The WakkaWikiWeb of Rob - HintsAndTips

2007-10-07 01:30:48

Comparison for /Hints And Tips of 2007-10-07 01:30:48 and 2007-10-11 23:25:42

Deletions:

licnacna

2006-07-27 21:23:32

Comparison for /Hints And Tips of 2006-07-27 21:23:32 and 2007-10-07 01:30:48

Additions:

licnacna
Manage your LPs well, they are your main route to long term success both in terms of income so you can live with higher wages once you are successful, and also your pool of current LPs can do a lot for your future if used wisely. Try to prioritise all the various things you can do at any time, and ensure that you do the time critical ones that are important to your progress at the right times, and that you have enough LPs at that point to do them. Planning to buy an impressive Free Agent when he drops below a certain level of wages, only to find you dont have to the LPs to do so that week can be very annoying.
It can be very tempting to let your trainer level slide to a quite low value, because its benefits are hidden to you, in the reduction in duration of injuries you receive each turn, and also in players gaining less fatigue as they play. However it can be worth investing in, as injuries at the wrong time can seriously damage your squad, and fatigue can be very problematic as well remember trainers work on all members of the squad, and the extra games from less fatigue and injury time can have a considerable value.

Income Merchandising

Merchandising is important for winning teams to offset the lost LPs you get from your losses, although even for teams that are struggling each Merchandising point is still effectively 100% profit. It is also no risk, in that there is no way to lose from investing in merchandising, the only down side is if you dont win much it can take a while to get the LPs back out.
Early on its likely your team isnt seeing much success, so you will probably find this is giving you quiet a few LPs (as you get 4LPs per loss), and your wages wont hurt too much unless your team has really stagnated while under computer control. As a general rule 90 wages is low and easy to pay, 100 is below average, and 110 is pretty high. Remember you pay this 18 times during a season, so every one extra wage makes a fair difference in the end.
One thing to check is the free agent market if it is available when you start, to see what sort of wage demands an equal or better replacement in the same position might make. Depending on how competitive a league is, and what point in the season, you might often find your expensive players you can get both better and cheaper replacements, although that wont always be the case.
Another thing to check is the real ability and usefulness of the player you are looking at. Things like a pitcher just lacking stamina means in practise he will perform as well as better ability more rounded pitchers, its just he will only be able to fit into a short reliever. For batters it will be more style and stadium related if you have a large ballpark then players speed might be more important than power, as you wont be hitting as many homers, and it will help fielding as well.

Income Stadium

The stadium is an important part of your income, as it is the main part you can affect that doesnt vary up or down with the wins you have in any given week. Essentially every one higher stadium level you can support means you should be able to have one higher wage bill.

Income Fans

As a general rule paying for fans if you arent expecting to get enough at the end of a season to reach 40,000 and have some carry over is of limited value although you will on average at least get your money back, and generally there will be some profit based on how many wins you had and when, it is heavily influenced by rounding ie the extra fans you bought must push you over into the next 1,000 fans so you get one more LP that turn.
Note that if you were to pay for 1020 fans it costs you 17 LP, you would expect to get a minimum of 18LP back plus they should grow during the season as you win, so a bit more. Of course if you reach 41000 you then lose some of the extra LPs of income (as fans income is capped to 40), however you will get half of your accumulated fans rolling over into the next season, depending on how many wins in the season this might even be more than 1000 extra fans the next season.
Gaining profit from fans is a very hit and miss affair. As a general rule I would say the main time it is beneficial is for a team that has finished rebuilding and is expecting a very good year (100+ wins), but only has the minimum amount of fans, so wont reach 48000 that season. In this case 50LP or so spent on fans before week one can be very profitable – up to about 150% profit. However it is risky, in that if you dont get the wins and get past 40000 fans then your profit will be more like 40–50% (70–90 wins), or less for lots of losses. Note you can also invest even more than this to try and have the same effect on less wins for example 150LP of fans with 70–80 wins is about 100% profit, but your risk of loss gets greater the more you put in.

Merchandising up to 200 100% of the money is kept, although it may take some time to get it back
High levels of stadium/trainers, if you want them that high (or up to two levels lower. Remember each level of stadium/trainers costs an extra 4 LPs, this works either way so the 29 LP it costs to get a level 15 stadium, you essentially only lose 4 LPs on when it declines at the end of the season, so you have kept 86% of your LPs (although tied up in having 13 stadium instead of 12 the next season), which is better than losing 50% to the excess rule. Even Stadium / Trainer? level 5 (costing 9 LPs) is technically better than losing to excess, however levels below that do lose you LPs.

