Pitching Wins Championships?

[J P Falcon]

Playing the SF Giants I had a front line pitching staff for 2004 & 2005 consisting of Pedro Martinez-Brad Radtke-Russ Ortiz-Jason Schmidt-Kurt Reuter. I led the league in pitching era both years and went into the playoffs each time. I was knocked out in the first round each year, first vs. the Cubs and then the Cards. Pedro pitched terrible in all four of his playoff appearances. So you can live by the credo "pitching wins Championships" but you still have to play the games...that's why, unlike other stat based games, you are never sure what will happen in OOTP!!!

[Heelfan71]

I go with pitching. I am in first place with the Marlins (74-47) due to pitching. My team era is 3.31 which is a lot lower than anyone else.

[GiantsRule]

Thanks for a very interesting discussion guys! After reading all of the posts of come to the general conclusion that there are many ways to win OOTP 4. It also sounds like the general consensus is that batting gets you into the playoffs but starting pitching and the bullpen give you a good chance to reach the world series. Again thanx for all of your opions this has kind of turned into old school philosophy vs the new age philosophy ( homers can take you a long ways)

[KWhit]

I've played seasons where I was able to put up some high win totals in the reg season and not make it out of the first round of the playoffs.

The main reason behind this was my #4 and #5 starters. I created a very balanced starting pitching staff. 1-5 were all quite good. I had far and away the best 4-5 combo in the league. This let me win a lot of reg season games that those guys started.

But, when the playoffs roll around, that does me no good. Usually the opponent is going to use a 3 man rotation (and usually I will too). So I never get to use the advantage my 4th and 5th starters have, and usually my 1-3 is just about equal to my opponent's 1-3.

My new recipe: make sure you have enough gas to get to the playoffs, but to win in the playoffs you have to have 3 stud starters - use your money on these guys and use prospects as #4 and #5.

[vyacheslavkozlovfan]

I usually go with hitters, but keep in mind that you have 8 hitting spots to fill and only five slots in the starting rotation.

[HolyCow98]

Why .385? nah its not a magic number but I find it is hard to find 4 guys that actual can maintain anything higher than that.
The second part was how many wins do I think the defense wins?
Thats hard to answer but I can tell you that having a good defense as far as range goes cuts down on my ERA big time. There have been times that I've had injuries to Andruw Jones Range:A Arm A and Rafael Furcal Range:A and they missed the entire second half, it might be coincendence but my second half ERA went from 3.21 to a season ending ERA of like 3.89. Also had my worst season as far as W-L. If I had to say how may games it can win for you saying you have quality offense and quality pitching I would say 8-10 games a year but who knows. I know my pitchers thank me though.

[johnpanic]

Personally, I emphasize pitching and defense over offense. It's probably just a negative reaction I have to the softball scores being generated in the post '90s baseball era though <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

For me, a team with a starting rotation where everyone is under a 3.50 ERA just looks more aesthetically pleasing than a team where all the starters have ERAs over 5.00 but with a line-up stocked with .300 hitters smacking 35+ homers each. That's ugly baseball, in my opinion

- Paul

[jjd]

In my opinion, the formula for success is to have 5 solid (not necessarily great) starters and load up the bullpen with studs. If you can get 6 quality innings out of your starters most games and bring in the big guns out of the bullpen to handle the last 3, you can win a bunch of games with only a very average hitting team.

Look at the Pittsburgh Pirates right now. They are 9 - 5 and in 1st place in one of the toughest divisions in baseball with a team BA of about .215. How, 5 to 6 solid innigs from the starters every night and a bullpen ERA around 2.00 .

[Jason Moyer]

A big part of the formula for winning is the way you have your era setup.

I use 5 man rotations with everything in the era-settings set to 'average' and the league totals set to replicate the average NL season from 1950-2002. The best seasons I've had so far were with a solid defense up the middle and 3 top notch starting pitchers, with a 4 and 5 who were good enough to win around 50% of their starts.

If you want to win in the postseason, you need to have 3 starters who can beat anyone. If the Diamondbacks had a 3rd solid starter last year they would've beaten the Yankees without breaking a sweat.

During the regular season you can offset pitching and defense weakness with hitting. However, the second you run into a team that's built for the postseason with a very solid core pitching staff and your hitters run into a brick wall you're not going to be wanting to rely on a guy with a 4.00 ERA to carry the load for you.

Good hitting with some pitching talent spread across your roster can win you 120 games. On the other hand, the last 8 wins are the only ones that count.

As far as defense goes, I am amazed at how much of a difference having A rated starters down the middle makes. I've traded 30HR hitting shortstops with C defence in order to force my manager to use my A rated shortstops as starters and in every instance I've picked up more wins with the better defense. Plus my team ERA will usually drop nearly a full run a game.

