insight welcomed!

[Dbobola22]

I am looking to build a team (Washington via Montreal) into a contender. I know that now in the D.C. area I have more revenue but I am still looking to build a winning team on lower tier players, as I think it gives more of a challenge.

I don't have a problem when it comes to hitters. I go for guys who are good at "getting hits" first, then I look at "eye/patience." My following steps depend on what I need, I make sure I get a guy who is a good basestealer for my leadoff spot, a guy hitting second has to sac bunt, and i then grab a guy with solid contact and power for third and for cleanup i go for the big hitter. Pretty straightforward.

My issue is, I am not sure when it comes to pitching, I don't really get where I should look first. These are the options and my thinking, please give your input on this:

a) control: I am thinking if i have pitchers who do not walk alot of guys and allows the batter to put the ball in play, with a solid defense behind him, we can get alot of outs. I am not concerned about the "K" even though its a nice bonus

b) pure stuff: my thinking is if a player throws curve but has no movement then what good is it. I am not 100% sure this is what ootp means by this category. But i think a guy with good control and good stuff, would be very difficult. Am i wrong in thinking Maddux type of pitcher?

c) movement: i think everyone would love pitchers to have the curveball of Barry Zito, the slider of Randy and the changeup of Eric Gagne, but its not possible. I think this is an added bonus to a pitchers ability.

In short, my question is, what do you all consider the most important to finding good pitchers on the cheap. My short answer now is I look for guys with good control and a low opp. batting average. then i go for pure stuff and movement.

[smeyers003]

In 5 i used to get guys with good avoid hrs and they would out perform their ratings. I'm still trying to figure out something like this for 6 but it seems that good movement and control can overcome bad stuff at times.

[jbmagic]

version 6


Good Movement(primary) & Good Control= Less Homeruns

Good Stuff (primary) & Good Velocity & Good Control= More Strikeouts

Good Control (primary)= Less Walks

[Dbobola22]

thanks alot for this information.

Here is a spinoff to the original question, I don't know if anyone would have an anwer to:

Is there any correlation to type of pitchers and less money that can give you a good bang for the buck. I know its alot more complicated, but i am speaking of your personal experience.

I am going to assume a guy with good stuff (primary) plus good velocity and control would command a big sum of money (i'm going to guess in excess of $8-9 mil).

In real life, this offseason, the Cincinnati Reds adopted a similar theory to 'Moneyball' when teams like Anaheim were targeting Colon, the Reds were targeting Corey Lidle. Because they could get him cheap ($2.75 mil to be exact when last season he made $5.35 in Toronto, thats a good bargain). The reason was to most teams he did not have a big market, but to the Reds, he was a control pitcher who could limit the amount of walks and let their good defense win the games.

[Wrigleyviller]

Get a pitcher according to what you have. If you have a great infield defense, a la 2000 Mets, groundball pitchers will have much more success than normal (coversely, Kevin Brown on the Yanks is going from Chavez-Ravine/brilliant IF defense to a Yankee Stadium/Jeterrific one, hurting his numbers). If your OF defense is great, control pitchers are nice, because they tend not to strikeout as many but give up flyballs instead. If your defense isn't great anywhere, go strikeout pitcher.

However, I think strikeouts are the most important facet for pitchers. So few pitchers can survive with low K-rates - with knuckleballers, groundball-experts and the rare Tommy John as exceptions - that it's just dangerous to go with someone else.

[Dan Theman]

... and if you're using the DIPS game engine, strikeouts should loom a bit larger in terms of importance than in prior versions.