Season 8 (2026) General Discussion
 

The Louisville Colonels are back for a second year in Perfect leagues (P410). Major changes were made toward the end of last year, so the same squad returns for the new season. I did upgrade my secret weapon, Pete Rose, from the 81 version to the peak 92 card. The 81 Rose had earned 4 playoff MVP awards, so I hope the new version has the same clutch ability.

I am still waiting for the price of top pitching to come down, but my own tracking shows that it is actually going up! I might have to jump in pretty soon but I am still holding out for the right guy at the right price (well ok at least a decent price).

I need top flight pitching improvements too. But I think they are still a ways off. Somehow I will make do with what I have until then unless I draw a lucky card. Yesterday I drew a Trout with the 1K for making the WS. I am debating selling him because I have no other live cards but if I do sell, he will barely make a dent in the price of the pitching I need at Perfect. I think I will hold him awhile and see if he can help me draw a pitcher ;)

I still have a full page of inactive bryants, rizzos and contrerases

what is it going to take to get that last point

meanwhile gerrit cole racks up 21 Ks to 0 BBs and goes nowhere. sale and syndergaard stuck also. bleh.

Okay, after another middle-of-the-road season I decided to make a few changes ...

Gone are Lou Gehrig (Peak), Billy Pierce (All-Star), Corey Kluber (Live), Gerrit Cole (Live) and Cody Bellinger (Live) for a total of 119,500 ./. 10% = 107,550

Taking their spots are Patrick Corbin (Live), Jim Palmer (All-Star), Hal White (Rookie Sensation) Hank Aaron (All-Star) and Lou Gehrig (Record Breaker) for a total of 18,172

A difference of 89,378 PP's ... and all my new team has done :rolleyes:

Added 98 Hubbell, 95 Maddux and 98 Mordecai Brown to replace Arrieta, 92 Maddux and Cisco Carlos. Moved Carlos to the bullpen to replace Treinen. Added Amos Otis as a corner OF against LHP.

Was happy with a winning record last year, would like to make the playoffs from here on out tho.Not a ton of great teams in P400, so maybe it'll happen.

... all my new team has done is start 10-1

Hoping to continue this run I added three new pitchers in addition to "my" Brewers Ben Sheets and Cal Eldred:

After two years of small (4 division) leagues, we are back in a normal (P405) league.

Competition looks good (already ran into the a team with all of the top 5 pitchers)
so this will be fun to follow. Two more teams in my division also have PL championships.

Both of my sons are still back in Silver but landed in a league with the Gryphons teams. Have fun competing against them (Woodinville Infinite Power and Renton Dragons).

The Raccoons first time in perfect is going well so far, but probably because they're playing only relatively weak teams. It's our best start ever at 14-2 which is probably the only time we'll ever have the best record in P411. There are some really good teams in this league, but we're lucky since it looks like we have the weakest division.

I'm saving up PP from sales and so far have a little over 100k, but need a fair bit more to get a good SP which is my goal. Unfortunately, it does seem that the pitchers in the price range I want are being listed for more than what they were a while back and I'm not willing to pay the rates listed at the moment.

I bolstered my starting lineup with 100 Clemens in the playoffs last year, helped me to my first championship so Im really interested to see how he does over a full season this year. Will be hoping for a postseason entry at the min this season. Good luck all! Play Ball!

We are in the same league (P410) this year, and I am glad that you are in the other conference. You have a great team and post-season play is certainly a reasonable goal. Good luck and maybe I will be lucky enough to meet you in the finals.

My Perugia team is in P410 too. I think it will be difficult for them to reach the playoffs this year
Doha and Great Lake have a better chance but you never know.

Raccoons (diamond) are in sort of a lop-sided division. First and last place are already 16 games apart :ohmy: … Critters are neither of those two teams and sit at 15-11. That 5-hit game by Rey Ordonez - a truly terrible hitter - made me merry, though… he was due, too: he has played 477 games for me, and has paid out a total of 420 PP now. :p

I would replace him with a hitting shortstop… IF there was a hitting shortstop with 114 DEF... that didn't cost six million PP...

The Rebels, who have crashed down to bronze, so far have been neatly resisting the urge to make any attempt at a comeback and sit at 13-13.

Ah ****, ****, ****! I would have had JUST enough PP to insta-buy a Dick Bartell (106 DEF with an actual bat) card, but dumbly, numbly bid on an Andrelton Simmons before that and now I can't … I can't… I just can't anymore…

(weeps)

The Frogs are back in diamond for a 4th consecutive week. Win 95 games and bow out in the divisional round has been this team's calling card for the most part. Maybe we'll win 89 games and get to the subleague series this time? 13-13 so far in early going.

