your evaluation and thoughts! This definitely helps. I don't expect to have a team that's super competitive at Diamond or Perfect levels, but I expect that my team should be pretty competitive at gold, considering the teams I'm seeing in the playoffs. I'll play around with park factors a little more than I have (considering my team has been in flux for a few seasons I haven't exactly setup a park that's perfect for my team). And see if I can trade some of these 3rd tier perfects in to nab something better.

I did pull a FOTF Gwynn yesterday from a random pack and slipped him in before the playoffs.

[dboeyr12007]

I am surprised Brett is considered one of the elite even behind Hornsby and Boggs with his 50 Error rating.

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by dboeyr12007

I am surprised Brett is considered one of the elite even behind Hornsby and Boggs with his 50 Error rating.

Well, Hornsby isn't as strong vR and isn't a lefty, so in e.g. lefty parks vs RHP FOTF Brett still fills a good niche (although if you wanted to run Hornsby vR you probably cut him). Boggs is so expensive that even many top teams can't afford him, so it's not like he's crowding out Brett.

And error rating doesn't really matter. At 3B you care about range (and I think arm does matter but some disagree), error doesnt nearly outweigh the ability to actually make plays via range and arm.

Of the batters listed, Brett and Hornsby are really the main two I see at the highest level. Perhaps Kaline on some budget teams as well.

[dboeyr12007]

Good to hear because I can never find Hornsby at a time I can actually afford him so I run a Brett/Larkin platoon at third, which I know is not the greatest but Idk what else to do. Rest of the infield is a Lloyd/Ripken platoon at SS, Jackie at 2nd, Anson at 1st, and Mauer catching. Outfield once I find a Mays will be Gwynn, Griffey, Mays vR and Gwynn, Mays Clemente vL. DH is a Williams Aaron platoon.

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by dboeyr12007

Good to hear because I can never find Hornsby at a time I can actually afford him so I run a Brett/Larkin platoon at third, which I know is not the greatest but Idk what else to do. Rest of the infield is a Lloyd/Ripken platoon at SS, Jackie at 2nd, Anson at 1st, and Mauer catching. Outfield once I find a Mays will be Gwynn, Griffey, Mays vR and Gwynn, Mays Clemente vL. DH is a Williams Aaron platoon.

Seems pretty solid. I'd say after adding a Hornsby and a Mays (assuming you have a Campy or something in there as a vL catcher), that's pretty close to a conventional PeL slate of bats. Other upgrades might include Tris, Boggs, Brooks, maybe like Rabbit, Ozzie (although I think Ozzie is not the right call; I choose to run Cal and now Brooks), Rickey, DiMaggio (park factor depending), Connor, and Cobb.

[bdawg]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

Seems pretty solid. I'd say after adding a Hornsby and a Mays (assuming you have a Campy or something in there as a vL catcher), that's pretty close to a conventional PeL slate of bats. Other upgrades might include Tris, Boggs, Brooks, maybe like Rabbit, Ozzie (although I think Ozzie is not the right call; I choose to run Cal and now Brooks), Rickey, DiMaggio (park factor depending), Connor, and Cobb.

Just curious considering how you're throwing out all these 300K+ players out there, have you guys spent significant amounts of money on this game? Do I really have a chance if I don't want to spend money?

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by bdawg

Just curious considering how you're throwing out all these 300K+ players out there, have you guys spent significant amounts of money on this game? Do I really have a chance if I don't want to spend money?

I'd say at this late stage in the game, the best way to get a bunch of PP and be competitive as a F2P is to do an entry pool killer run where you build a team specifically to destroy the entry pool environment (and rookie/stone). The discord is a good place to find people knowledgeable in how to do that most effectively, it's a regular hobby for some.

Also, not every player I listed is a core upgrade either; many of them are luxuries or a matter of personal preference or park factors.

As for whether F2P can succeed: sure thing. Check my sig, I'm doing fine and I'm not even the most successful F2Per (another, JM's Time Lords, have 2 PeL titles). That required a lot of game knowledge + playing since launch, so it's not like you can pluck a new team and make them PeL competitive in a month as F2P. But it's not impossible for F2P to succeed.

[dkgo]

Its probably too late now but there were millions of PP to be made by working the auction house over the course of the game. Lots of top teams didnt buy points

A new team should finish the live missions and jumpstart with 500K or so in the entry league and rookie

[dboeyr12007]

I did not spend any money. Most of my points have come from tournament play. I won a couple tournaments with card prizes that banked about a million points each. I also have won a little over a million in quick tournaments.