The other way of storing LPs is by retaining your draft squad until after the season finishes you arent paying any wages during the post season anyway, so there is no reason to promote/waive them until after the season end completes. When you do waive or promote them you get the LPs as appropriate. In general I would say most teams should clear the draft squad in one way or another at this point, paying wages for extra people should only happen in unusual circumstances.
You can also store LPs in players while the free agent market is active, buying a 10/11* player with potential that is at a decent price at week 16, and selling it week 17 so that it gets bought early in the next season. Assuming he gets bought during preseason you can get back 100% of half his LPs transferred from season to season. You do run the risk if he isnt bought before he retires you lose all the money, or if he stays on the market until when he value halves you get no bonus. However in both these situations it would seem like you would actually step in and buy him for your squad anyway. This method is unreliable at best however, but an option a well set up team that doesnt want to invest in stadium/merc might consider to transfer LPs between seasons.
The main causes for this are the wage/value rises at the end of the season, and the drop in the number of fans at the beginning of the season. Combined this can be easily an increase of 10 wages, and a drop of 16 income. While a rebuilding team will have a fair amount of slack to deal with this, more established teams dont tend to have so much slack in their finances to survive until the mid season when income and the wage bill gets to a more reasonable point.

Generally promote/waive all your draftees before week 1 so you arent paying any extra wages, remember during a full season you pay at least the entire value of the player out in wages, so having extra players around is a liability, not an asset. This isnt always the best move however, as the draft squad does give you extra minor league spots for players to gain form in effectively.
Try not to drop players onto the free agency market early that are going to disappear (7* and below mostly) so you only get half their value if there is a reasonable chance someone will buy them, although players with 0 potential left it probably isnt too important.

This section is about getting the most out of the team you currently have choosing the right players, selecting line ups, analysing your pitchers and batters to see where they are most effective, etc.
When looking at the ability of your players use all of the information you have available to you where possible for example one 9* QUI pitcher might make a great starter, where another would be very poor. Also one Average Hitter might make .281 in a season, where another might only bat .175, this could be due to their variation within the Average category, other stats like speed, experience, fatigue or form and of course luck.
One of the key factors in man management in gameplan baseball is the management of form try and keep your in form players active so they can perform well and snowball even higher form ratings. Conversely players with negative form might be best served with a stint in the minor leagues while they turn things around. The new ADDFORM command could also be a useful tool here.
Remember from the rulebook a player with Average hitting and +9 Form is comparable to a Good hitter with no form, or an Excellent hitter with 9 Form, and Form affects all 4 stats, so it can be a very strong affect on a players performance.
What is the profile for a starting pitcher? Firstly to be a quality pitcher (high Acc, Con, Qui), but also to have enough Stamina to go deep into games without getting too fatigued. It does you little good to have either a starter that you pull after 5 innings when he isnt getting hit, or going to 4–5 fatigue every time so starting fatigued or limiting your options if you do play them deep.
You have a couple of options here, in my opinion, you can survive with pitchers in the rotation with Average Stamina if you have a five man rotation, if you want to drop to a four man rotation you really need each of them to Good stamina as a minimum remember one of your pitchers will pitch 3 games in a week with a 4 man rotation, so if things go wrong he could end up starting two fatigued each time. You will also want to keep Mx H?, Mx B?, Mx E? all tightly controlled in a 4 man rotation, even for the Excellent Stamina pitchers you still do not want to push them too hard.
There is an option in between which I used for a short while once, a 4.5 man rotation. This is where you have 4 decent starters, but they dont quite have the stamina to survive playing every 4th day. Instead you get a fifth starter, but always bump him down to 5th place at the start of each week, so he plays one game a week, and the rest all play 2.
You may also want to set the values for Max Hits, Max Batters, and Max Extra for your starters appropriate to their ability and stamina, so that the lower stamina members of the rotation dont get too fatigued by facing too many batters, and your best starters get more hits to play with.
Now that you have used up your best pitchers for your rotation, you need to sort out your relievers and chose whether to have a closer/setup man. Using a closer or not is really up to you, but to some extent it will be dictated by the pitchers you have left what you really want is someone with solid ability, but low stamina (or you would have made him a starter). Note the one thing I have noticed with closers is that they often tend to have good form compared to most relievers (as they get lots of saves and low ERA outings), obviously assuming they arent getting laced around the park.
I dont generally use a setup man, however if you have two pitchers that would make good closers you might use this. Setup relievers dont seem to get much form bonus though, so as a rule its probably better for him to be in the bullpen where he
If you have a high stamina low ability rookie around it can be worth making him your long inning reliever, as it is generally better to just give up a game than overwork your entire bullpen just to try and salvage one game you got quickly behind in. To do this you will probably want to set his Max Hits value to a moderately high number like 5 or 6, so he isnt taken out too easily.
When selecting your bullpen ie all the rest of your pitchers, ignore fatigue and stamina as the computer will automatically select the best (ranked by you) bullpen reliever that is not fatigued (if any arent). What you might want to do however is set the parameters of a low stamina reliever so that he doesnt come in at too early an inning, or limit the maximum number of batters he can face, so that he doesnt build up too much fatigue in a single game.

