I Need Help Understanding This...

[professor ape]

You are seeing less cheese setups now. They aren’t proving to be that effective unless you really micromanage your team. I think that most who try it get fooled by their home/road splits. Sure, if you build a roster for a nerfed home park you’ll do better there. But is that you are creating an advantage at home or putting yourself at a disadvantage on the road. I’ve gone to a completely neutral park and have worked to nerf-proof my roster as much as possible. I’ve easily had my best stretch in Diamond over the last three-plus weeks since I updated my park.

[chazzycat]

For the record I don't micro-manage my cheesy setup at all during the regular season, and am also in the midst of my most successful stretch. The last couple seasons I have finished with the best record or run differential in the league, and have made the playoffs eight weeks straight.

Not that it's a competition. Again, I'm glad that both approaches seem to be viable. This is a good thing.

The thing we appear to have in common, is finishing the FH2 missions. It would seem that keeping pace with the collections is far more important than anything related to park factor strategies.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

For the record I don't micro-manage my cheesy setup at all during the regular season, and am also in the midst of my most successful stretch. The last couple seasons I have finished with the best record or run differential in the league, and have made the playoffs eight weeks straight.

Not that it's a competition. Again, I'm glad that both approaches seem to be viable. This is a good thing.

The thing we appear to have in common, is finishing the FH2 missions. It would seem that keeping pace with the collections is far more important than anything related to park factor strategies.

To each his own. If it works for you then go for it. Agreed that keeping up on the missions is key.

[ncap99]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

The thing we appear to have in common, is finishing the FH2 missions. It would seem that keeping pace with the collections is far more important than anything related to park factor strategies.

Up through diamond to stay competitive this is 100% the truth. I mentioned it early but my roster is entirely made up of collection rewards, and tonight's drop just added a bunch more. Once PEL hit the chase cards are probably the differentiator because most if not all the teams have all the collection rewards but very few people play to be competitive at that level.

Basically if you have most of the collections, pick some sort of strat, adjust some sliders and your home ballpark to fit your team you will probably be at least a fairly consistent playoff team at diamond.

What I see from a lot of gold players coming up and getting throttled in diamond is things like running trap cards with low avoidK like Bagwell or Dick Allen, starters with low movement like Juan Marichal or Lefty Gomez, or not platooning very obvious platoon guys like Joe Morgan or Arky Vaughn.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

And let's not act like lefty or righty cheese is just 1 build either. I shouldn't have oversimplified that. There are notable variations - do you max your gaps or min them? That's a huge swing in doubles (1.5X modifier vs .5 is 3X the doubles). What about homers? These things matter a lot too. So really there are quite a few combinations of builds encompassed by "lefty cheese".

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by professor ape

But is that you are creating an advantage at home or putting yourself at a disadvantage on the road.

The two should go together? What I would expect to vary is the amount of advantage and disadvantage in tandem.

For example, assume there's a preponderance of leftie cheese. A player with that setup will gain limited advantage at home and disadvantage away as so many others have teams that favor his park and parks that favor his team. The one guy with a rightie setup, on the other hand, routinely dominates at home but struggles mightily away.

[ncap99]

I don't get where the disadvantage comes from, unless you're running your lefty cheese lineup into a righty cheese park? You're still facing mostly RHP and if you setup your platoons correctly you will have a mostly different lineup against LHP anyway. The reason lefty cheese is more prevalent is because you face mostly right handed starters, at least until PEL. That may change though after Thursday's drops with 2-3 solid LH starters so maybe righty cheese is the way to go next year against all those lefty starters.

On a side note I gotta say I am loving McGwire though, hitting .210 and OPSing almost .900 for me. I guess we found how much power is needed to overcome lowish avoidK and it is in the 160+ range! Completely against my team strat but I wanted to run him out there anyway.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by ncap99

Up through diamond to stay competitive this is 100% the truth.

Maybe not 100%. I've only completed 15 of FH1 and 8 of FH2 (and not bought the reward cards) and am .611 and heading my division going into the final day. You certainly need some of the cards, but while I'd love to have all of them to choose from a more targeted approach seems to work almost as well.

I agree on the dominance of mission cards. As I've moaned about before, the perfect drops now seem divided into the underpowered and unplayable, and the exotica that is largely unaffordable, with nothing in between except a couple of the Negro League cards.

[allenciox]

I would agree that lefty/righty cheese is the easiest way to be successful at the diamond level. But there are drawbacks and weaknesses with every approach. If you have the PP to complete all the missions (I don't), then having the best platoons at every position and the five best starters available will work wonders.

If you cannot get the best platoons available, or want to focus on, say the best lefties starters or best righty starters, then lefty or righty cheese is best. But you need to watch out for the players that are playing the opposite handedness cheese as you will be at a severe disadvantage in their ballpark.

