The value of the homerun (long-winded vent)

[voovits]

It can be very frustrating when you lay down what seems to be a pretty good game plan, see the plan working the way it is supposed to, yet get sub-par results.
I'm in an 80's mystery card league, in Royals stadium. For those not familiar with those stadiums, it's 1-16 singles, 1-2 homeruns.
Obviously, small ball was my plan. I drafted a lot of high AVG guys, with some decent pitching. Well of course, not all the players in mystery card format work out the way you'd like, but overall I feel it worked out pretty good with the way most of my guys turned out.
Well, to make a long story short, I'm (barely) leading the league in batting average with .291, the league average is .270 and I am destroying the competition in runs allowed. I have allowed 518 total runs, while the next fewest has allowed 560. That's a pretty big lead for being 117 games into a season.
So you would think I am doing well right? Of course not. I have scored the 3rd fewest amount of runs (was second fewest, but in one of my games tonight I had a 17 run outburst) with 514. If not for some good luck, I should have a losing record. Lucky for me I'm still in it with a 61-56 record, 4 games out of first, but this on the heels of losing 2-3 to the worst team, and the lowest scoring team I might add.
So why does a team with the highest league batting average and fewest league runs allowed play so poorly? Well it's because I have hit only 66 homeruns as a team and though my pitching has been good with runs allowed, I have allowed 168 homeruns. The team with the next fewest homers (113) and the next one after that (132) are both teams I'm ahead of in runs scored. I knew going into the season that I would not hit a lot of HR's, but I did not think the lack of power would hurt me that much.
I am also in a 70's league and an ATG 4 league with similar strategies. I'm getting similar results, but not quite as dramatic as the 80's league. I'm doing pretty well in ATG, and my 70's team is just starting to come around, but it all comes down to the dreaded homerun. I'm only 29 years old, so I did not have the pleasure of enjoying baseball when it wasn't all about the power, but I think of my self as old school when it comes down to it, I don't like how it's all about the big power hitters. Give me a Tony Gwynn type player over a Mark McGwire type player any day.
Ironically enough, my only championship came in the 80's with a team in the kingdome, a homerun park.
It's for this reason why I'll probably never play ATG again. I'm noticing way too much offense. It could be due to a 60mil cap, but I think that a higher cap would mean for more offense.
I guess I don't really have a point to this other than to vent a little. If I want to win in the future, I may have to change emphasis more toward homeruns.
I would love a league purposely set up with good pitching vrs only average hitting, with an emphasis being on fewer homeruns.

Who else thinks the game would be better (both strat and real life baseball) if there was less offense and better pitching?

[LMBombers]

There have been many small ball teams that have dominated their leagues in all of the TSN/SOM games. You just have to have the right combination of players AND hope there aren't tons of HR parks in your league. The opposite is also true. If you build a HR team and the rest of the league are in pitcher parks then the HR team will be sucking wind.

[keyzick]

I've been on a small-ball kick myself in the 07 game. I've yet to complete a season with this new strategy, but have a couple at about the midpoint, both in first place, and have a couple more starting Monday.

I'd always been a longball, big offense fan myself, but had been struggling with strategies that were successfull for me in 06, so decided to switch to small-ball.

I have to say it's been a lot more fun than I anticipated. Even though I don't have those bomber stats to read every morning, it's been pretty cool to see double digit hit nights, and solid pitching on a regular basis.

All that being said, I think different strategies work better with different sets, which is what looks like may be happening to you in ATG.

Personally, my small-ball park of choice is one with both low singles and HR's...make all visitors play on MY terms!

Good luck with your team!

[the splinter]

Ahhh the curse of many a small ball squad....total abandonment of power!

You might prefer 9 Gwynns over 9 McGwires but you won't win...no matter what park you are in. Gotta be able to jack one out at anytime from somewhere in the lineup.

In my opinion small ball teams should have at least 1 pure power hitter....a guy who has straight/pure HR's on each side of the card. You might have to play a 4 in the OF or corner infields spots but this player will give your team some offensive spine.