Winning the division will be tough as the Frogs are in a tougher division than last week. The Circle C Suburbans will probably take the division with their rotation of diamond Carlton, diamond Pedro, diamond Johan Santana, and diamond Robin Roberts. The best overall teams in D368 appear to be the Cooperstown Classics, the Marshall Cardinals, or the Jonestown Athletics (an impressive collection of mostly all-time Athletics theme team). Luckily all of these squads are in the other subleague.

Futzed around with the team some in the usual Sunday/Monday fashion... Although starting pitching continues to be the most pressing need, I've been spending more time on the offense. Maybe because position player upgrades are more numerous and more reasonably priced for a F2P'er?

I do feel a bit better about the bullpen at least. I thought life was good with Treinen a couple weeks ago, but then he decided to go and suck in real life. Swapped Treinen out for gold Rollie Fingers for a couple of "years," but Rollie is a low-end closer option at diamond level. I have gold Eck in there now and am liking the back end with Fingers/Eckersley better.

Speculated on George Springer a couple weeks back and he paid off with a nice bump to diamond. So I immediately quick sold him. It's a nice feeling to finally play the market right after whiffing on Willson Contreras and a couple others than I've managed to block out of my memory. lol

B'sin'Glou couldn't get past the Division Series in Gold last season, despite being the best regular season team in the conference (the wildcard who beat me went on to the Gold Level Series, as wildcards often seem to do).

Opened a fair few packs but the only upgrade was Stephen Strasburg (who also got bumped up to a 91 overnight).

Jose Ramirez won the MVP last season and is off to a hot start again, slashing .314/.398/.558 in the 2-hole. We're actually hitting homers to start the season, after struggling all last year to clear the fences. Overall, we're 17-10, a 1/2 game back in our division. Taylor Rogers has appeared in 10 games, throwing 15 innings for just 5 hits, 2 walks and 0 runs.

Have to say, it's quite nice looking at a roster ranging from 50 to 98 :D

Hi, can anybody advise me how to properly set up opener/follower in the way that only one follower pitches in one game? What happens is that opener opens, follower follows, they pitches together 6-7 innings but then another follower (SP) comes to close the game. This way the followers are tired but bullpen is rested and unused.

The Raccoons are 22-7 and definitely benefiting from an easy schedule. The two worst teams in the league so far are both in my division. We just got through scoring 50 runs in 4 games winning all 4 against one of those two teams. They've been trapped in perfect losing over 100 games for the past 3 seasons.

My conference appears to have only 2 really strong teams (though there are others that are pretty solid), the Doha Oilers and the Pine Tar Pirates both of which are in the same division. We should be adding a new SP soon so I think our chances of making the playoffs look pretty good this season.

You have a very good team yourself and it looks like you'll win the division easily.


I think I will be in a dogfight with the Pine Tar Pirates all year to avoid the wild card.


Good luck

I panic-sold a Daniel Robertson card this morning to insta-buy that Dick Bartell card before I had to go. Boy's fit right in - already batting .091!

I have literally never bought an upgrade card that helped immediately. They ALWAYS suck for a few weeks of game-time before finally playing like they should. On the flip side, whenever I throw in an iron or nobody to fill a hole until I find something better, they always play like an all-star for the 15-20 games they fill-in, making me question whether or not to go with the iron card. Eventually they start sucking, too, and make me buy the replacement.

The Raccoons are now 38-14 and still picking on the weak. The discrepancy between the best teams in this league and the weakest teams is considerable. All of the leagues I played in from bronze to diamond were much better balanced. One team is on a 19 game winning streak and is 47-8, but against the really strong teams he's only 4-3.

I added Tom Seaver to my rotation so now my next goal is to upgrade one of my relievers. It seems that control is even more important at perfect than below so I'll be looking for someone with very good control.

Lou Boudreau, my 112 DEF SS continues to hit very well considering his ratings (73 contact). He's hitting .316 and has a career .299 AVG (.348 OBP).

And now for a little trivia: In that 5 HR in one inning game I had, Boudreau hit only 3 HRs all year, but 1 of them was in that inning which gave us 9k PP.

he has an 80 BABIP rating against both lefties and righties, that probably helps a bit.

All my teams are very much in the playoffs race.

