often afford to gamble a little bit with the first base position,
hoping to get a good quality starting in the later rounds. Be careful
though. You don't want to let great hitters pass you by in earlier
rounds if they are available. Often, the 1B position is a good place
to get DH's from, since there are so many good hitters at first base.
1B is not usually a good position to platoon, but occasionally you can
get two good platoon players at first in the later rounds who are
offensively better as a platoon than a player picked much ealier in the
draft. Defense for 1st Basemen isn't too important, but is nice if you
can get it anyway.
2nd Base:
Second base is more often than not a position at which some teams are
going to get marginal at best players. There often simply are not
enough quality starting second basemen for everyone to get one. This
means you might have to get a second basemen earlier than you would
like sometimes, while there are still better offensive players left at
other positions that are have more quality at them in general. Be
cautious not to jump the gun too much, because you still don't want to
squander a quality upper round pick on a marginal middle round player.
2nd Base is a good position to platoon, especially if you can find
players that excel in OBA versus right handed pitching in the middle
rounds, but are marginal enough in other catagories that they aren't
worth drafting early. Usually there will be a few guys to get against
left-handed pitching in the middle to late rounds, especially if they
are bad against right-handed pitching. Defense is pretty important for
2nd Basemen.
Shortstop:
Much like 2nd base, this position can be hard to fill in later rounds.
It is generally a good idea to scout both 2nd base and Shortstop well
before the draft to see which position is weaker. There are some years
in the late 1990s where an 8 PWR Alex Rodriguez as a SS is far better
than a similar 8 or 9 PWR outfielder because there are so few great
players at SS. Whichever position between SS and 2B that has fewer
good hitters means that each good hitter at that position is relative
worth more because of position scarcity (see terminology). Also a
good position to platoon. Usually there isn't much power at SS, so
catagories like OBA and speed become even more important. Defense is
very important at shortstop, which will become apparent if you draft a
really bad defensive SS.
3rd Base:
Third Base usually has more power hitters than 2B or SS, but often
lacks hitters with high OBA (save for Wade Boggs in late 1980s, early
1990s stats). This is a decent position for hitters in general, but
you can get stuck with quite a stinker if you are not careful (don't
get stuck with Travis Fryman in the late 1990s...he is Weaver death).
If you really want to commit Weaver Blasphemy, just draft a 4 or 5 PWR
right-handed 3rd Basemen with about a .352 OBA and .455 SLG and 110Ks.
There are about one or two of these drafted every time, because they
are usually about the 11th and 12th most attractive 3rd basemen. And
almost exclusively they hit a .300 OBA with a .400 SLG and 160+ Ks,
effectively tanking that line-up spot for a team. 3rd Base is an OK
spot to platoon. If you can get a left-handed good OBA 3rd basemen to
bat 2-hole for your team, it can be better than gold. Defense is fairly
important for 3rd basemen.
Outfield:
Finally there are the 3 outfield spots. There are often alot of very
good hitters in the outfield. Usually I suggest trying to get at least
one really good left-handed hitter in your outfield. Platooning one
outfield spot can also work out very well. There should be plenty of
good outfielders to fill your roster with, offensively speaking. You
should be very careful not to draft outfielders with 2 or 3 ARMs if at
all possible. A 2 ARM Tim Raines toward the end of his career might
have a great .400+ OBA, but your pitching staff will greatly suffer by
all the easy runs and extra base hits his weak arm allows since he can
*never* throw anyone out. A great ARM in the outfield is also a great
help, since Weaver tends to have guys run home *alot* on hits if they
are taking off from second. A good/great ARM in the outfield will lead
to alot of outfield assists, which will greatly help your pitching
staff. RANGE is important too, but doesn't seem to come into play
quite as much, excepting that if you have an exceptional RANGE in one
of your outfielders, then he rob some hitters of home runs by leaping
and putting his glove over the fence to catch balls that other OFer's
couldn't reach. Defense is most important for Center fielders, least
important for Right fielders.
