2039.21 Analyzing Expansion

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2039.21 Analyzing Expansion

Post by ae37jr » Thu May 16, 2019 9:47 pm

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Analyzing Expansion

Perhaps the biggest downside of this rebuild is that expansion will rear it's ugly head back in the fray while we are tring to conduct business. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have two new teams and GMs. I'm thrilled that the schedules will be less wonky. Heck, I even enjoy the fact that Jacksonville is coming back into the division. But from the x's and o's part of trying to rebuild... it's not ideal.

The first thing everyone thinks about is being pushed back in the draft. That is legit. Now, the difference between 29 and 31 may mean nothing. But as Brooklyn is approaching the rarified air of top of the draft status, it looms much larger. If you don't believe me, ask Nashville. Imagine what Alex Ramírez and Dennis French would look like in a Nashville lineup surrounding Justin Jackson? Yeah that almost happened. Expansion can foil the best of plans.

Then there is the draft itself. Basic logic would suggest that the expansion draft hurts better teams more then rebuilding ones. But that is not always true. Many of the top teams gut their farm to stay on top. Teams like San Fernando, Jacksonville and others rarely have deep systems. Brooklyn on the other hand has the third deepest system in the league according to a recent study. Deep is not good when it comes to the expansion draft.

One thing Brooklyn has in their favor here is pro service time. Being that the fire sale started this year. The Robins invested a lot of resources in players drafted this year. Those players will be ineligible for the draft. That will be huge. Literally 20+ future BBA players won't have to be exposed to the draft.

On the flip side. It's going to be harder to acquire 0-3 pro year players going forward. Everyone knows the rules and me writing about it here only puts an exclamation point on it. The market value of those players just skyrocketed with this announcement. Everyone is going to be trying to trade in older prospects for younger ones so they can avoid using a valuable protection spot. As a team whose game plan is the get younger regardless of the draft. It's going to hurt us.

But...sometimes you have to outsmart conventional wisdom. With everyone trying to get younger, a unique oppertunity presents itself. Some teams are not going to be able to protect everyone they want to. Some may be more willing to trade players they wouldn't normally for younger players. Even further, they may be willing to trade one really good older prospect for 3-4 solid depth prospects who don't have to be protected. Enter the Brooklyn Robins, who have been stockpiling young depth for a while now. We could actually be the opposite of most teams and be in the drivers seat on this type of trade.

Ok, enough about expansion. Now on to realignment. From the second I learned about this, I had two thoughts in mind. The first is gameplanning rivals. With a blanced schedule you play every team about the same. Under this new system you mostly play your division rivals. This will probably endup adding another 14 chapters to this book explaining all the nuances I have for this layer of strategy. In a nutshell, I'm going to build my team with my division rivals strengths and weakness in mind. If they have a lot of power hitters... I'll get high movement pitchers, if they steal a lot of bases...I'll get a catcher with a bazooka arm. It's a chess match that can make you better then the sum of your parts.

Along with gameplaning rivals, the other thing that sticks out is a better feel for ballpark factors. With no interleague we are playing less teams and more importantly a set schedule year after year. We play 81 games in our own park, 49 games in the other 7 teams in our divisions parks, then just 32 in the 8 parks in the other division. In order to get a better feel for this. I came up with a Brooklyn Robin 162 game average ballpark factor score. All the post realignment Johnson League parks were weighted in accordingly. This shows the 162 game average park factor and this was the result.....

AVG 1.038
AVG LHB 1.006
AVG RHB 1.065
2B .957
3B 1.011
HR .942
HR LHB .934
HR RHP.946

Two things to consider. I assumed Charlotte was totally nuetral and had 1.000 across the board. The other is that I've considered tinkering with my ballpark factors. So these numbers could change. But for now I'm looking at maybe devaluing power a little bit and going for more of a contact team. But most importantly, we have a lot more data to use with this realignment. It takes a lot of the short sample out of the schedule and allows us to play matchups better. Something that this Gm is famous for. So all in all. while we might lose a draft slot and a couple of role players. One has to think that long term this is a huge advantage for us.
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Re: 2039.21 Analyzing Expansion

Post by handaspencer » Thu May 16, 2019 10:18 pm

Many of these items you mentioned I already thought about also today. I am just not sure exactly how I will handle things yet. My advantage is I have not really been able to add to my team yet been more subtracting so I don’t have a commitment in a certain direction yet. With divisions becoming harder to win I do think I will focus on becoming deeper similar to Brooklyn.

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Re: 2039.21 Analyzing Expansion

Post by GoldenOne » Fri May 17, 2019 8:24 am

ae37jr wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 9:47 pm

The first thing everyone thinks about is being pushed back in the draft. That is legit. Now, the difference between 29 and 31 may mean nothing. But as Brooklyn is approaching the rarified air of top of the draft status, it looms much larger. If you don't believe me, ask Nashville. Imagine what Alex Ramírez and Dennis French would look like in a Nashville lineup surrounding Justin Jackson? Yeah that almost happened. Expansion can foil the best of plans.

Agreed! :explode:

Though, Ata will be okay I still would have rather had Frenchy (unless those injuries start racking up.)
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