Incredible to win a ring with what I thought was a joke team

I created this team mostly to see how bad it would be. The answer was, "Not hardly." After putting up a 44-37 mark at the halfway point, I started to think that maybe it wasn't a joke team after all. And my second thought was much better than the first. After a 52-29 2nd half it won three straight playoff series and a ring, including winning game 7 of the final with (a) Delahanty out for the game, and (b) John Halama facing a team with 6 LH hitters in the lineup and Jon Matlack on the bump.

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1414888

There has been a lot of that going around IMHO.

Allow me to contradict myself....I'm truly amazed at that staff's success...and I applaud you...still I half expect it because....

things that "probably" should not happen very often...do happen very often!

Many will say things go sideways and who knows what to expect, when players are matched up from totally different eras... or Koufax is facing a lineup of hall of famers so he gives up 80 hrs... or Ruth hitting .232 because he's facing mostly 9m+ starters, etc....but those reasons are why we don't have accurate statistical reproduction....BUT thats NOT what I'm talking about...I talking about what's probable, based on what we know...probable is probable... and a nickel scrub starter shouldn't pitch well half of the time...or he wouldn't be a nickel scrub starter...like the examples below...it's just, I think most would agree, not probable that it should happen..

a 6L lefty nickel scrub sp (.50) Vanderberg pitching 9.1 innings of shut out playoff baseball (2 starts)

and a 8L .50 righty starter Tunnell, pitching 2 hit shut out ball through 5 and getting the win in BOTH playoff starts...

nickel scrub starter David Clyde pitched 17.1 innings of playoff baseball ending with a 3.63 ERA

His SIX .50 SPS only had 1 bad post season start...I'm not talking the bullpen saved them or the team put up tons of runs and they were winning 12-9...they pitcher VERY WELL!

and I KNOW if you play long enough you'll see everything....and yes that should happen once in a blue....but I think all of us would look at this and say... this probably shouldn't happen...but it did, and that's ok ....and it does, and that's ok....but it does happen...A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!! and that's not ok...imo

Its not okay!

Am happy you were able to win, thats not the issue but,
Yeah, occasionally a .50 starter shouldn't suck-- thats occasionally.

Belated congrats, rburgh. Your team beat mine like a drum during the regular season and playoffs, even though my team won the division in our 24 team league. I knew your team was hot and I was hoping to avoid them during the semis.

I'm not so sure that this team getting a ring was as much of an aberration as others seem to think. As you said in league mail:

At virtually all caps, there is a negative correlation between pitching budget and wins. Apparently, he did not notice that, when he started Koufax and Gooden against me in games 1 and 2 of our playoff series, he had $20 million in starting pitching riding the pine and providing no assistance toward the immediate objective of winning the current game while my team had $2.53 million in SP riding the bench and therefore more of my budget devoted to winning the current game.

Many of us have had teams that surprise us and get a ring. Despite the shaky starting pitching, there are some easily quantifiable reasons for your team's success:

1. They played in a smallball lefty park (Forbes '65) which helped limit your opponents' offense;
2. The money saved on starting pitching left more money for hitting and they were second in the league in hitting, while finishing a surprising 16th in pitching, due largely to having a pair of relievers who cost about $10 mil.
3. Even though you had budget starting pitchers, you had six of them, so you could play matchups to a certain extent.
4. Not only was your team second in hitting (runs scored), but they led the league in OBP by a wide margin and finished 2nd in batting average. As we saw with your team, that's a good recipe for success, high BA and high OBP.
5. There was great D up the middle, with 1s at 2B, SS, CF ( and a big arm), plus a big arm in RF.
6. The hitting was diluted by the 24 team league. Your SP would have struggled more in a 12 team league.

Great job putting together the near perfect team to compensate for the poor starting pitching. It's certainly fun to win with teams like that.

He had a 1 at SS, but high error (40) he had a 3 with a +2 arm in LF and a 3 E29 at 3rd...and his RF made 16 Errors...

So a mixed bag of fielders...BUT I'm not questioning his "teams" success...but the outstanding success put up by 6 nickel SPS, two very different things.

the amount spent on hitters or the 10m spent on stud rps has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about either ... because I'm not questioning whether or not a team with 6 nickel starters can win...they could...but maybe by scores of 9-8...with the 6 pretty awful SPs... look at their *strong side*...still not so good...that's why they cost .50....and then they pitch to an era of about 3.80 through 3 rounds of playoffs ??? it could happen...it did (very cool) but stuff like this shouldn't happen often...and it does.

Go 8 games with Felix Jose as your starting SS because you had no back up...and watch him go 7 of the 8 games without committing an error or letting a flood of base hits get past his what, 5 E68 "supposed rating".... and he helps you win a title....I did...I benefited from this nonsense but I still see it a nonsense...I could give a million more examples.

BD Ward--

I think Nev correctly assessed the real issue.

Not that the team shouldn't succeed because of things like the extra money etc.

BUT that the .50 pitching staff with the myriad of hits on those cards did not get hit any harder than SPs that cost literally ten times more, with many less dings on their cards.

