Strategy Help
 

Hi,

Having just been promoted to B227 through sheer blind luck, I'd really like to start playing the game in earnest, and as such need to decide on a strategy and then rebuild my team accordingly.

The two strategies that appeal the most are Defensive, where I guess the aim is to restrict the oppositions chances to score runs, and Sabermetrics, where it's about getting on base.

Which of the general strategy templates suit each approach, and should I be setting any player specific strategies?

For both strategies, what are the important batting and pitching attributes? What positions should the roster contain? What's the ideal pitcher rotation, and how should the bullpen be set up?

I also believe that you can adjust your ballpark to suit the type of strategy, so any advice on this would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Defense will take you a long way. Plus, it's a lot of fun. At Bronze, simply look at the DEF and Error ratings. Prioritize SS and CF defense. Don't worry too much about those guys hitting.

Adjust park factor, and soon. If you are going small ball, pull back the fences. You have to do this soon as park factors become locked early in the season.

this!

Range is much more important than error rating for defense. I agree a defensive approach suits a contact-friendly (homer-unfriendly) park setup.

The sabremetric approach does work also - it's less popular but really is a viable option. The park should be set up the opposite way for that (max HR, min AVG). Base your offense around dingers & walks and focus on MOV & control for pitchers.

Basically, you're on the right track OP - any coherent strategy is better than no strategy.

Thanks Renfro.

Is there a General Strategy template I should be starting with?

Are you referring to these attributes?

Attachment 652452

And I'm looking for higher numbers in these areas, right?

Could you be a little more specific? I'm not familiar with editing the ball park so need all the help I can get. :D

Is this literally a case of setting Home Runs LHB and Home Runs RHB to 1.1, and AVG LHB and AVG RHB to 0.9?

What's a "dinger" (:confused:), and what attributes favour walks?

For the park factors - yep that's exactly what I meant. You can tweak further for lefty/righty, based on your team composition, but that's the baseline.

haha, sorry - "dingers" are slang for home runs.

"Eye" rating is how you get walks.

I thought Sabermetrics was about getting on base rather than home runs?

Sabermetrics isn't really a specific strategy, IMO. It's more the idea of using statistical analysis to make decisions rather than relying on traditional wisdom. But yeah it often gets simplified to "focus on OBP instead of AVG" because that was one of the bigger, but simple to understand, changes to come out of Sabermetrics.

It would be more accurate to call this a "modern" baseball strategy. And a big reason sabermetrics focuses on OBP is because of home runs. Home runs have kind of taken over baseball at this point. You want to maximize the number of runners on base so that when someone inevitably hits a homer, you get more runs. Doesn't matter if the runner got there via walk or single, if his job is just to score on a homer.

Also consider, it's extremely difficult to hit for high average AND hit a lot of home runs in baseball. That's just the nature of the game - to hit HR you have to swing harder - which increases strikeouts. It's hard to hit for a high AVG when you strike out a lot. So you don't really see many players capable of excelling at both. Since the game has separate park factors for contact & power, it makes sense to choose one of the two and commit to it.

Sluggers tend to have the best EYE ratings to get on base and also high POWER ratings to knock them in, so that's the natural fit for the modern strategy. Live cards tend to do best in a park like this. They have bad CONTACT ratings though, so it helps to set those park factors to minimum, to cover your weaknesses better.

You'll probably find a lot of people preferring the opposite approach, the contact and defense based one. The "modern" strategy runs counter to the prevailing meta. But it still works.

Thanks @chazzycat, this is great stuff.

So I'm gonna aim for Sabermetrics from next season onwards, which gives me the rest of the week to build the necessary roster.

If I've understood correctly, I need...

• Batters with good HR Power, Eye, and probably Contact and maybe Avoid Ks if I can get it?
• Pitchers with good Movement and Control? Groundball, or Flyball, or neutral?
• Adjust the ballpark settings to Home Runs to 1.1, and AVG to 0.9?

