Playoff Roster Strategy

[Lt. Smash]

For those that have been successful (won a series or even the championship) in the Perfect Team playoffs, have you adjusted your roster, team strategy or anything else?

I've had the best record in the league the last two years but have failed to win a playoff series (and have only one playoff game each of the last two seasons and lost the wildcard game in the previous two years). In the playoffs, I have not messed with my team other than to move to a four-man rotation with my best starters.

My team is playing well again this season and am anticipating getting to the playoff again this year...just hoping for a better result!

[stl jason]

One of my teams won the Silver league championship a couple seasons ago.... just so happens I had left for vacation Sat morning, so I wasn't able to log in for the entire month of September or the post season.... so perhaps the secret is to just leave it alone completely

[Charlatan]

Seems like most team switch to a 4 man rotation for the postseason - with the additional days off you can probably get away with it. Some of my teams I've switched to a 4-man and others I haven't (figuring I'd stick with the guys who got me there). Dunno if it's made a difference, but it makes me feel like I'm involved!

[professor ape]

I don’t do a lot but with the extra days off I change the backups for my lineups to “If Starter is Tired” so that my main lineup is in pretty much all of the games. Not much need for the bench in the playoffs.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Seems like most team switch to a 4 man rotation for the postseason - with the additional days off you can probably get away with it. Some of my teams I've switched to a 4-man and others I haven't (figuring I'd stick with the guys who got me there). Dunno if it's made a difference, but it makes me feel like I'm involved!

I definitely do this. Assuming your fifth starter is not quite as good as the other four (which makes sense) it's a no brainer. You definitely won't ever need five starters, and this way you can make him into a long man. So if there are any blowouts he will help preserve your bullpen.


Otherwise the main thing I try to check before every series is the offensive team stats page for splits vs LHP and RHP. If my opponent has a big split, I'll try to adjust my rotation accordingly.


No matter what you do though, there is a huge amount of luck involved. That's just baseball

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Seems like most team switch to a 4 man rotation for the postseason - with the additional days off you can probably get away with it. Some of my teams I've switched to a 4-man and others I haven't (figuring I'd stick with the guys who got me there). Dunno if it's made a difference, but it makes me feel like I'm involved!

Your 5th starter won't pitch in the playoffs, so at the very least changing to a 4-man and throwing the 5th guy as a long man in the pen should help. Personally, I don't feel I need the extra long reliever so often would rather sub them out for a defensive specialist or a pinch runner which maybe could make the difference, but often times I simply forget to login before the series starts, so you make do.

Otherwise, personally I've occasionally swapped out a bullpen arm depending on the team I'm playing. If I see they have a ton of lefties in their lineup, I might rather add another LOOGY, or on the flipside, if they only have like one lefty on their team, I might drop a lefty reliever if I don't think I need them. Occasionally if I get down to a game 7 I might try to micro a little more (ie. set my starter with a low pitch count), although i had that backfire on me once - was a WC game and I saw the other team had a mostly left-handed lineup. I tried to set it up so that Dennis Martinez started for me but only went like 2 innings before Corbin or Paxton came in for the bulk work. But must have forgotten to set the pitch count on Martinez properly, and he ended up going 7 innings with a few runs allowed in the 7th, way past I wanted. Shouldn't have fiddled with the rotation since the lefty would have otherwise been the scheduled starter, I think.

[Kushiel]

I look at every team I will face. If they are weak against LHers I start my LH pitching and vice versa. If they start a poor defensive catcher with low throwing skill I turn up my stealing. I look at everything about the opponent and adjust if I think it will give me any small edge.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

If they start a poor defensive catcher with low throwing skill I turn up my stealing. I look at everything about the opponent and adjust if I think it will give me any small edge.

oh yeah that's another good one, forgot about that.


Last year I stole sooooo many bases against Larry Dierker and his garbage hold runners rating

[X3NEIZE]

4 man rotation, you can get away with 4-5 relievers depending on how good your SP are.

Also, make sure you focus on defense over everything else, prioritize a good defending OF over another big bat, I'm assuming you have a team that's capable of winning PL, defense and good pitching really wins it, just be sure to have good defensive backups at least for SS, 2B, CF, C at the very minimum.

I find that regardless of how much I try to overwhelm the teams that play against me, good defensive teams give me fits unless I adjust.

[Shadowz]

The playoffs are completely random now anyway, so it really does not make a difference on the adjustments you make. I have had absolutely terrible teams win championships, where my best team in a Perfect league had the best record overall in the league three seasons in a row and went 2-9 in the first round of the playoffs combined. They have lost to teams who won 20-30 less games than me. Very unrealistic in everyway. Even with all the proven strategy I have used, it is just random crap now. Guess it is to appease all the whiners who do not have good teams. The balance on this game is completely awful.

