When I had max hitting park factors, my staff ERA was always above 3 and it was over 4 in whale league. Since I reduced it to all 1.0 (except HR which remains 1.1) my staff ERA has been below 3. I score about 50 runs fewer, but I allow about 100 fewer. This week I bumped LHB back to 1.1 and doubles to 1.25, with no ill effects, so far, in fact my staff ERA would be the lowest ever, if the trend continues.

Over in P405...
 

...the big story is the Naperville Knights' Rod Carew, who just had a 39-game hitting streak snapped. I've never seen that long of a hitting streak in Perfect Team--congrats to Naperville and Mr. Carew! I was really hoping he'd reach 40.

Current standings follow...

We're halfway home.

WEST DIVISION
Maroons 62-21 ---
Flyers 45-36 16 GB

"SPOT 4"
Seagulls 53-27 ---
Flyers 45-36 ---
Towers of the Dub 40-40 4.5 GB

Barring an incredible 2nd half, I might play my first WC game. Or 2nd? There was definitely a play-in tiebreaker...Not sure about a WC, though....Mostly take the division or have an off-year to this point.

I am always amazed by my smart decisions and how they turn a sticky situation into an all-out smash win for my teams. The Accountants sit in last place. Fred Lynn in 49 games has been worth 22 PP (including - and exclusively - shares of team achievements in which he was kind enough to partake). Campanella? 172 PP in 79 games.

(waves arms, groaning)

June's Coons? 6-20.

So that first place is over. As is playing over .500. Or being in any way halfway relevant. Ever.

Ha...Maybe next time, even if you're not optimistic, at least don't forecast the fall. I cut Lynn recently. Does he have a NYF history?

Another hypothesis is the increased competition might have a cumulative effect. If starter 1 gets knocked around, then the bullpen comes in early. Maybe pitches back to back games. Bullpen gets tired. Starter 2 gets beat up, the cycle intensifies. Starter 3 is in a sticky spot and the bullpen is already tired, so maybe the AI leaves the starter in too long. I've seen this type of thing before. Perhaps carrying an extra bullpen arm could help--or if you are at home, swapping in rested RPs for tired RPs of similar quality at times.

The Frogs continue to hop along at a very consistent pace in P406. 18-9 in April, 17-10 in May, 17-9 in June. The 52-28 record is good for a 5-game lead in the division as a so so RDiff starts to catch up with the Jakku Jabberwookies team chasing me. They are +6 and the Frogs are +163, so...

Some milestones could be ahead for the team if this pace continues. The Frogs have never won 100 games in Perfect level. The Frogs have never won more than 105 games at any level. The Frogs have never had the best record in their conference in Perfect level. The Frogs have never had a Cy Young or MVP in Perfect level (Zack Greinke leads the conference with 4.0 WAR, 9-1 1.96 ERA). Let's see what happens.

Opened 25 more packs to make it an even 700 this month and pulled 2 perfect Scherzers in the span of 3 packs. What are the odds? Now, I just need some of my cards in the AH to start selling...curse you diamond pack sale!

Paragon City Heroes continue to frustrate in gold, they started June with 2 5 game losing streaking sandwiching a win, and looked to be heading towards silver, then they rallied and won 6 of the last 7. Only 3 players on the team have a OPS+ of 100 or more, so either they are all underperforming or the league is really strong. the pitching has improved, and I've just bought 89 Maddux to add to the rotation.

Bad News Bulldogs had a tougher June than May but ended it in 1st by 1 1/2 games at 53-30 over the Moosehead Knuckleballers. Frank Robinson won batter of the month and is 2nd in the league in RBI. Eric Davis is up to 38SB and is up to an incredible 134 Ks, he's set to break the real life record by around 40 if he continues at that pace. One noteworthy game took place in June as we ended up on the short end of a slugfest 21-14 against the Syracuse Black Sox in which they scord 12 runs in the 4th inning, Soto went 6 for 6 for them and bench drove in 5 for us, a lot of PP were gained by both teams

Neuman Furshlugginers recovered a little from May to go 14-13, and continue to be bad at pitchign and fielding (which is probably linked) while we have no outstanding hitter we have 5 with 10+ HR. I ended up selling Mantle who was just dreadful, and returning Buford to the lineup, and using the proceeds to replace Oquendo with 89 rated Robbie Alomar who will be my leadoff spitter, sorry hitter

39-44 for B'sin'Glou (our record inflated due to a very poor team in our division).

All Star Trout had a 3HR game during the month. He's earned me 1345PP in individual achievements in the 1 1/2 seasons since I pulled him.

Carlton Fisk (.293/.368/.463, 5HR) has a .417 BABIP from 185PA - he and LaValliere are sharing catching duties pretty evenly - Fisk has 48 starts, LaValliere 35, though LaValliere has played in 55 games to Fisk's 51.

My defense and pitching continue to be way too poor for this level but if I strengthen my defense I'll weaken my offense and will imo end up being worse off.

I checked on this by going through all the games and every time the SP did poorly, he was taken out early. The only times someone made it 6 innings, they either did reasonably well (almost always) or they didn't get hit hard until late (I was surprised how rare this was). So good idea to keep this in mind, but it doesn't look to be the problem so far.

Our record so far is 37-46 .446 (since bronze, our worst WPct was .623). Against the whales we are 6-27 .182, while we're 31-19 .620 vs everyone else. That record against the non-whales is very low for this team and that extremely poor record vs the whales has never happened before.

On the plus side, Lava's still leading the team in AVG (but that's not really a positive), Lajoie is 2nd in HRs and will probably make it to the AS game as a reserve and Seaver's doing well in the bullpen and ... that's about it for the positives.

There's no problem here that $500 wouldn't fix. ;)

Ugh. Hold on. I gotta call the bank.