DH:
If you are using the DH rule, you will get to put one extra hitter in
your line up that doesn't have to play in the field. There are often
a few good "DH-only" players who are great hitters. I recommend against
drafting them early, but you can sometimes get a great hitter later
because of his "DH-only" status. Edgar Martinez and Jose Canseco in
the late 1990s are good examples of DH-only players who should
rightfully start. The advantage to drafting such a player is that you
can sometimes get more value out of a draft pick than you otherswise
would (i.e. the player you select is by far the best hitter left in the
draft), but the major disadvantage is that a DH-only hitter can limit
team flexibility overall. First basemen are also often used at DH. I
caution against filling your DH slot too early, since you can usually
get some really good hitters in the later rounds, but starting pitching
can dry up relatively early.
Starting pitching:
Getting a few good starting pitchers is vital to your team. One could
argue that starting pitching is the most important position on your
team. I've seen mediocre offensive teams make the playoffs by having
two dominate starters and a good number 3 and 4 man. It is imperative
that you draft at least four starters. Unlike many newer baseball
games, you can have a four man rotation in EWB, where as you usually
have to have a five man rotation. I suggest that you draft 4 or 5
starters, but use a four man rotation of your best four starters. You
should have at least 1 decent left-handed starter, as some teams will
be very weak against left-handed pitching (this can become extremely
important in the playoffs, as your marginal left-hander in the regular
season can become the difference in a seven game series). If you only
draft 4 starters (remember, pitchers with over a 6 FAT), you should
try and draft at least one long reliever (3-5 FAT) to keep in case one
of your starters gets rocked in a start or injured. You need at least
one guy around for an emergency start. Above all, you absolutely can't
wait forever for starting pitching. If you get stuck with 3 or 4
mid-level starters after the draft, you are going to be in for a long
season and a world of hurt.
Relief pitching:
One closer who is an excellent reliever is necessary. Two or
three is an excellent thing to have (and can occur in Weaver leagues
as there are usually only 12 Weaver teams, but more like 30 real
teams to draft from). You also need at least 1 left-handed reliever
who is good against left-handed hitters to get clutch outs against the
other teams good left-handed hitters in the late innings. If you can
snag two of these, you can really dominate the late innings. Also,
having a right-handed reliever who is better against left-handed
hitting can come in very handy as well.
B. Special Drafting Strategies
This section is devoted to providing alternative strategies for
general drafting. These strategies will show you how to build various
non-traditional teams. This can be a tactic you might want to try if
you are in a league in which certain types of players are always
undervalued, or if you just want to try something different. Note also
that these strategies may not be legal according to your specific
league rules (i.e. some leagues require you to have a certain number of
starting pitchers, or to only play a person out of a qualified position
in an emergency and never as a starter, etc.)
1. The Relievers Orgy:
This strategy is rather strange, but I have seen it executed
effectively. To begin with, the basis of this team is to draft around
12-14 extremely good relievers, with no real starters. This can be an
interesting thing to try in either leagues that undervalue relief
pitchers, or in seasons which there are many bad starting pitchers, but
an excess of good relief pitching. If you are to try this, it is very
imperative that you get good hitters early that can play against both
sides of the plate. You cannot platoon much at all if you try this
strategy, since you must draft more pitchers than normal. Also, try
to get a few 2-3 FAT pitchers that can pitch more than just 1 inning.
I've only seen this tried once, and it worked very well. By the time
it was figured out by other drafters what the person drafting this type
of team was doing, he already had like 7 or 8 relievers, and there were
too many middle range relievers left to keep him from getting them. He
finished second overall in record and fell just a game shy of
reaching the world series in a very close league championship series.
The strategy can only work if there is only one person trying it, and
if it doesn't get snuffed out early. Therefore, it is a risky
strategy, but does has potential for high payoff. Be warned, though,
it could be Weaver death if you end up trying this and get like 4 good
relievers and a bunch of bollocks to fill out your pitching staff with.
