After the All-Star Break my Hosts were in hailing distance of a Wild Card slot. I made some tweaks to the lineup, including bringing back 92 FL Riley Greene in LF, and trying out 91 SS Bill Terry in 1B. Greene came in to replace an disappointing Pete Rose (95 BaL). In 524 PAs, Rose slashed .264 / .315 / .356 with a wRC+ of 85 and a -0.6 WAR. Terry came into replace the departed Ripper Collins.
Along with some other adjustments to strategy, the team finally coalesced into the playoff team I knew we had and we went on a 9-game winning streak to force a Game 163 against the Philadelphia Phillies. We promptly lost that game, scoring zero runs and committing 4 errors. Making the moves were a gamble because in so doing, we at least punched our ticket out of Bronze. Whether or not it would be a one-way ticket is yet to be determined.
BUILD a LEGEND PERFORMANCES
I ran quite a few Build a Legend pitchers. Here's how they performed over the regular season.
Nagy and Peavy were the only two Perfects, while the others were Diamond. Marichal did yeoman's work as the long reliever. Except for the Jose Mendez gamble, the rotation was largely untouched. Mendez (96 NLS) 's L10 is now 35k, so I might be stuck with him. With my 75k and a whole bunch of Live spec, I could pivot to build Satchel Paige.
On the hitters side, Heilmann's first full year with us did not disappoint. Installed as the everyday RF, he slashed .323 / .413 / .496 with 19 home runs. He walked more times than he struck out (75 to 71), scored 101 runs, and drove in 108. His 5.8 WAR was second only to Rico Petrocelli, who had a banner year slashing .325 / .424 / .512 on his way to amassing 6.2 WAR.
Defensively, we posted our worst Zone Rating (-25) in five years. Heilmann actually contributed positively to ZR (+0.7). I put the blame on BaL 90 Tony Fernandez, platooning at SS with the defensive whiz 96 HL Rafael Furcal. Starting against lefties, Furcal posted a +7.1 ZR while Fernandez posted a -10.8 ZR. BaL 91 McCutchen, whom I platooned with 90 SE Lenny Dykstra in CF. McCutchen posted a -5.5 ZR to Dykstra's +3.1.
The off-season looks to be quiet. I'm nowhere near finishing any more BaLs. I figure it's just a holding pattern for now until I hopefully cash out on Live Spec.