Sometimes when you put a brand new pitcher in to start your next game, it doesn't go very well.

Sometimes, though...

The big news for me this week is complete the Future Legends mission and acquiring Ken Griffey. It was a tough to decision who (whom?) to put on the reserve list to make room: 1) Rodriguez 88 - 3rd string catcher with strong catcher "ability" 2) Boudreau 88 -- 6th infielder 3) Babe Ruth -- 7th outfielder. I like keeping Rodriguez to catch when Cy Young is pitching. Cy is contending (again) for triple crown and this time has a bountiful lead in K's against the conference's "other" Cy Young and perfect Pedro. I like keeping Boudreau to keep fully rested infielders in play at all times. So poor Babe draws the short straw. I'm keeping him around though, to replace Boudreau in the post season for pinch hitting duties.

I know I said a couple weeks ago that I had sold 23 future legends to get out of the future legend business. A few days later I changed my mind when I saw a diamond FL sell below 10K. So I jumped back in with a rigorous budget plan: 1K for the 2 silvers, 2K for golds with a lifetime average below 3K, 3K for golds with a lifetime average below 4K, and 4K for golds above 4K lifetime average and 12K for the diamonds. That totals 198K and despite overpaying for the last ones, was still under budget by 17K. The gold average was 3200 and the diamond was 10800.

While I was typing this Griffey made his debut in an 18-0 rout contributing 2 singles and 4 RBI in 6 AB. The team made 800 PP in the game.

Good going.

You have 3 catchers and 7 outfielders? Must have a tiny bullpen?

Paragon City Heroes going into the last week of June were 29-44, they went 6-1 in that last week and 18-8 in July to claw their way to 53-54, can they carry this momentum through the rest of the season? The changes I made were bringing in 86 Yogi Berra (currently 1.128 OPS) 82 ozzie Smith (currently .982 OPS) and POTM Tauchman and Hiura who haven't overperformed quite as well, oh I also bought this Maddux guy (5-0 3.29era) seems alright. The starting staff got another shot in the arm last night when I opened 10 packs, got all iron/bronze apart from the last pack giving me Scherzer. I think I need to replace Hiura with a lefty bat

Bad News Bulldogs had a strange July, moving to 68-40 losing and regaining the division lead, they were 9-7 before the ASG, their worst patch of the season, then went 7-0 and finally lost a series 1-3 to the now second place team/ Rose, Robinson and Lodolo were my ASG, Lodolo is at reliever/opener with a 1.65era and 11k/9 over 54 IP. Eric Davis is still on pace for over 250 Ks

Neuman Furshlugginers are 50-57 every time it looks like they are going to break .500 they lose a bunch of games, this time it was a 6 game skid despite Bernie Williams being Batter of the month we had a 10-15 record. We are leading the league in runs scored but still have a negative run differential due to terrible pitching/fielding. I'm bringing in Carlos Beltran at RF, moving Bernie to LF and putting Singleton at DH, defensively we'll still be bad just not as bad

The Frogs (71-35) were able to widen their division lead substantially as the 2nd place team got a flat tire. While we ran off a 13-game winning streak. That other team is currently the 3rd place team and 15 games out. The new 2nd place team is 11 games behind. The Frogs also have a 6-game lead for best record in the conference. Some strong teams await in the other conference should the Frogs make it that far.

Hardware Heroes Zack Greinke continues to put his hat in the ring for a Cy Young award (12-3, 2.10 ERA). He's tied with a 100 Cy Young with a conference-best 4.9 WAR.

Nomar Garciaparra has been training up at 2B and he must've been angry at being replaced temporarily with Luke Appling (enough time to realize Appling had prior stats), because Nomar is having another great season. He's 2nd in the conference in batting average (.346), 2nd in RBI (78), 2nd in OPS (.942), and was named player of the month for July. The 10K PP paid for him back in 2032 has been quite the bargain.

Mike Trout is turning into a love-hate player for me. He had another "hate" month in July (.161/.259/.247). When he's cold, he's really cold. I love the defense/baserunning he brings, but he's not my prototypical type of hitter. Trout is auditioning for next year's team for the remainder of 2040.

Rebs are a crummy 56-52, which is somehow good enough to lead a terrible division by 4 1/2 games. In this weird league, they had four All Stars and Rizzo won MVP...

1997 Raul Mondesi (.281, 20 HR, 75 RBI) leads the league in RBI, for some reason, which is weird since I have repeatedly thought that it would be really great if I could finally draw an oomph rightfielder appropriate for the level they're playin' at. :p Well, he was also nowhere near this performance last year, when he hit all of 11 dingers.

Coons sit at 52-55, five games out, but we all know they won't get back in. They also had four All Stars (!) and Jeff McNeil won MVP. :confused:

The Critters also sold their J.D. Martinez to raise some funds (which led to the completion of the Knuckleballers mission) - which gold card was their reward?

J.D. ****ing Martinez.

I will tell you, it's not easy when your entire ****ing life is a sitcom.

Finally, the Accountants. 49-55, six games out, and not even quite in last place. I wouldn't call that "getting better" though. And they had only one All Star (Ken Boyer). He did not win MVP.

Updated P431 2040 standings from Flyers' perspective:

NC West division

Maroons 80-34 ---
Flyers 64-50 16 GB

WILD CARD

INKO Seagulls 77-36 ---
Flyers 64-50 ---
Towers of the Dub 55-60 9.5 GB
Detroit Tigers 53-58 9.5 GB

Looking even more like INKO Seagulls vs. NEW YORK Flyers for spot 4. Slim chance I could get homefield for that game.

If not, & I can't win it on the road by chance, this is a pretty loaded League this year...4 teams at .667 or better...and more than usual competitive in general.