Thanks Amerk...I do think u focused a little too heavily on pitching & speed last season...a little more D could have helped...good luck, and great job!

Thanks elmerk, but I dunno how much more D I coulda had. I had A's and A+'s all across my starting OF with Ken Williams, Ellsbury, McCutchen and Mays. I had Dee Gordon and his A+ ratings at 2b, Ozzie Smith at SS, David Wright wasn't a slouch at I think A/B+ at third. Fonseca was an A/B+ at least at first. Kendall wasn't bad at C. If anytthing it was TOO much D and not enough offensive production.

I wish there would be some kind of slight adjustment to the sim. There is a winning formula that plays out in almost all leagues and clearly this one. It certainly seems (and if someone has insight that disproves this please let me know) that if you pick a Stadium that has positive double and triple statistics, stack your line up with guys who hit for high average and hit doubles and triples (avoid HRs), base your staff off a couple deadball pitchers with extremely low HR ratios and assemble an above average bullpen with a stud closer and you will be playoff bound. I tried that formula once and made it to the World Series, others years I've tried power guys and HR stadiums with pitchers that have high strike out rates and allow low batting average and I hover around .500. Does anyone believe this to be incorrect?

You can win a lot of different ways, but one things for sure is that you can't win with HR heavy teams when deadball pitchers are allowed in the theme.

Which is beyond absurd if you ask me. If we're being honest, if you brought deadball pitchers to the modern era, they would get killed. Prime Bonds, Griffey, A-Rod and the like would be teeing off on them like no tomorrow. No one way back then was bringing heat like modern pitchers do, especially hitting triple digits like a guy like Chapman. I know it's always difficult to compare across eras, but the SIM takes it to crazy lengths in my opinion.

I am curious as to others thoughts on how to best build your bench. With the DH and the amount of plate appearances most of the guys have, the bench doesn't come into play, unless, I've found, for defensive replacements of if you like platooning. I've found that when I've tried to platoon, one of the guys always outperforms the other, and so I end up playing the stronger of the two regardless of pitcher.

Well, I am officially trying the same strategy that got me to the WS last season again. Trading away Hornsby and Chamberlain for Pedro and Koufax gives me basically the same exact start I had last year with Pedro and Gibson. Now lets see if I can better that start or if I will be less successful and putting together a pitching, speed and defense juggernaut. I might go for a lil less D though if I can get better players offensively.

As for the success theories, I agree power doesn't work. In season three I think, my entire lineup had OPS's over 1.000 and finished 8 games under .500. Deadball pitchers haven't helped me that much, although the years I had them, I didn't really pick a pitchers park. I would probably concur with sambus theory though. It would be interesting to see if someone could ever build a championship team in Coors field though.

I wanted Coors but it was already taken. Had to settle for Mile High.

can't lie, I'm waiting for one of you two to give up mile high or coors.....

Can't lie...I'm waiting for one of you to give up Petco, Kaufmann or the Astrodome lol

I'm trying to be unbiased, but so far I think my division is the best of the bunch!

NL CENTRAL
rjk2781: Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Walker, Alex Rodriguez, Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle,

Got_Worms: Pete Alexander, Todd Helton, Albert Pujols, Adrian Beltre, Mike Scott, Carl Yastrzemski, Mariano Rivera,

shysters3: Lou Gehrig, Bob Gibson, Sammy Sosa, Babe Adams, Jackie Robinson, Chief Bender,

roadhouse19: Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Cy Young, Randy Johnson, Darin Erstad, Kevin Brown,

rjk2781 lineup is scary good!

It would look even better if it didn't have to face mostly deadball pitchers.

Team name: TBD
Home stadium: TBD
Winning Strategy: TBD

C - Chris Hoiles
1B - Todd Helton
2B - Roberto Alomar
3B - Adrian Beltre

Team Name: Shuffle Up & Deal
Home Stadium: Memorial Stadium
Winning Strategy: Draft a team that can win in both pitchers parks and hitters parks. I have a good balance of high average / high on base hitters with some decent power guys. Norm Cash may play some DH when Teixeira starts. Berkman will start over Roy Thomas in the outfield (when Cullenbine DH's) unless I'm in a pitcher's park. I will base the lineup on the ballpark as well as the opponent's pitcher. Howard Johnson may get starts in hitters parks when Silver King is pitching. His 1.000 fielding percentage at SS should help with 1800's pitchers' propensity for inducing errors in his fielders. I'm playing in Memorial Stadium in order to suppress the teams that loaded up on high-average triples teams.

C: Mike Napoli (R) & Bubbles Hargrave (R)
1B: Norm Cash (L) & Mark Teixeira ((S)
2B: Eddie Collins (L)
3B: Wade Boggs (L) & Ron Santo (R)
SS: Alan Trammell (R) & Howard Johnson (S)
OF: Paul Waner (L)
OF: Roy Thomas (L)
OF: Bernie Williams (S)
DH: Roy Cullenbine (S) & Lance Berkman (S)

SP1: Silver King (R)
SP2A: Jake Arrieta (R)
SP2B: Zack Greinke (R)
LongA: Bill Bernhard (R)
LongB: Reb Russell (L)
SetupA: Jim Hearn (R)
SetupA: Tim Burke (R)
SetupB: John Butcher (R)
CloserA: Bob Milacki (R)
CloserB: Jack McDowell (R)