what your best way to rebuild a Team?

[jbmagic]

what your best way to rebuild a Team?

if your team not doing well and not going anywhere for the current season or near future , what the best way to rebuild?

can you guys offers some good tips?

thanks

[mlyons]

Same as real teams do: trade your overpriced, underperforming veterans for young prospects and use the savings to sign good young free agents. Take a good hard look at anyone on your roster making over $5 million a year and determine whether or not they're worth it now and will be in the future. If they're not, trade for someone younger and cheaper with the potential to improve.

[JPWagner]

Pitching, pitching, and more pitching...you can get by with a weaker offense if you have a strong rotation and pen....When I rebuild, pitching is the priority.....

[DiMaggio5CF]

I agree with JP. Good young starting pitching. That will be your core for the future. If you can develop two or three good young starters like the Oakland A's have (even if not of that quality) and bring up one or two solid relievers and a few decent position players, you're in good shape.

Then all you have to do is trade for or sign a top starter and a closer, and one or two key offensive guys and you have a contending team.

Bringing up good young hitters works well too, but if you do that, you're going to have to be willing to trade them for good starting pitchers. It's better to develop pitchers if you can, but if it's easier to develop hitters, then do that. But you have to trade the hitters for pitching, so don't get too attached.

[sguthrie]

A lot of it depends on your current team. If you've got a stud player or two with no supporting cast, you can trade them for prospects. If you you'll have to do it the slow way - through the draft.

Unless there is an outstanding hitter available, I'll almost always draft a SP in the first roune - they are generally much more expensive than positions players and if you can get 2 or 3 good SP's on your team that haven't hit arbitration yet you can free up a LOT of cash to sign the position players. Assuming you keep drafting SP's, you can then trade your guys that are ready to go after the big money (unless they're stud's - I don't mind paying $15m for a Cy Young winner) for more prospects and bring the next young gun up.

I also like to try and sign a stud SP to build around, but if you're team is bad often the best ones won't even talk to you and you'll have to overpay the decent ones.

[Cooker]

What JP said - PITCHING. One word says it all.

Well, almost all. I focus on good young starters, kids who're starting to make their mark in the majors but haven't used up all their $300,000 years. (Fiscal responsibility is important in rebuilding a bad team, since fans are staying away in droves. It does little good to trade for a young starter and then have arbitration give him $2.5 MM his second year with you.)

The other thing is defense up the middle. If you emphasize pitching (especially pitchers with lots of ground balls) at the expense of offense while rebuilding a team, you're gonna need good range at both SS & 2B.

The last piece is a good closer. Usually those are tougher to groom in the minors. I've tended to trade for a decent closer to complement my young starting staff.

Then get ready for lots of 1-0 and 2-1 losses!

[halofan26]

JPWagner pretty much said it in my opinion....if i take a team on and it has average pitching, the first thing i try and do is deal the contracts that arent living up to their potential, then i turn around and dump off my 35 year old pitchers and try and keep at least 40% of my starters under 30...i prefer 60% of the rotation under 32 and as im working on my pitchers and with my first round picks being pitchers and rounds 2 and 4 are for batters....the 2nd round picks turn into around 3-4 star players at least 50 % of the time but im a big beleiver in pitching wins ball games...look at Texas the last couple years and look at the Angels the last 2 weeks or so...they havent had good starting pitching so they lost 5 in a row until last night

[theasfl]

Originally posted by mlyons
Same as real teams do: trade your overpriced, underperforming veterans for young prospects and use the savings to sign good young free agents. Take a good hard look at anyone on your roster making over $5 million a year and determine whether or not they're worth it now and will be in the future. If they're not, trade for someone younger and cheaper with the potential to improve.

very well stated

[jazzrack]

ok i have some experience at this (see yellowknife and Iowa) since i am a patient man, trade your best pitchers and hitters for picks & to fill a hole temp. then you just wait and suffer while your minors rebuild. I prefer the pitching route also, but i take the best player avail, if he doesn't fit your needs sombody will trade for him. Of course i take the long route because FA/trades are ify propositions when your team is terrible

the problem with trading is everybody knows you eed to dump those guys so their value is diminished

[thomamon]

I am in a league right now where I just built my team around a very strong rotation from starters-closer...

