Looking for upgrade advice

[spatrick4]

Originally Posted by JeffersonJim

You got it, I waited until I either clinched early on or was out of contention.

On the topic of Ozzie, I trained him up some at the end of last season. Set him to inactive accidentally when managing my collection and he seems to have lost the additional position ratings. Is that right? Does setting card to inactive reset the position crosstraining?

EDIT: Scratch that. Season began and after the first game he seems to have picked up his crosstraining again. Seems like a small bug. Or maybe it's a feature - also just noticed that a card I sold and rebought at lower price seems to have the same trained position ratings

[dkgo]

It will be back after one simulation refresh

[Lukas Berger]

92 Pie Traynor and 91 Jose Reyes are relatively affordable cards that have performed for me even at diamond level and kept much more highly rated guys on my reserve list or on the AH.

Traynor as a platoon bat vs lefties and Reyes as last guy on the bench utility if.

Reyes in 432 diamond pa's has put up 2.3 WAR (totally with the bat, he's been a negative in the field because he's been training most of the time) and Traynor in 1682 diamond pa's has put up 7.1 WAR. Not world beaters but certainly useful.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by bailey

Why do people move Cano from 2B to 3B? I was going to answer that question, until I looked at the data. It's a good question. Nearly the same IP at each position, but ZR is 54 to 1 in favor of 2B.

You don't just move him over to improve his ZR in a vacuum like that. You move him over when you acquire an elite 2B with more range who will improve your ZR even more, but you're not ready to discard Cano's bat yet. So for example when I acquired Johny Evers to play 2B, who has 11 more points of range, Cano moved to 3B and my overall ZR went up.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

92 Pie Traynor and 91 Jose Reyes are relatively affordable cards that have performed for me even at diamond level and kept much more highly rated guys on my reserve list or on the AH.

Thanks, I have already been interested in Traynor and good to know that he at least playable in diamond. I will take a look at Reyes.

Sounds you are off to a good start in this version.


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[Orcin]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

You don't just move him over to improve his ZR in a vacuum like that. You move him over when you acquire an elite 2B with more range who will improve your ZR even more, but you're not ready to discard Cano's bat yet. So for example when I acquired Johny Evers to play 2B, who has 11 more points of range, Cano moved to 3B and my overall ZR went up.

This makes sense. I would play Cano over Mathews if I had a 2B that was better than Cano.

You have convinced me that I need to move away from balanced as a ftp player, so I made a few changes this week. I increased the average and decreased the HRs in my ballpark, then I loaded my lineup with the best contact guys that I have. As you said, it is hard to do with the SE cards but some are more applicable to this strategy than others, and there are road games where the power will still be handy.

I also went for a heavy platoon and only 12 pitchers. All 14 position players are in one lineup or the other, and only Ichiro and Bagwell are not platooned.

I will try to acquire a few upgrades over the next few weeks that play into this strategy and see if I like the direction before spending a ton of points.


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[2tango2]

fwiw...68 Ozzie at 2B this past year got the award for the best 2B. He can't hit a lick but I'm wondering how many games he stole for me with his D?

I've started the year with Cano back at 2B and the Panda 92 at 3B against righties to see how that goes...Cano back at 3B and Oz at 2B against LHP.

I'll find out when I get home tonight if that was a disaster lol....although judging by my signature banner looks like another year in Silver which suits me fine

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by Orcin

You have convinced me that I need to move away from balanced as a ftp player, so I made a few changes this week. I increased the average and decreased the HRs in my ballpark, then I loaded my lineup with the best contact guys that I have. As you said, it is hard to do with the SE cards but some are more applicable to this strategy than others, and there are road games where the power will still be handy.

good luck man! not that I'm trying to tell anyone how to play the game or anything...but yeah honestly I'd be surprised if you don't see some improvement. Let us know how it goes!

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I also went for a heavy platoon and only 12 pitchers. All 14 position players are in one lineup or the other, and only Ichiro and Bagwell are not platooned.

I have to correct this... only 5 positions are platooned. Ichiro, Bagwell, Yaz, and (ugh) Tulo are playing both ways. The platoons are:

C Berra/Kendall
2B Cano/LeMahieu
RF Snider/Winfield
DH B.Williams/Piazza, and
3B Mathews plays vs. RHP with Tulo training there against LHP and 80 Bill Russell playing SS.

I really have to find a better starting shortstop as my first priority. I have some candidates.

[Tinkerman]

I got 4.5 WAR out of Phil Rizzuto 2 seasons on the trot in diamond. Another option at SS/future utility for <15k.

[2tango2]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I have to correct this... only 5 positions are platooned. Ichiro, Bagwell, Yaz, and (ugh) Tulo are playing both ways. The platoons are:

C Berra/Kendall
2B Cano/LeMahieu
RF Snider/Winfield
DH B.Williams/Piazza, and
3B Mathews plays vs. RHP with Tulo training there against LHP and 80 Bill Russell playing SS.

I really have to find a better starting shortstop as my first priority. I have some candidates.