Batters Starters

Next select your infielders 1B, 2B, SS, 3B. In general you want to select your best players in these positions, however if you have a spot where your best isnt all that hot, it is worth considering substituting another batter from a similar fielding position, the most similar positions are 1B and 3B, and also 2B and SS. There is some degree of interchangeability between all the infield positions failing that, however the fielding penalty gets higher the further you go. In general you still want to have most or all of your players playing their designated positions, however thats not always possible, especially when injuries factor in.
If you have a decent second string catcher you might consider playing them, although in the Rulebook it doesnt explicitly state where they fit in best, it is likely they will be able to cover 1B (and by extension probably 3B) without fielding too poorly, as this is normal in the MLB when catchers get older.
In the outfield the interchangeability is fairly high, although ideally you will select one LF, one CF, and one RF, its less critical than the infield. Consider the All Star Game in the real MLB where you dont even vote on the separate positions, just for 3 OFs. However ideally you will have one of each, as can be seen from the real MLB most players have a strong preference to playing one particular spot in the field, as there are a number of nuances to each spot.

Batters Lineup Theory

There are two slightly opposing factors when you choose your lineup number of plate appearances, and complementary skills.
In terms of number plate appearances, the players near the top of the line up will get more plate appearances per game on average than a batter at the bottom of the line up, so in general you want your best players as near as possible to the top of the lineup. To put it into numbers each position higher in the order yields an 11% better chance of getting one extra plate appearance than the next in the order below it so first spot gets an extra appearance 89% more than the last in the order. With between 3 and 6 plate appearances being normal in a game without extra innings, this equates to a reasonably important factor in the long run.
Yes if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a hit|| Yes if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a home run||
No if the speedy player even gets on, they have a batter in front of them stopping them stealing/taking extra bases|| Yes if the first gets on base then he has increased possibility of scoring with a hit through steals or fast base running||
No home runs score you from any base, it doesnt matter how fast you run|| No most of the time only one runner can steal, and having a fast runner on doesnt help either of them do it particularly||
No Power batters leave the bases empty when successful so no advantage to hitting after one|| No There is no advantage here||
No Power hitters should clear the bases, so nothing for the second one to do||

Batting Sample Line Up

Note that at position 6 in this example you essentially are starting around again, but with your lesser players, but in the same general vein. Please note when I say Good above I am not referring to the class Good (Go) as shown on turnsheets, but just what is a good rating in terms of your squad.
Pinch hitters can be useful as they will only replace players who are not performing in a given game. In general a pinch hitter will probably have a decent Hit or Pow rating, but poor Fielding so that you dont want them on the field too much giving up errors, but if you are slightly behind then the bonus of strong hitting can offset the drop in fielding, especially in the last few innings where chances are the player might not even have to field a single ball (unless at 1B).
One thing it does highlight for me for getting players in form, particularly say inexperienced batters, either trading out the left handers vs left handed starters, or if they are right handed platooning them in.
A large part of long term success is of course the financial situation, this has been covered in earlier sections but should be reiterated here you cannot build a successful dynasty in the game without giving at least some attention to building a strong financial base, and keeping control of the wage bill. In this section however we will be looking at the other game aspects that affect your long term success managing your roster, draft, and the free agent market.
Key things to look at are experience and potential when considering long term success. Experience is important in that it will improve the players performances, and potential is key it that gives longevity to the player so that you can rely on them being able to perform in future seasons. Even if you draft 3 players and get 17 from free agency every season, you will still have 8 players that you had the previous season, so some amount of potential is always useful effectively you dont really want your average potential to drop below about 3, or it will be very difficult to replace everyone fast enough to maintain the success of the team.
Generally you will have a good idea of what you want from the draft, clearly one key facet is to try and free up a number of special actions so you can scout the list for the more dubious picks that you might have to make. Generally I dont scout the best players in the draft, as you dont really need to know what their stats exactly are to know you will bid on them, it is more the next tier where they may or may not be suitable for you. Remember to note that the draft list is in order by value within each ability range, not their ability (its possible they are related in some way, but I dont know of any such thing being said) so there is no implicit reason you should pick the highest person on the list in each section.
Firstly dont coach players who are already quite high in value, otherwise it accelerates the time before you will want to release them to reduce their wage demands. Coach players who are cheap, so that you dont risk losing them to free agency for a fairly long time, as you should be able to afford to keep them on your squad and benefit from the coached ability as long as possible. Remember if you have to put the player on the free agent market to get his wages under control you can then lose that investment in the coaching.
Note that the rulebook states that coaching is more effective on skills that are low, ie you get diminishing returns as you train the same skill higher and higher. From this we can assume it isnt very efficient to train your best hitter in hitting, and that as a general rule its probably best to use coaching to fill in gaps where a player is poor, where doing so will be useful. For example increasing the low fielding a player has so that he doesnt always have to be in the DH spot and can act as backup at least for his position.
Through free agency you have the ability to do two main things control your wage bill, and build or rebuild your squad.
The thing to remember with free agency is that it isnt just your fastest way of strengthening your team, it is also your opponents. The random free agents that appear when someone retires on the list tend to be not much different for the level of ability of draftees, although they often have some experience. Therefore most of your team strengthening is done by reducing the strength of other teams in the league.
One thing that is generally true though is not to get too attached to your players if you have a 7* reliever for 3 wages, and you see a 8* reliever for 3 or even 2 wages on the market (assuming similar experience/potential), then it might be a good idea to go for them and strengthen your team, although scout them first to check their balance of skills is appropriate for the role they will be playing in. As a rule I prefer to be bidding on a free agent per turn, there is usually something there that can reduce your wage bill, or strengthen your team, or both. Unlike some other games in baseball players dont have to get used to playing with each other to become effective, so a high turnover rate doesnt implicitly have any disadvantage.

