When starting a new series what is the first thing you check for? What are other things you can do to manage your team to a victory? Here is some of what I do, please feel free to add your own suggestions.

A) Opponant Pitching  Its usually the first thing I check beside the boxscore and standings.  I usually start my best starter on the first game of the series unless I can take time to predict what starter the other team will start. Then if there is a opponant starting pitcher who is weaker in the series I will place a weaker starter against him.  On a game by game basis I check the opponant starting pitcher's hr/9, bb/9# and oav# and erc#. If I am playing an opposing pitcher with a higher bb/9# then I may put some importance to get a high on base % guy in the lineup or bumped up a spot.  If his hr/9 is high I may place in a high HR/100ab# guy or move him up in the lineup. Although its only a 5% boost placing a lefty against a righty is sometimes good too. A guy like Joss I find has trouble against higher average lefties, for the most part. If there is a big enough sample size I sometimes check the regular season stats (even though this may not have much influence) of  the opposing pitchers OAV against left handed and right handed batters. 

B)Setting Own Lineup and Own Pitching. Resting position players, setting pitch counts, checking relief boxes, unchecking pinch hit if you want closer to possibly pitch 8th and 9th inning. Bringing up AAA guys and thinking about a waiver move.  I think remembering what  Stadium you are playing in should always be in the back of your mind.

C)Team Managerial Style. You may want to bump up or down baserunning aggresiveness by scouting your opposing catchers actual and regular season SB vs CS.  Depending on who you are playing and your own players there maybe times to uncheck or check "Use mop only when losing," and "Use closer in save situations" along with rest and defensive subs.  Maybe pop up hit and run if you are feeling lucky.

As someone once told me think from Sparkys perspective, set your managerial settings how you want Sparky to manage.  All may not have time to manage like this and there is an order of importance to it all and probably even more to do (check opponant hitting). Just thought I would share I what I do with you all.  Comments welcome. Peace ~ Chisox378

Check your players fatigue early and often.  If you are confident about you team winning a playoff spot, rest players above 105% of actual.

Can I ask why Zube?  I always thought that they reset everyone back to 100% so you don't hide say a Milaki for multiple starts in the playoffs.

Posted by seels on 1/14/2012 1:09:00 AM (view original):
Can I ask why Zube?  I always thought that they reset everyone back to 100% so you don't hide say a Milaki for multiple starts in the playoffs.

No.  You can "bank" a maximum of 5% of the alotted pitches or PAs of a player.  This includes the 10% bonus.

At the start of the playoffs, all players have their underlying fatigue numbers (the numbers that derive fatigue) adjusted so they begin the playoffs having used up at least 95% of their season allotment of plate appearances and pitches thrown. This adjustment is made to prevent the abuse of low usage players from dominating in the playoffs.

what is 105%? is that when you scroll over a player that is 100% and it says "on  pace for 5% (or less) more p/a than actual"? 

For position players scroll over the fatigue number. You should perfer players to be at or lessthan 105% of actual. For pitchers you may have to do a pitch count calculation to figure it out.

Chisox, under your heading (C), and someone can correct me if I am wrong but  I'm pretty sure that the propensity and frequency that a baserunner attempts to steal a base is controlled primarilly by the 0-5 scaled advanced hitter settings as opposed to baserunning aggressiveness.  I've also found that a lot of people use your 'only use mop when losing strategy'. so I use it when winning as well, because mop vs mop should have somewhat of a counterbalancing effect. You won't run into too much trouble, if you have good talent because sparky usually runs your setup and closers out there like he normally would on the rare occasions that things do get tight. Also those additional mop innings will give you more buying power.  Good topic and tips.

Good point about the mop.  I tried to think of a time when it would be better to uncheck it (I usually uncheck it when I know I have a good chance of winning by many runs).  So if your winning by 10 runs is it a guarentee that the mop will come in and try to finish the game, instead of using long B guy?  Then again even if you leave the boxed checked the mop should come in when up 10 right?

Then it may be a good idea to uncheck the box when you are playing a team where you think you may win by a good amount.  For the most part, if its my squad, that would be NOT that much. 

This is a great topic.   Following chisox's (C) suggestion, and to learn how to do it, I went to check my next opposing catcher's actual stats (34 Hartnett).  I found that he had zero actual SBAs against him.   Incredulous, I started to go team by team down the league . The first three catchers -  75 Carter, 74 Tenace, 34 Hartnett - all had zero SBAs against them (it wasn't until I got to 99 Piazza that I found SBAs over zero (152, which was correct)).  

More incredulous, I checked baseball-reference.com who shows that  all three of those guys had at least some amount of SBAs.  
Am I looking in the wrong place (selecting the catcher, then actual statistics, then view fielding stats)?  
Sorry for the long post.  This is as succinct as I could make it.  

When I have a new series starting, the first two things I look at are the starting pitcher for each game for the other team and the park I'm playing at. After that, I checkout the other team's catcher.  And depending on these variable, I adjust my lineup accordingly.  If I have what I think is a clear advantage in the starting pitching matchup, I might rest a couple of my starting position players and use a couple of AAA in their place.  As far as resting players, I rarely play any of my true regulars (including pitchers) at less than 100%, unless its absolutely NECESSARY. I check fatigue on each player before every game, and when their fatigue says overused by 5%, they automatically get a game or two rest, no matter who it is, unless its a crucial or playoff game. Because if you don't manage fatigue properly during the long haul of the season, you'll find yourself with players in the 80's and 90's at the end of the year. 

Posted by 2bvision on 1/15/2012 3:55:00 PM (view original):
This is a great topic.   Following chisox's (C) suggestion, and to learn how to do it, I went to check my next opposing catcher's actual stats (34 Hartnett).  I found that he had zero actual SBAs against him.   Incredulous, I started to go team by team down the league . The first three catchers -  75 Carter, 74 Tenace, 34 Hartnett - all had zero SBAs against them (it wasn't until I got to 99 Piazza that I found SBAs over zero (152, which was correct)).  

More incredulous, I checked baseball-reference.com who shows that  all three of those guys had at least some amount of SBAs.  
Am I looking in the wrong place (selecting the catcher, then actual statistics, then view fielding stats)?  
Sorry for the long post.  This is as succinct as I could make it.  

For players before 1960 or so, WIS doesn't have the actual data, so they estimate it. If you go to the team stats for that team, then the fielding stats, then scroll down to the "actual" stats, you'll see the CS% that WIS has assigned the player.

Thank you, jfranco.   Learning many new things every day in the forums.