Also, lefty cheese is only successful when there are a large percentage of right-handed pitchers being played. That's why I set my BFF team to random placement starting in 2039. In BFF league, there were a number of lefty cheese teams and a lot of lefty pitchers. In my last season in BFF league, I was 77-85. Since then my lefty cheese teams have faced > 70% righties every season. The result is that I have generally had the best or almost the best record in every season since I did that: 101, 107, 98, and 104 win-seasons in those four, and an 87-49 record (.640) so far this season.

But the reason for my success is the preponderence of righty SPs I have faced, because my record is going to be better against them at home. My record this year is 64-33 (.659) against righty SPs, but only 23-16 (.589) against lefties, and this is typical of the last few years.

I always lose in the playoffs though, the last three years it has been in the Diamond series.

[ncap99]

Originally Posted by Hertston

Maybe not 100%. I've only completed 15 of FH1 and 8 of FH2 (and not bought the reward cards) and am .611 and heading my division going into the final day. You certainly need some of the cards, but while I'd love to have all of them to choose from a more targeted approach seems to work almost as well.

I agree on the dominance of mission cards. As I've moaned about before, the perfect drops now seem divided into the underpowered and unplayable, and the exotica that is largely unaffordable, with nothing in between except a couple of the Negro League cards.

Agreed not all of them are needed, but the way they are chained together for the most part this year odds are you probably will need the majority of them for some "super toppers" or something at the end.

And yes I agree 100% of the historical perfect drops. They are either hot garbage like Jose Canseco or Ice Box Chamberlain or chase cards like Keeler or Dickey with very few exceptions that plane out in the 100-150k range (Pujols and Boggs come to mind there). There really isn't a worse feeling then ripping a historical perfect and it ends up being Al Rosen or some other trashcan.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by professor ape

You are seeing less cheese setups now. They aren’t proving to be that effective unless you really micromanage your team. I think that most who try it get fooled by their home/road splits. Sure, if you build a roster for a nerfed home park you’ll do better there. But is that you are creating an advantage at home or putting yourself at a disadvantage on the road. I’ve gone to a completely neutral park and have worked to nerf-proof my roster as much as possible. I’ve easily had my best stretch in Diamond over the last three-plus weeks since I updated my park.

Congratulations for winning D365 with your balanced approach!

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Congratulations for winning D365 with your balanced approach!

Thank you sir

[daves]

Originally Posted by lightningbolts35

Couldn't agree with you more. They could make 3 parks to choose from...pitcher's park, hitters park, and neutral park.

+1

Can you imagine a real team only utilizing lefty hitters for their park?

[daves]

Originally Posted by professor ape

You are seeing less cheese setups now. They aren’t proving to be that effective unless you really micromanage your team. I think that most who try it get fooled by their home/road splits. Sure, if you build a roster for a nerfed home park you’ll do better there. But is that you are creating an advantage at home or putting yourself at a disadvantage on the road. I’ve gone to a completely neutral park and have worked to nerf-proof my roster as much as possible. I’ve easily had my best stretch in Diamond over the last three-plus weeks since I updated my park.

Congrats on making it to Perfect. Wish I didn't get tempted to make my park cheesy or I might have been there with you!

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by daves

Congrats on making it to Perfect. Wish I didn't get tempted to make my park cheesy or I might have been there with you!

Starting 13-8 in my first PL season. I expect to go 13-149.

[chazzycat]

Congrats on making perfect! It's always great seeing free players up there.

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Congrats on making perfect! It's always great seeing free players up there.

^ This

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Congratulations for winning D365 with your balanced approach!

^ this too.

I am a balanced player (by ignorance/laziness, not design) & this gives me hope.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Congrats on making perfect! It's always great seeing free players up there.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by IanIachimoe

^ this too.

I am a balanced player (by ignorance/laziness, not design) & this gives me hope.

Thanks for the well wishes all. While I fully expect to be back in Diamond next week, my 18-16 start makes me feel that my F2P team is not out of place in the PL. Work is going to be busier now that everyone is coming back from summer vacations, which is probably a good thing as it will keep me from tinkering too much.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by allenciox

Also, lefty cheese is only successful when there are a large percentage of right-handed pitchers being played. That's why I set my BFF team to random placement starting in 2039. In BFF league, there were a number of lefty cheese teams and a lot of lefty pitchers. In my last season in BFF league, I was 77-85. Since then my lefty cheese teams have faced > 70% righties every season. The result is that I have generally had the best or almost the best record in every season since I did that: 101, 107, 98, and 104 win-seasons in those four, and an 87-49 record (.640) so far this season.

But the reason for my success is the preponderence of righty SPs I have faced, because my record is going to be better against them at home. My record this year is 64-33 (.659) against righty SPs, but only 23-16 (.589) against lefties, and this is typical of the last few years.

I always lose in the playoffs though, the last three years it has been in the Diamond series.

Come back to BFF league! The righty cheesers have actually taken over.