Doha (37-17) is battling it out with another very strong team for the division and there is a likely chance we'll win 100 games and still have to play in the wild card.

Great Lake (33-24) is leading the division by 4 games but it's not playing as well as I expected. We in one of those 4 division leagues and it looks like a playoff spot is within reach.

Perugia (32-22) is in a very competitive division that has the 4 best records in the conference. I am surprised by how well this smallball team is playing in Perfect mainly winning in the friendly confines of the home park where we have a .690 winning pct. On a side note we also managed to sweep Orcin's Colonels in a 4 game series played at home :)

Your team looks really good, as usual. Well done!

My Colonels are really struggling right now. The team has hit a collective Perfect Leagues sophomore slump. I am still looking for another top starter but otherwise I am clinging to the hope that they will have a strong second half. We lead the league in opponent’s BABIP, so maybe a few of those lucky hits will turn into outs today.

What are diamond Rose's stats so far?

You have a very good team and I think you will turn the season around. I'm very surprised about your defensive stats being so bad because you have excellent defenders all-around with the possible exception of Frank Robinson at RF. It must be bad luck.

I'm just happy I beat you at least once yesterday.

I somehow landed in Perfect League this week (.411) and currently am 21-32...which honestly sucks because I didn't win the World Series I was in last week; and, it looks like I'll still be in PL next week :\


In moving up though, I finally spent $10 (I've spent $0 on my roster/s up this point, but was about 5100 pp short) to buy 88 Lou Boudreau (which someone else mentioned above). And he's also hitting above .280 so far. This sent Luis Apricio to the utility role (but as a sub he's hitting .299).

Gold Ichiro is hitting .399 as of this morning. And ironically Daniel Murphy is still holding a .300 average.

Liriano is 4-4 with a sub 3.00 era. The rest of my pitching is terrible.

where do you find this at?

55G, 250PA, .286/.364/.405, 112 OPS+, 0.6 WAR as the full-time DH

I have a lot of groundball pitchers and that is a "live by the sword, die by the sword" thing. The defensive efficiency and zone rating are both impacted by the high BABIP, but I am a little surprised by the error rate. My middle infielders, Reese and Gilliam, have 6 each and both are rated over 100 at their positions.

Fortunately, my entire division is struggling, so it is still out there for the team that gets hot.

Will be interesting to see what the differences in 2Bs and BBs are compared to the gold card over time.

Small sample size I know, but how many 2Bs and BBs does he have so far?

Congratulations for making it to Perfect with a F2P team.
I understand that it must be somewhat depressing to realize that you do not have many chances to compete and that it's very difficult to drop down a level.
On the other hand even my team, that I consider the best I can get with my budget, has no chances against the real good ones if I get drawn with them, but I'm having a lot of fun nonetheless.

Perfect League only, 162 game average:

92 Rose (250 actual PA): 188 hits, 26 doubles, 3 triples, 14 HR, 77 walks
81 Rose (706 actual PA): 200 hits, 40 doubles, 3 triples, 15 HR, 47 walks

I will try to remember to update this at the end of the season, when 92 Rose will have close to 700 PA, to see if the hits and doubles even up. So far, the walks are in line with what I expected and why I upgraded.

Thanks. Yeah it's fine, honestly. Liriano, Boggs, Ichiro are all quality enough that I should continue to generate PP, so hopefully I can at least become competitive over a couple of months in the pitching department.

Mudcats Nashville (I did it that way for a reason, kinda like a soccer club) are threatening to have the best record in Bronze 240 (as of 11am ET this morning) and try to move up to Silver.

What got me going in Bronze was FINALLY getting at best a Gold starter. I ended up with Live Verlander (a 97 Diamond). My bullpen is lights out and I carry an eight man pen (special shout out to Michael Lorenzen for making that a possibility).

Starting lineup:
SS Jose Reyes (Silver All-Star)
CF Carlos Gomez (Diamond All-Star)
DH Carl Crawford (Bronze All-Star)
RF Mitch Haniger (Silver LIVE)
LF David Dahl (Gold LIVE)
3B Kelly Gruber (Gold All-Star)
C Omar Navarez / Mitch Garver (both Silver LIVE)
2B Bobby Doerr (Gold All-Star)
1B Chris Chambliss (Bronze All-Star)

Bench:
IF Luis Guillorme (Bronze LIVE)
OF Alex Verdugo (Silver LIVE)
1B/OF Michael Lorenzen (Silver LIVE)

