I will send an email to admin and takeover this thread!

I'll redline your *** straight to hell!!!!!

Mike, I never said I didn't make mistakes when I employed my strategy. I made a lot of them. It was a combination of being new and not knowing what the hell I was doing, and my belief, as you mentioned, that if you ain't first, you're last.

That snapshot you posted is a decent summary of how I feel on this topic, but it's not the whole story. In my very first season I tried very hard to make the team better. I traded the previous season's #17 overall stud CF for 2 mediocre ML players. I also made a separate trade in which I gave up 2 more former first round picks (both minor leaugers) for 2 more ML players. I signed a 33 year old closer to a $37M contract as well.

My plan flat out didn't work as I won 1 FEWER game than the owner from last season. That's when I blew it all up and traded as many ML players for minor leaguers as I could possibly get. Yes, I only won 45 games my second season which is flat out awful. But I learned from my mistakes and without much roster turnover I won 66 games the following season, mostly just because I had a better understanding of player ratings and how the game works.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd employ the same strategy, only take steps to ensure nobody misconstrued my intentions.

1 or 2

I seem to talk myself into the idea that my team can contend every season. Sort of like Drayton McLane.

Quote: Originally posted by MikeT23 on 10/09/2009I'd disagree.  If you want to cut payroll, have at it.   If you cut payroll so deep that you can't win 1/3 of your games, you went too far.   I honestly believe that winning games at the BL level is not your concern if you can't win 33% of your games.   Call it what you will.

I agree. However, I don't think I would make a deadline trade if I had a "thought they'd be lucky to be .500 but wow still in contention at the trade deadline" team, simply because I've seen how streaky teams can be in this game. My thoughts would be that, if they're playing over their head (and still only "in contention" not "clearly going to make it in") in the beginning of the season, there's a good chance they'll fold at the end.

But maybe I'm just a pessimistic bastard.