Written by Brendan H., Co-Commissioner of the LBL and GM of the Brooklyn Whales.
Overall Team Building Philosophy
Going to caveat this with the warning that I have not played much OOTP 23 yet. So, all of the specific thresholds could be different in 23 than previous versions. Caveat emptor.
In thinking about my roster, I like to try to balance offense and defense, though have a strong preference for having elite defenders rather than elite hitters. I also like to use as much of the available salary cap as possible on the major league roster, leaving the reserve roster entirely/almost entirely comprised of players on minor league deals (or players signed to minor league deals with a cash signing bonus) so as to preserve the full $90k cap for the players that will be competing for a championship.
My reserve roster will generally be very young. As a general philosophy, I want to have the players there potentially increasing in value through development rather than holding or losing value due to aging.
Given the era in which we are competing, I also place a strong premium on starting pitching while mostly using the bullpen as a developmental tool or to stash useful personalities (e.g., the Whales’ “closer” is a captain). As a brief aside, any useful personalities in the pen should play the closer position—otherwise, the personalities don’t affect team chemistry.
Ideally, I would like to create synergies with my pitching staff and my defense (e.g., having a staff of all groundballers or extreme groundballers and a strong infield defense), and have a balance of right handed and left handed pitchers available that are capable of starting to play matchups against the other teams in my league. I try to take advantage of these pitching platoon advantages through the use of 7-day lineups (which I use only to select a starting pitcher and leave the lineup blank).
I don’t have a strong preference for ratings in a pitcher. If forced to pick, I think that control is probably the most important in our file and movement is probably the least important–there’s just not much power in the league at the moment. But, I think low control can be somewhat mitigated using player strategy sliders and lowering “Pitch Around” almost all the way down (the usual penalty for doing so—more homeruns allowed—isn’t really a big penalty in this era).
I want to make sure that the pitcher has enough quality pitches to have a projected role of “Starting Pitcher,” rather than any of the other designations (e.g., Emergency SP) to avoid the associated penalties with starting an unqualified starting pitcher. Although, given the low strikeout environment, the penalties probably aren’t too crippling if there aren’t good options for the rotation.
I also really favor starters that have minimal or reverse platoon splits. As a result, I tend to prioritize pitchers with “Over the Top” arm slots and/or great changeups.
Given that we only have 19 roster spots available on the major league squad, I think the Platonic ideal roster spot allocation is probably something like this (not accounting for any extreme platoon splits that need to be mitigated with your bench). Any personality issues among your starters should be rectified with your closer and your bench, if possible.
Pitching: 5
SP
SP
SP
RP with handedness opposite of the majority of your rotation (likely a SP candidate that’s a year or two away from starting that will get spot starts)
CL with good personality
Batters: 14
C
1B
2B
3B
SS
LF
CF
RF
C
1B/3B
2B/SS
OF with enough range to cover CF
LH Pinch Hitter
RH Pinch Hitter
As I said initially, I want my hitters to be strong defenders. As a result, when evaluating players, I initially filter to make sure that they meet certain thresholds on defense and then pick the player with the best bat from there. My general philosophy for each of the positions is below.
P: As discussed, arm slot close to over the top, minimal platoon splits.
C: Usually, I want a catcher with at least 65 catcher ability. I don’t really care about arm at all. If a pitcher has a low hold runner rating, I’ll bump up the hold runner slider on the player strategy page to try to mitigate the running game.
1B: Bat first. No real defensive filter, but the player should be 6’0” or above, ideally. The taller the better.
2B: Prioritize range first and DP Ability a distant second. Arm should be at least a 40, but isn’t important to me above that threshold. Don’t really care about error, but higher rating is better. I usually treat 2B as a bat first position because there are usually some good bats available there.
3B: I treat this as a glove-first position. I want a 75 or 80 arm first and as much range as I can get. Ideally, 60+. Double play ability doesn’t matter to me here at all. Error I would prefer higher than lower, but it’s a tertiary consideration.
SS: Glove first. No less than 65 range (ideally, 70+) and the best arm that I can find. Error doesn’t matter to me. Double play should be above 50, ideally above 60.
LF: Bat first. Ideally, no less than 55 range. Don’t care about arm or error.
CF: Glove first. No less than 65 range (ideally, 70+). Don’t care about arm or error.
RF: Second best OF defender. Ideally, range above 60. Don’t care about arm or error.
Speed is nice to have, but I want speed to be lower than Stealing and Baserunning. My understanding is that the Speed rating dictates how often players steal/advance and Stealing/Baserunning impact how successful they are when they run. So, I want players that are less aggressive than their ultimate ability should dictate.
I have been playing around with a high Gap lineup, since that rating seems to correlate most closely with SLG in our file given the lack of HR power, but The Field of the Whales is not overly conducive to that strategy.
In free agency, I want to be building towards a team that checks all of the above defensive boxes and hits capably. I want to use as much of my budget space under the cap as possible to secure the necessary talent. Because the reserve roster is not eating up any salary, I will probably make one big bid per offseason. If my team had a number of holes, I would probably prioritize the positions SP>SS>CF>C>3B>2B>RF>LF>1B and ensure minimal competence on defense while looking to replace that player with another capable defender with a better bat down the road.
In the draft, personally, I want to build a pipeline of starting pitching. The use of the reserve roster means that the big downside of young SP—that they will probably get hurt and ruin their development—is eliminated. Instead, you can count on their velocity to tick up over time, which will improve stuff. So, ideally, your SP draft picks will have decent control and movement since velocity gains will bump stuff up over time. All of the upside, none of the usual downside.
Having strong SP is so important in this era. So, I want to have as many options as possible. I would suggest everyone should always sort each draft pool by both hitting ratings and pitching ratings to find the guys that OOTP has mislabeled as hitters/pitchers or vice versa. There are almost always some good players to be found that way. In the 1904 draft, there were a number of very strong SP prospects masquerading as 1B. In the upcoming draft for 1905, there are similarly mislabeled players
Among prospect personality traits, I place a premium on High Intelligence first and Work Ethic second. My understanding is that Work Ethic will help ensure that prospects are more likely to fulfill their stated potential and Intelligence increases the likelihood of positive talent changes (i.e., increasing the ceiling of a prospect’s potential).
Through three drafts, I have picked two position players–CF George Picton and CF John Watson–both of whom had excellent range as prospects and high intelligence. I have observed that defensive ratings tend to tick up over time for the 18 year old draftees (although randomly). So, I think to the extent I draft hitters, I would try to make sure they come close to my above stated thresholds and hope talent change brings them up over the threshold if they are not already there. They would also be more likely to play CF or SS than a corner spot.
I am not likely to draft a RP in the short term, but I could see an overall team strategy where you strongly cap pitch limits and try to rely on an RP or two with (i) OK or above stamina and (ii) minimal platoon splits to throw 100+ innings or so each per year out of the pen. Boston’s Haworth is an instructive example of the archetype that would be useful in that role or, for a more extreme example, Pittsburgh’s Jewell Durtnell would likely be absolutely dominant in that role.