Does the latter go for the Bullpen as well, or should I be looking for something different there?

What about the righty-lefty split in the roster–is this important?

I use the 20-80 ratings scale, so for the Bronze league where should I be aiming–around 50-55 or higher? I have PP to spend, but I'd rather not "buy" progress, instead taking the Moneyball approach :D

Should I set my General Strategy to Sabermetrics or Moderate Sabermetrics? Any Player Strategy tweaks you recommend?

so just as an fyi - in order to move UP leagues, the fastest way to do that is to build up pitching. If you want to consolidate and generate PP for a bit before moving up, upgrade your offense.

Don't limit yourself to a specific minimum rating. For example, there are players that are 70/70/20/20 that typically work better than someone that is a 55 all the way around if your ballpark is tailored to the right specifications.

Also, I agree with the guy above who said range is more important than error -- BUT if the error rating drops below around 50 in the infield (except 1B) you are going to be frustrated. Its a balancing act, but 5 points of range will always be preferable to 5 points of error to me.

I have found as you move up levels pitching and defense becomes increasingly important. I have found some inexpensive hitters that can still be successful in Diamond, but pitchers on the other side have not been the same. I have had starting pitchers dominate at Gold, but when they move to diamond, they have to be removed from the rotation because they are so bad.

As you move up there seems to a surplus of players that can hit, so you need a way to keep the runs down. as mentioned, at lower levels, offense can be a great way to build points.

Yep - that sounds like the right priority order. Avoid K is probably the least important (avoid K is mostly useful for moving runners over...we don't care much about that, since it doesn't matter which base the runner is on when someone hits a home run).

Yep on MOV/CON. Groundballers tend to have the best MOV ratings and keep the ball in the park. If you have rock solid infield defense, it's a good strategy. But the defense is quite important.

Yep, exactly. You probably want to minimize doubles & triples as well if your sluggers don't have great outfield range nor "gap power" ratings.

Generally, the same logic applies. But you may want a bit more "stuff" here to get a strikeout in those high-leverage situations.

It can certainly give you an edge for the regular season, if you build your team around one side of the plate and set the park factors accordingly. But it can also potentially create vulnerabilities, which your opponents can exploit in short playoff series.

I try not to focus on individual ratings numbers...spend some time in the AH and "player search" and just try to find the best bargains with the ratings you care most about.

You probably want very conservative baserunning strategies. It doesn't make a lot of sense to risk getting thrown out taking an extra base, when again, it doesn't matter which base you're on when someone hits a homer. Hit & Runs/Sacrifice Bunts are a big NO from me as well.

Attachment 653793

Whilst procrastinating about a switch to the modern baseball approach, as discussed above, my current squad went about their business and ended the regular with these statistics, which I think you'll agree shows they're much more suited to small ball in their current guise, so I've decided it'd make more sense (at least financially) to pursue that strategy instead.

As you can see we're already strong in most of the small ball statistics, but our defense definitely lets us down.

I've been doing quite a bit of research via these forums, and have arrived at the following...

Batters

• Favour Contact, Gap Power, Avoid K, and Baserunning, 55+, minimum green
• High DEF
• Favour range over error
• Error 50+
• Strong outfield defense

Pitchers

• Favour Stuff and Control, 55+, minimum green
• Movement 50+
• Flyball

The above statement is taken from https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=300970, but I'm unsure as to what this means with relation to attributes (:confused:)–would someone be able to explain it to me?

Ballpark

• Home Runs 0.9
• AVG 1.1

The above is also from https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=300970, and I'm again unsure what this means (:confused:)–is this related to the ballpark? Would someone be kind enough to explain it to me?

Strategy

• Baserunning sliders towards aggressive

Should Global be set to either of the Small Ball or Moderate Small Ball templates?

Apart from the questions above, does this sound about right?

My current squad have shown they can hold their own in B227, so I'm happy to leave them to it this week and go about rebuilding for the following season if everything here checks out?

Finally, what positions do I need to carry more than one player for in the roster?

