I've seen some win with this approach, but have never had the confidence to use it myself.

What are people's thoughts/experiences on using teams stacked with offense, and a staff full of mediocre-at-best pitching, with enough innings to keep everyone at 100%?

It's possible of course, but much harder if part of your offense budget doesn't also go to defense. If the defense is bad, too, then your only dependable option is a pitcher's park, which kind of defeats the purpose.

It's a fine line to walk to win that way, but definitely possible. As long as your offense is better than your average opponent's offense by a larger margin than their pitching is better than yours, you'll win more than you lose. Knowing where to draw that line is the tough part, but it can usually be determined by the league settings/salary cap. I have not used this approach very often, but it can be fun to try to win by football scores sometimes. And yes, defense needs to be a part of the equation as well. It's especially difficult when you need your offense to outpace both your pitching AND your defensive deficiencies.

I tried it in an OL a couple of months ago playing at Coors. I loaded up with heavy hitters (a couple of Ruths, 1919 Cravath, Miguel Cabrera, Jim Bottomley, etc) drafted 1200 IP, and had a $26 mil starting rotation (1910 Mordecai, 1906 Tully Sparks and 1905 Fred Glade) who i was able to keep at 100 percent throughout the season by using my AAA pitchers at times. As always, i wasn't too concerned about defense and we did pretty well. The team scored more than 1600 runs, hit almost 260 HRs and won like 106 games. We went to the WS but unfortunately lost. We gave up a lot of runs but i didn't care bc we simply out slugged everyone and it was a gas reading the box scores. So it most definitely can be done. But i think the key is having good all around hitters who can also hit doubles and triples when you run into deadballers, and not focus so much on pure HR hitters.

as Mix has alluded to... your focus should be offensively on OPS# and dont get caught in the HR trap as part of the OPS equation. I used Hilltop with some success a long time ago but always faltered to in the playoffs against top pitching which always trumps good hitting even in WIS. With the raise in prices of the top cookie aces tho it may be time to revisit.

Try it and find out, that's half the fun of the game.
The salary formula is not linear it has an exponential component so any form of extreme salary distribution puts you at a handicap. You don't need to be perfectly balanced, a 60/40 split could work. Hitting teams get on base more, meaning you'll have to buy more PA or play slightly fatigued, another obstacle to overcome.

Just finished one up....spent 56 mil on hitting.....at Coors.....went 80-82....expt% was only .502....but 45-36 at home, so I feel like maybe I ran into some poor luck on the road? Team Ops was 1.072 at home, and "only" .870 on the road. ERA at home was just over 9, and the road era was just over 7.

Regular Season Batting SimStats (Totals)
Player	SN	B	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	HBP	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	STRK	L STRK
Rollins, Jimmy	2007	S	162	759	192	250	32	41	17	139	43	57	1	46	11	.329	.364	.547	.911	7	13
Alomar, Roberto	2000	S	161	721	154	261	38	2	9	140	63	64	4	49	17	.362	.414	.458	.871	0	15
Anson, Cap	1886	R	161	712	189	290	66	7	14	164	83	30	4	1	2	.407	.467	.579	1.046	4	30
Schulte, Frank	1911	L	162	707	165	266	40	13	37	192	84	84	1	0	0	.376	.442	.627	1.069	6	13
Sierra, Ruben	1989	S	160	701	173	254	45	19	30	186	49	55	6	0	0	.362	.407	.609	1.016	4	20
Brett, George	1979	L	162	693	179	258	43	26	19	149	62	32	1	15	6	.372	.423	.592	1.015	4	16
Williams, Ken	1922	L	161	677	184	241	29	12	48	189	77	37	7	27	9	.356	.419	.647	1.066	9	13
Bottomley, Jim	1928	L	161	669	170	262	43	23	37	204	103	75	1	0	1	.392	.469	.691	1.160	0	21
Carsey, Kid	1895	L	83	218	38	57	2	1	1	27	20	26	3	0	1	.261	.331	.294	.624	0	4
Esper, Duke	1893	L	85	203	23	58	5	3	0	39	12	20	6	0	0	.286	.342	.340	.682	1	5

Esper and Carsey stared 160 of the games.

Set "historical" bests for Bottomley, Schulte, Carsey and Esper at the bat.

Swept the silver sluggers, and had the top 3 MVP finishers.


Outscored the next team by 270 runs, and his was an all hitting Coors team too.

Outscored the 3rd highest team by 348 runs.

My pitching was only 4th worst in the league. Drated more than 1450ip, and got 120 out of aaa....nobody pitched below 100%.

A feel like a slight adjustment towards pitching, maybe 1 good arm, could help carry the team into the playoff.

Oh, and not having Cap Anson's 94 pb's behind the plate might help too....

Posted by ozomatli on 6/15/2017 4:08:00 PM (view original):
It's possible of course, but much harder if part of your offense budget doesn't also go to defense. If the defense is bad, too, then your only dependable option is a pitcher's park, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Maybe the second or third "worst" skew/looophole in SimLeague Baseball that needs tweaking, in my humble opinion, is that there is still a bit too much weight placed on "range," in the field. Run the numbers. See what teams win and why.

(#1 skew: dead-ball pitchers' nullification of home run power. That is, unless WIS simply warns everyone that pitchers use the balls from their seasons, much like fielders use nearly the gloves from theirs.)

Posted by ArlenWilliam on 11/6/2017 12:47:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ozomatli on 6/15/2017 4:08:00 PM (view original):
It's possible of course, but much harder if part of your offense budget doesn't also go to defense. If the defense is bad, too, then your only dependable option is a pitcher's park, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Maybe the second or third "worst" skew/looophole in SimLeague Baseball that needs tweaking, in my humble opinion, is that there is still a bit too much weight placed on "range," in the field. Run the numbers. See what teams win and why.

(#1 skew: dead-ball pitchers' nullification of home run power. That is, unless WIS simply warns everyone that pitchers use the balls from their seasons, much like fielders use nearly the gloves from theirs.)

I currently have an OL team in which i decided to try and field a team with some range. Athough it leads the league in "plus" plays, i don't think it's quite worth the money. In general, i draft my teams with with offense and pitching in mind and to hell with range. And despite them usually leading the leading the league in "minus" plays (usually well over 100), they do pretty well.

In my experience, the best way to set your pitching in this scenario is to focus on BB/9 & HR/9. Minimize walks and dingers as much as you can, then let your own offense carry you. The range of your players should be above average, as well. Worked pretty well at Wrigley & League Park II (Cleveland).

Obviously, others may have a different experience.