Yes, even with all of the #HRs being nullified---the percentage of times the opposition is 'supposed' to reach base isn't low at all.

Nev and Salty: Are you sure you aren't the same guy, as I don't think I've ever seen you disagree in the 7 years I've been reading this forum.

I don't think we have as wide of an area of disagreement as you may believe. Yes, I acknowledge that the starting pitching was bad. Everyone acknowledges that. Yes, I acknowledge that such poor starting pitching doesn't usually get a ring. Everyone acknowledges that.

Yes, I acknowledge that in this random game of chance that we play that sometimes players' performance will beat the odds or perform below the probabilities and that outcomes will be affected, both positively and negatively, as a result.

Yes, I acknowledge that there are a few managers here who are unhappy that the outcomes don't always, in their opinion, reflect the probabilities, almost entirely when it has a negative impact on their team and that such managers are always quick to cite small sample anecdotal evidence of improbable outcomes as to what's wrong with this game. Anybody who has read this forum for more than 6 months knows who those managers are, whether they are complaining about 50 cent starting pitchers getting wins against $10 mil starting pitchers, bad stolen base outcomes, poor performance by star players, getting swept on the last day of the season by a team 40 games behind in the standings, etc., etc. If we didn't like to compete, we wouldn't be here, and it bugs us when we work hard to get favorable odds and we lose anyway. Sometimes the dice are a convenient, and perhaps the only, scapegoat.

We all have our pet peeves about this game and are all entitled to our beliefs. Almost everyone here knows that my pet peeve is relief pitchers who pitch more than 150 innings. The dice I can live with, because, well, they're dice, and I have no control over them.

As for rburgh's fine team, my point merely was that he did a masterful job of taking all the right steps to mitigate the impact of his poor starting pitching and beat the odds by winning with such a team. He's not the first to do that and certainly not the last. At least 99 0f 100 such teams fail to get a ring. Even rburgh himself recognizes how unusual it was, otherwise he would not have posted. But to say it happens far more than it should because it occasionally happens against one of our own teams that we think is better is a bit of a stretch.

Nev and Salty: Are you sure you aren't the same guy, as I don't think I've ever seen you disagree in the 7 years I've been reading this forum.

I don't think we have as wide of an area of disagreement as you may believe. Yes, I acknowledge that the starting pitching was bad. Everyone acknowledges that. Yes, I acknowledge that such poor starting pitching doesn't usually get a ring. Everyone acknowledges that.

The dice I can live with, because, well, they're dice, and I have no control over them.

As for rburgh's fine team, my point merely was that he did a masterful job of taking all the right steps to mitigate the impact of his poor starting pitching and beat the odds by winning with such a team.

the reason Nev and I agree on this is b/c we have discussed it at length- many times over. We have actually talk a fair amount, so, a great deal of points here we've spoken about.
As far as how much of a disagreement we 'believe' we have-- okay. I'm not only mentioning things to contend what you are saying, but to further get at the issue we deal with.

When you say the dice roll-- this is the point of contention--WHAT DICE ROLL????
THERE are literally no DICE here and therein lies the problem.

You see on the card 3-7 is a homerun which = X% chance of that occuring.
WHAT Im saying is that b/c of the MYRIAD of modifiers involved it may not actually be anywhere near that percentage.

As for RBURGHs team-- YES, we ALL agree he did very well with his team, and deserves kudos for it.

Bernie....Here's something I've said 1000 times...win or lose, and I've done plenty of both...I don't care for how much "against all odds " stuff occurs...Like earlier in this thread when I mentioned how I won a Title with Felix Jose as my starting SS for 8 playoff games...And I once got so disgusted with a ***Title winning team of Mine*** because it should have been no better than .500 and yet not only did it win the whole thing...it lead from wire to wire and finished with the best record in the league....


Now to all those that think they know why I post what I post...there's this...you BD or anyone for that matter, will never find me bragging about any of my successes...EVER!

So the last thing I'm going to do is brag about winning something because some nonsense happens. Can you see me posting how my nickel scrub SP struck out Babe Ruth 4 times in a 1-0 Title winning game...Don't cha feel the love already!

Also I don't brag about my successes in general, and certainly not here because of *unpredictability of everything ATG* I truly have no idea of good from bad until I'm about 160 games into any given season

AND...

w-a-y- back in ATGII I was p-r-e-t-t-y *pro community*... and I started a thread where owners could post any type of prideful or unusual accomplishments i.e. a scrub hitting for the cycle OR perhaps any Title winning team you're particularly proud of...or maybe your first title winner ever, etc...you know, stuff that doesn't make it into Moose "s records, but still good, cool random fun stuff worth sharing.....BUT this community being filled with people...so some people here accused me of starting that thread, only as a way to brag about my own winning... AND... steal ideas from the other teams that were successful.


So I don't post, happy, lucky, fortuitous, rare, unusual, dominating, record setting or odd themed teams when I win...I don't post shit when I win... It's also why I don't post when its my team that's 30 games back, and sweeps a team it had no business sweeping....because... God forbid people might think I'm bragging about all of it.