Coors Field Strategies?

[WindyCityFlyer]

Looking for some advice here: I am in an online league and we did random draw of teams and I got the Rockies. Any tips for team building around that park? Especially pitching wise. Thanks!

[Déjà Bru]

I'd look for these in my pitchers if I were you:

• High ratings for Movement (less home runs)
• Low HR/9
• High Groundball % (which, of course, means Low Flyball %)
• High ratings for Stuff (more strikeouts) would also help, particularly with relievers.

Good luck.

[RchW]

Other than the park factors you should have very little else to worry about. Depending on what the park factors actually are you may want to avoid fly ball pitchers with poor movement.

[ThePretender]

Don't build your team to a stadium, just get the best possible players.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

Don't build your team to a stadium, just get the best possible players.

Well yeah but when choosing pitchers in any easy HR park one can focus on certain rating details as a tie breaker.

[ThePretender]

Originally Posted by RchW

Well yeah but when choosing pitchers in any easy HR park one can focus on certain rating details as a tie breaker.

You should be focusing on movement/GB% regardless of what park you play in. And stuff is the next best stat to focus on after movement. Which was my point. Even if you play in Petco, you still want high GB% and movement and then stuff. If you go with high FB guys thinking Petco will save you, you'll get burned at other park in the league. So you put yourself at a major disadvantage for the 81 away games, and you're not necessarily giving yourself an advantage for your home games either.

But that's just me - I would always build a pitching staff with high movement, high GB%, and then stuff, as those pitchers are the best in the game.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

You should be focusing on movement/GB% regardless of what park you play in. And stuff is the next best stat to focus on after movement. Which was my point. Even if you play in Petco, you still want high GB% and movement and then stuff. If you go with high FB guys thinking Petco will save you, you'll get burned at other park in the league. So you put yourself at a major disadvantage for the 81 away games, and you're not necessarily giving yourself an advantage for your home games either.

But that's just me - I would always build a pitching staff with high movement, high GB%, and then stuff, as those pitchers are the best in the game.

That's the beauty of OOTP; everybody has opinions.

[rpriske]

Get pitcher with very poor control, because they can't hit homers if they can't reach the ball when they swing.



What?

[WindyCityFlyer]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

[The Game]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

Don't build your team to a stadium, just get the best possible players.

So you are going to stack a Yankees team with all right handed hitters and no left handed pull hitters? Going after Offense only and ignore good pitching in PETCO? Quick way to lose 100.

[ThePretender]

Originally Posted by The Game

So you are going to stack a Yankees team with all right handed hitters and no left handed pull hitters? Going after Offense only and ignore good pitching in PETCO? Quick way to lose 100.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion with what I said. If the right handed batters are significantly better players than the left handed batters, then yes, I'll stack my team with right handed batters. If I have a 900 OPS RH batter and an 800 OPS LH batter, you better believe I'm picking the 900 OPS guy even if my park factors favour the lefties.

I don't know why you thought I was "going after offence only and ignoring pitching in Petco". My goal is to always have the #1 offence and #1 pitching staff, not to pick and choose offence over pitching.

It's not as complicated as you're making it out to be. If two players are similarly talented, then as a tie breaker you can go with the one that benefits your park factors. If one player is clearly superior to the other one, go with the better player.

You don't go with high movement just because you're in Coors Field - you go with high movement because those pitchers give you the greatest chance of success. In other words, I build the same pitching staff for Petco as I would in Coors - high GB%, high movement, high stamina, high stuff. Just like I build the same offence for Coors as I do Petco or Yankee Stadium - high contact, high power, high eye - and platooning players to maximize their production vs RHP and LHP.

You win consistently at OOTP when you have the best talent.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion with what I said. If the right handed batters are significantly better players than the left handed batters, then yes, I'll stack my team with right handed batters. If I have a 900 OPS RH batter and an 800 OPS LH batter, you better believe I'm picking the 900 OPS guy even if my park factors favour the lefties.

I don't know why you thought I was "going after offence only and ignoring pitching in Petco". My goal is to always have the #1 offence and #1 pitching staff, not to pick and choose offence over pitching.

It's not as complicated as you're making it out to be. If two players are similarly talented, then as a tie breaker you can go with the one that benefits your park factors. If one player is clearly superior to the other one, go with the better player.

You don't go with high movement just because you're in Coors Field - you go with high movement because those pitchers give you the greatest chance of success. In other words, I build the same pitching staff for Petco as I would in Coors - high GB%, high movement, high stamina, high stuff. Just like I build the same offence for Coors as I do Petco or Yankee Stadium - high contact, high power, high eye - and platooning players to maximize their production vs RHP and LHP.

You win consistently at OOTP when you have the best talent.

Unless you have a "fixed" league one cannot always have the best talent. When I look for my 4th and 5th starters there might be several players with similar talents. For the most part it doesn't matter what park but for the purpose of this thread the question was, "what about Coors"? Hence the recommendations.

