How does this team look? It's in a great Theme League (ssupfoo's Old Friends New League) and, based on the little that I know, I think this will be an okay team.


EDIT: One moment, the pasting didn't work.

You have WAY too many plate appearances and innings.  If you've been reading the forums I have no idea how you could think that this was "not enough innings" - most owners on here might recommend for a newer player who might not want to micromanage the pitching staff throughout the season in a $140 million cap in Yankee II something like 1400 innings, certainly never more than 1500 and with AAA you could easily make it work with 1250 or 1300 solid innings.  You also really don't need bench PAs if there's AAA - you should just look to draft a starter at each position (or 2 guys to platoon, or something, but generally draft 550-650 PAs per lineup spot), maybe 1 or 2 pinch hitters if you want, and the rest should be 200k guys  you can send down to bring up your AAA players once the season starts.

Given the rules of the league maybe you can't upgrade the talent of your starters, but if there's anybody more talented you can pick up by swapping out, say, Santana or Quinones, and drop Scott Bradley or even Phelps and Brantley (who could also combine to start for you) and Dotson and/or Neil Allen for 200k guys and upgrading, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  You've DRAMATICALLY overdrafted on volume right now.

Incidentally, I looked at that league for season 1.  If there just isn't enough $120 million cap talent for your Buhner pick look at the 2003 movement of P Chad Fox from the Red Sox to the Marlins.  Gets you Pudge, D-Lee, Manny, Nomar, and Miggy among others on offense and a number of options to back up Pedro in the rotation...

I'm not sure what the theme league rules are, but I agree that you've spent too much money on PAs and IP for players that likely won't be playing much, especially if there is AAA. Since you said you don't know how AAA works, the site will randomly select players from history for your team, assign them fake names, and they will make up your AAA. So you're probably going to get some help for extra PAs and IP from these selections.

I would focus on the absolute best starting 8 hitters I could pick (using AVG#, OPS#, and whatever stats fit your park (1B/100# or 2B/100# etc), the best SPs and 3-5 bullpen guys (using WHIP#, OAV#, ERC# and HR/9#) that I could find. If you have extra cash, you can sink it into a good PH or an extra pitcher. I typically like 900-1000 quality SP innings and 300-400 quality RP innings and then fill the other 100-200 IP with the AAA guys.

Firstly, dahs, let me rephrase my question: I knew I had a bunch of innings, but I was really worried about having only 10 pitchers. Does the number not matter as long as you have the right amount of innings?

Secondly, I didn't even reach my cap limit, so I upgraded some of those bench players to the best ones available. There are no transactions in this league, so I figured I'd be okay, but I guess that isn't the case. Is it a bad thing to be this far over the recommended amount?

And also, thanks for the suggestion dahs, that will be my next team in this league. Not allowed to change now that I am entered...

The # of pitchers makes no difference only innings.
Yes it's bad to be that much over because you're wasting $ on unneeded PA
I'd draft around 1425 IP being your 1st try.
As for PA I usually expect my leadoff to need 750 PA and my # 8 625. My bench is all 200k guys with 1 maybe 2 pinch hitters no more.

Watch closely to the successful teams in your league are doing.  Check out the successful owners and watch their teams even closer.  Study how they use their pitching staffs.  Choosing and using pitchers is one the hardest things to get down.  Than there are stadiums.  Read the Forum and read what the successful owners say.

Good luck

So much of what italyprof just said is wrong...  First of all, it is a theme league, so he can't just take whoever he wants.  You have to work with the pitchers available.  Also, trying to draft pitchers for specific roles is usually not as good an idea as saying "I want x amount of innings, I want to spend x amount of money."  From there you can get the $/IP for your team.  You might want a few "B" relievers a little below that, but in general you look at guys with that vicinity of $/IP and see who looks like the best value for the money.  Saying "I need guys with x amount of innings pitched" is going to cause you to miss bargains.

Perhaps more importantly, even though it seems like a small thing, any non-rate statistic is COMPLETELY worthless in this game.  Saying you want a guy who saved some number of games in real life to be your closer is a HUGE mistake, because you're dramatically limiting your pool of players you'll see in the search results over a stat that the game engine never even takes into consideration.  That is a terrible idea.

Also, alot of whom you select depends upon, of course, the dollar limit of your league ... salary cap.

I'm sorry Italyprof
BUT
Disregard anything Italyprof said. Always click on a users name and see how well they are doing and then decide if you want their advice.
As dahsdebater said saves mean nothing here just like wins and losses mean nothing. It's not used in the calculations. Many popular closers are real life starters ie 43 Niggeling, 67 Carlos. 
Personally I rarely use any stat line that doesn't have a # after it. Occalionally I use a + especially ERA+
When selecting pitchers pay close attention to ERC#  OAV#  BB/9#  hr/9#  IP/9  ERA+
Batters AVG#  hr/100#  OBP# etc.

So that WHIP thing italyprof said should not be used? I just built 4 staffs with that...

WHIP is a crucial stat to help you select a pitcher. Just as italyprof overstated his opinions, so too did his detractors. Do not, however, miss what is valid. Do not worry about how many wins, losses or saves a pitcher had in RL. The game doesn't use those stats at all. I look for lower WHIP numbers than italyprof suggests, whenever possible. Among Ps with comparable WHIP numbers, I tend to the one with lower OAV numbers. Keep in mind that there are very few Ps with BB/9 over 3 that will do as well as we would like in our leagues. Also, i would suggest you enter one, and only one league at this time. Learn from that league, glean what you can and apply that to your next team. What's the sense of having four teams with the same flaws?

Everything Pfattkatt says is correct. WHIP# is important. It's just a combination of walks and hits. I like to break it down further to OAV# and BB/9#. Same thing. Like Pfattkatt said BB/9 above 3 is scary. I try not to go over 2.5. same with hr/9 I try to stay below .5 depending on home field and salary cap I try to stay even lower.
I'd also recommend an open league to learn from others. Themes can be tough if you have limited player pools to use.
I'd also recommend 1 team then once it's half way you'll see things you want to change. Start another 1 then. It'd suck to have 4 teams going and half way though each of them you realize you made the same mistake on all 4 teams :)

Posted by thats_nice on 4/28/2012 9:58:00 AM (view original):
I'm sorry Italyprof
BUT
Disregard anything Italyprof said. Always click on a users name and see how well they are doing and then decide if you want their advice.
As dahsdebater said saves mean nothing here just like wins and losses mean nothing. It's not used in the calculations. Many popular closers are real life starters ie 43 Niggeling, 67 Carlos. 
Personally I rarely use any stat line that doesn't have a # after it. Occalionally I use a + especially ERA+
When selecting pitchers pay close attention to ERC#  OAV#  BB/9#  hr/9#  IP/9  ERA+
Batters AVG#  hr/100#  OBP# etc.

Ok I'm going to look at your win percentage as compared to mine and simplify things (as your win % statement was unnecessarilly insulting).   A lot of the things you say are important, but it's over complication for beginners.....Here is the simplification............WHIP!!!!!!!!!!! and keep your HR/9 as low as possible.  I'm running an experimental team with 50mil in pitching with a team WHIP!!!!!! that started out at a no baserunners allowed .78 with no bats and it's still winning games. Why......WHIP!!!!!!!!!