If any veterans out there can take a look at my team and let me know what you think, I would greatly appreciate it.

http://www.trueleaguebaseball.com/team_page.php?tid=7

TM

[AnotherAlias]

Two by fours and a lot of good nails.








1951 - On May 12th, the United States military detonated the first hydrogen bomb on an uninhabited testing island in the Pacific. The development of an A-bomb by the Russians had convinced the U.S. to proceed with development of the H-bomb version, which was several times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prompt the end of World War II.

Remington Rand Corporation debuted the first commercial digital computer, called the "UNIVAC" (Universal Automatic Computer). The first "UNIVAC" was sold to the United States Census Bureau to assist in the storage, compiling and managing of the U.S. population data. It weighed some 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second. "UNIVAC" was also used to predict the 1952 presidential election. No one involved in the project actually believed its prediction (based on 1% vote in) that Eisenhower would sweep the election...he did.

The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) introduced its first color television broadcast across five American cities for two and a half hours a day. However, due to the proprietary system used by CBS, more than 10½ million monochrome sets in the United States were blind to these telecasts. In response to the company forcing their own receivers on the consumer, the National Production Authority issued Order M-90 prohibiting the manufacturing of color sets for general public sale. Two years later, during a Congressional hearing on March 25, 1953, CBS announced that it had no plans to resume its own proprietary color system and the NPA lifted its ban on receiver manufacturing the following day.

During a March 26 exhibition game between the New York Yankees and the University of California, an up-and-coming nineteen year old rookie named Mickey Mantle hit a home run (estimated at six-hundred feet) out of U.S.C.'s Bovard Stadium. "The Mick" went on to finish the day with four hits and seven runs batted in (including two, two-run home runs and a bases-loaded triple) as the Major Leaguers prevailed 15-1. Mantle struggled at the plate over the next few months while striking out fifty-two times and was eventually sent back to the Minor League team in Kansas City and all the local gin joints were emptied of their booze.

St. Louis owner Bill Veek had everyone in stitches after substituting a midget to pinch-hit during the first inning in game two of a doubleheader. Eddie Gaedel, a three-foot, seven inch dwarf, emerged from a cake wearing the number 1/8 during pre-game festivities, then took the plate for center fielder Frank Saucer and walked on four balls. The Detroit Tigers had the last laugh however after posting a 6-2 victory over the comedic Browns.

On September 13th, the New York Giants became the first team since 1883 to play a doubleheader against two different teams on the same day. First they went up against the St. Louis Cardinals (for a rescheduled rain game) losing 6-4, then they fell 2-0 to the Boston Braves in their regularly scheduled night game.

The New York Giants literally snatched the National League pennant from the clutches of their rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, after Bobby Thompson hit the infamous "shot heard 'round the world". It was a perfect ending to a career season in which Thompson hit .293 with thirty-two home runs and one-hundred one RBIs.

A resolution was put forth by the South Carolina House to reinstate "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, who had been banished from baseball because of his part in the 1919 "Black Sox Scandal". Jackson was one of eight players convicted of throwing the Series (five games to three) in favor of the underdog Cincinnati Reds. After a lengthy investigation in 1920, members of Chicago's tainted team were amazingly acquitted the following year despite their own confessions (which were recanted later). All of the players involved were banned from baseball because of their undeniable link to gamblers. Jackson himself had batted a Series-leading .375 but later acknowledged that he had let up in key situations.

TOPPS debuted its first baseball cards (a five set series) that featured such favorites as Yogi Berra, Bob Feller, Ralph Kiner, Phil Rizzuto, Enos Slaughter, Duke Snider and Warren Spahn.

[JPWagner]

When discussing the rebuilding of a team, your strategy may differ depending on what type of game you are playing...if you are playing a solo career mode you can afford to be a bit patient and take as long as you want....but, if you are playing solo managers mode, you must look at your owner's mood and his expectations...take too long to rebuild, and you'll be shown the door, if you have a demanding owner....

[Oneida]

If my team is on the way to the bottom, i like to trade that stud or two, for a few really good prospects.

in manager mode, i always like to go to a team with a very good owner