Help me build a Pitchers Park team - Finished!!!

One of the ways I learned to play on the old boards was watching Vets help Newbys build teams. Players like Qk and Shelby would pull my team apart until I figured it out. Then sometime someone said: "No, don't do that, you're letting everyone in your league know what you're doing, send me a PM", and many of those vet helped teams moved to pms.

Well, I could use some help and I don't care if the league knows what I'm doing. I have FOPP (fear of Pitcher's Parks), mostly because I've done so poorly in the past. I play almost exclusively hitters' parks, and when I ventured into Progressive, it was my demise on the Tour.

So I'd like some help building a 200x team from the vets here who are so good at it. Beginning with picking the park.

What park do you think I should go with, as a pitching park 'rookie'? Let me know what you think and I'll pick one and I'll need a day or two to analyze the hitters and pitchers, and then we'll look at drafting.

What do you say? Help me build a team. Thanks in advance for your help.

I am not a vet so take this with a grain of salt...but have you thought about Petco? The only offense it allows is left-handed power. So you can stack your line-up with left-handed power bats and get some good left-handed starting pitchers.

First - I feel that there are 2 different types of pitcher parks - the Petco type (low singles) and the Kauffman type (high singles). I'm more familiar with the high singles type, which I use frequently.

My overall advice is to try to outhit your opponent. I've had quite a few teams where you can have fewer homeruns than your opposition, but still outscore them by outhitting them by a wide margin. It's not hard to do if you just focus on drafting high batting average players, especially guys with low homeruns and high batting averages. For pitchers, draft SPs with low hits to innings ratios.

I like having a catcher with a good arm, and I try to "manage" the use of pitchers with bad arms. If you have a -4 or -3 catcher arm, you can afford to have a +4 or even a +5 pitcher arm - just don't get a +9 pitcher arm where your catcher's arm is wasted. You need a good arm in RF as well (-3 or -4, no less than -2). The idea is to try to keep runners from stealing and taking extra bases. That way, your opposition needs several hits to get the runners home, instead of getting to second or third quickly by stealing/running, then just one more hit to get them home.

I think you need one hitter with power, but preferably someone like Morneau who also has a high base hit rate as well. I like a clutch hitter in the 5 spot in the lineup.

I often like to have decent batting averages right through the lineup. You can find guys that can do this cheaply sometimes, if you're not paying for power.

I like a 2 range (or 1, but a 2 will do) at both 2b and SS. Other than this, I try to keep e ratings low, to keep the errors low. I like to use the adage (I read it somewhere here on strat) that you need to win a couple of the major categories (hits, walks, homeruns, errors). Strangely enough it tends to be true. If you aren't going to win on the homeruns, you need to win 2 of the other categories. You don't tend to have to pay too much for a guy with a low e rating, defensively, most of the time. This is especially important at 1b and 3b, where high e ratings can kill you (IMO).

In terms of salary allocation, I tend to emphasize SP salaries more than some people. I think guys like Beckett can be a good SP value due to the lack of BP singles, and the relatively lower importance of BP homeruns. I like a couple of solid relievers, with the greater salary allocation for a C3 or C4 kind of guy who can log lots of innings and still close the game if he lasts long enough, with a cheaper C6 to finish the job if the C4 guy gets tired too soon.

It's worked for me a few times. I'll send you some links later.

No one wants to help a previous tour winner get stronger I see

Edge, what I aim for (and I play more pitcher park teams than hitter parks, by a lot) aren't much different than what you're probably doing. I prefer the heavy hitting and cheaper pitching about high 20's to low 30's in pitching (for an 80 mil league.... well even 100 mil )

First off, I like to have 1 stud * SP, and cheapy one, and 2 mid range. Bullpen is usually cheap, for instance my preferntial bullpen would be R Soriano, Otero, K Herrera, Greenwood, and a LH/RH specialist (preferring M Gonzales as a 5th SP to be my loogy). Greenwood as mopup, Soriano as closer, Otero and Herrera setup/middle. Many time I will use the 5th SP and a S/RP to be my mopup guy.

