Hi. I have opened this thread so we can discuss strategies, how we drafted under these unusual circumstances, our teams, league, games and any other issue related to this league. 

We should start in a day or so, as I have approved the rosters and stadiums and our schedule is being generated in the next 24 hours (it is now 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in the US (2 pm in Italy where I live) on Tuesday April 17. 

So please make sure you have your lineups, pitching rotations and bullpen assignments, pitch counts, hierarchies and the rest ready. 

Play Ball !

This is a complicated league to create a team in and even more complicated to manage. No batter has over 500 plate appearances, which means no starters will play every game unless you want to test how far you can stretch them. Assuming not, for around 60 games or more of the season someone else will be at that position. And since no batter has fewer than 100 PAs, the other trick is how to maximize their usage so as not to waste value unused. 

Similarly, with pitching - no pitcher has less than 60 IP/162, which was intended to avoid the little cookies (I like them too when I have them, I admit) with 27, 45 etc. IP that can serve just to fill up a staff with shutout innings in a 3-man deadball high IP dominated staff. But no pitcher here has more than 225 IP either, so a 4 or 5-man staff, or else going starter A/B or a tandem is probably needed. 

In other words, one of the things that will be interesting, now that we are full and will start play in a day or two, is how everyone is going to deal with these strategic questions. These problems don't arise in OL play or many theme leagues, where 8 position players, AAA players on the bench, and 3 300+ starters with cookie crumb relievers solves all the problems and gets you in the playoffs. 

So here we need new approaches. I have set up this forum to encourage discussion of our various approaches to these problems, as well as anything else anyone wants to talk about. Without expecting anyone to give up competitive advantages, I hope others will discuss their thinking here. Here is what I have put together, and I am not at all sure it will work:

At catcher, I am platooning two players I always liked, Yogi Berra '61and Ray Fosse '70, the latter of whom I have not seen on any team in OL that I can remember.  I still remember that extra inning All-Star game when Pete Rose (I use him on teams sometimes, his greatness as a player indisputable, but he is probably the only player I ever remember hating when he played), all but wrecked Fosse's career smashing into him to score the winning run in a game that didn't count in the standings. Anyway, at catcher straight platoon. Since each of them has 400 PAs, they are both available for pinch hitting, and Berra can play outfield as well. 

The same at First Base, but a weird platoon: Joe Pepitone '71 and Steve Garvey '73. I like this platoon, since both hit just over .300 those years (the only year Pepitone ever did), but the long-haired under-achiever and the every-hair-in-place Mr.Clean are strange teammates. 

Now, in the middle infield and at third, I want to mention the missing player, really the single most important inspiration for founding this league: Luis Sojo. The irony is, although I would like to have him on the bench on every OL team, and can't because real bench players drain value from the team while sitting unused, I could not find a place for him on this team, since there were others with better numbers. 

I decided to have 5 players cover 3 positions, rather than a standard platoon, since often good and inexpensive bench players (Sojo costs a lot per AB for the kind of part-time player he is, an indication of value, but also difficult to afford in this kind of league) can play 2B, SS and 3B. So against RH pitchers, Maicer Izturis '09, a switch-hitter is at second base, left-hand hitter Jose Valentin '06 is at third base, and Edgar Renteria at Short.

Against LH pitchers, Renteria stays at short, though I have a low (176) PA version of Jose Vizcaino on the bench for emergencies or needed rest, another switch-hitter, and at 3B Jackie Robinson '56 - he played third that year as his main position, and Luis Gonzales, '05 at second base. Gonzales can also play outfield. So in the hierarchies I have a lot people that can cover positions and be moved around (it took a while to set them) and there is no danger of being stuck with a fatigued infielder. 


In the outfield, I went with a different strategy: I platoon Left and Right field - one platoon is Daryl Strawberry '83 and Glenallen Hill '98, the other is Dave Martinez '96 and Chad Curtis '97. In Centerfield I am not platoning Otis Nixon, but have several players that among these four can cover center when Nixon needs rest, and Yogi and Gonzales help cover the other positions as well. 

