What is the issue with this team?

Salem Sabers

Its now 87 games of sample size, and we got off to such a good start as well. I took a 91 win team from last year (albeit a lucky 91 win team) and made it 10 wins better. Stairs (and Park before he was up), Glanville (VsR), Simmons, Urena, Javier, Dunning, Canseco (VsR), Sierra, Parrish, Stockton, Kile, Schmidt, Herndon, James, Almanzar, Duran, and Connor is a tremendous core that I’ve surrounded by 8 solid role players/backups. Out of these, James, Connor, Herndon, Sierra, Dunning, Javier and Simmons have been complete and utter disasters. 7 of my 18 important guys have been like negative war combined!

What’s funny is Glanville, Parrish, Schmidt, and Almanzar have all been tremendous, but relievers and one hitter can only do so much.

Is this small sample or is my team not like a 95-97 win team in reality.

Not that good a team, although not as bad as it is now.

Your pitching staff is OK but only has two really good guys, and they're both short-ish relievers (Stockton and Duran). Your position players are above average but not special defensively, and solid but not special offensively. Without Stairs it's an 86-ish win team. Now, you promoted Stairs, and he'll get you another 2 wins or so from here on out, and you might have been a credible low-90s team if you'd had him all season, so you should expect a little improvement from regression to the mean and a little from adding Stairs. But I'd bet on high-80s in wins if you don't make any changes.

A top pitcher that can throw 180 IP, or a mashing 1B or DH, would be your easiest way to add a bunch of wins at the deadline.

Your teams a bit on the older side as well, so they might be starting to regress a little, even if their ratings don't say it yet. Could explain the decrease from last year. For instance, out of the guys you said have been disappointments James (30), Herndon (34), Connor (35), Sierra (30), Javier (36) and Simmons (32) are all over 30. Not saying everyone 30+ falls off a cliff, but you also have 19 guys 30+, and 11 guys 34+, so it could explain a little bit of the regression.