Hitting, I use the ratings (or calculate by hand) and look for an average rating vs RHP of 30 hits, 40 OB and close to 50 TB. 2014 set (well each year) is getting harder and harder, I'm typically settling on 28/38/47 instead. That's the average for slots 1-9. If I can get that average, my hitting will typically be a top 6 offense, sometimes even the top, even though I'm in a pitchers park. Of course it will be weaker vs LHP, though I don't usually glean on that too much assuming it's not crap.

Cheap platoons (see J-Pav's thread about not carrying too many high prices guys). NEED some OB at the top, Turner/R Martin have been gold for me. Brantley another one I like. Kemp has been great, Vargas platoon at DH (nothing new here really). I will pretty much (in 2014) always be cheap at SS, Cozart or Hechevarria (however you spell it) have been my usual guys. I've had an Adams platoon at 1B... probably on half my teams

Not sure really how to phrase it, you never know what you would get in the draft.

I just finished waivers on this team today. anyone care to give me feedback? like all my teams I'm confident going in, but that probably won't last for long. I really didn't want brantley, but center field was a wasteland and I was woeful in left handed bats.
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1418435

No one wants to help a previous tour winner get stronger I see

Edge, what I aim for (and I play more pitcher park teams than hitter parks, by a lot) aren't much different than what you're probably doing. I prefer the heavy hitting and cheaper pitching about high 20's to low 30's in pitching (for an 80 mil league.... well even 100 mil )

First off, I like to have 1 stud * SP, and cheapy one, and 2 mid range. Bullpen is usually cheap, for instance my preferntial bullpen would be R Soriano, Otero, K Herrera, Greenwood, and a LH/RH specialist (preferring M Gonzales as a 5th SP to be my loogy). Greenwood as mopup, Soriano as closer, Otero and Herrera setup/middle. Many time I will use the 5th SP and a S/RP to be my mopup guy.

Hitting, I use the ratings (or calculate by hand) and look for an average rating vs RHP of 30 hits, 40 OB and close to 50 TB. 2014 set (well each year) is getting harder and harder, I'm typically settling on 28/38/47 instead. That's the average for slots 1-9. If I can get that average, my hitting will typically be a top 6 offense, sometimes even the top, even though I'm in a pitchers park. Of course it will be weaker vs LHP, though I don't usually glean on that too much assuming it's not crap.

Cheap platoons (see J-Pav's thread about not carrying too many high prices guys). NEED some OB at the top, Turner/R Martin have been gold for me. Brantley another one I like. Kemp has been great, Vargas platoon at DH (nothing new here really). I will pretty much (in 2014) always be cheap at SS, Cozart or Hechevarria (however you spell it) have been my usual guys. I've had an Adams platoon at 1B... probably on half my teams

Not sure really how to phrase it, you never know what you would get in the draft.

You nailed it. Turner/R Martin are the Gold standard bargains of the 2014 set.

Thanks, guys. At GBrookes suggestion, I'm going to use Kauffman, unless someone convinces me to go with a low singles park before then. I'll run it through my formulas and then draft a team. I'll continue taking advice, though.

Geekor, that Tour win was so long ago. Thanks for all the great advice.

Coolhand, why don't you start a thread of your own with your question? You'll get better results and this thread won't jump back and forth. Just a suggestion.

Freeman, I think you're right, I'd have more of a grasp at Petco, but that's what I thought at Progressive and I didn't. So I'm trying to go with little to no home runs right off the bat here.

GBrookes, I'd love to see some links. Thanks for offering.

And I'd love to hear from my pals Jeep, Marcus, and J-Pav.

Why Kauffman as opposed to PNC(or AT&T or Marlins if you go for a lefty or righty tilt)? I ask to learn....I would have assumed the parks with the 1's on the ballpark HR's.

Mr Baseball World, the only reason I picked Kauffman is that GBrookes explained there are high hit and low hit pitcher's parks and that he was going to send me some links. Again, I'm not a pitchers park guy, so I'm taking advice and no one really offered any other preference. You might be right and maybe I should go with AT&T or Marlins or PNC.