Pitching is more complicated to decide. I want to use a four man rotation of:

Burt Hooten '75 (224 IP)
Bryn Smith '85 (224)
Cliff Lee '10 (212)
John Smolz '89 (211)
with two long relievers that can spot start: Nolan Ryan '86 (178) and Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez '98 (141) and will probably go with this eventually. But for the moment I have Ryan listed as fifth starter, in part because at the start of the season the damping effect always kicks in and with the comparatively low (for the SIM that is, meaning, the normal) IPs for my starters, I don't want that to have such an effect, so until game 10 or so I will keep him there and then see. 

George Culver '72 (104 IP), Duane Ward '91 (108) and Goose Gossage '84 will share setup duties, though I have Culver at LRB for now with El Duque till I can shift Ryan or in case I decide otherwise. Mel Rojas '96 is the closer with 81 IP. Remember there are no AAA players in the league, so while this may be more innings than I will need, one needs to not calculate based on the OL standards, as until game 125 when a $4 million cash infusion arrives, the only way to get other pitchers is through the WW by waivering one pitcher to get another - you might get someone better at the 10% fee but you won't get more overall innings easily. 

So that is the plan. Since my hitters are not high average (.293 overall though, but no batter is allowed to be over .320 and most of mine are below .300) for a team that has 187 HRs and 144 SB I went with Sicks Stadium, the old park of the Seattle Pilots of Jim Bouton's "Ball Four", my first favorite book on baseball. It is a hitter's park, and I also picked it because I wanted to leave most in-demand stadiums to the other owners who joined the league, though it turns out that many of the parks we have in use in this league are much more obscure than mine (I had to look a couple of them up). 

Anyway, we are ready to go. This is how I configured my team. It may not work. We'll see. But it will be fun to watch in practice anyway. Play Ball.

I opted to go with a very good (I hope) hitting lineup in terms of AVE to exacerbate the effects of my park, Hilltop.  Most of my bench guys are better overall power hitters, and I plan to play them during away games when my opponent has a + HR park.  I estimated that a few others would have + hitting parks too, so I opted to give my AVE hitters more PAs in general.  I tried to get pitchers with low OAVs to combat my home park's effects, though my BBs are higher as a result; however, in this league I figured you'd have to give something up, so I hope my Nolan Ryan doesn't go "BB-happy" on me.

I knew I wanted to play in a homer-friendly park, so I keyed on HR/9. This is actually a far better pitching staff than I normally wind up with in OLs because I started with pitching (and I'm not one of those who generally grabs 3 300-inning guys).

My hitters are .289/.376/.485 with 222 homers and 124 (mostly unusable) steals. I've got 1460IP of 2.92 ERA / 1.11 WHIP / .232 OAV / 3.04 K/BB /  0.296 HR/9 - at a pretty extreme HR park. I fully expect this to be a futile attempt, but it's an attempt. I just hope my team doesn't flirt with the '62 Mets or something.

reddtrain, I just looked at your pitching when I read what you wrote here - I don't see more than maybe (from memory) one P used by other rosters, and your staff is amazing. I am pretty sure you don't have to worry about the '62 Mets problem. I have to worry whether my guys can hit your pitchers instead. We both have to worry that boonta23's bench HR hitters are coming to our HR friendly parks !

I'm very interested to test my managerial skills here.  I've put a couple platoon teams together, but none in an OL or Theme, all were in Spring Training, which is never a good indicator of success or otherwise.

So far, the RH side of my platooned team is hitting well, the LH side not so much. 

I try and draft low BB/9 pitchers in order to minimize their pitches.As well as drafting palers(a few0 with 300-400 AB's that play multiple positions.

After 20 games, my team is 5-15. Looks like I might not have been THAT far off with that '62 Mets crack...

Many of us have had fatigue problems in our teams in this league. Partly, the SIM doesn't know from platooning, so it calculates as if these players were to play 162. But I note that this especially true of the LH part of my platoons. The RH side tends to be at 100% within a game or so after playing if not right after. So if we have drafted, as you suggest jeff4notes, enough ABs either on the RH side if platooning, or by having a lot of players that can cover positions to spread out the ABs overall, it should work out all right. 