[SGTD]

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=105501

This was my 80's team in Royals Stadium and went 90-72 and was 3rd in scoring and 3rd in pitching and lost in the playoffs but it was a fun team. I had Evans (RF) and Murrary (1B) as my power for some balance. SGT D

[durantjerry]

80's game-all about offense. You have to have a top five or six offense to compete in a pitching park IMO.
70's game-I have probably played the Astrodome as much as anyone. Easier to compete than in the 80's game(because more pitching/less HR's), but even though I have had a number of good teams, I still only have one small ball win.
ATG-is now heavily offense orientated. I have ridiculous offensive teams(525 HR's) with little pitching that are winning. I'm sure you can still win, but I think it's harder than it used to be.
Therre is no rule that says a small ball team can't be more slanted to offense. This lets you compete in the hitting parks and helps your pitchers in your park. You just have to find the right mix.

[drew6013]

The only thing that matters is how many runs you score and how many runs you give up. Whether you do it with 9 guys that slug 35+ homers or if your top HR guy doesn't break 10 home runs on the season, it doesn't matter. If your team scores .5 runs more a game than you give up you'll put yourself into a situation where you have a winning team.
That being said, you can argue that you need a HR hitter or two in your lineup to out score your competition, but I'm not so sure thats the case.

Batting avg does not have a strong correlation with scoring runs. I pay very little attention to it. Its a popular theory by a lot of the strat experts that batting avg is important to play small ball, however, maybe what is being said is, in a pitching park you can't out slug people (so don't try) and making contact and advancing runners (slugs that take walks don't help as much as in other enviroments) takes priority. It might sound like the same thing but is it?

[voovits]

Well as far as the 80's team, looking at things again, I have noticed that though I am now 2nd in average in the league (by .001), I am doing pretty bad on OBP, just slightly over the league average of .333, with a .339. So the overall on base issue could be the problem.
I started off the season with 2 homerun hitters. Puckett, who is turning out to be the best player on my team, and the (in my opinion) underrated Kevin McReynolds. I have had a lot of good luck with him in the past, but he didn't pan out, revealing his 1990 season, which could be OK, but he was just playing awful so I dumped him. Problem was that there were no more good hitters out there, let along sluggers. I ended up with Paciorek who due to his high amount of HBPs so far makes me think it's 82, which is good enough for me. I feel all my offensive position players are solid except at the SS position, but I was screwed right from the start at that position. I got stuck with Julio Franco, and there were NO good players available to choose from.
Anyway, it almost seems like I'm getting plenty of hits per game, but just being unable to push the runs across the plate.
I guess my biggest flaw with drafting all the high AVG guys was resulting in lack of speed. Gwynn and Franco are fast, but Boggs is not exactly a speed demon and Puckett, though could run the bases is not going to be stealing many bases. The opposite applies to Herr, who could steal OK, but can't run. Then of course, Pena, Garvey, Wallach and Paciorek are awful in both stealing and running, though admittedly of those last 4, only Pena started on my team.
Next time I try this, as in the next time I make a team, I'm going to focus more on general OBP and more speed. I think that may work better. Drew made a good point about making contact and advancing runners. Manufacturing runs is what my team should be doing, but is not doing it well. All the players I have by themselves are pretty good, but they don't work well collectively as a team. Interesting when you think a situation like that could arise in a board game/computer game but it seems to be quite real in this case.

While I'm venting, I wish there were more no-DH leagues. That cuts down on the overall offense quite a bit. Besides, baseball was meant to be played with the pitcher hitting. On the down side though, it requires more management decisions, which means more chances for HAL to make head scratching moves.

[durantjerry]

Lack of speed and OBP are GLARING deficiencies. OBP is obvious and speed is more subtle. I believe speed is very important. Without siting the numbers, I had two teams I recall with a very good OBP guy and a lesser OBP guy at the top of the order(Mauer batting title and Reyes/Johnnny Pesky and Max Bishop in ATG) and both times the speed guy scored a substantial amount more runs despite reaching base a good deal less. I have also seen this with Boggs in 86 and 80's. You probably lead off Gwynn, but the lack of speed(and OBP) most definately has an effect (a big one, I think)throughout your order.