Deletions:

Manage your LPs well, they are your main route to long term success � both in terms of income so you can live with higher wages once you are successful, and also your pool of current LPs can do a lot for your future if used wisely. Try to prioritise all the various things you can do at any time, and ensure that you do the time critical ones that are important to your progress at the right times, and that you have enough LPs at that point to do them. Planning to buy an impressive Free Agent when he drops below a certain level of wages, only to find you don�t have to the LPs to do so that week can be very annoying.
It can be very tempting to let your trainer level slide to a quite low value, because its benefits are hidden to you, in the reduction in duration of injuries you receive each turn, and also in players gaining less fatigue as they play. However it can be worth investing in, as injuries at the wrong time can seriously damage your squad, and fatigue can be very problematic as well � remember trainers work on all members of the squad, and the extra games from less fatigue and injury time can have a considerable value.

Income � Merchandising

Merchandising is important for winning teams to offset the lost LPs you get from your losses, although even for teams that are struggling each Merchandising point is still effectively 100% profit. It is also no risk, in that there is no way to lose from investing in merchandising, the only down side is if you don�t win much it can take a while to get the LPs back out.
Early on its likely your team isn�t seeing much success, so you will probably find this is giving you quiet a few LPs (as you get 4LPs per loss), and your wages wont hurt too much unless your team has really stagnated while under computer control. As a general rule 90 wages is low and easy to pay, 100 is below average, and 110 is pretty high. Remember you pay this 18 times during a season, so every one extra wage makes a fair difference in the end.
One thing to check is the free agent market if it is available when you start, to see what sort of wage demands an equal or better replacement in the same position might make. Depending on how competitive a league is, and what point in the season, you might often find your expensive players you can get both better and cheaper replacements, although that won�t always be the case.
Another thing to check is the real ability and usefulness of the player you are looking at. Things like a pitcher just lacking stamina means in practise he will perform as well as better ability more rounded pitchers, its just he will only be able to fit into a short reliever. For batters it will be more style and stadium related � if you have a large ballpark then players speed might be more important than power, as you wont be hitting as many homers, and it will help fielding as well.

Income � Stadium

The stadium is an important part of your income, as it is the main part you can affect that doesn�t vary up or down with the wins you have in any given week. Essentially every one higher stadium level you can support means you should be able to have one higher wage bill.

Income � Fans

As a general rule paying for fans if you aren�t expecting to get enough at the end of a season to reach 40,000 and have some carry over is of limited value � although you will on average at least get your money back, and generally there will be some profit based on how many wins you had and when, it is heavily influenced by rounding � ie the extra fans you bought must push you over into the next 1,000 fans so you get one more LP that turn.
Note that if you were to pay for 1020 fans it costs you 17 LP, you would expect to get a minimum of 18LP back � plus they should grow during the season as you win, so a bit more. Of course if you reach 41000 you then lose some of the extra LPs of income (as fans income is capped to 40), however you will get half of your accumulated fans rolling over into the next season, depending on how many wins in the season this might even be more than 1000 extra fans the next season.
Gaining profit from fans is a very hit and miss affair. As a general rule I would say the main time it is beneficial is for a team that has finished rebuilding and is expecting a very good year (100+ wins), but only has the minimum amount of fans, so wont reach 48000 that season. In this case 50LP or so spent on fans before week one can be very profitable – up to about 150% profit. However it is risky, in that if you don�t get the wins and get past 40000 fans then your profit will be more like 40–50% (70–90 wins), or less for lots of losses. Note you can also invest even more than this to try and have the same effect on less wins � for example 150LP of fans with 70–80 wins is about 100% profit, but your risk of loss gets greater the more you put in.