The trouble would be if we have adopted the otherwise often very effective strategy of LH batters with low ABs (as required here) but very low RH batters to platoon only. Since we don't have AAA available, this could mean that the RHs are available only for their own ABs and can't double as the cavalry when the LH side which usually plays at least twice as often are fatigued. Interesting experiment. reddtrain, I am pretty sure that this season is unpredictable from just the first 20 games' results. My team was in last place and has now won a bunch in a row, but that doesn't mean that will last either.

I'm finding pitching fatigue brutal so far.  I only have 10 pitchers (5 starters and relievers).  I was hoping my starters could get a little bit more deep into games, but they (aside from Don Sutton) have not been able to do so.  I did draft relievers with more GP than I usually do, but that doesn't seem to be doing the trick.

boonta23, I have been using a 5-man rotation since the start of the season. It hasn't been my intention to stick with it, it was intended to dampen the dampener basically - the 5th starter is Nolan Ryan '86 with 178 real life IP. But he is at 91% having just finished a start (lost 1-0 argh, don't you hate to see the team waste an excellent start?). So he is not suffering so far from overuse, and the whole rest of the staff is at 100%. 

So if you have a long reliever with a high IP count, or two with a medium to high one that you can either tandem or do an A/B with leaving them available for relief work (I have with Ryan) then going to at least a temporary 5-man rotation may resolve the stress. 

Sorry, I just took a look and found that you are using a 5-man rotation too. You might try using Garland, Henke or Foulke to tandem with one or two of the lower IP starters leaving all of them, the two or three -200 IP starters all available for relief work. Doing a 5-3 or 6-2 IP tandem might keep them from fatigue but not leave the bullpen exposed.

My approach was pretty similar to everyone else's. 

Since we need so many platoons, I figured that roster spots would be at a premium, and tried to find places where I could have 3 hitters cover 2 spots. So I've got Willie McCovey at 1B (402pa), Harmon Killebrew at 3B (479pa) and Jackie Robinson (454pa) covering both. I've got Joe Connelly (497pa) in LF, Chet Lemon (419pa) in CF, and Don Buford (494pa) covering both guys. I couldn't find a good catcher platoon with exactly 650-680 PAs, so I've got Hartnett (431) and Bo Diaz (313), and I figure Diaz can play a few games in LF/RF with his extra PAs. 

The other spots are straight platoons - Sammy Strang 401pa/John Cangelosi 288pa in RF, Bobby Grich 477pa/Geronimo Pena 230pa at 2B, and Bill Dahlen 417pa/Billy Rogell 222pa at SS. So far, Strang and Cangelosi are getting really tired but most everyone else is hanging in there.

A quick scan of the "best" pitchers meeting the criteria showed a lot of walks, so I tried to draft hitters who took a lot of walks instead of guys who got a lot of hits.  On the pitching side I focused on low BB/9 guys and really low HR/9 guys. I drafted a lot of strong defenders (except for Buford, everyone up the middle has A range or better) and figured that would help keep the OAV down. I'm playing in Minute Maid, which is +1 for triples and HRs, since that's what my hitters do well. Through 25 games my team is 4th in HRs hit and 3rd in HRs allowed. 

I've got a straight 5-man rotation (Ojeda, Lyons, Fister, Kevin Brown and Tim Hudson) and 5 interchangeable relievers (Smoltz, Duane Ward, Saul Rogovin,  Guardado and Isringhausen). Then I've got Rivera closing, because, well, he's Rivera. I set him to be used in non-save situations since he has 77 innings. My only worry is that only Rogovin has over 1 IP/G, so if one of my starters gets shelled, I'll go through my whole bullpen. To counter that I have well over 1400 innings, which is way more than I'd normally draft. But I figured that there'd be a lot of pinch hitters and innings would be extended more than usual. Plus, honestly, I couldn't find any better places to spend the money. 

I think 5-man rotations has worked best so far in this league. At least my pitchers haven't suffered from fatigue. Inconsistency maybe not fatigue.