There are a lot of things in this game I still don't grasp and near the top of that list is ball park effects. I just took over a Tacoma franchise and the park there is -4 across the board. This is a pretty good, but old team so it gives me a chance to rebuild while keeping a core of solid BL guys for a couple of years. I'd like some opinions on building a team for this park. Gut reaction is to concentrate on pitching, defense, and speed, but seems I've read on here to build teams with strengths opposite your home park. Help please.

I'm in the build the strength opposite to your park camp.  So, in Tacoma, I would trade pitching and fielding for hitting.  The reason?  Your park takes care of keeping the score low, so if you can build a team that scores no matter what, you're laughing.  I would think that having speedy good baserunners would be key to take advantage of whatever hits you do end up getting.  You could also focus on OBP, since walks aren't affected by ballparks.  Which makes me think that perhaps an important thing to look out for in pitchers in pitcher's parks is their control

I'm more and more of the opinion that if you get the best hitting, pitching and defense that you can, ballpark doesn't matter.  A good, well-balanced team should be able to win anywhere,

In TAC, the impact of walks are more important than usual - as shobob said - becauae that production is not diluted by the park. I'm not saying ignore sluggers and grab high Eye batters, i'm suggesting that given two players with similar OPS, one gets 100 pts of it thru walks, the other only gets 50 pts thru walks, prioritize the former. Conversely, high control pitchers help and you can afford to give a little in splits.

I go back and forth on defensive relevance. On the one hand, in an environment where 20% fewer than avg runs are scored, a run prevented by the defense is relatively more valuable. However, you could also argue that an occasional error or poor play is easier to tolerate in an environment with fewer baserunners. I've leaned towards emphasizing defense for the most part

Also easier to get away with a four man rotation in TAC than a hitters park.

Expand on the rotation bit a bit, please.

Less opposing offense, means relatively fewer pitches per inning. You can shorten pitch counts with less stress on your bullpen.

I tend to agree with tec.   Get good players and use their abilities for your park as a tie-breaker.

And, as dwool said, you can shorten your staff.    Which means that DUR/STM combo you didn't like because he couldn't throw enough innings might be an option in Tacoma.

And I'm a build to your park guy.   If I choose a hitter's park, I want to score a pile of runs.   May not be the best way to win games but it's more fun, for me, like that.