Merchandising up to 200 � 100% of the money is kept, although it may take some time to get it back
High levels of stadium/trainers, if you want them that high (or up to two levels lower. Remember each level of stadium/trainers costs an extra 4 LPs, this works either way � so the 29 LP it costs to get a level 15 stadium, you essentially only lose 4 LPs on when it declines at the end of the season, so you have kept 86% of your LPs (although tied up in having 13 stadium instead of 12 the next season), which is better than losing 50% to the excess rule. Even Stadium / Trainer? level 5 (costing 9 LPs) is technically better than losing to excess, however levels below that do lose you LPs.

The other way of storing LPs is by retaining your draft squad until after the season finishes � you aren�t paying any wages during the post season anyway, so there is no reason to promote/waive them until after the season end completes. When you do waive or promote them you get the LPs as appropriate. In general I would say most teams should clear the draft squad in one way or another at this point, paying wages for extra people should only happen in unusual circumstances.
You can also store LPs in players while the free agent market is active, buying a 10/11* player with potential that is at a decent price at week 16, and selling it week 17 so that it gets bought early in the next season. Assuming he gets bought during preseason you can get back 100% of half his LPs transferred from season to season. You do run the risk if he isn�t bought before he retires you lose all the money, or if he stays on the market until when he value halves you get no bonus. However in both these situations it would seem like you would actually step in and buy him for your squad anyway. This method is unreliable at best however, but an option a well set up team that doesn�t want to invest in stadium/merc might consider to transfer LPs between seasons.
The main causes for this are the wage/value rises at the end of the season, and the drop in the number of fans at the beginning of the season. Combined this can be easily an increase of 10 wages, and a drop of 16 income. While a rebuilding team will have a fair amount of slack to deal with this, more established teams don�t tend to have so much slack in their finances to survive until the mid season when income and the wage bill gets to a more reasonable point.

Generally promote/waive all your draftees before week 1 so you aren�t paying any extra wages, remember during a full season you pay at least the entire value of the player out in wages, so having extra players around is a liability, not an asset. This isn�t always the best move however, as the draft squad does give you extra minor league spots for players to gain form in effectively.
Try not to drop players onto the free agency market early that are going to disappear (7* and below mostly) so you only get half their value if there is a reasonable chance someone will buy them, although players with 0 potential left it probably isn�t too important.

This section is about getting the most out of the team you currently have � choosing the right players, selecting line ups, analysing your pitchers and batters to see where they are most effective, etc.
When looking at the ability of your players use all of the information you have available to you where possible � for example one 9* QUI pitcher might make a great starter, where another would be very poor. Also one Average Hitter might make .281 in a season, where another might only bat .175, this could be due to their variation within the Average category, other stats like speed, experience, fatigue or form � and of course luck.
One of the key factors in man management in gameplan baseball is the management of form � try and keep your in form players active so they can perform well and snowball even higher form ratings. Conversely players with negative form might be best served with a stint in the minor leagues while they turn things around. The new ADDFORM command could also be a useful tool here.
Remember from the rulebook � a player with Average hitting and +9 Form is comparable to a Good hitter with no form, or an Excellent hitter with �9 Form, and Form affects all 4 stats, so it can be a very strong affect on a players performance.
What is the profile for a starting pitcher? Firstly to be a quality pitcher (high Acc, Con, Qui), but also to have enough Stamina to go deep into games without getting too fatigued. It does you little good to have either a starter that you pull after 5 innings when he isn�t getting hit, or going to 4–5 fatigue every time so starting fatigued or limiting your options if you do play them deep.
You have a couple of options here, in my opinion, you can survive with pitchers in the rotation with Average Stamina if you have a five man rotation, if you want to drop to a four man rotation you really need each of them to Good stamina as a minimum � remember one of your pitchers will pitch 3 games in a week with a 4 man rotation, so if things go wrong he could end up starting two fatigued each time. You will also want to keep Mx H?, Mx B?, Mx E? all tightly controlled in a 4 man rotation, even for the Excellent Stamina pitchers you still do not want to push them too hard.
There is an option in between which I used for a short while once, a 4.5 man rotation. This is where you have 4 decent starters, but they don�t quite have the stamina to survive playing every 4th day. Instead you get a fifth starter, but always bump him down to 5th place at the start of each week, so he plays one game a week, and the rest all play 2.
You may also want to set the values for Max Hits, Max Batters, and Max Extra for your starters appropriate to their ability and stamina, so that the lower stamina members of the rotation don�t get too fatigued by facing too many batters, and your best starters get more hits to play with.
Now that you have used up your best pitchers for your rotation, you need to sort out your relievers and chose whether to have a closer/setup man. Using a closer or not is really up to you, but to some extent it will be dictated by the pitchers you have left � what you really want is someone with solid ability, but low stamina (or you would have made him a starter). Note the one thing I have noticed with closers is that they often tend to have good form compared to most relievers (as they get lots of saves and low ERA outings), obviously assuming they aren�t getting laced around the park.
I don�t generally use a setup man, however if you have two pitchers that would make good closers you might use this. Setup relievers don�t seem to get much form bonus though, so as a rule its probably better for him to be in the bullpen where he
If you have a high stamina low ability rookie around it can be worth making him your long inning reliever, as it is generally better to just give up a game than overwork your entire bullpen just to try and salvage one game you got quickly behind in. To do this you will probably want to set his Max Hits value to a moderately high number like 5 or 6, so he isn�t taken out too easily.
When selecting your bullpen � ie all the rest of your pitchers, ignore fatigue and stamina as the computer will automatically select the best (ranked by you) bullpen reliever that is not fatigued (if any aren�t). What you might want to do however is set the parameters of a low stamina reliever so that he doesn�t come in at too early an inning, or limit the maximum number of batters he can face, so that he doesn�t build up too much fatigue in a single game.

