What to Do?

[ballmark]

So I built a huge ballpark in Sim1995. Seven years and only one winning season later, I switched from grass to turf and switched strategy to a pitching, speed, and defense style from the more traditional slugger-based batting method.

It's now going on Sim2025 (22 years of results for data gathering) and I have had only seven more .500+ seasons. I have been to the playoffs just three times in that span, the World Series twice, and won once.

I'm a veteran owner and feel that I should have been having a much higher success rate. So my question today is ... if I abandon this big turf park strategy (leaning heavily toward doing so) and go to a bandbox ballpark ... what kind of pitcher do I need to be rostering? High Control or High Velocity to keep my opponent scoring lower than my own team?

The rest of the details: It's a salary league (meaning I can fix things quickly and seldom is a rebuild needed) and I usually sign 4-5 red letter SP and at least 2-3 red letter RP. My hitters - unless I'm grooming a young player - are always red letter. In the past couple of years I've been signing more power hitters since the "small ball" style of play hasn't been working well. My roster is here, if interested.

Any other thoughts also welcome.

[Hamilton2]

If you are going to have a huge park, you want to sign excellent hitters and divert your pitching budget appropriately. There is no need to top-line pitching in a huge park. You have to get the best hitters. You also should evaluate the number of players you are carrying in the minors. Quite frankly, you are probably wasting cap space developing mediocre talent and could gain a couple million to bid on quality roster players if you just waive those fringy prospect guys.

[Michael1]

The Royals of the 76-85 era used the big power hitter and 8 decent power high contact guys and excellent defense and the stolen base was a big weapon. The Cardinals under Herzog were called the St.Louis Track team. Both had fake grass fields.

[ballmark]

Quite frankly, you are probably wasting cap space developing mediocre talent and could gain a couple million to bid on quality roster players if you just waive those fringy prospect guys.

Yeah, I should ... but I like to keep a 40-man roster as my personal protest against the .05 cap penalty, which results in some less-than-stellar (let's admit it, godawful) players to stay under the hard $80 mill cap.

As a general rule of thumb, I budget $45 million for pitching ($30 and $15) with another $30 mill for hitters, and $5 mill for minors. I could probably spend a little less on pitching and a little more on hitting upgrades, and tweak my prefs to run more, though I do have 4th highest SB total in the league. (But on the other hand, the % isn't that great.)

I appreciate the input, fellas.

[hclobo]

Is your team doing well on the road? if it is, then sure, adjusting your ballpark may help, if not, you need to adjust the method in which you select players.

[ballmark]

Hmmm. Good point.

12-6 at home; 10-14 on the road.

Will have to look harder at the players I chase in free agency.