Building a Team - Pitchers or Offense ?

Disco Dog 13 · 02-22-2013, 05:12 AM

To cut a long story short salary arbitration kicked in and my 2013 World Series winning Pirates went from being under their $80M budget to being $148M against the new $100M budget.

I've been forced to get rid of alot of guys who were maybe on $3M - $5M whose stats didn't match their salaries ... but I now need to decide whether to trade some of the bigger earners .. and more importantly who.

I've also got a save game with the Yankess with a much higer budget and my normal rule is to trade any players on a salary above league minimum if they are either on the bench or in the minors - this normally brings me back within budget but if not then I'll look to trade either a lower level MR (maybe my 4th, 5th or 6th best) or maybe my 4th or 5th SP if they are on a lot of money.

My question to you guys is that now I'm on a limited budget should I invest in pitching (contract extensions for Strasburg, Bumgarner, Felix H etc), or tie up Harper, Trout, Stanton for as long as possible ?

Is Pitching more important to you guys than Position Players ?

Walsh06 · 02-22-2013, 03:17 PM

My general plan is

Really good starters who earn the big money
Cheap but good relievers which are easy to pick up
Batters who are good enough at batting but make sure they each are really good in their position and have speed. Then once you get some good batting avg or obp youll do fine.

Spharv2 · 02-22-2013, 04:01 PM

Definitely pitching. You can usually trade for at least decent hitters pretty easily, but teams value pitching much higher, so getting a top notch starter is much harder.

One tip for a team that's usually drafting in the bottom half of the draft where all the good starters and batters are usually already gone is to just grab all those high rated relievers that are still around. You can usually get 2-3 four and five star relievers, no matter where you're picking. Then you have a steady supply of good trade bait to bring in the hitting and starting pitching you need.

Another tip for a team on a limited budget is to extend people while they're still in their final year of arbitration instead of waiting for their eligibility to expire. You can usually lock them up to long term deals by offering very little over what they have been getting in arbitration. I've locked up some 9/9 hitters (10 point scale) with 8 year deals for 13-14 million, instead of the 20-24 they'd ask for later. Bit of a flaw in the system, but for low budget teams, sometimes you have to be a bit less than ethical.

Disco Dog 13 · 02-22-2013, 05:03 PM

Erm .... Regretting trading my pitchers then

Knew I should have waited for a response !!!!

sfnate · 02-22-2013, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Disco Dog 13

Is Pitching more important to you guys than Position Players ?

Well, I actually believe that you need to have a fairly balanced approach, so I don't necessarily favor one over the other. You have such an abundance of talent in your squad that you could probably let go of two pitchers and two position players and you'd still have an excellent team.

That said, I know that IRL the financial risk is higher if you decide to invest heavily in pitching. Probably conventional baseball wisdom is that you're better served building around a 5-tool position player than a number-one starter.

I tend to spend my first round inaugural draft pick on a pitcher, then look for the best all-around position player in the next round (frequently a power or high contact guy, if there's any left). The best pitchers will usually disappear by the third round, so my next pick is another pitcher. After that, I just look for the best quality players, whatever position (mindful of the fact that I need to build out an entire squad).

To answer your question, though, I guess I'd lean toward getting multi-year deals done for my number one and two starters, then look at spending whatever I have left on deals to keep my contact, defense, power, and speed, in that order. If my guys have all four, so much the better.

Disco Dog 13 · 02-25-2013, 06:03 AM

have locked down Stanton ... just need to sort out an extended contract for Trout next year .. and Harper the year after

Traded my more expensive SPs but acquired matt More who is 79/80, 25 years old and has 6 years of a $4.6M contract left .... happy with that ..... for the moment anyway !!

02-22-2013, 05:12 AM	#1
Disco Dog 13 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: May 2011 Location: Essex, England Posts: 258	Building a Team - Pitchers or Offense ? To cut a long story short salary arbitration kicked in and my 2013 World Series winning Pirates went from being under their $80M budget to being $148M against the new $100M budget. I've been forced to get rid of alot of guys who were maybe on $3M - $5M whose stats didn't match their salaries ... but I now need to decide whether to trade some of the bigger earners .. and more importantly who. I've also got a save game with the Yankess with a much higer budget and my normal rule is to trade any players on a salary above league minimum if they are either on the bench or in the minors - this normally brings me back within budget but if not then I'll look to trade either a lower level MR (maybe my 4th, 5th or 6th best) or maybe my 4th or 5th SP if they are on a lot of money. My question to you guys is that now I'm on a limited budget should I invest in pitching (contract extensions for Strasburg, Bumgarner, Felix H etc), or tie up Harper, Trout, Stanton for as long as possible ? Is Pitching more important to you guys than Position Players ? Last edited by Disco Dog 13; 02-22-2013 at 05:17 AM.

02-22-2013, 03:17 PM	#2
Walsh06 All Star Reserve Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 545	My general plan is Really good starters who earn the big money Cheap but good relievers which are easy to pick up Batters who are good enough at batting but make sure they each are really good in their position and have speed. Then once you get some good batting avg or obp youll do fine. __________________ The Numbers Game, Sports Blog

02-22-2013, 04:01 PM	#3
Spharv2 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 108 Blog Entries: 1	Definitely pitching. You can usually trade for at least decent hitters pretty easily, but teams value pitching much higher, so getting a top notch starter is much harder. One tip for a team that's usually drafting in the bottom half of the draft where all the good starters and batters are usually already gone is to just grab all those high rated relievers that are still around. You can usually get 2-3 four and five star relievers, no matter where you're picking. Then you have a steady supply of good trade bait to bring in the hitting and starting pitching you need. Another tip for a team on a limited budget is to extend people while they're still in their final year of arbitration instead of waiting for their eligibility to expire. You can usually lock them up to long term deals by offering very little over what they have been getting in arbitration. I've locked up some 9/9 hitters (10 point scale) with 8 year deals for 13-14 million, instead of the 20-24 they'd ask for later. Bit of a flaw in the system, but for low budget teams, sometimes you have to be a bit less than ethical. Last edited by Spharv2; 02-22-2013 at 04:05 PM.

02-22-2013, 05:03 PM	#4
Disco Dog 13 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: May 2011 Location: Essex, England Posts: 258	Erm .... Regretting trading my pitchers then Knew I should have waited for a response !!!!

02-25-2013, 06:03 AM	#6
Disco Dog 13 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: May 2011 Location: Essex, England Posts: 258	have locked down Stanton ... just need to sort out an extended contract for Trout next year .. and Harper the year after Traded my more expensive SPs but acquired matt More who is 79/80, 25 years old and has 6 years of a $4.6M contract left .... happy with that ..... for the moment anyway !!