Batters � Starters

Next select your infielders � 1B, 2B, SS, 3B. In general you want to select your best players in these positions, however if you have a spot where your best isn�t all that hot, it is worth considering substituting another batter from a similar fielding position, the most similar positions are 1B and 3B, and also 2B and SS. There is some degree of interchangeability between all the infield positions failing that, however the fielding penalty gets higher the further you go. In general you still want to have most or all of your players playing their designated positions, however that�s not always possible, especially when injuries factor in.
If you have a decent second string catcher you might consider playing them, although in the Rulebook it doesn�t explicitly state where they fit in best, it is likely they will be able to cover 1B (and by extension probably 3B) without fielding too poorly, as this is normal in the MLB when catchers get older.
In the outfield the interchangeability is fairly high, although ideally you will select one LF, one CF, and one RF, its less critical than the infield. Consider the All Star Game in the real MLB where you don�t even vote on the separate positions, just for 3 OF�s. However ideally you will have one of each, as can be seen from the real MLB most players have a strong preference to playing one particular spot in the field, as there are a number of nuances to each spot.

Batters � Lineup Theory

There are two slightly opposing factors when you choose your lineup � number of plate appearances, and complementary skills.
In terms of number plate appearances, the players near the top of the line up will get more plate appearances per game on average than a batter at the bottom of the line up, so in general you want your best players as near as possible to the top of the lineup. To put it into numbers each position higher in the order yields an 11% better chance of getting one extra plate appearance than the next in the order below it � so first spot gets an extra appearance 89% more than the last in the order. With between 3 and 6 plate appearances being normal in a game without extra innings, this equates to a reasonably important factor in the long run.
Yes � if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a hit|| Yes � if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a home run||
No � if the speedy player even gets on, they have a batter in front of them stopping them stealing/taking extra bases|| Yes � if the first gets on base then he has increased possibility of scoring with a hit through steals or fast base running||
No � home runs score you from any base, it doesn�t matter how fast you run|| No � most of the time only one runner can steal, and having a fast runner on doesn�t help either of them do it particularly||
No � Power batters leave the bases empty when successful so no advantage to hitting after one|| No � There is no advantage here||
No � Power hitters should clear the bases, so nothing for the second one to do||