Jason

[HolyCow98]

I totally agree.
People have complained about their teams having the one of the best records in the regular season and then getting knocked off by a team that lost 12-18 more games than they did. It seems like when I've lost to the so called lesser teams they had 2-3 all-star caliber starters with the middle infielders with outstanding range along with good outfielders, as far as offense it only takes a couple of good studs to get you thru "if" they get hot. An example of tis was my first season in which I had the best record by far in my league with a 113-49 mark and in the first round I opened against the Cardinals who won there division with an 82-80 mark. Rick Ankiel and whoever was there no2 starter had won 42 games for them (almost half of their games) they were backed by these ranges by their fielders 1B:C 2B:A SS:A 3B:B LF CF:A RF:A. On offense they were okay but not great with a team BA of just .251 but Mark McGwire,Jim Edmonds and J.D. Drew supplied most of the offense. In the series they were able to get out of alot jams due to just being able to get to alot of balls that poorer defenders wouldn't have and thus turning twice as many DP's as I did in a 5 games series I think it was like 10-11 to 5 and Jim Edmonds and Mark Mcgwire had some timely hitting that broke my back and they beat me, of course I felt I should of beat them looking at the regular season but i wasn't mad because it made me realize that my offense was set up for big innings and was,except for Rafael Furcal, set up very station to station and they were able to get out of more situations over a short series that I wasn't able to compensate for. I changed philosophy the next season and improved team speed and team defense and had the same pitchers, although with the Braves staff that meant one year older for Glavine/Maddux/Smoltz, and the results were shaving my ERA from just under 4 (3.89?) to just barely over 3(3.11?) unforntunately I had lost Furcal and both A.Jones and C.Jones to injury so my wins went from 113 to 105 but I believe to this day that if I hadn't changed the strategy I wouldn't have won more than 90 games.

[joshuaaaaaa]

I'm an advocate of pitching/defense/speed/hitting, in that order. As several people pointed out, hitting may get you to the playoffs, and when you switch to a 3 man rotation in the playoffs, the best three starters are probably going to be on the winning side. Defense greatly lowers a team's ERA (although I still find it amusing when a ball goes by my "A" range third baseman and the PbP says "A fielder with better range might have had that one!"...but I digress) and once you're giving up less runs, you don't need to score as many.

Speed will generate runs, keeping the team out of the double play, putting runners in scoring position, etc. Once you have guys with good speed on second base, you don't need big boppers to bring them in. Guys who can hit singles and doubles will bring many of them in. Not that I'd advocate no power hitters, just not making them a top priority.

[Sony]

I like to go with Pitching. I'd rather have good pitching than good hitting. Just my huble opinion. But after reading all these guys post with good hitting. I might try this. I will try to go with a hitting team.

[rallymonkey1982]

think of it this way- for great hitting, you need 12-15 very good hitters (depends on how many guys you want in your pen)

For great pitching- need to get 10-13 good players.

[Mel_Ott]

I think defense is maybe the most important concern (but also the hardest to measure in real life, which is I think why so much more attention is focused on pitching and hitting). Good or great fielding will make even mediocre pitchers significantly better, but there's nothing a Maddux or Clemens can do about fielders letting what would otherwise be outs roll to the wall for a double, or lose popups in the sun.

As an (unscientific) example, in the league I'm currently playing, I let the computer do the initial draft and wound up with the worst record in the league - even after some trades in midseason (problem being that there's not much market for middle infielders with D range and no bat at all!).

In the offseason, I signed (and overpaid) the league's best hitter, and made a couple more trades. When my record improved by 20 games (we were _really_ lousy), I thought I'd go for more power - and signed a slugging 1B in the second offseason.

My record declined by 5 games.

So, I traded said slugging 1B and some other all-hit, no-field turkeys for guys with A and B range. Despite losing my best pitcher to FA, I'm leading the division at the all-star break, the latest the team has been at all competitive.

[Jason Moyer]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by rallymonkey1982:
<strong>think of it this way- for great hitting, you need 12-15 very good hitters (depends on how many guys you want in your pen)

For great pitching- need to get 10-13 good players.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The formula for a good team:

3 Brilliant Starters
2 Brilliant Relievers
2 more starters and 3-4 more relievers who are ok but most importantly cheap (i.e. $100,000/year). I tend to draft almost nothing but pitchers so I have a constant stream of at least fair/average guys to plug into the holes.

A defense at SS/CF/2B/C. A arm at C.

A 3B who is above average as a hitter and at least a C range. OOTP seems to generate so few good hitting 3B that you can have a huge offensive advantage if your 3B is even slightly above mediocre. In real life SS/CF/2B/C are usually weak offensively too but OOTP generates tons of HOF caliber players at those positions for some reason.

Players who are above average hitters at 1B/LF/RF.

Most importantly, at positions where offense can outweigh defense without hurting your team much (i.e. at the corners) get a feel for how much talent there is in the league overall. If you can field someone who is just slightly above average at a position that is really weak league-wise you've already given yourself an advantage over every other team.

Take A defense and good hitting over E defense and brilliant hitting. The difference in OOTP between good and brilliant hitting is minimal (assuming it exists...the stats rarely show a difference) but the difference between even A and B or A and C defensive range is huge.

Jason

[Linenoise]

I believe the old saying is something like....

Hitting wins you games and pitching wins you championships.