Reasons For Team Underperforming?

[jaegermeisterog]

Currently in a Gold league, and my team is getting demolished in pitching, batting, and fielding. Why is that?


vs. RHP:
1. SS - J. Robinson (100)
2. RF - R. Jackson (100)
3. CF - O. Charleston (100)
4. 1B - J. Foxx (100)
5. DH - J. Giambi (100)
6. LF - E. Slaughter (100)
7. 3B - E. Chavez (99)
8. 2B - B. Boone (100)
9. C - R. Campanella (100)


vs. LHP:
1. SS - J. Robinson (100)
2. CF - J. Wynn (100)
3. LF - A. Simmons (100)
4. 1B - J. Foxx (100)
5. DH - N. Garciaparra (99)
6. 2B - B. Boone (100)
7. RF - E. Slaughter (100)
8. C - R. Campanella (100)
9. 3B - E. Chavez (99)


Bench:
C - W. Cooper (100)


5-Man:
LHP V. Blue (100)
RHP T. Hudson (100)
LHP R. Waddell (100)
RHP M. Brown (100)
LHP L. Grove (100)


Bullpen:
CL - B. Kim (100)
SU/CL - J. Valverde (100)
MR - D. Eckersley (98)
MR/SP - E. Plank (98)

MR/SU - F. Rodriguez (100)
MR/LR - C. Young (100)
MR/LR - A. Rusie (100)
MR/LR - S. Paige (100)


Global/pitching settings are set to Sabermetric, individual player offensive strategies adjusted to their strengths/weaknesses.


This same roster got blown out repeatedly last season (ended up somehow clinching the division at 81-81 with a -29 run differential), this current season that just started my team had logged 15 Errors over the first 12 games, 3 of them in 1 game by 1 catcher. Is this just bad luck? Are there things I'm missing in regards to managing a ballclub ?


Can add additional info if needed

[bailey]

The value of catcher ability cannot be underestimated -- 100 is the absolute minimum. Freehan can be built for less than 25K (CA = 105) Detroit team mission #3. His platoon partner is McCarver also 105, but is only found in packs. The wealthier teams use I. Rodriguez and Dickey (or the new Berra). Their CA is 106. 1 point of CA is worth an extra 200K for each player compared to the budget option of Freehan/McCarver. That is how important CA is, if you don't believe me.

[jaegermeisterog]

Campanella has an overall rating of 108, CAbil 96 / CArm 83, his backup Cooper has an overall 66 with a 53 CAbil / 72 Carm

would it be worth replacing Cooper with a platoonmate like Austin Hedges who has a 117 overall with 100 CAbil?

the next best available catchers in my roster pool are Biz Mackey (96/95/68), Jeff Mathis (93/92/68), and Buddy Rosar (101/86/84)

[Warfsu]

Originally Posted by jaegermeisterog

Currently in a Gold league, and my team is getting demolished in pitching, batting, and fielding. Why is that?


vs. RHP:
1. SS - J. Robinson (100)
2. RF - R. Jackson (100)
3. CF - O. Charleston (100)
4. 1B - J. Foxx (100)
5. DH - J. Giambi (100)
6. LF - E. Slaughter (100)
7. 3B - E. Chavez (99)
8. 2B - B. Boone (100)
9. C - R. Campanella (100)


vs. LHP:
1. SS - J. Robinson (100)
2. CF - J. Wynn (100)
3. LF - A. Simmons (100)
4. 1B - J. Foxx (100)
5. DH - N. Garciaparra (99)
6. 2B - B. Boone (100)
7. RF - E. Slaughter (100)
8. C - R. Campanella (100)
9. 3B - E. Chavez (99)


Bench:
C - W. Cooper (100)


5-Man:
LHP V. Blue (100)
RHP T. Hudson (100)
LHP R. Waddell (100)
RHP M. Brown (100)
LHP L. Grove (100)


Bullpen:
CL - B. Kim (100)
SU/CL - J. Valverde (100)
MR - D. Eckersley (98)
MR/SP - E. Plank (98)

MR/SU - F. Rodriguez (100)
MR/LR - C. Young (100)
MR/LR - A. Rusie (100)
MR/LR - S. Paige (100)


Global/pitching settings are set to Sabermetric, individual player offensive strategies adjusted to their strengths/weaknesses.


This same roster got blown out repeatedly last season (ended up somehow clinching the division at 81-81 with a -29 run differential), this current season that just started my team had logged 15 Errors over the first 12 games, 3 of them in 1 game by 1 catcher. Is this just bad luck? Are there things I'm missing in regards to managing a ballclub ?


