The Secret Formula: Theory in Action: Update - CHAMPS!

League formed on Monday September 9th. I drafted all fifty cent players (worst hitters by OPS, worst pitchers by WHIP). I sat out waivers on Wednesday September 11th. On Sunday September 15th I drafted my team entirely from the picked over FA pool. League started on Monday September 16th.

I have others, but here's the first team I tried this with: http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1113876

I was hoping to boast of total victory, but had to settle with getting bounced in the Finals tonite, extending my latest streak of losing in the Finals to four in a row now.

Although I missed a ring, the experiment bears fruit: there's no such thing as a team failing as a result of a poor draft.

Absolutely fascinating! Out of the box selection of SP's and it worked.

Question: Since you were unable to use the "secret formula" (I'm guessing the pool of players left made this near impossible) on what merits did you select the players (especially the pitchers) that you used?

There was a huge number of unbalanced teams in the league. I considered a more conventional salary construction, but just couldn't ignore the opportunity to go low budget, one-sided guys. I was actually surprised to lose so many games (like from Hughes and Straily) who sometimes faced entire line-ups tilting into their strong sides.

In this particular instance, it would have been harder to go 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 on offense because I had to start with Cano. But I probably could have come closer if that's what I had set out to do. This experiment was not intended to be TSF, but the two ideas just kind of collided in this thread here.

I'm not too anxious to spend a lot of time on the TSF team while it's online, as HAL really views that unfavorably. But I've come up on a few other experimental teams that have recently finished or are about to finish. One example is that every year I usually test out the Beane Count.

From ESPN: "Concocted by ESPN.com's Rob Neyer and named for Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane, the Beane Count is derived by summing a team's ranks in home runs hit, walks drawn, home runs allowed, and walks allowed." However, instead of looking at the rankings, I just shoot for the maximum net walks plus homers minus walks allowed plus homers allowed.

Over the years, the range has varied, but rarely crosses 200. This year I did this:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1113269 (Beane Count of 496, 88 wins, lost Finals).

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1113563 (Beane Count of 425, 91 wins, lost Finals).

That is completely off the chart. If I would have thought 400 plus was possible ahead of time, I would expect to win 130 games. Not sure why it's possible to do this this year, but there it is. I'm still not sure why it resulted in only 90 some odd wins, I would guess it's because the relative rankings mean there wasn't more of an advantage to exploiting this.

Anyone else have some crazy big offense teams or teams with an interesting twist?

Honestly, I wasn't going to play this season's set, outside of the keeper leagues I'm in, because I didn't think it was worth it; but then you made this post, and I lucked out and got into a league with you.

I like the ideas that are always brought to the table in your posts ... I never realized that you could draft a team of all .50 players (always thought there was a low-dollar limit in Autodrafts) ... sounds adventurous, perhaps one time before the new cards come out, with a spare credit, I may try it myself.

I like the pitching staff; kinda reminds me of a couple of times I missed out on players I wanted and wound up using several match-up pitchers. Made me really focus more on that particular team, and the first one I did, played pretty well ...

But this post has motivated me to try some more teams before the next season's cards. Hope the learning curve isn't too steep, lol.

"I'm not too anxious to spend a lot of time on the TSF team while it's online, as HAL really views that unfavorably."

What do you mean by that statement???

HAL* is omniscient, and peace be upon Him.

It's just a reference to superstition, forged in the furnace of humility over ten years of watching people post links to teams before a season ends that say things like "My awesome team is 50-20, do you think I'll win 125 games?" and then watching them finish 79-83 once HAL is finished destroying them. This is the reason now you see so few threads that begin with "My Awesome Team Is..."

Related topics include the following conspiracy theories: the wildcard always beats the winner from the same division, the game engine stats governor (or equalizer or whatever we used to call it) will stop you from winning 100 games, 100 win teams always lose in the semis, etc etc etc.

To wit, no TSF team (ie, the one declared as my annual TSF team) has ever won a ring. The closest I came was a game 7 finals loss. If you post your team before the season ends, you must confront HAL and HAL always wins.

(* For noobs, HAL is the unofficial name of the SOM game engine and is a play on HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey and Hal Richman, the game's inventor).

I'm always skeptical when it comes to conspiracy theories, as they are usually 10% fact and 90% coincidence and subconscious tinkering with the facts. But people on here seem resolute about it. And I have noticed that exciting things seem to happen within seasons, such as comebacks and weird occurrences, on a much more frequent basis than regular baseball. Is it possible that SOM tinkers with the game engine to make it a more interesting product and keep people hooked? It seems far fetched to me, but why else would HAL be omniscient?

As for teams with a twist, one of my current ones unwittingly follows the concept of the Beane count almost perfectly, although I was just abstractly trying to mix BPHRs and OBP in US Cellular, thinking that walks and HRs, not hits, will score my runs. Current Beane count is 149 through just 72 games. I have guys like Gomes, Kottaras, Headley, with pitching that doesn't allow many walks or HRs. I'm also on pace for about 350 HRs, although we'll see if HAL makes that 250 because I said that. I'm curious how many HRs is the most anyone has squeezed out of the 2012 set?

Hey J-Pav,

I just noticed after browsing thru the team links in the entire thread, that most of your teams lack a "true" closer.
ie. R1/C5-6.

I've seen Wilton Lopez on a team or 2, but what's your 2 shiny pennies on the closer situation?

FWIW- As crazy as it sounds, I've been using Marmol in this set as my closer. He's super cheap and fairly effective. If you just maximize him in the settings, he'll come in only in save situations. If he throws too many innings, the walks on his card come into play too much.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1109125

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1103676

visick