I'm going to be one of the testers of the new "responsive" user interface for HBD that will be mobile device (tablet, phone, etc) friendly. We're using one-season "throw away" worlds for the purpose of testing the new UI on all browsers and devices.

Somebody in my test world made a passing comment along the lines of "free agency should be interesting with not having to worry about future seasons" which planted an idea in my head.  There is zero incentive to try to build for the future in a one season world, so theoretically, everybody should be taking a "win now" strategy.

But then I got to thinking: it's a free one-season world.  We're only testing the UI, nothing has changed in the game engine.  Winning would be nice, but this is an opportunity to do something extreme, just to see what would happen.  I don't really care if I win 100 games, 81 games, or 30 games.  There's no incentive to tank with no future seasons to play for.  But why not have some fun?

So I'm looking for suggestions.  What kind of "extreme" approach can I take for this one season, just for kicks?  Ideally, it would be something we can learn something from.  But it doesn't have to be.

The first idea that came to mind:  punt offense completely.  Try to load my ML roster with 12 or 13 of the best pitchers I can get, and fill out the rest of my roster with 90+ across the board defensive shortstops (and a couple of defensive catchers).  Let's see how few runs an extreme pitching and defense roster can allow over a season.  I may lose 120 games, but a lot of them might be 1-0 or 2-1 losses.

Another alternative: do the opposite.  Load up with defensive slug HR hitters and play them everywhere.  See how many runs I can score without concern for winning games (though wins should come with a half decent pitching staff).

But I'm looking for any other suggestions.  Maybe instead of one of the above, I can try one or more alternate extreme strategies.  My intent would be to share results here.

Any thoughts?

This sounds like a lot of fun.

A few ideas I think would be what I would want to do if I was thrown into the leagues.

1) sign guys with high temper rating and put argumentative to high. See how many guys you can get punted from a single game.

2) build a pitching squad of all bullpen guys and tandem ever game

3) try to pull off a 3 pitcher rotation

4) is it possible to get position players to pitch?

Personally I like the all out offence one. I'd sign a bunch of players, play em all out of position but have a minimum of 80 power per guy. Every at bat swing for the fences.

I think you could learn the most from the extreme defense team.   Put 'em in a neutral park and see how much they affect what you'd expect from average pitchers.

Or the all speed team.   All of them are the 90/90 guys who go 64/1 in SB/CS.    You could possibly learn how many runs they produce over what you'd expect from a 227/308/376 offense. 

Posted by hockey1984 on 8/19/2015 7:18:00 PM (view original):
This sounds like a lot of fun.

A few ideas I think would be what I would want to do if I was thrown into the leagues.

1) sign guys with high temper rating and put argumentative to high. See how many guys you can get punted from a single game.

2) build a pitching squad of all bullpen guys and tandem ever game

3) try to pull off a 3 pitcher rotation

4) is it possible to get position players to pitch?

Personally I like the all out offence one. I'd sign a bunch of players, play em all out of position but have a minimum of 80 power per guy. Every at bat swing for the fences.

1)  Argumentative only applies to the likelihood of the manager getting booted, so that wouldn't really work.

2 and 3)  Definite possibilities.  Like I said in my original post, I would try to load up with the best pitchers available, so that could fit in to my "pitching and defense" option.

4)  I don't think so.

Posted by MikeT23 on 8/19/2015 7:19:00 PM (view original):
I think you could learn the most from the extreme defense team.   Put 'em in a neutral park and see how much they affect what you'd expect from average pitchers.

Or the all speed team.   All of them are the 90/90 guys who go 64/1 in SB/CS.    You could possibly learn how many runs they produce over what you'd expect from a 227/308/376 offense. 

I'm leaning towards that unless somebody can talk me into something else.

With an all "good glove, no bat" lineup, I would want/need to play small ball on offense.  I've got an AL team (New Britain), so I can afford to keep one big bat as a DH.  If I could get defensive shortstop guys who have decent speed, base running and bunting ratings, I'd ramp up my sac bunt and base stealing settings to very aggressive and see what they can do.

If you go with the basher line-up, try a C at 3B.    I've been thinking it would be an error disaster but maybe not a negative play disaster.

I'd be interested to see how elite defenders everywhere would boost the pitching staff. 

The "all relief pitchers, all tandem" thing has been done, albeit in the era before SP had to throw at least 40 pitches. Check out csherwood's team in season 1 of Clemens*; it went 100-62 iirc.

I'm pretty sure I'd know how the speed thing would go (you'd find speed would do little or nothing to your OPS). The all-defense thing would be more interesting from my perspective. One other thing you could try is to get a bunch of low DUR players, exhaust them, and track their performance decline; but you can probably do that in Low-A in a real world.

I would go with the all home run idea. Home runs are more fun, see if you can get 40 plus home runs from every position on the field. You could probably ignore defense at  the corner positions without much worry.  I have in the past played DH types at 1B without much negative, the players bat far made up for his poor defense. You can probably pick up a couple DH types in the rule 5 draft.

Posted by dedelman on 8/20/2015 12:01:00 AM (view original):
The "all relief pitchers, all tandem" thing has been done, albeit in the era before SP had to throw at least 40 pitches. Check out csherwood's team in season 1 of Clemens*; it went 100-62 iirc.

I'm pretty sure I'd know how the speed thing would go (you'd find speed would do little or nothing to your OPS). The all-defense thing would be more interesting from my perspective. One other thing you could try is to get a bunch of low DUR players, exhaust them, and track their performance decline; but you can probably do that in Low-A in a real world.

Speed wouldn't affect OPS.   I was talking about run production. 

Posted by plague on 8/20/2015 2:12:00 AM (view original):
I would go with the all home run idea. Home runs are more fun, see if you can get 40 plus home runs from every position on the field. You could probably ignore defense at  the corner positions without much worry.  I have in the past played DH types at 1B without much negative, the players bat far made up for his poor defense. You can probably pick up a couple DH types in the rule 5 draft.

Nothing to learn from with this approach, though. 

This is what I'm talking about:

Franchise	Owner	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Oklahoma City Lycanthropes	Crump123	162	5734	692	1462	219	42	86	646	507	82	1007	670	81	.255	.323	.353	.675

There aren't a lot of .675 OPS teams to compare it to but, if you produce something like that with a higher OPS, there would be some data to look at.

FInd someone willing to switch position players halfway through the season. One team has a group of flyball pitchers, the other has a group of groundball pitchers. Go 10 range above recs for OF on one team, with 5 range below average IF, and 10 range above IF on the other ream, with 5 range below average OF. Look for the difference in OAV, and non-HR ISO.

If you go the all def route, go for a defensive park like Petco. Turn the game into soccer with 1-0 games a plenty.

I'm already locked in to New Britain (-1, -1, -1, 0, 0).  We're budgeting today.