People have different opinions about how much to spend on hitters vs. pitchers. A lot of players go 50/50. Many like to spend more on pitchers. Seems like fewer spend more on hitters.

Problem is, that way of thinking about spending distribution is flawed. It's not hitters vs. pitchers, it's offense vs. defense. Yes, you're buying run prevention with your pitchers. You're also buying that with your hitters' defense. You're buying nearly all your offense with your hitters (obvious Ruths, Carutherses, etc. aside). You're buying a big chunk of your defense with pitchers, and a substantial piece of it with your hitters.

In general baseball terms, that's not a new line of thinking, but it seems to get out of the discussion around here when it comes to salary distribution when you draft.

I'd count myself as a modified 50/50er. My total outlay on hitters is usually higher than on pitchers, but the salary distribution between run scoring and run prevention is probably about 50/50 most of the time.

What do y'all do these days?

I've been out of the sim for a few years, and to get myself back into the swing of things, I'm currently running two teams (in the same Open League) to find out just what the best way to go about answering this is.

On one team, "Let's Pitch..." I spent $64,797,651 on hitting, with zero regard for fielding (I have a few players playing out of position, '94 Kevin Mitchell is at short and has 101 errors so far). This amount is basically the most I could possibly spend on hitting (the rest spent on pitching for the sole reason of meeting the new ridiculous Innings Pitched requirement).

On the other team, "Let's Hit..." I spent $48,035,667 on pitchers and the rest on fielding, with no regard for hitting. My hitters are atrocious ('94 Matt Walbeck is starting for me). Unfortunately they're a bit fatigued, I did not account for that, but otherwise this is close to being the most I could possibly spend on defense.

Both teams are at Coors, and actually ended up in the same division.

So far, the hitting team is 8-44 (2-22 at home) and has a run differential of -377 despite leading the league in runs scored, and the defensive team is 20-32 (16-12 at home) with a run differential of -19.

This would seem to indicate to me that pitching and defense are, especially in hitters parks, more cost effective.

Any other analysis of the data is welcome, though.

EDIT: Also note that the pitching and defense team won all four head to head games so far.

I don't normally bite on this kind of stuff, but since I know zero people will apply what I have to say in this instance , I'll go ahead....

Anything over a 60mil cap, I spend the most I can possibly spend on an efficient pitching staff, and use the rest on offense. 50/30 is great for an OL. Anything 60mil cap or less, I spend the most I can possibly spend on an efficient offense, and the rest on pitching (of course, due to the database being what it is, it ends up being 30/30 or so).

The reason I do that is because of the OBP curve. Players have a curved pricing relative to their OBP.
In OLs and beyond, players underperform their real life numbers. So, as a players OBP decreases linearly in high caps, my dollars value goes down exponentially. From the pitching end, my dollars value alsom decreases exponentially as their WHIP goes up linearly, however, the incline of the curve is much lower coming from their end, thus a lesser loss.
In leagues where players overperform their real life stats, your dollars value goes up exponentially as their OBPs go up linearly. Because the curve goes up much steeper from the hitters end, I always buy as much OBP as I can. In every 60mil league I've ever played in, you can go to the 'team rankings' page, and sort by OBP, and it will show you your playoff teams with striking accuracy.

I'm in an OL with llamanuts, where I spent 54mil (I think) on offense just for kicks. I'm winning 57% of my games, which is un-Booger like, but its just the nature of the split. The .500 OBP players I bought aren't close to their RL #'s and you just can't the return on your dollar to compete at a high level.

Good thoughts from both boogerlips and llamanunts (who I still think should have been named llamannuts), and who can resist the irony of a good boogerlips/llamanunts debate?

`Nunts makes a good and unappreciated point that total spend for hitting includes some element of spend, inadvertent or otherwise. for defense. Pitching spend also includes some element of spend for defense, not only for the position itself, but by raising or lowering the overall fielding performance of the entire team by some measure that is difficult to quantify.

But `nunts' point helped clarify my thinking on a related aspect of spending efficiency. In an $80 MM OL, you are always looking for the most efficient way to use your entire team -- drafted starters, AAA prospects and scrubs combined. If you spend $78 MM on starters, which is the CW, $2 MM on scrubs and then have 8 AAA prospects worth approximately $1.5 MM apiece, you have a $92 MM team.

If you ignore your scrubs and AAA prospects completely, you are "using" only $78 MM of your $92 MM team -- that's obviously ineffiicient. If you're using only your starters and your scrubs and ignoring your AAA, you're still using only $80 of your $92 MM spend -- still grossly inefficient.

So I keep tinkering with different formulae that use my $12 MM worth of AAA prospects most efficiently -- punt one position, punt two positions, punt 1.5 positions, punt a pitching rotation spot, use 500 PA starters who comprise roughly 80% of total, devote the other 20% to AAA filling in across the board, etc.

But in making those spending allocations, I focus mainly on hitting and pitching performance, not defense. AAA prospects may have fielding performances comparable to the universe of similarly priced players in the SIM, but this is almost invariably inferior to the fielding performance of the starting team you typically draft. So the most efficient spend must include some element of defensive performance, even in your AAA prospects at 1B and RF, the positions you might be most inclined to punt where defense hurts you the least.