As for your opinion that there is only one way to build a staff, you are entitled to it but I'd be quite happy to take a better fly ball/control pitcher (ever heard of Ferguson Jenkins?) and a better all stuff strikeout type (Nolan Ryan) and win, than stick to a rigid form of talent evaluation like you present.

Do you realize that only 180 of 679 pitchers in MLB last year gave up 50% or more GB? About 30 were legit starters. At 55% the number drops to 85, with only 14 SP. That's a small pool to choose from.

YMMV

[kingtut313]

the factors in home ballparks does not warrant specific team building parameters for me.

you could build a winning club in colorado, san diego, new york, chicago, or mars with big pull-happy-power-hitters or small ball steal-70-bases-never-hit-it-out-the-infield players.

if you have the better team, you will win

[The Game]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion with what I said. If the right handed batters are significantly better players than the left handed batters, then yes, I'll stack my team with right handed batters. If I have a 900 OPS RH batter and an 800 OPS LH batter, you better believe I'm picking the 900 OPS guy even if my park factors favour the lefties.

I don't know why you thought I was "going after offence only and ignoring pitching in Petco". My goal is to always have the #1 offence and #1 pitching staff, not to pick and choose offence over pitching.

It's not as complicated as you're making it out to be. If two players are similarly talented, then as a tie breaker you can go with the one that benefits your park factors. If one player is clearly superior to the other one, go with the better player.

You don't go with high movement just because you're in Coors Field - you go with high movement because those pitchers give you the greatest chance of success. In other words, I build the same pitching staff for Petco as I would in Coors - high GB%, high movement, high stamina, high stuff. Just like I build the same offence for Coors as I do Petco or Yankee Stadium - high contact, high power, high eye - and platooning players to maximize their production vs RHP and LHP.

You win consistently at OOTP when you have the best talent.

You said this

Originally Posted by ThePretender

Don't build your team to a stadium, just get the best possible players.

thats how I came to my conclusion. Not building your team to the strength of your park will hurt you most of the time.
IRL pitchers seemed to change when they played for the Rockies. Dominant players lose close to 20 despite having a great offense behind them.
Everyone wants high GB % pitchers.

[The Game]

Originally Posted by kingtut313

the factors in home ballparks does not warrant specific team building parameters for me.

you could build a winning club in colorado, san diego, new york, chicago, or mars with big pull-happy-power-hitters or small ball steal-70-bases-never-hit-it-out-the-infield players.

if you have the better team, you will win

It's rare that you see hitters have success that have talents that are different then their home park factors. DiMaggio & A-Fraud are the 1st 2 that come to mind, but DiMaggio would have had more success in Fenway & a few other parks.

[ThePretender]

Originally Posted by RchW

As for your opinion that there is only one way to build a staff, you are entitled to it but I'd be quite happy to take a better fly ball/control pitcher (ever heard of Ferguson Jenkins?) and a better all stuff strikeout type (Nolan Ryan) and win, than stick to a rigid form of talent evaluation like you present.

You're entitled to your own form of talent evaluation. I've found that no matter what park I or others play in, the high control and high flyball pitchers end up having the least amount of success, while the high movement/GB and high strikeout pitchers have the greatest success. Someone on the forum did a pretty good job at putting a value on which attributes were the best for hitters and pitchers and came to the same conclusion - that stuff/movement was the most valuable for a pitcher and control was the least valuable of the 3 primary pitcher attributes.

I'm not sure what Jenkins/Ryan have to do with anything, because we're talking about OOTP. In real life the most successful pitchers have high K rates, low walks rates and high GB rates (feel free to read through this study if you disagree). The key point being:

The bottom line is that the best pitchers miss bats (K), throw strikes (BB), and keep batted balls in the park (GB).

As I demonstrated last year, strikeouts have the greatest impact on ERA and RA, followed by walks, and groundballs.

So in real life strikeouts are most valuable, followed by low walk totals and high GB%. But OOTP doesn't work that way, as I and others have found high movement would be the most valuable, followed by stuff and then control.

If you've managed to find success with high control and flyball pitchers, good for you. But generally speaking those guys aren't the most successful.

Do you realize that only 180 of 679 pitchers in MLB last year gave up 50% or more GB? About 30 were legit starters. At 55% the number drops to 85, with only 14 SP. That's a small pool to choose from.

You realize this has nothing to do with the discussion, right?

Originally Posted by The Game

You said this

thats how I came to my conclusion. Not building your team to the strength of your park will hurt you most of the time.

Not really. Building a team that wins in your park at the cost of higher talent will hurt you more. If I'm playing in Petco and choose a 65-65-65 SP with a 45% GB rate over say, a 70-70-70 with 55% GB rate, my team will be worse off. As an example, the 70-70-70 pitcher in my league would be a #2 SP, while the 65-65-65 would be more of a 3/4.

That example might make it clearer. I would choose the 70-70-70 guy whether I'm in Coors or Petco. Whereas if I have two 65-65-65 players, then you can choose the one who better fits your stadium.

IRL pitchers seemed to change when they played for the Rockies. Dominant players lose close to 20 despite having a great offense behind them.
Everyone wants high GB % pitchers.

But we're talking about OOTP, are we not?