Can add additional info if needed

I’m certainly no authority on how one should manage their roster, but a lot of the guys you currently use I’ve either never used or collected over weeks ago. I’ve been in Diamond for some time now, but I assume Gold rosters now almost entirely consist of 100 rated guys, so you really have to deep dive in what you guys excel at.

For instance, weeks ago, I started keeping a spreadsheet of all my 100 rated players at each position. I then compared each guy by contact, gap, power, eye, and k (with showing more importance to contact, gap, and k) and compiled a ranking of each. I then used their fielding rating and determined who my best hitter at each position was vs righties and lefties, while also considering defense. I did something similar with pitchers, while prioritizing movement and control.

At the very least, this should allow you to start with your best overall roster to start the year. After that, it’s just tinkering until you find things that work. Personally, I feel I could use some work on my hitting utilization, as I rarely consistently hit all season, and I probably stick with guys too long. I usually excel at pitching, specifically bullpen. I generally only have 6 guys in the bullpen, and will routinely send guys to reserve for fresh arms. In season, I’m prioritizing guys who are in good form. If they’re struggling, I tend to keep them on reserve, even if they’re a Gagne, Smoltz, etc. I probably have at least 20 guys I have no issue using out of the bullpen.

[bailey]

Jackie Robinson (there are two) but neither make good shortstops. The range is just bad for SS on each card. Range is the most important characteristic for SS defense and the higher the better. Only with 105+ range can I sleep at night.

[jaegermeisterog]

Originally Posted by bailey

Jackie Robinson (there are two) but neither make good shortstops. The range is just bad for SS on each card. Range is the most important characteristic for SS defense and the higher the better. Only with 105+ range can I sleep at night.

I have the Negro League edition for Robinson, is his 101 overall rating with 95 range really that inadequate?



his latest season he posted 88 doubleplays, 5 errors, a .990 pct fielding at SS


What would be a good candidate to consider for replacement? I can get ride of Boone at 2B if I can get an adequate replacement for Jackie, currently all I have is Jeter

[bailey]

Originally Posted by jaegermeisterog

Campanella has an overall rating of 108, CAbil 96 / CArm 83, his backup Cooper has an overall 66 with a 53 CAbil / 72 Carm

would it be worth replacing Cooper with a platoonmate like Austin Hedges who has a 117 overall with 100 CAbil?

the next best available catchers in my roster pool are Biz Mackey (96/95/68), Jeff Mathis (93/92/68), and Buddy Rosar (101/86/84)

I would certainly not use Hedges and Mathis in gold league.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by jaegermeisterog

I have the Negro League edition for Robinson, is his 101 overall rating with 95 range really that inadequate?



his latest season he posted 88 doubleplays, 5 errors, a .990 pct fielding at SS


What would be a good candidate to consider for replacement? I can get ride of Boone at 2B if I can get an adequate replacement for Jackie, currently all I have is Jeter

Yes, 95 is awful at SS when you can get 105 by getting Tulowitzki (L10 ~ 30) and Arky Vaughn (L10 ~55). My gold team uses NL Robinson as backup 2B only, but is otherwise full time DH. My 2B is Nap Lajoie (L10 ~ 81) because of defensive range = 104.

Offerings are slim on the AH right now, I think, because many active players are hoarding their packs in anticipation of Kris' show next Thursday.

[dishnet34]

Yeah, I'd have to agree with bailey - I suggest moving Jackie off of SS and moving him to 2B, and finding someone with 100+ range at the very least at SS. NL Jackie may be getting outdated when it comes to the best 2B in the game, but he's still serviceable there if you have no better options.

As for who to target with SS, I agree with searching for Franchise Hero Tulowitzki or Arky Vaughn, but you might want to consider guys such as Dave Bancroft (38k L10), Pee Wee Reese (27k L10), or Andrelton Simmons (24k L10). Might not hit much, but you'll get pretty good defense from them. Simmons and Bancroft are in the top 5 of range ratings among SSs out there.

As for some other spots, I'd advise looking somewhere else for a vL CF and vR RF. Wynn and Jackson are decent, but they won't get you much of anywhere in Gold League (especially Jackson, because he strikes out too often), plus Wynn's range in CF of 85 isn't that great. I'd suggest starting Slaughter full-time in RF for right now and look into guys like Curt Flood (38k L10) or Paul Blair (25k L10) if you can find them, in terms of budget options. For RF if you don't want Slaughter, look into finding a guy like Paul Waner (29k L10). Good, cheap contact/Avoid K bat with some decent defense in RF (would be a slight downgrade from Jackson probably with the glove).

