There are many important items to consider when building a team through the draft center. The following are several helpful hints that should serve as recommendations, especially to new users who have not yet built a SLB team:
Fatigue is the single most important item to remember with a team. There are no injuries in SLB, but all players are subject to fatigue if they greatly exceed or are on pace to greatly exceed the plate appearance (pa/162*) or innings pitched (ip/162*) values that they had in real-life. When a player begins to fatigue, all of his statistical inputs drop, making him far less valuable. For this reason, the salary formula is always constructed on a per plate appearance or inning pitched basis.
To prevent fatigue, we recommend drafting approximately 1,500 total ip/162 and 6,000 plate appearances. Keep in mind that usage matters as well, so the innings should be divided over several pitchers who can help whether they be from the starting rotation or bullpen. We allow rotation sizes from one to six, so have a rotation in mind when drafting. Along those lines, it is important to have around 700 plate appearances at each position.
The other biggest item to note when drafting is normalization. WhatIfSports.com uses log5 normalization in which the batter and pitcher's statistics are compared to the league averages from their respective seasons. Statistical categories indicated by the # represent how this player would fare against the historically average player. In this case, players who were great hitters in poor offensive years like 1968, get a little more credit, while those with similar raw numbers from a great offensive season like 1930 will not fare as well. Log5 (#) values are the single most important representations of a player's value in SimLeague Baseball and are thus highly incorporated in salaries.
All of the statistical categories could have value when creating a team, so it is important to review the Stat Legend
Also, never forget about the importance of defense and ballpark (more on those to come).
* The per 162 numbers allude to the fact that all stats are prorated to a full 162 game season even if the player did not play in a league with 162 games in a season.