Roster Flexibility
Here is a topic that I often mention in passing during draft and trade wrap ups. I think it's worthy enough for a chapter here. I'm talking about roster flexibility.
Roster flexibility is the process of building a system that is self sustainable through unforeseen circumstances. In an ideal world, you draft 9 amazing hitters, 8 great pitchers and win a bunch of Landis titles. But this league is far too competitive for that. Plus advanced "realism" efforts on the part of OOTP itself has a way of dampening those plans. Not only do you need a backup plan. But you often need a backup plan to the backup plan. If you do not plan to cover all your losses internally, you will be short sided.
Catchers
Catcher is a unique position. For the most part, catchers only catch and catchers are the only players who can catch. They are all alone on an island in their market value. So it's important to cover yourself by having at least 3 capable catchers that you are comfortable with ready to play in the BBA. 1 starter, 1 backup, and one backup to the backup.
I just heard someone from the back of the class mumble something about trading for one when injury happens. You CAN do that... but your exposing yourself to the volatile world of supply and demand. If you HAVE to trade for a certain type of player, it could be a messy process. For starters, everyone can see you have no other viable options and could use that against you in negotiations. Now, if you already have a halfway decent backup in house. You can play poker and use said player as a decoy. Maybe your backup to the backup isn't really someone you want to play. But he is good enough that you can convince potential sellers that you are as desperate as you really are. There other thing to think about here is that there may simply not be any decent catchers available at the time. So end line on catchers. Build up a depth here because they are unique and could be hard to come by.
First Base/DH
I've talked about them a lot in this book already. So just to briefly touch on it. Brooklyn tends to avoid these players as much as possible. First base/DH types are a dime a dozen. Unless they are extraordinary hitters they are very easily interchangeable. You can often find them for a bargain on the waiver wire, free agency, and trades. They literally fall into your lap. They also really hurt your overall roster flexibility due to their limited defensive skills.
Infield
Here is where things can get hairy. Personally I like to only acquire infielders who I feel are capable of playing shortstop. It makes things a lot easier as you move on and need to fill out lineup cards. Capable shortstops only get better when you move them to other infield positions. There is no ifs, ands or buts about that. A 9/8/8/8 can play anywhere on the dirt. But a second baseman 8/8/3/10 can't really play the left side and a 5/8/10/2 third baseman is likely limited to a corner. The goal here is really to have players that can play as many positions as possible. If they can play outfield too, even better.
Outfield
Same philosophy as infielders here, but using CF instead of SS. Those along with Catcher are IMO the hardest to fill. So to strip this philosophy to it's purest form.... keep a health supply of C,SS, and CF and it will make your life easier and save you assets in the long run.
Hitter Wrap Up
So the point of all of this is not to build a BBA team with 7 shortstops 5 centerfielders, 4 catchers and nothing else. It's to build up a depth at premium positions that will make future decisions both easier and more cost effective. How many times has a star player hit the trade block and you've said, "I want that player really bad....but.... I already have a good 1B. Damn!" Under this system, that is not an issue. You simply slide players around till you can fit in the new guy.
It's also valuable to process players at premium positions to trade away. Like I mentioned before. If you are trying to win and are caught without a backup plan, injury comes and teams are stuck overpaying for a viable option. Having a stockpile to deal from can enable a lopsided trade in your favor.
Keep in mind that acquiring defensively gifted players and calling it a day doesn't do much. You need to put in the effort to cross train them. A player can be 10/10/10 and 10/10/10/10 but if they are 24 and only have 10 CF experience and nothing else, they may as well be a 1/1/1/1 infielder.
Brooklyn is in the process of utilizing this system for our rebuild. Once it becomes a win now situation we will then shift away from being ultra versatile. Trading away many versatile players in deals for stars. We'll still keep enough versatility to cover our ass, but the excess will be shipped away as they will be sought after by just about any trade suiter. Even if only as a throw in.
Pitchers
I don't want to say it's less important to be versatile with pitching, but it's a lot easier. I typical try to draft more starters then RP. Sort of the same philosophy as hitters. A good starter can be a very good RP, but a good RP probably isn't a starter. Especially with our RP convert reward it almost makes no sense to view RP as equal to starters unless it's a large talent gap.
At the same time though, you roster more RP then SP. So I really don't have any epiphany for you here. As far as roster flexibility goes, carry a lot more starters then you need to cover injuries and lumping.
One point I want to make here that may not be relative to the topic, but might get lost and never heard. So I'll throw it here. Stamina is very important for pitching staffs. Let's go extreme just to prove a point. All 5 of your starters have 5 stamina, all 6 of your RP have 2 stamina or less. Our sims go 7 days. The starter on day one is injury prone and goes down in the first innings. You'll likely have to burn every RP in that one game. Then for the next 4 days your manager will be juggling nothing but tired pitchers .Then on day 6 you need to have a bullpen game to make matters worse.
Throwing tired pitchers severely stunts their talents. I have no proof or scope of the actual penalty size. But maybe if you pitch a pitcher at 97% then his numbers are only 97% of his actuals? Then at 60% he's 60% of actuals? It sounds legit at least. I know tired pitchers are not equal to themselves, so whatever the penalty is. It makes sense to get as much stamina on your roster as possible. I highly suggest having a true long man/spot starter in the pen and have at least a couple of high stamina RP.
Ok, so before I ramble on some more, I'm going to wrap this up. Roster flexibility is building a system that can handle anything thrown at you. Whether it's injury, lumping or escalading contracts, you'll have the depth and position flexibility to cover everything with adequate or better replacement players until a better solution is found. It helps you avoid spending too much in free agency or a high cost trade haul. nd that in a nutshell is what I consider roster flexibility.
If you found this chapter interesting and would like to read more. Check out The Ultimate BBA Rebuild for Dummies table of contents for more chapters in this ongoing book chronicling the rebuild of a BBA franchise.