Too much thinking for my feeble brain this morning -- off to watch sports and porn.

This is a useful thread for me because I am trying different things to see what works and what does not.

I have been trying to split the salary 50/50. I am moving more to spending more on hitting and playing in pitchers parks.

I can attest that Mark Prior is horrible in Wrigley Field, but not so bad at Petco. That tells me that maybe I can get away with less talented pitchers if I can swing it so they pitch at home. Have not found any good "away" pitchers yet though.

I will think about what you guys have said about the OBP curve that Boogerlips wrote about. Still trying to figure out how to properly use the AAA guys for maximum benefit.

In very general terms it seems wise to spend slightly more on pitching than hitting in an OL, as the better your pitching, the less you need... The better your hitting-- especially OBP, the more you need.

Lots of good points above. Zoob's is one I've thought about in another context, but not so much this one. I posted something similar in some other thread kinda recently. The single most important factor in the number of "extra innings" you can get out of a pitcher is the quality of that pitcher. It's an interesting tie-in.

I find it easier, or maybe just more palatable, to use AAA to fill in PA gaps in my starters than IP gaps.* And I micromanage.

* *Starting* IP. I have no qualms about rookies and mops slurping up innings in lost causes and the occasional "ahh, shitballs" loss.

Quote: Originally posted by boogerlips on 5/08/2010I don't normally bite on this kind of stuff, but since I know zero people will  apply what I have to say in this instance <IMG src= "smileys/smiley5.gif">, I'll go ahead....

At least you didn't just post a multiplication problem.

Thunder - I used to punt and now I find it difficult. I think it's because, in OLs, I like to make one big waiver move at some point around a third of the way into the season. If I've punted a position, I have much less of a bench to work with after, and with the new PA/IP limits, another restricting factor to consider.

Then again, if I punted one, maybe I wouldn't want to make that one big move. This'll get more thought.

I used to go for the big waiver wire move, and it's a lot more fun than punting positions. Makes you feel like you're making the right midcourse corrections in your team, whether you are or not. The PA/IP minimums make it hard to punt and do WW, and it's almost impossible to do a double punt and still use the WW.

When I punt or double punt, it's hard to get excited about my AAA replacements. For all my talk about how important it is to know who your AAA really are, I take the trouble to run the charts less than half the time.

My latest batch of teams are almost all punt teams -- one position, 1.5 positions (~300 PA) and two positions. They're running at .627 right now in $80 MM OL, but it's early in the season and I'm pretty sure that percentage will come down. I have two teams about to come online built around the $18 MM Ed Walsh, and my gut instincts tell me that experiment will be a colossal failure.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk but how hard is it to have .600 winning % in an OL? I haven't played in one in awhile but when I did, the 5 or so guys who knew what they were doing always won 100+ games.

Quote: Originally posted by Trentonjoe on 5/09/2010I don't mean to sound like a jerk but how hard is it to have .600 winning % in an OL? I haven't played in one in awhile but when I did, the 5 or so guys who knew what they were doing always won 100+ games.

Win 100 games does not mean you have a truly great team.Most 100 win teams get beat in the playoffs.Win 100 is all ego trip most the great owners hardly win 100+.Because when your team is truly that good there is no reason to.You want to rest all your great players so they are @ 100 and 0% for the playoffs.The key is just making the playoffs then the great owners win in the playoffs.I use to try to win all the REG season games (not a good idea).I always throw games now I have won 129 in the reg season and booted in the 1st round.I would much rather have a truly great team that when 79-83.And is a bull in the playoffs then a paper REG season team.But then again that is just me.

I'm still learning the SIM and I'm not very good yet, so winning 100+ games and having a .600+ W/L % is probably a bigger deal to me than people who have been HOF'er's 3-5 years.

During my first 18 seasons in the SIM, I never read the forums, never studied other teams, played only the players I loved, ran my own theme teams in $80 MM OL (e.g., all Yankees, all juiced players, etc.), experimented with 60/20 hitting teams, 60/20 pitching teams and had a W/L % of .416.

Then I started paying attention and gradually worked my way up to .500 teams, then .550, .575 and now .600-ish. I didn't make the playoffs till something like my 30th season. I may not be the shiniest penny in the roll.

I just entered my first Champs League (taking forever to fill) and last week entered my first Progressive. I'll start experimenting with theme leagues and different caps next.

But I guess the first way I judge my teams is W/L%. I like to win championships, but I like to win during the regular season, too. I want to experiment as much as I can, even if it means some of my teams will suck, and I want to diversify into as many different kinds of leagues as I can manage. But mainly I just want to have fun and gradually get better and better.

I came the opposite path (from thunder)... It wasn't until my 10th OL team-- maybe more-- that I didn't win 100 games. It took mea while to learn how to or more to the point to be willing to pull off an unbalanced rotation and split squad.

i aim to thong my last fiver the day i die