Attachment 653818

As an example of the kind of players I'm looking at, would Rizzuto make a good SS for Small Ball, at the Bronze league level?

Green in Contact, Gap, K's, and Baserunning, and solid defensive stats.

Hey that sounds like something I'd say...oh that is my thread :)

This just means prioritizing STUFF and CONTROL over MOVEMENT.
This refers to the park modifiers for doubles & triples. "Gap power" ratings increase the number of doubles & triples your batters hit.
I don't use presets or global strategies for this. Instead I set each player's individual strategy based on their ratings for speed, stealing, baserunning and whatnot. The better the base stealer, the more aggressive you can be on that slider. The better baserunning, the more aggressive for that slider. Etc., etc.
Yep, that's the right kind of player to target. Generally you want the main batter ratings to be this shape: < (with elite D and good baserunning). So he is a good fit

Something akin to this?

Attachment 653943

How aggressive do you go? I assume aggressiveness is weighted for the current league level? For instance, Rizzuto is 65 for both Stealing and Baserunning, so given I'm at Bronze I'd guess he could go almost all the way to the right?

Bought Rizzuto–a steal at 100PP. :D

One other question–which fielding positions tend to tire the quickest? I have 11 pitchers and 9 batters, so which positions should I be doubling up on?

(Apologies for all the questions but your help so far has been invaluable)

Yep, that's perfect.

I generally don't go that aggressive on stealing, with the exception of the super-elite stealers (like speed 99/stealing 103 type ratings). But yeah, there is a sliding scale as you move up leagues and face better pitchers & catchers. It's something I usually end up tinkering with every couple weeks after looking at the stats. If your guys are adding negative value on steal attempts by getting thrown out too much, it's time to lower the slider.

For baserunning I am a bit more aggressive than stealing, because it's less risky IMO. Since I never hit homers, and also never strike out, the value of moving up an extra base is definitely significant. You want to increase the number of chances you get with runners on third and less than 2 outs, because this way is easy to score a run on a sac fly or groundout (avoid K rating increases these). So taking third from first on a single, or, extending a double to a triple has a lot of value. But stealing second is not QUITE as good...a runner on first can still score on a double, which are hit very frequently at my park... And the risk of getting thrown out stealing is quite high.

To help manage all the baserunning strategies, I would recommend creating a "view" with all the necessary information...all the relevant ratings as well as stats. wSB is the stat that tells you if your stealing is too aggressive. If that number is negative, you're stealing too much. UBR is the one that corresponds to the "baserunning" slider.

Definitely catchers, by far. So it's good to get a platoon of catchers, one who hits righties and one who hits lefties, and let them alternate ideally. Infielders & outfielders get tired after a handful of games in a row, so they do need backups. You can get away with 1 IF backup and 1 OF backup. DHs do not need backups, but it may be helpful to platoon there anyway, to maximize their output and also provide an extra bench bat for pinch hitting duties.

Thanks! I'll definitely do that.
Thanks again. So is it acceptable to make a tradeoff here–lower attributes in favour of versatility? If I only have one backup OF player, I guess they should be competent at RF/CF, CF/LF, or even all three?

In my league (it changed on Monday) I'm struggling to find decent players in a couple of positions, as those in the current AH tend to have either good DEF ratings, or good batting attributes (in the areas I need) but rarely both. As I've managed to put together a decent squad so far, would they be able to carry a player or two who doesn't quite fit the mould? i.e. I can pickup Mike LaValliere for < 500PP, but his baserunning and stealing attributes are awful! However he's stellar defensively, and has solid batting ratings. Would it work if I just lower his aggressiveness in those areas, and then make sure he appears later in the batting lineup when the bases are (hopefully!) already loaded? And if the team can carry a couple of outliers, what positions make the most sense?

You have received excellent advice to build your team. I will only add to set individual strategy for every batter. Pay attention to what he does well and what he does poorly. Take advantage of his strengths with an eye on the overall strategy that you decide on.