Just a goofy obervation
 

So in my current random debut, Cleveland managed to nab Mike Schmidt in the amateur draft. Cleveland has never been able to nail down any pitching and this has led to them finishing in the bottom half more often than not. Well, this means they pick high in the draft order, so a couple years ago, low and behold, they were able to nab Paul Goldschmidt in the amateur draft.


The now have Goldschmidt hitting 3rd and Schmidt hitting 4th, Stuff like this really makes my day.

Ah, you have to love a league in which Mookie Wilson and Mookie Betts become teammates.

That is fun !

Look at JR Richards 1979 season. Attachment 607450

Another goofy observation from my land of randomness.

League started in 1971
These are the AL Batting Champions in order
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle
Dale Mitchell
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle
Al Oliver
Al Oliver
Rusty Staub
Rusty Staub

Mantle and Mitchell both were Boston Flyers.
Oliver and Staub are both New York Vipers.

9 batting titles only 2 teams. Pretty cool

A Jon Matlack No Hitter. Attachment 607966

Remarkably, Matlack hurled a no-hitter even though the highest-rated defensive infielder was Mo Vaughn...

Looks like Sandy Koufax may be human after all. 7 Cy Youngs, 180+ wins over 9 seasons. 2500+ strikeouts. 90+ WAR. He's 7-8 so far in 1980, season number 10. His strikeouts are way down. He's listed as a 3 star now when he used to be the max. Just this morning before coming to work, I watched him give up 12 runs, 8 earned over 3 innings of work. The AI actually left him in for 5+ innings before yanking him. It will be interesting to see if Sandy can right the ship over the remainder of the 1980 season or if Captain Development has bit him in the butt. At one point it looked like Koufax was all Toronto was going to need to emerge as a frontrunner, but after a 90+ win season in Sandy's first year with the team, Toronto struggled last season, finishing in the middle of the pack. This year looks much the same through the first week of July.

Another sad bit of news has to do with the above screenshotted Jr Richards. Jr struggled out of the 1980 gate as well, but was slowly but surly turning things around. Then, he tore his triceps. Bam, out for 4 months, which means the rest of the season. This injury scares me as Richards is right at the period his career came to an end in the real world. Now only time will tell if he can recover well enough to keep driving towards what appeared to be a sure fire Hall of Fame career.

The random OOTP development ghosts have not been overly kind to Mookie Betts in regards to offensive output, but defensively the man is a stud. At work so I may be wrong in exact number, but I think Mookie has 7 or more Gold Gloves in RF. He played the first 9 seasons of his career for the Detroit Cyclones, before moving on this season to San Francisco.


Well, following the 8th season of my league, I decided to add wildcards to my league. This league has 2 10 team subleagues, no divisions. The LCS is a best of 5 with all games played in the park of the team that finished the regular season with the best record in each league. 1979 was the first season played under this setup. So, guess what happens? Sure enough both wildcards teams win their series to head to the World Series. Only stands to reason.

Oh man, it's painful to watch something like this happen. Do you think he can have bounce back?Attachment 609661

Is there any better feeling than reaching season 10? I'm now playing season 11 and it's so exciting to see the leaderboards evolve. I've got my first 200 game winner, Sandy Koufax. My first 300 home run guy, Mickey Mantle. My first guy to 2000 hits, Sam Crawford. I have a group of guys that have 1000+ rbi as well. This is when I fall in love with OOTP and what it provides. Such a great game.

Random debut is just such a great thing. Endlessly fascinating. It was a great concept and it is implemented extremely well.

I agree. That is when it really gets fun. You see your history unfold.

Oh man, it's going to be a long day at work today. I'm just about to wrap up the 1982 season. Only 2 days remain. The National League race has already been decided with San Francisco taking the top spot and Los Angeles taking the wild card. The Detroit Cyclones have clinched the top spot in the American League, but the wild card is still up for grabs. The Boston Flyers and the New York Vipers are both 96-64 on the final Saturday of the season and as luck would have it, the two teams will go head to head to decide which team faces Detroit in the LCS. Boston is led by the hitting of Paul Molitor, Dan Ford and Ryan Klesko. They have the best closer in the game right now, Steve Howe. Howe has 45 saves and ERA in the Hood of 1.40. He's thrown close to 100 innings as well. Meanwhile, New York has strong pitching and hitting, with Rusty Staub, Al Oliver, Bob Horner and AJ Pollock leading the charge. On the mound, Bob Friend and Jon Matlack continue their dominance. Both look like they will pass the 200 win mark before they end their careers.

I'm also trying to decide if I want to keep my league a no division league as it is now or if I should split each 10 team subleague into two 5 team divisions. I love the fact that with no divisions, I'm getting the absolute best teams facing off in the league championship series. But, if I go to divisions, more teams will stay relevant as the season progresses. If I go to divisions, I can also go to a more straightforward LCS with both teams getting home games. Right now, I have it set up where the top team gets all 5 games at home. Have to do something to reward the best record during regular season.

Of course, if I end up buying 20 this weekend, all of above becomes moot. As of right now I haven't decided. So who knows.

My vote is for no divisions mostly because that is my setup :) Big fan of that and balanced schedules

I like the balanced schedule as well. That is another on the side of keeping things the way they are. Another thing in favor of doing so, is my current lineup of teams. Atlanta ends up being an odd duck in that they would end up in a division with Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, when it seems like they would fit in better with New Orleans, Houston and Dallas. But, putting them with those three won't work because of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Atlanta has been awful, so I could move them to either Memphis or Indianapolis, but I've always liked having Atlanta in my leagues. I thought about moving San Francisco and Los Angeles east, but San Fran has been one of the best, if not the best teams in the league so far. Hate moving a dominant team.

You can import the game from 19 to 20. I think 2 divisions is good but never more than 2 in each league and never wildcards. But with 2 you can expand gradually to 8 teams each if needed to reproduce the old 16 team structure. Too many divisions and you have something else.

Is there a particular suggested guide for setting up one of these? Going to start one now that my roto baseball draft is behind me.