Of all the things I still don't know (and they are many), here are three that are particularly bugging me.

1. If you played Petco, what is the minimum innings a vigilant manager would need with a decent defense and good deadballers?

2. How much does an A++ catcher's arm (50% and up) help against the speed and singles teams, flat fee be darned?

3. With the one team I have now - which is terrible - why does perfectly adequate catcher Roger Bresnahan (C/B/A-) have five errors - four throwing - in 98 innings?



Thanks, and I'll listen off the air!

1. I'm not 100% sure because I don't game fatigue or play at Petco often, but without AAA I'd say 1300 and with AAA I'd say 1150-1200. It depends on the quality of the AAA.
2. It makes a strong impact because not only do you throw out runners because of the good arm, baserunners in general make less attempts. I don't have percentages, although I know that it was discussed in a forum a while back (Search for Johnny Roseboro)
3. I have no answer on Bresnahan's performace other than it is small sample size and to tell you to look at his actual fielding percentages (not just the letters) as this is a stronger indicator of performance than a letter grade. Also, if you are using poor fielders and deadball era pitchers, then the likelihood of errors will increase as fielding normalization from the era of the pitcher downwardly affects error rate.

Frazzman - 

Thanks for the input. I'd love to hear more from anyone. My team is taking a true beating, as I suppose many first-time teams have. I've got a much better handle on things now, but some of it will likely remain a mystery!

1. Early on be careful going low with innings, that can destroy a team quickly. Pitching fatigue can get out of hand-- fatigued pitchers have to throw more pitches to get through innings, and therefore become more fatigued. 

2. Not sure

3. Small sample size.

Don't worry about having a bad first team, that's completely normal. 

1)With a team w/ AAA, you never need more than 1250 IP.  At Petco I bet I can do it w/ 1150 IP.  The trick is you cannot be queezy about thowing the AA no matter how bad he is. You can put one of the AAA pitchers in at mopup and he'll get 75 IP just by doing that.  And then play say 3-4 games with the AAA starting knowing he'll have the loss.

2)If you know that you'll have alot of SB/single teams in your league, then A+ arms are worth it.  Those teams rely on OBA just as much as the SB.  If you are even close to 50% you ruin his strategy.

3)as someone said before, small sample size.