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

The playoffs are completely random now anyway, so it really does not make a difference on the adjustments you make. I have had absolutely terrible teams win championships, where my best team in a Perfect league had the best record overall in the league three seasons in a row and went 2-9 in the first round of the playoffs combined. They have lost to teams who won 20-30 less games than me. Very unrealistic in everyway. Even with all the proven strategy I have used, it is just random crap now. Guess it is to appease all the whiners who do not have good teams. The balance on this game is completely awful.

Stop it!

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

The playoffs are completely random now anyway, so it really does not make a difference on the adjustments you make. I have had absolutely terrible teams win championships, where my best team in a Perfect league had the best record overall in the league three seasons in a row and went 2-9 in the first round of the playoffs combined. They have lost to teams who won 20-30 less games than me. Very unrealistic in everyway. Even with all the proven strategy I have used, it is just random crap now. Guess it is to appease all the whiners who do not have good teams. The balance on this game is completely awful.

So explain again why you are here if you hate the game? Trolling?

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

The playoffs are completely random now anyway, so it really does not make a difference on the adjustments you make. I have had absolutely terrible teams win championships, where my best team in a Perfect league had the best record overall in the league three seasons in a row and went 2-9 in the first round of the playoffs combined. They have lost to teams who won 20-30 less games than me. Very unrealistic in everyway. Even with all the proven strategy I have used, it is just random crap now. Guess it is to appease all the whiners who do not have good teams. The balance on this game is completely awful.

So you are entitled to win? There is no chance that you have been outplayed? I see.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

The playoffs are completely random now anyway, so it really does not make a difference on the adjustments you make. I have had absolutely terrible teams win championships, where my best team in a Perfect league had the best record overall in the league three seasons in a row and went 2-9 in the first round of the playoffs combined. They have lost to teams who won 20-30 less games than me. Very unrealistic in everyway. Even with all the proven strategy I have used, it is just random crap now. Guess it is to appease all the whiners who do not have good teams. The balance on this game is completely awful.

Speaking of whiners...

[2002halos]

Originally Posted by Shadowz

They have lost to teams who won 20-30 less games than me. Very unrealistic in everyway.

Are you saying upsets in baseball playoffs are unrealistic?
LOL It's actually rare for the team with the best record to win the WS.

What's is actually unrealistic in your scenario is to find a real life baseball matchup in the postseason where one team won 20-30 games more than the other team. It's very, very rare. Last time it happened was 2001 when the 116-win Seattle Mariners faced the 95-win New York Yankees. (Guess who lost. Hint: They didn't whine as much as you about it.) So if it were more realistic you wouldn't be able to win that many games. But that's not your complaint is it?

Allow me to go on record as supporting an update that prevents whiny poor sports from having teams that win 20-30 more games than anyone else. It would be more realistic.

[dvanhout]

It's tough for me to fiddle due to the time change playing in Europe. I usually catch the beginning of the playoffs... hope I am not eliminated, then see how we did in the morning.

I am kind of hoping that tournaments will have other stuff for me to do during the day rather than waiting for the first sim mid afternoon.

[matingly23]

So far I've only had one season in which I needed a 5th starter, the extra days off in the PS usually means you only need 4. Even so, that one season has made me always reserve one SP in the 5th slot just to keep his arm fresh, just in case. I try not to start any pitcher who is less than 100% stamina, you want them at their best.

If you have a SP or two in your bullpen then you can decide if it's worth it to use one of them in the rotation for the PS, which I might do based on hot/cold streaks.

I also look at the team's lineups that I will be against and if they're overly stacked with lefties or righties then I might adjust to that. For example, I like using Charlie Morton in the pen and might start him in the PS if I see a team with all or almost all righties in their vs RHP lineups. Corbin can be used like that vs LHP (at least in 19).

I also check the AH and will sometimes pick up a player or two just before the PS if I think they'll really strengthen the team. PT will let you add new players to the roster so long as you're not in the middle of a series.

[rastyk]

Originally Posted by dvanhout

It's tough for me to fiddle due to the time change playing in Europe. I usually catch the beginning of the playoffs... hope I am not eliminated, then see how we did in the morning.

I am kind of hoping that tournaments will have other stuff for me to do during the day rather than waiting for the first sim mid afternoon.

Interesting point, although there are good and bad points to being in a different time zone. (And not everyone had the same schedule within the same time zone)
Note, if OOTP seasons went Sunday-Saturday, it’s give more people the ability to babysit their teams in the beginning and end of the seasons and give them a chance to recuperate from a late night.


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[daves]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Your 5th starter won't pitch in the playoffs, so at the very least changing to a 4-man and throwing the 5th guy as a long man in the pen should help. .

Wish there was an option to do this automatically. It is tiring to try to change the rotation on Sunday morning and change it back Sunday night or Monday morning, The AI should recognize that the playoffs don’t require a 5 man rotation! At least provide the playoff option to reduce the staff by one and use the 5th starter in long relief.



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