I am very new to WIS in general but even more new to Baseball section of WIS, I seem to be struggling in my first couple leagues floating around .350 percentage, is there any advice or stats I should look at when drafting? Are there any forums I could be linked to that have that such post? I am sort of new to the forums and am having trouble finding one that helps with drafting and what to look for. Seems like a lot of my top guys are doing horrible, and a lot of the lower salary trash bags are doing really good.

So far I kind have found out through some players to look for low b/9, low hr/9 and that power is very overrated and you should not draft many power hitters.

Thanks!

Jason(jaydubz)

Look at the "Celebrating the Best of SLB Forum" thread that is at the top of this Forum as a "sticky" (permanent link" - it has most of the best learning and teaching about strategies. One thing you should do is go to the bottom of your Draft Center search screen and change the interface to "advanced". You have a good start with what you note above here, but learn to use the advanced stats like + stats (which compare the player to the average for that year - anything over 100 is a percentage above the average) and the #stats which compare the player to the overall averages for baseball history.

You can win with power hitting but a team without someone on base and only power won't win. Plus there are a lot of pitchers from low HR eras and who give up few homers, so relying on that as an only strategy is a problem.

But know that all of us had the same experience with our first teams (I would have dreamed of a .350 winning percentage with some of my first teams) and there is a learning curve here and it takes time, but don't give up our get frustrated, you get better as you play and learn.

Good luck.

Without really looking at your teams, it's important to note that you joined two theme leagues, one of which is incredibly restrictive and a very tough draft, even for experienced owners. My suggestion would be to play a few open leagues or less restrictive themes first.

I have an idea how to draft and how theme leagues work because my dad played it a lot and I always watched on and kind of followed along with him. Just having some trouble because I see my top salary guys doing garbage, or hitting 1 HR in like 40 games when they hit like 40 that year in real life. Thanks for the help italy, I will go through that thread tonight!

How Important is defense? Is it worth the price?

I don't disagree with you at all, I appreciate the advice, just I find no interest in open leagues, were guys abuse the system to the max and get like 1908 Addie Joss and 95 maddux and 00 pedro, ect. Rather play some theme leagues, were the better players are restricted too.

Posted by jaydubz1515 on 3/28/2016 9:27:00 PM (view original):
I don't disagree with you at all, I appreciate the advice, just I find no interest in open leagues, were guys abuse the system to the max and get like 1908 Addie Joss and 95 maddux and 00 pedro, ect. Rather play some theme leagues, were the better players are restricted too.

Same, I find theme leagues a lot more fun. It's really important to know what era your players are playing in. Sammy Sosa and A-Roid never hit homers for me. And defense is really important to me. I seem to lose a lot on walk-off errors so I try to minimize that all the time (I do have 8 teams at a time though)

Some tips you may not have heard yet...

- Whenever MikeT or badluck posts something, always contradict them... even if you don't really believe it.
- Tell everyone your political beliefs. The more vitriolic, the better
- Read the left-handed second baseman thread and the juggalosteve thread. They'll tell you all you need to know about the culture here.

I'm not a veteran, but I've been fortunate to have some success in my first leagues. I've found paying attention to era to be really important. If the league allows dead ball pitchers, HRs are going to be tough to come by, don't pay up them, and vice versa, if you have a theme league from the 50s/60s HRs can be fine to pay for. I've yet to figure out defense, some people like it, I've found that range is really over rated but that might just be my experience (and I've seen plenty of teams win with Honus 65 error Wagner at SS)

ditto Italy's advice above. Read contrarian's "Celebrating the Best of SLB Forum" thread and hit all the links he suggests. By the time you're done scouring the details and begin integrating the concepts into your drafting strategies, you'll know 10x as much as you do now. Move on with trial and error. Finally, and in my opinion, defense matters as does range. you pay for it, but there are only 27 outs in a game and if you can "steal" a few of them with double plays and "+" plays, you're that much better off.

Posted by toddcommish on 3/29/2016 2:22:00 PM (view original):
Some tips you may not have heard yet...

- Whenever MikeT or badluck posts something, always contradict them... even if you don't really believe it.
- Tell everyone your political beliefs. The more vitriolic, the better
- Read the left-handed second baseman thread and the juggalosteve thread. They'll tell you all you need to know about the culture here.

I agree completely !

I am a left handed second baseman, lol. Well was, I moved to Shortstop recently, easier for double plays

edit: ive read like 8 pages, havent seen anyone mention a left handed second baseman so nevermind

I am convinced that a left-hander can play third base (not second). What you lose in getting the ball to first or second on balls hit to your right, you gain on being able to play further away from the line and still being able to get to the ball and on being positioned ideally for 5-4-3 double plays on balls hit to you or to your left.

Third base is my favorite position (to play when I could convince teams or teammates to let me, which was rarely, and to watch played skillfully - Brooks, Nettles, Schmidt etc.), except for catcher the most blue-collar position in baseball (third basemen are dwarves in the Tolkien universe, shortstops are elves. The Boston Red Sox are orcs).

So I would love to see just one team experiment with a skilled left-handed 3B someday.

read everything you can in the forums about NORMALIZATION. If you can grasp this concept everything will fall into place for you.

( # ) !!!