Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I've been reading a lot of message boards today trying to prepare for the new card set and come up with a new strategy for the players championship. I play a decent amount of Strat-o online, and usually end up doing pretty mediocre.

When reading the strategy forums many people reference spending money at positions where there is a significant drop off from one tier of players to the next. My question is what determines where this drop off occurs? Is it just salaries, or do I need to look at every player at a whole to get an idea of where the drop off is?

I know this question might be vague, and any insight at all is helpful! Just trying to turn my fortunes around this year!

MforTurtle13 wrote:I've been reading a lot of message boards today trying to prepare for the new card set and come up with a new strategy for the players championship. I play a decent amount of Strat-o online, and usually end up doing pretty mediocre.

When reading the strategy forums many people reference spending money at positions where there is a significant drop off from one tier of players to the next. My question is what determines where this drop off occurs? Is it just salaries, or do I need to look at every player at a whole to get an idea of where the drop off is?

I know this question might be vague, and any insight at all is helpful! Just trying to turn my fortunes around this year!

It is essentially the salaries, but you must also consider defense, especially at 2B (6 chances off the pitcher's card) SS (5 chances) and CF (4 chances).

At 80M that's 3.2M per player on average--if you can nab value players at or below the average price--you have a leg up---this year I liked Rosario in lf/rf at 3.07--especially in a LH park---usually I look for good lower priced players before the obvious expensive power/ob guys. You will find these type players are hard to get--they tend to go early in auto drafts. The key to most successful teams are the usable cheaper players that allow you put more $ into a couple of studs.

To me, it's about the strategies. Some owners number crunch and find values and that's fine but I never found that worked well for me (probably because I wasnt good at it).

Some basic strategies:

(1) Get Citizens or Great American. Load up on power. Make sure you have enough on-base (hopefully, .320 or so) for the power to play. On the pitching side, go really cheap (I've gone with a 5 million starting staff total) and make up with good R2s/R3 that pitch a lot of innings. One of the holes in the game you can exploit is relief pitchers being able to pitch a ton of innings. Get pitchers that give up a few homeruns. So you hope to have a huge advantage in homeruns over the opposition. Getting a good defense can also make this play up. Your park gives up a lot of hrs...but it doesnt give up BP singles AND your defense is starving the other team of baserunners. And having a good defense will help you survive in small ball parks

(2) Get Marlins. Get as good as pitching as you can get Get very good defense (80% X chances plus--you can check on this in the fielding tab on your team). Get a fast team, good arms in center and right field. Your power guys should have 50+ total bases (before adding in ballpark singles and homeruns). A baseball ratings guide is good to have because it will have this broken down

Just about everyone gets players that give them in an advantage in their home park. The easiest way to get a decent team is to load up on power in Citizens/Great American and get pitchers who give few hrs. That only gets you so far, though. You have to figure out strategies that go beyond that.

Those are both good points. I may not be taking full advantage of a home ball park as much as I should be. I do tend to try and find those cheap value plays, and even platoon 2 cheap guys who can hit either side of the plate.

Follow up: Does the home field advantage really give you that many more wins? For example, building a left handed hitting team around a lefty stadium. Wouldn't you be at an equal disadvantage if no other team in the league has a lefty stadium?

Well, if you dont exploit your stadium then you're already behind. But how do you exploit your stadium better than other owners AND still be able to compete in their stadiums? It's extremely important to remember that Aaron Nola only controls 78 of the 108 chances on his card (well, 80 of the 108 if you count his two pitcher's chances). So how good of a defense you have affects how good your pitcher is. Then a bad offensive park like Marlins helps your pitcher even more. Looking in cards in isolation only goes so far, even if they are good in a particular park. You have to relate your pitchers to the park, to the defense, and to how you structure your relief.

MforTurtle13 wrote:I've been reading a lot of message boards today trying to prepare for the new card set and come up with a new strategy for the players championship. I play a decent amount of Strat-o online, and usually end up doing pretty mediocre.

When reading the strategy forums many people reference spending money at positions where there is a significant drop off from one tier of players to the next. My question is what determines where this drop off occurs? Is it just salaries, or do I need to look at every player at a whole to get an idea of where the drop off is?

I know this question might be vague, and any insight at all is helpful! Just trying to turn my fortunes around this year!

Depends on the player set. The ATG set is where the salary tiers are most important. The 20xx set changes. Used to be able to find cheap specialist list RP. Last year the cheap RP were all garbage.