Batting � Sample Line Up

Note that at position 6 in this example you essentially are starting around again, but with your lesser players, but in the same general vein. Please note when I say �Good� above I am not referring to the class Good (Go) as shown on turnsheets, but just what is a good rating in terms of your squad.
Pinch hitters can be useful as they will only replace players who are not performing in a given game. In general a pinch hitter will probably have a decent Hit or Pow rating, but poor Fielding so that you don�t want them on the field too much giving up errors, but if you are slightly behind then the bonus of strong hitting can offset the drop in fielding, especially in the last few innings where chances are the player might not even have to field a single ball (unless at 1B).
One thing it does highlight for me � for getting players in form, particularly say inexperienced batters, either trading out the left handers vs left handed starters, or if they are right handed platooning them in.
A large part of long term success is of course the financial situation, this has been covered in earlier sections but should be reiterated here � you cannot build a successful dynasty in the game without giving at least some attention to building a strong financial base, and keeping control of the wage bill. In this section however we will be looking at the other game aspects that affect your long term success � managing your roster, draft, and the free agent market.
Key things to look at are experience and potential when considering long term success. Experience is important in that it will improve the players performances, and potential is key it that gives longevity to the player so that you can rely on them being able to perform in future seasons. Even if you draft 3 players and get 17 from free agency every season, you will still have 8 players that you had the previous season, so some amount of potential is always useful � effectively you don�t really want your average potential to drop below about 3, or it will be very difficult to replace everyone fast enough to maintain the success of the team.
Generally you will have a good idea of what you want from the draft, clearly one key facet is to try and free up a number of special actions so you can scout the list for the more dubious picks that you might have to make. Generally I don�t scout the best players in the draft, as you don�t really need to know what their stats exactly are to know you will bid on them, it is more the next tier where they may or may not be suitable for you. Remember to note that the draft list is in order by value within each ability range, not their ability (its possible they are related in some way, but I don�t know of any such thing being said) so there is no implicit reason you should pick the highest person on the list in each section.
Firstly don�t coach players who are already quite high in value, otherwise it accelerates the time before you will want to release them to reduce their wage demands. Coach players who are cheap, so that you don�t risk losing them to free agency for a fairly long time, as you should be able to afford to keep them on your squad and benefit from the coached ability as long as possible. Remember if you have to put the player on the free agent market to get his wages under control you can then lose that investment in the coaching.
Note that the rulebook states that coaching is more effective on skills that are low, ie you get diminishing returns as you train the same skill higher and higher. From this we can assume it isn�t very efficient to train your best hitter in hitting, and that as a general rule its probably best to use coaching to fill in gaps where a player is poor, where doing so will be useful. For example increasing the low fielding a player has so that he doesn�t always have to be in the DH spot and can act as backup at least for his position.
Through free agency you have the ability to do two main things � control your wage bill, and build or rebuild your squad.
The thing to remember with free agency is that it isn�t just your fastest way of strengthening your team, it is also your opponents. The random free agents that appear when someone retires on the list tend to be not much different for the level of ability of draftees, although they often have some experience. Therefore most of your team strengthening is done by reducing the strength of other teams in the league.
One thing that is generally true though is not to get too attached to your players � if you have a 7* reliever for 3 wages, and you see a 8* reliever for 3 or even 2 wages on the market (assuming similar experience/potential), then it might be a good idea to go for them and strengthen your team, although scout them first to check their balance of skills is appropriate for the role they will be playing in. As a rule I prefer to be bidding on a free agent per turn, there is usually something there that can reduce your wage bill, or strengthen your team, or both. Unlike some other games in baseball players don�t have to get used to playing with each other to become effective, so a high turnover rate doesn�t implicitly have any disadvantage.

2004-08-01 00:28:39

Comparison for /Hints And Tips of 2004-08-01 00:28:39 and 2006-07-27 21:23:32

Additions:

Batter	Pitcher	At Bats	Average	Apps	OBP
L	L	2948	.287	3212	.319
L	R	4596	.322	5161	.372
R	L	5455	.315	6033	.356
R	R	9446	.289	10358	.328

Deletions:

Batter
Pitcher
At Bats
Average
Apps
OBP
L
L
2948
.287
3212
.319
L
R
4596
.322
5161
.372
R
L
5455
.315
6033
.356
R
R
9446
.289
10358
.328

2004-08-01 00:26:44

Comparison for /Hints And Tips of 2004-08-01 00:26:44 and 2004-08-01 00:28:39

Additions:

Merchandising up to 200 � 100% of the money is kept, although it may take some time to get it back
High levels of stadium/trainers, if you want them that high (or up to two levels lower. Remember each level of stadium/trainers costs an extra 4 LPs, this works either way � so the 29 LP it costs to get a level 15 stadium, you essentially only lose 4 LPs on when it declines at the end of the season, so you have kept 86% of your LPs (although tied up in having 13 stadium instead of 12 the next season), which is better than losing 50% to the excess rule. Even Stadium / Trainer? level 5 (costing 9 LPs) is technically better than losing to excess, however levels below that do lose you LPs.
Keep it. Fans, low levels of stadium/trainers, etc are all worse that just holding the cash and letting it get halved.

Batting � Sample Line Up

1 Good HIT and Best SPD
2 Good HIT and with speed if available
3 Best HIT
4 Good HIT and Best POW
5 Good HIT and Good POW
6 Decent SPD
7 Decent HIT
8 Decent HIT
9 Decent POW

Pinch Hitters and Platooning

Potential and Experience

Drafting

Your Squad and Stadium

Deletions:

1.Merchandising up to 200 � 100% of the money is kept, although it may take some time to get it back
2.High levels of stadium/trainers, if you want them that high (or up to two levels lower. Remember each level of stadium/trainers costs an extra 4 LPs, this works either way � so the 29 LP it costs to get a level 15 stadium, you essentially only lose 4 LPs on when it declines at the end of the season, so you have kept 86% of your LPs (although tied up in having 13 stadium instead of 12 the next season), which is better than losing 50% to the excess rule. Even Stadium / Trainer? level 5 (costing 9 LPs) is technically better than losing to excess, however levels below that do lose you LPs.
3.Keep it. Fans, low levels of stadium/trainers, etc are all worse that just holding the cash and letting it get halved.
Batting � Sample Line Up
1Good HIT and Best SPD
2Good HIT and with speed if available
3Best HIT
4Good HIT and Best POW
5Good HIT and Good POW
6Decent SPD
7Decent HIT
8Decent HIT
9Decent POW
Pinch Hitters and Platooning
General
Potential and Experience
Drafting
Your Squad and Stadium