Isn't Yaz not too hot against LHP?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by 2tango2

Isn't Yaz not too hot against LHP?

Yes, but he is about the same as Kiner vs LHP and a better defender so I can't really justify putting Kiner on the roster over one of the other RH hitters.

[thejojo]

I pulled a Willie Randolph 91 Legend last week and he has been amazing, batting .304 with an OBP of .401 and 6.3 WAR in silver. I put him at SS and he trained up to an 86.

[benderguy1]

After completing the LIVE missions last night, I've suddenly got lots of talent and nowhere to put it all.

Thus far -- Berra has been good, not great. Great average and OBP, but not driving in runs.

Kiner has been an absolute disaster against both RHP and LHP. 17 games in and he's hitting .191 with 0 HR and 3 RBI. I have three games coming up against LHP in a row -- if I don't see any improvement, I'm just going to figure that my particular Kiner card is a dud and look to move on.

Piazza has been terrific! .336 / .387 / .627 / 1.014

Cross-training Cano, but now after reading some of the things here in this great thread, I may put him back at 2B. I'm only 15 games into his training.

Carlton has been fantastic, Maddux started a little rocky but just threw a shutout for me.

I don't think I'm going anywhere this week in my first season in Bronze. I'm not in danger of relegation at this point, but I'm hovering about two games below .500. I'm thinking I'm just going to use this season to experiment a bit with some of the newly acquired SE rewards, along with some other recent acquisitions, and try to find the right balance. I really don't want to have a cookie-cutter team. One thing is for sure, I've had three different Tulo cards now, 2 SE and 1 HH and not a one of them was productive offensively at all -- which is a shame, because at his peak, Tulo was a stud --- well, in Coors Field anyway.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I made a few changes this week. I increased the average and decreased the HRs in my ballpark, then I loaded my lineup with the best contact guys that I have.

I also went for a heavy platoon and only 12 pitchers.

I will try to acquire a few upgrades over the next few weeks that play into this strategy and see if I like the direction before spending a ton of points.

Progress has been made. I am leading my division by 6.5 games, and this will be only my second season of five in gold level with a winning record.

I think the improvement is due to the platooning. I am actually scoring more runs on the road and I have a better record on the road, so I don't think the park changes are working in my favor yet. However, I have only started to acquire more contact/speed players, so I still feel like the strategy is worth continuing.

I found my (temporary) upgrade at shortstop in my own card collection. I am using Bill Russell (80) there, and he has responded with a 2 WAR season over the first 130 games. His slash line is .263/.339/.385 so don't rush out to buy him, but that is an improvement over Tulo (believe it or not). I am still looking for the actual upgrade that I targeted there.

I also upgraded at third base, replacing SE Mathews with Ken Boyer. The defensive improvement is huge (rated 96 at 3B). Boyer is a decent hitter with a 104 OPS+ so far, and does not need to be platooned since he has a reverse split. Boyer was only 12K and only 4K after selling Mathews and Longoria.

So if you are stuck with these same SE live mission cards, try platooning Williams/Piazza at DH, Berra/Kendall at C, Cano/anybody at 2B, and Snider/Winfield in the OF. It helped me score more runs. If you do, also try moving the "favor L/R matchups" and "pinch-hit for position players" strategy sliders to the right side. I found that the AI seems to use my platoon choices as PHs more often than before, which has helped late in close games.

Also, don't be afraid to mix in some of those gold cards to see if they help. Bill Russell really surprised me but maybe he is playing over his head (or he might be one that benefits from my park factors).

[daves]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I have to correct this... only 5 positions are platooned. Ichiro, Bagwell, Yaz, and (ugh) Tulo are playing both ways. The platoons are:

C Berra/Kendall
2B Cano/LeMahieu
RF Snider/Winfield
DH B.Williams/Piazza, and
3B Mathews plays vs. RHP with Tulo training there against LHP and 80 Bill Russell playing SS.

I really have to find a better starting shortstop as my first priority. I have some candidates.

Surprised by the team I beat in the bronze tourney finals?

of course maybe you got value in your 2 packs compared to my 4? I only had a quick sell Seager for 1,000 and a lot of iron duplicates.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by daves

Surprised by the team I beat in the bronze tourney finals?

of course maybe you got value in your 2 packs compared to my 4? I only had a quick sell Seager for 1,000 and a lot of iron duplicates.

Yeah, I wish I had gotten a quick sell gold.

[ubernoob]

I've been using Frankie Frisch at short in diamond and he's around 5-6 WAR per year (save for this year when my diamond league had about 15 teams in it.) I pulled him in the first week, but I think unfortunately his price may have went up.

It's not the greatest card, but it's been solid and I didn't have to pay 100k for an upgrade to Tulo.

The 1.7 WAR year was the year I trained him at SS (so he was **** for most of the season) and this year was the weird season where it's just me getting destroyed by the whales in Diamond over and over because it's such a small league. Too many errors to stick around as more than a utility man, but definitely good enough to do the job until I get an actual expensive upgrade. Which this team won't unless I get lucky and pack one.