For pitching, Amos Rusie probably needs to go sooner rather than later, but that's just me. Lot of better guys with better control out there.

[professor ape]

I’m assuming that the characteristics of Gold leagues are getting closer to Diamond. I have just a few comments to add onto the conversation.
- AvK gets to be critical for your hitters as pitchers at the higher levels will eat anyone alive with ratings lower than 80.
- Watch the platoon splits. Many players have OK combined ratings but are effectively useless either vL or vR.
- While you want Stu, Mov, and Con to all be strong, Mov becomes incredibly important at higher levels. If I could only look at one thing for a pitcher, it would be the Mov rating against the opposite side (e.g. the vL Mov rating for a RHP and the var for a LHP)

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by professor ape

I’m assuming that the characteristics of Gold leagues are getting closer to Diamond.

Slowly, but probably surely. The big gulf is in the best FH3 cards, I waltzed back out 111-51 with some of them, only getting beat in the Gold series by the one guy I saw who had all of them. Compare with Diamond where I'm the only guy in my division not to have completed FH3 and am consequently headed back down again.

The answer to the OP's original question is simple, his cards are not good enough for that level. The best he can realistically hope for is to stay in it for as long as possible while he acquires better players, and hopefully some of the advice given will help him do that.

[Torgonius]

As the guy who squeaked by Hertston in those gold finals last week, I didn't finish off FH3 until Friday. I needed to sell of some ridiculously overpriced tournament reward cards to be able to afford the ridiculously overpriced silver cards I needed.

Just missing 1 card and the toppers, I steamrolled gold after having been on the receiving end the week before in Diamond. In Diamond, I was in a division with a combined 9 diamond titles and 1 PeL title, and won 69 games all year.

This week, I'm in a Diamond division with 8 combined Diamond titles between the other 4 teams, and so far 2 games ahead and a 3 game losing streak away from 4th place.

My advice for OP is to talk to some of the groups in game and join the one he thinks is the best fit for him. Learn how the game actually works (because it's not traditional baseball and speaking only for myself that was a hard lesson to process). That will help in understanding why cards tend to perform the way they do, and which cards you can get to at least stay competitive longer while working to acquire better cards.

[ncap99]

Depends on what your goal is. If you want to make it to diamond (where honestly, you'll spend one season) find your best 5 lefty starters sorted by movement and control and run a lefty cheese comp out there.

If you want your team to actually get better long term, focus on acquiring PP from the incremental game awards by running a ton of speed demons out there (stolen bases are the most consistent way that I've found) with your team cranked up to max aggressiveness. You aren't going to win a ton of games.

You should also focus on your bronze tournament team to get that pack income pretty steady at 15ish a day or so, make sure to watch any streams on twitch to get free silver packs and make sure you're drafting perfect draft daily teams every day. The new missions have caused tournament reward card prices to skyrocket and you can make some big chunks of PP even with gold reward cards.

[professor ape]

Assuming this is your first year playing PT, just use the rest of this cycle to get familiar with the game mechanics, explore the tournaments, and have fun. You’ll be in a better place to start up PT23 in the spring when it is launched.

[diamond3017]

I've noticed that the Gold has level gotten really, really cutthroat in the past few weeks.

I finished with around 80-85 wins per season in Gold between 2036 and 2046, with a positive run differential nearly every year, and even got promoted to Diamond one season.

Now, I'm yo-yoing between Gold and Silver and getting outscored by ~100 runs per year in Gold. All while significantly upgrading my roster.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by Torgonius

As the guy who squeaked by Hertston in those gold finals last week, I didn't finish off FH3 until Friday. I needed to sell of some ridiculously overpriced tournament reward cards to be able to afford the ridiculously overpriced silver cards I needed.

LOL.. hi there. Yeah, thought I was going to get swept at one point, but at least the boys avoided that indignity .

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by diamond3017

I've noticed that the Gold has level gotten really, really cutthroat in the past few weeks.

I finished with around 80-85 wins per season in Gold between 2036 and 2046, with a positive run differential nearly every year, and even got promoted to Diamond one season.

Now, I'm yo-yoing between Gold and Silver and getting outscored by ~100 runs per year in Gold. All while significantly upgrading my roster.

As we get later in the cycle, the higher level cards will continue to be more prevalent in Gold. Use the rest of this cycle to play around and see what does and not work for you. Just remember that even a full season is a relatively small sample size for a player. Dumb random luck can swing the same player between an MVP level season and one that is below average. It’s quite amazing.