2. Ignore Positions:
This strategy is when you pick the best hitters left, irrespective of
their positions. The general effect of this strategy is that you will
end up with alot of 1B and OF, and a really bad defense. I once saw a
guy who drafted and started four 1B in his infield. He had the 2nd
most home runs in the league, but finished under .500 and out of the
playoffs because he gave up so many errors and extra hits because of
his bad defense. A more moderate variation on this is to draft one
or two players out of position that are really good defense players in
general. For instance, you might draft J.T. Snow as a 1B and play him
at SS or 2B in some late 1990s seasons. While he does commit more
errors than normal, it is actually better since his offense against
right handed pitching is often better than the lesser SS and 2B
players.
3. All out for starting pitching:
This strategy is to get four really good starting pitchers really early
in the draft. This can actually be a good strategy in general, as
good pitching tends to be harder to come by than good hitting
(especially if you are playing with real stats from the 1990s). One
problem with this strategy is that it tends to be snuffed out as soon
as you get your 2nd great starter, and almost always if you get 3
starting pitchers with your first 3 picks. This can cause a run on
starting pitching, which can defeat the whole purpose if you have to
draft a mid-level starter for your 4th pitcher. However, if you can
nab 2 great starters and then start a run on starting pitcher, this can
work to your advantage too, since you can get some really good hitters
while everyone else is panicking over starting pitching...and still
have 2 great starters that will be better than most other teams.
4. Great OBA
This strategy is best suited for leagues that over-value POWER and HRs,
and undervalue OBA, but can be used at any time. The basis of this
strategy is to attempt to get high OBA players at all positions. This
means that you will probably have to draft some positions earlier than
you might otherwise (C, 2B, SS, 3B) and let some good hitters go to
other teams in (1B, OF), since you can still get good OBA hitters in
these positions later. Remember, it is still vital to get good
pitching if you do this, because no matter how much you get on base, a
team with 4 medium to bad starters is going to get pounded.
C. How to Draft with the Commissioner's Disk
To begin with, you will need the Commissioner's Disk software for the
EWB 1.5. If you have this, open up the software (usually stattool.exe)
and you will see a "Draft A League" option at the bottom of the screen.
You will want to have created a league before performing this option.
You can do this either here in the Commissioner's Disk or in the main
EWB program. To do it here, select create new league. Enter in the
new path for the new league. Then edit the league and team information
to be as you wish. Now, go to "draft a league". This brings up a
screen where you are given select draft order and draft type, as well
as set the number of players per team. Set all three of these numbers
to 25. Set the "source" path to the directory which has the stats of
teams you will be drafting from, and set the "Destination" path (F6)
to the directory which is your newly created league (note: doing this
in post Windows 3.11 will cause problems...blah, there is a possible
way to do this in Windows 95/98/2000/XP, but it is a pain, and
will be address this in Part VI E and in the "problems with Windows"
section). You can pick to have either a regular or bid draft. 0
With a bid draft, each team gets a certain amount of money to spend,
and players are brought up to be bid on. Teams must bid a minimum of
$1 (as a standard) with no maximum, other than the fact that teams
must fill out there 25 man roster without going over budget. A team
owner is arbitarily picked to start the bidding. He/She brings up a
name and a price and the bidding begins. The highest bidder gets the
player. The next owner introduces another player and the process
continues until all teams have 25 players. The regular draft (which
you will probably use more often) has 25 rounds. Each team gets one
pick per round. Order of picking can be either Same each round,
reverse order each round, or random. I prefer random, though reverse
order each round tends to be most fair, except that the teams with back
to back picks tend to have some advantage. Same each round is a bad
idea, unless you have a mixed league of veterans and newbies, in which
you might want to give the newbies early round picks each time (okay,
it is *still* a bad idea). With this type you just have whomever goes
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