2004-08-01 00:23:14

Comparison for /Hints And Tips of 2004-08-01 00:23:14 and 2004-08-01 00:26:44

Additions:

Contents

Economic Hints and Tips

End of Season Economic Management

Batters Lineup Theory

Batting Sample Line Up

Pinch Hitters and Platooning

General

Potential and Experience

Drafting

Your Squad and Stadium

End of Season Economic Management

Limit the amount of 0 potential players you keep for a final season to 3, so that you can immediately drop them by promoting your draftees into their spots in the roster before week 1.
Generally promote/waive all your draftees before week 1 so you aren�t paying any extra wages, remember during a full season you pay at least the entire value of the player out in wages, so having extra players around is a liability, not an asset. This isn�t always the best move however, as the draft squad does give you extra minor league spots for players to gain form in effectively.
Try not to drop players onto the free agency market early that are going to disappear (7* and below mostly) so you only get half their value if there is a reasonable chance someone will buy them, although players with 0 potential left it probably isn�t too important.
Do wage control from the start of the season, worrying about strengthening once you are financially stable as a rule.

Short Term Success

Pitching – Starters

Pitching – Relievers

Batters � Starters

Batters � Lineup Theory

First Batter	Second Batter	Complementary?
HIT	HIT	Yes � if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a hit
HIT	POW	Yes � if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a home run
HIT	SPD	No � if the speedy player even gets on, they have a batter in front of them stopping them stealing/taking extra bases
SPD	HIT	Yes � if the first gets on base then he has increased possibility of scoring with a hit through steals or fast base running
SPD	POW	No � home runs score you from any base, it doesn�t matter how fast you run
SPD	SPD	No � most of the time only one runner can steal, and having a fast runner on doesn�t help either of them do it particularly
POW	HIT	No � Power batters leave the bases empty when successful so no advantage to hitting after one
POW	SPD	No � There is no advantage here
POW	POW	No � Power hitters should clear the bases, so nothing for the second one to do

Deletions:

{toc}
End of Season Economic Management
Limit the amount of 0 potential players you keep for a final season to 3, so that you can immediately drop them by promoting your draftees into their spots in the roster before week 1.
Generally promote/waive all your draftees before week 1 so you aren�t paying any extra wages, remember during a full season you pay at least the entire value of the player out in wages, so having extra players around is a liability, not an asset. This isn�t always the best move however, as the draft squad does give you extra minor league spots for players to gain form in effectively.
Try not to drop players onto the free agency market early that are going to disappear (7* and below mostly) so you only get half their value if there is a reasonable chance someone will buy them, although players with 0 potential left it probably isn�t too important.
Do wage control from the start of the season, worrying about strengthening once you are financially stable as a rule.
Short Term Success
Pitching – Starters
Pitching – Relievers
Batters � Starters
Batters � Lineup Theory
First Batter
Second Batter
Complementary?
HIT
HIT
Yes � if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a hit
HIT
POW
Yes � if the first gets on base then the second has the possibility of scoring them with a home run
HIT
SPD
No � if the speedy player even gets on, they have a batter in front of them stopping them stealing/taking extra bases
SPD
HIT
Yes � if the first gets on base then he has increased possibility of scoring with a hit through steals or fast base running
SPD
POW
No � home runs score you from any base, it doesn�t matter how fast you run
SPD
SPD
No � most of the time only one runner can steal, and having a fast runner on doesn�t help either of them do it particularly
POW
HIT
No � Power batters leave the bases empty when successful so no advantage to hitting after one
POW
SPD
No � There is no advantage here
POW
POW
No � Power hitters should clear the bases, so nothing for the second one to do

The WakkaWikiWeb of Rob - HintsAndTips

2007-10-07 01:30:48

2006-07-27 21:23:32

Income  Merchandising

Income  Stadium

Income  Fans

Batters  Starters

Batters  Lineup Theory

Batting  Sample Line Up

Income � Merchandising

Income � Stadium

Income � Fans

Batters � Starters

Batters � Lineup Theory

Batting � Sample Line Up

2004-08-01 00:28:39

2004-08-01 00:26:44

Batting � Sample Line Up

Pinch Hitters and Platooning

Potential and Experience

Drafting

Your Squad and Stadium

2004-08-01 00:23:14

End of Season Economic Management

Short Term Success

Pitching – Starters

Pitching – Relievers

Batters � Starters

Batters � Lineup Theory

Income Merchandising

Income Stadium

Income Fans

Batters Starters

Batters Lineup Theory

Batting Sample Line Up