Power Pros Forum

In season mode my expansion team is really good but they have trouble winning. I have people like A-Rod, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, Hideki Matsui, Shawn Green, Dice-K, Dontrell Willis,Rich Harden,etc.(My team is A.L. so David Ortiz always plays at D.H).Why do they stink if they are really good players?

Just off the top of my head... Adrian Beltre, Matsui, Green stink. A-rod, Howard, Ortiz are power hitters that are going to have sub .250 BA. A-rod has free swinger so he most likely will strike out to end a rally than actually produce. Harden is a back end of the rotation starter because of his lack of control. Dice-K is a good #2 and Willis is a #3. Your could have not put in the best lineup or role settings for your pitchers. Also, you haven't mentioned a leadoff guy and the defense for the guys you mentioned are average at best. You haven't mentioned any bullpen guys, so they are most likely average too.

is this from a dream draft?

tsk tsk tsk - you should've drafted better. Howard and Ortiz are essentially the same player and your outfield and pitchers aren't so hot either.

I suggest trading most of those players for low salary guys like Bedard, Hamels, and even Crawford. Then load up on Success players.

Beltre is doing really good but A-Rod stinks. I have Chase Utley too and he is amazing.

I would totally disregard the stats. Just look at the guy's abilities. Looking at Beltre's abilities, he is just a mediocre player. A-rod is better offensively and defensively. They are both 3B so are you DH'ing one of them?

Yeah it's more of your lineup. I only have 5 success players and the rest my normal expansion team scrubs and I'm leading the AL West by 20 games almost. I'm only playing each team once and most of this is through simming.

The players I do have are almost all maxxed though, and they make a huge difference. One of my hitters in August is by far and away a lock for the triple crown (Avg./HR's/RBI's).

And F, Posadas numbers are increadible. lol

Mantle is on pace for around 240 RBI's on my scrub team though.

I used a bunch of success players and other MLB stars to go 162-0, with a 99000 salary. Granted I made the settings wicked easy - but that doesn't matter if I sim, does it?. Still, good success players are really really really useful.

Success players are kind of cheesy imo. Not only are they all superstars with tons of good blue abilities (and after 2-3 years of development even non gambled players are the best in the game) but their salaries are also ridiculously low, and the other teams don't get any chance to sign them. I think it would be an improvement to force you to pay a "signing bonus" to add success players like in real baseball.
One thing that really sucks is how the engine calculates simulated stats for players with low contact. I am halfway through a season and manny ramirez is hitting .210, with tons of other .300/.400/.550 type star players around the mendoza line. There are seriously players with .100 averages after half a season of games. The pitcher sim stats are awful also with some guys averaging a walk every inning, 10+ era's, etc. I think the stats for the A/B players are realistic but it makes no sense that D hitters, which is about average, are hitting like .200 when the average mlb hitter is around .260-.270 or so.

The only reason success players end up so good is because most people save/load - I don't think that was the intention when the game was made.

Although, there still have been some very good players made without s/l'ing - take Wyl's new guy for example.

I think the letter grades to make a big impact for the stats - at least A's do. My swingman ended making the all-star game when I simmed the season. He was an expansion players who I drafted in the dream draft - some of those guys are good. He had A's in control and stamina, and I practiced him up to a level 3 2sfb and level 3 slider. I don't think he's that good, but apparently the game does.

All of my players are made without S/L and they are by far the best players on my team. The problem isn't that they are so good, the problem is that they are about as good as the top stars and are only 22 meaning they improve rapidly and aren't FA eligible. Also it is easy to make unbalanced players with bad defense but A contact and several good blue abilities which are still much better than players with normal defense.
There is a big difference between players that are good when one actually plays the game and sims though. Against the computer control almost doesn't matter for pitchers, just having a good FB and breaking pitches (and the curve is the best by far) gets you tons of K's. However low control pitchers get hammered when simming. For hitting it is pretty easy to center the ball after you play 50 games or so unless you play on powerful, which is ridiculous, so guys with good power tend to outperform the average guys. Speed is important but because the computer rarely goes for pickoffs on players with 10 and 11 speed, it is easier for them to steal than for 12 or 13 players since you can just mash triangle and get the base every time with the 10/11s.

i use the normal d rays crawford is batting .336 my guy is batting .845 with over 300 rbis and either playing twins or angels in the playoffs