Season 16 (2034) General Discussion thread
 

Good luck all!

I just about managed the enthusiasm to switch my teams back to a 5-man rotation after triple DS defeat yesterday :laugh:

The Colonels are back for a 10th season in Perfect Leagues. The results so far: never missed the playoffs, never less than 90 wins, never won a championship. I have tried several things to get over the hump, and this season brings another new strategy. Hope springs eternal.

After spending Sunday mulling over the best alignment for my players, I decided to keep Wagner at shortstop, i.e. the offensive strategy. I considered moving Wagner to 2B or 3B where he would be an outstanding defender, and putting Rizzuto or one of my other premium defenders at short. I decided that Wagner has the most value as a shortstop, and I should evaluate the team with him there for another season before making any decision.

If I move Wagner, then one of my other infielders (Boggs, Brett, J.Robinson) has to go to the bench, and I am not ready to make that choice. Wagner trains to a better defensive 2B than 100 Robinson and they are similar offensive players with Wagner being the better of the two, so that might be the move. Robinson could platoon with Brett at 3B and sub for Boggs and Wagner, but I am getting ahead of myself.

I recognized that I will have to score more runs to compensate for an average infield defense, so I looked for another big bat. I was able to find 100 Mickey Mantle at a bargain price to take over left field. I will go with a 6-man bullpen this year to make room for former LF 98 Frank Robinson on the bench as a PH and fourth outfielder.

The pitching staff will be under pressure this year, so I also upgraded there with 99 Tim Keefe and 100 Eric Gagne. Keefe will replace 96 Roger Clemens in the rotation, with Clemens joining Gagne in a reworked bullpen. Hopefully, the addition of two strikeout pitchers to replace two GB pitchers (93 Wainwright and 92 Reuschel) will help to offset a few extra groundball hits off the other guys.

This will be the year to evaluate the idea that more offense will lead to a bigger run differential. If it does not, then I may have to become more defense-oriented. It is all about the journey, so I am anxious to see where this week's decisions take me.

My F2P (pack only) Terriers are repeating the silver league for the 8th time as I'm waiting for my next lucky pack opening. The good news is Charlie Morton increased to diamond status and I scored a bunch of points selling my Zoilo Versalles for 10,000 yesterday afternoon, so I've got about 10 packs to open right after I offer up some liquor to the Jobu shrine.

My all Indians team is in their second season in Diamond. Last week I completed the Indians collection and got myself a Vean Gregg card. The funny thing is when I finally had saved up 26,000 points to buy the last live card (Lindor), I had to also buy an overpriced iron Bobby Bradley card for 300 because he had just been added into the game. Vultures were quick to circle me while I was making that transaction. All's good though, as Gregg becomes my 5th starter kicking fan favorite Addie Joss to the bullpen.

All teams remain at the same level for this season. None of them was particularly close to relegation or the playoffs last year.

The Accountants have some new toys, but are trying to hide a few bad investments that won't ever sell again on the reserve roster… The Raccoons continue to have no hope at making it in Perfect. And the Rebels remain a mess that can not be untangled.

On my Bob's Milwaukee All-Stars team, i've made three roster switches which in theory are for worse players, but players i'm more interested in having on the team.

Catcher - Yasmani Grandal out, Del Crandall (back) in ('58 Hardware Hero)
1st Base - Keston Hiura out, Cecil Cooper in ('80 Historical All-Star)
3rd Base - Mike Moustakas out, Jeff Cirillo in ('97 Historical All-Star)

My instinct when I got those live players (for a mission) was that I *should* put them in, but then it's a theme team, and it's nice to have some more 'classic' players out there.

Anyway, hopefully they play well :p;)

I've decided to test-drive 92 Nolan Ryan on my All-AL team, curious to see how his super-high stuff and below-average mov/con play out :p

Luckily for him, he goes against 97 Pedro Martinez in his first start, who is basically an upgraded model :laugh:

I've got the 92 Ryan on my KC team, 3rd starter. Expect a fairly high ERA but lots of K's. Every once in a while he'll have a big K game and get you a couple thousand PP. Contact teams obviously are his kryptonite.

My Cards and A's teams both won their leagues yesterday. My A's team is F2P, but benefitted from pulls of 100 Mariano, 100 Gagne, and 98 Brian Wilson, which sold for about 380,000 PP. I have felt bad about rolling Bronze Silver and Gold the last 3 weeks cuz I know it sucks to have a monster in your division. Diamond should be a better fit.


My "main" team, the Swamp Dogs is a live team. They made perfect way too soon and get trampled every week. I want to dismantle them and start over. Last season 3 teams tied for worst record at 56-106. The other teams got relegated, mine stayed. I don't want to violate the TOS by "tanking", but they literally have no chance against these teams.

