Does My Team Just Suck?

[BaseballNoob]

This is the first inning of my most recent game in my fantasy association. The day before we lost to this team 2-23. We are currently 11-56 for the season. Any comments?

[BaseballNoob]

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[Nukester]

My advice is to not pitch Schmidt any more [:D]

[BaseballNoob]

Unfortunately, Schmidt didn't pitch the previous day's 2-23 defeat. I'm starting to feel like a very frustrated manager. We can often get a lead but my pitchers can't hold it. I have 5 relievers if you count my closer, and, they all have low endurance (3-7, out of 100). I don't think I have ever seen them better than Very Worn Out, but even then they are throwing 89 mph fastballs, and my starters are doing that, as well. But the pitches are still getting clobbered. Maybe I should fire the whole team. 

[KG Erwin]

What got you this time was a combo of factors:

1) Wind blowing out at 19 mph -- you know that some long balls will be hit, so your defensive strategies were flawed;

2) Following on point 1, the combo of infield in and outfield deep is a recipe for disaster. The ball will almost inevitably fall in that gap. Personally, I don't alter the defensive settings too often. I don't use guard lines or outfield deep/shallow at all, and infield in seldomly. This isn't necessary IF your team has good defensive ratings.

Calling for pitch-outs CAN be effective IF your catcher has a good ARM rating. Otherwise, that speedster is gonna steal on you no matter what you do. You may as well just pitch to the next batter and hope for a double play.

Related to that, keep an eye on your pitcher's ability to hold runners. This DOES matter a great deal.

[BaseballNoob]

I guess I didn't expect the environmental conditions to be much of a factor, though I can imagine that 19 mph winds blowing toward the outfield are going to make the pitchers job a lot harder to begin with. That may've been more of a factor than I thought, as I was shocked that this pitcher was getting clobbered so badly, as he usually can get a few strikeouts, despite the suckiness of his organization.

What exactly does the Hold Runners ability mean? I thought it meant the skill in keeping runners close to their bases, which doesn't seem very helpful if the batters are hitting all of your pitches out of the park.

[Nukester]

Hold runners is a mechanism for holding a baserunner a step closr to the bag, lowering his chances of getting a good jump on a steal attempt. Since the majority of steal attempts are from 1st to 2nd base, I really only use this when there is a runner on 1st base. I really dont think you want to use it too often with a guy on 2nd thats my opinion anyway). The downfall to this is that it moves your firstbaseman over to the bag (he has his foot near the bag) and opens up the hole between 1st and 2nd base, allowing for an easier base hit

[BaseballNoob]

I thought Hold Runners was a passive skill that each pitcher has. There isn't an actual option to tell your pitcher to focus on this, is there?

[Nukester]

ORIGINAL: BaseballNoob

I thought Hold Runners was a passive skill that each pitcher has. There isn't an actual option to tell your pitcher to focus on this, is there?

Ok, yeah your right. In this game there is no option to hold the runner. Sorry about that

[KG Erwin]

The hold runner ability in PS, as I've experienced, is the ability to discourage a runner from making a steal attempt. I'm pretty sure that's what it means. You see this in real-life games every so often -- the pitcher just has to look over at first, and/or make a throw to the 1B to keep that potential runner tied to the bag. Some baserunners get gun-shy, others don't. In PS, this cat and mouse stuff is abstracted.

BaseballNoob, you are correct. In game terms, it's a passive skill.

SO, there are at least four factors to consider when deciding on calling a pitchout:

1) The pitcher's hold runner ability

2) The catcher's arm ability

3) The potential base stealer's speed

4) The overall game situation

[Bustoff]

Some time ago I had a fictional team that was at least as bad as the one you have. It was soooooooo depressing to watch them play. Although I had good hitters, they were not getting the clutch hits that score runs. The biggest problem, as I learned later, was that my players--nearly all of them--had feet made of solid lead. When choosing players in the draft, I did not pay enough attention to the Range rating. The opposing teams were getting a lot of hits that should have been outs because my guys couldn't cover their position well. That made the pitchers look bad, and I foolishly traded a couple of good arms before I realized what was happening.

It took 3 or 4 seasons, but I gradually built the team into a respectable unit...the hitting improved, and some of the lousy fielders got better--I dumped those that didn't. After 3 or 4 more seasons and some savvy trades, I had a gen-u-wine dynasty underway. I changed the team name from the *&#@$%& to the Gators and never looked back.

Patience, Noob. A lot of the fun in this game is taking a buncha stiffs and turning them into champs.

[BaseballNoob]

Thanks for the Pitch Out situational analysis, KG. So I'm thinking that in a potential Pitch Out situation, a good Arm on a catcher can make up for a bad Hold Runners on a pitcher, and vice versa.

And I'm with you, Bustoff; I'm not willing to give up on these guys yet. I'm sure that a lot of their problems are due to my inexperience. For example, I recently discovered that my full time shortstop was actually an outfielder, and had no skill whatsoever at playing shortstop, which might explain all of the errors he was making. I'm not sure how he got assigned there other than that when I created the team the AI Manager had no one else to put there. Once I realized more about the data available to me, I remedied that error. Now I'll have to check on that range situation!