[Fenixdown]

Honestly the best advice (as sad as it is) is to hope you can lose your way down to at least silver, if not lower, and use those cards to decimate the teams that still use things like Live series mission rewards. Then flip the rewards of well over 30k+ PP a season to upgrade a position each week.

I just started a totally new Fully FTP team. Completed every live mission, vendored every card but Young and Slaughter, sold any from packs that might net high amounts of PP (anything for historical selects missions, as an example), and bought a full lineup of perfect hitters. While it's not gonna get me to Perfect, or Diamond, and might luck into gold on occasion, it's doing it's job to work me up the lowbie ranks.

The best thing any team can do that's struggling is work your way down. And be smart about it, if you try to weasel your way there.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Fenixdown

Honestly the best advice (as sad as it is) is to hope you can lose your way down to at least silver, if not lower, and use those cards to decimate the teams that still use things like Live series mission rewards. Then flip the rewards of well over 30k+ PP a season to upgrade a position each week.

I just started a totally new Fully FTP team. Completed every live mission, vendored every card but Young and Slaughter, sold any from packs that might net high amounts of PP (anything for historical selects missions, as an example), and bought a full lineup of perfect hitters. While it's not gonna get me to Perfect, or Diamond, and might luck into gold on occasion, it's doing it's job to work me up the lowbie ranks.

The best thing any team can do that's struggling is work your way down. And be smart about it, if you try to weasel your way there.

As a F2P guy, I tend to disagree with this strategy. To work your way down, you need to sacrifice a week which means you’ll get a lot less achievements during that week in the hope of having a big week at the lower level. It may be a net positive but I’ll bet it’s not that much and while tanking you lose a week in working to figure out what players are best for you. You also learn almost nothing from your weeks in the lower leagues.

I’d say to alway focus on improving your main team. Learn what you can from your successes and failures. On the side, put some effort into building a solid Tournament team. My Bronze Bo7 team has been the cornerstone of my strategy as it has fed me with packs all season.

[TwanLX2000]

I apologize… a piece of hardware in my computer died, or I would’ve replied a week ago. I just thought it would be good to share some context, as one who has made the gold postseason with 90+ wins more often than not. I’m currently in the LCS (which means another ill-suited trip to DL), but as many have said, your team would’ve competed in gold a couple months ago. As is, there are weaknesses that will be preyed upon, the same as my team will be next week. But I think it’s important to see the difference between your situation and a consistent gold winner may not require a good deal of PP, but a more efficient building strategy. The others already touched on hitters avoid K, pitching control / movement, investing in low-tournament teams…I won’t elaborate further. I thought it might be nice to see what the competition in your league is doing differently so that you can evaluate where upgrades are most necessary.

vR:
1) Raines DH (S)
2) Gwynn RF (L)
3) Charleston CF (L)
4) Caminiti 3B (S)
5) Soto LF (L)
6) Franco SS (S)
7) Mauer CA (L)
8) Zobrist 2B (S)
9) Mattingly 1B (L)

vL:
1) Raines LF (S)
2) Gwynn CF (L)
3) Hellmann 1B (R)
4) Caminiti 3B (S)
5) Robinson 2B (R)
6) Franco DH (S)
7) Carter CA (R)
8) Zobrist RF (S)
9) Appling SS (R)

Rotation:
1) Maddux (R)
2) Burnes (R)
3) Walsh (R)
4) Wheeler (R)
5) Schilling (R)

Bullpen:
CL Eovaldi (R)
SU Rodriguez (R)
SU Rodon (L)
MR Buehler (R)
MR Waddell (L)
MR D. Martinez (R)
LR Wells (L)
LR Stieb (R)

(Robinson is the NEG version; all active players are the Selects version)

A few things to note: 1) Everyone has a role on this team. Only a couple of these players will stand out in the least at the next level, but they all contribute within their strengths, whether that be multi-position, switch-hitting, speed efficiency, defense, etc. Likewise, my bullpen ends up with a relatively close number of innings to one another. 2) They get a fair amount of rest during the regular season, which means opponents usually see the best version of me, regardless of platoon or number of days I’ve played in a row. 3) I’ve only completed 3 FH3s to get to this place. I’m a card or two away on all of the others, but it’s important to target your mission resources on what you need to improve now. 4) This can be done much more affordably than the amount of PP I spent to build this, and this was completely F2P. 5) None of this is perfect as-is, but an example of what can win in gold with the proper strategy.