And the Huntley Red Raiders are apparently right there with you in P418! Good luck on pursuing that first Perfect title; I'd offer some sage advice on what it takes to win it all, but I've lost more home Wild Card games in Perfect (2, including yesterday's "101-win team defeated by 81-win team" debacle) than I've won titles...

As for this week's Red Raiders, I managed to complete the historical White Sox collection missions last night and now sport Special Edition Ed Walsh in the rotation, bumping Cy Blanton to the bullpen (at least initially), and Special Edition Luke Appling at SS, which frees Jackie Robinson up to be a super-sub against righties and my third baseman against lefties, relegating Matt Chapman off the 25-man squad. Did I improve the team or just engage in spinning-wheels busy work? Only time will tell...

I have not been able to evaluate my leagues properly but I'm a bit pissed that Great Lake ended up in one of those 20 team leagues that feel a bit strange.

Good luck everyone in the quest for the title.

After a few weeks of being placed in pretty wide open Perfect leagues, the Frogs have been placed into more of a meat grinder this time.

P431 includes some heavy hitters. There's the NC Central "division of death" where we have the Brooklyn Cyclones, Spearfish Blackhawks, and the Windy City Summoners. It makes me glad to not be in that division. That's not all, as the powerful Brooklyn Dodgers also loom in the NC East division. In the Frogs' division, the NC West, the strongest team appears to be the New York Flyers although their history of 3 consecutive losing seasons doesn't quite seem to match up with the high roster quality (mostly perfect starters, all diamond/perfect lineup/some big time relievers). I expect that team to surpass .500 this week.

Over in the AC, the AC West is a bit milder version of the "division of death," containing the super team Collingwood Magpies (contains all of the 5 top SPs in the game) along with the very strong Marshall Cardinals. The Magpies were running +800 run differentials in bronze/silver/gold/diamond before being promoted to the major leagues recently.

All that accounted for, I think my itch to try a super-defense team came at a pretty good time. Because, although it's possible for the Frogs to win the division this week (maybe ~30% chance), it's just too big a pod of whales to harpoon them all!

The Raccoons find themselves in a division with a team (Arlington Cowboys) that won 134 games last year and 2 perfect titles in the past 3 seasons. They've already taken 4 of 6 from us, but we're out in front at 13-5 (but only +14 RDiff). So we'll probably be looking at a WC this year.

Looking around the league, the Amsterdam Armada look pretty tough. Didn't someone here in the forums beat them in the playoffs recently? I also see the Mequon Bees made it to perfect (congratulations and good luck!) and a few other "familiar faces".

I sold some cards and now have spending money, so off to the AH I go! I'm hoping to get a good SP so I can move a good SP to the bullpen which isn't nearly as strong as my starting rotation.

Edit: I just noticed we're 14th in R so far after leading the entire league with 1000+ last season. But our pitching is 1st in RA so they're compensating.

The (FTP, Pack Only) Muck Rakers begin their 3rd season in Perfect League hoping to not get their teeth kicked in. After going 86-76 and 75-87 in their first two season, they are off to an 8-11 start. Though my Maddux threw a Himself with only 73 pitches.

Yep. You're probably remembering my jibbering about my Frogs taking the Armada out in the subleague series 2 weeks ago. They won 131 games that week I believe, so when we took them down 4-0 it was pretty shocking. A Cinderella type of thing for sure.

73 pitches is a real Maddux of a Maddux. That accomplishment should be in a totally different PP bracket than your garden variety 95-pitch Madduxes.

I'm in the division of death...RIP. Hopefully my stellar defense and pitching can carry me :laugh:

Hope to see you in the playoffs!

Currently second in my division with an 18-7 start, so it's going to be a close race for sure. Even if I don't make the playoffs this was pretty great:

With Willie Foster (60 Hold Runners) pitching, and Ray Fosse (83 Catcher rating) behind the plate, Ichiro Suzuki (82) stole home!

We had an absolutely insane first simulation day of the season:

https://i.imgur.com/3YanQB3.png

From where I'm standing, this ain't the least bit mild...

If my two Diamond teams had slightly favourable leagues last week, the pendulum has certainly swung the other way this week - they've been playing against Historical Diamonds and Perfects I've never even seen before :laugh:

I had a good day yesterday with 22 wins and 17K points earned. That's what a 12-game winning streak, a no-hitter (Keefe), and a couple of blowouts (20-0, 30-3) will get for you. Mantle scored 6 runs in one game for 3K, so the new boys are offering an early payback.