Rotation:
RH Justin Verlander (Diamond LIVE)
LH Don Mossi (Silver Unsung)
RH Kenta Maeda (Silver LIVE)
RH Hisashi Iwakuma (Bronze All-Star)
RH Collin McHugh (Silver LIVE)

Bullpen:
RH Edwin Diaz (Closer, Gold LIVE)
RH Jeurys Familia (Stopper, Gold LIVE)
LH Mike Stanton (Setup, Gold All-Star)
RH Austin Adams (High Leverage, Silver LIVE)
LH Jake Diekman (LOOGY/Middle, Silver LIVE)
RH Jose LeClerc (Mopup, Silver LIVE)
RH Michael Lorenzen (Middle, Silver LIVE)
RH Ross Stripling (Long, Silver LIVE)

The balls started to bounce my way in June and we took over first place with a 20-5 streak. I added 98 Don Sutton to the rotation and shuffled the bullpen around a little, but mostly the turnaround was due to good luck and the law of averages ruling in my favor. The team BABIP vs. opponents dropped from .330 to .315 in a month, but it is still well above the league average of .300. So maybe there is more good luck to come.

I had a first for one of my teams.....7 all stars!
I remember having 5 once in PT19, but 7 is my new record.

What's the highest amount of all-stars you can recall for one of your teams?

Yesterday (June), Huntley had separate losing streaks of 6 and 7. Today (July), Huntley won 14 in a row. That's a heck of a ride just to get to 14-13!

The Frogs have a bit of a dilemma in this, their 4th "year" at the diamond level. This time around, the team was placed in the deepest division in the league as all 5 teams are currently over .500. The Frogs are currently in last place while also being 8 games over .500. Even so, the team is only 1 game out of the 2nd wild card spot (held by the 3rd place team in my division). Seeing some interesting variety after running away with a very weak 4-team division last "season."

On another note, the Frogs are proud to announce they've added a diamond starter to the mix in Harry Brecheen. This is the first diamond-level starter that I've been able to purchase via the auction house. Brecheen bumps Zack Wheeler out and joins Gerrit Cole (got him in a pack), Steve Busby, Walker Buehler, and Lance McCullers Jr. The starting staff is still the weakest part of the team, so there may be another splash to acquire pitching in the near future.

Update on the Rose comparison below... 92 Rose has been hot lately. Current slash line is .300/.387/.429 with 4 WAR in 104 games as a full-time DH.

Where do you see a BABIP rating?

The Rebels are going absolutely nowhere in bronze, lingering at 52-55. Nothing good is happening with this twice-relegated team.

The Raccoons are also going absolutely nowhere, but in diamond, but at least they clicked one of those novelty gold achievements, turning six double plays in a game for 1k PP. Yeah that compensates for sitting in the middle of nowhere for the umpteenth straight year.

Earlier this week I quick-sold a David Robertson card to make up the difference to buy 1937 SS Dick Bartell for 8k. His bat is thoroughly uninspiring at .253 with six homers. Expensive upgrade over Rey Ordonez, who also batted .230 at times… but without the homers. Ordonez literally has a homer rating in the single digits. I used him for almost 1,700 PA on the Coons - no homers.

I don't know where to go next to be honest. Right now the only suspense around the Coons is whether the rest of the litter pickers gives Big Walt enough runs to win the triple crown…

Edit: for ****s and giggles, the graph for the 6 DP game. :(

Perfect 414 National Conference is looking like it's going to be a photo finish, there are three very top teams and an additional three really good teams that all going to have a good chance to winning it all.

Doha (76-34) is still 2 games behind the division leader but the wild card is all but certain. Maybe we can catch the leaders but they do not seem intent on slowing down.

Great Lake (75-41) has played much better later and has opened a nice 21 game lead in the division. We are tied for the best record in the conference and home field advantage would be nice to have as we are an all righty team that plays in a righty park.

Perugia (64-45) is still playing surprisingly well and is in the middle of a 3 team fight for the 2 wild card spots. All the teams involved are in the same division so there will be plenty of head to head matchups to decide the race.

Are your ballpark factors all 1.000?

Yes.

Saints kind of struggling this week so I added Legend Christy Mathewson and moved Righetti to the pen as a closer. Guess we’ll see if that works out.

Picked up the diamond Rose card earlier today, been looking at it for a while now. Thx for the input you've provided here Orcin, my Gwynn/Ordonez DH combo has been tough to watch this season.

I think I managed to take 2 out of 3 from the Oilers at the end of July. Doing my part to at least make it difficult on you :)

this looks like it was a fun game