[One Great Matrix]

I haven't tracked and recorded much Flyers' history to this point but

So…the story of the Flyers begins in sim year 2019 when yours truly had just signed up for Perfect Team, & spent almost a whole week in the entry pool, finishing with the 4th best record out of 60 teams with players like…Lou Brissie (former A's pitcher), Carlton Fisk (rookie) (89), & Padres 2B Greg Garcia starring. I guess it was mid-week during the entry pools I started to try & put together a great but not necessarily "perfect" :-) team.

In sim year 2019, the Flyers finished with a 98-64 regular season record, won their division & cruised through the first 2 rounds of the playoffs. The Iron League Series would be the New York Flyers vs. the Kango Stars. We lost 4-2, Aroldis Chapman saved a couple games for the Stars I believe, & we generally got slightly out-played. Derek Jeter 2006 was the Flyers' shortstop.

In sim year 2020, the Flyers improved their record in the regular season by 5 games, finishing 103-59. Except no series was meant to be this season. The Flyers were humbled by the Ocean City Seagulls who finished about 15 games behind them, & were struck out of the playoffs when we lost a best-of-5 playoff-opening series vs. them. It might have been a 2-3 series loss.

The Flyers finished 2021 with an identical record as the previous year; 103-59. Heading into the playoffs, I knew nothing was guaranteed. It might have helped because on Easter Sunday 2019, the Flyers won their first Championship by winning all three of their playoffs series. I believe we had to defeat The Chico Bail Bondsmen & Ocala Thoroughbreds in best-of-seven series' in order to be awarded our first virtual trophy. It probably only helped that it was Easter and I didn't sit at my computer and over-manage, ha.

The Flyers, now in a Gold level league, started out the 2022 season by winning 30 of their first 54 games. I made a note of it… I hoped maybe we could continue at that pace & finish 90-72 given the becoming slightly stiffer competition…I'm not sure what they started eating for breakfast but it was good for them and we finished off the regular season by winning 80 of the final 108 games on the schedule to finish with our best record-to-date, 110-52. However the playoffs were merely OK…We defeated the Chico Bail Bondsmen, but then were swept by the Ddingu Eagles of Korea. Because we won the first series, The Flyers were promoted to a Diamond Level league for the 2023 sim season.

My first season in diamond was an introduction to teams that my "formula€", which had been good for a .617 winning % or so to this point pretty consistently, did not work on…In fact, I believe the Flyers did NOT win their division for the first time in 2023. (Thank You, Aoteroa Angels)… We did manage & play our way to an 86-76 record that was good enough to tie for the best record in the conference among teams that did not win their division. This led to a 1-game play-in against the Indianapolis Knights in which we were crushed even though we had the home field. (Thank You, Adalberto Mondesi)…

So I felt I had to make some adjustments for 2024 & I did, and it led to a 97-65 record. I knew the playoffs would not be easy (the regular season wasn't either) so I did not throw in the towel when I went down to the Indianapolis Knights & Wisconsin Beer Barons 2-0. I won games 3, 4 & 5 in the best of 5 vs. the Beer Barons,…& against the Knights, and came back to win the series 4-2 after going down 0-2…The World Series went a little differently. The Flyers went up 2-0 against the Richmond River Otters, lost the next 3…then finally won games 6 & 7 to win the Diamond Series. Tony Oliva happened to be the Series MVP, (we had a high sub frequency at a number of positions)… , & we had won our 2nd virtual trophy after a GRUELING sequence of playoff games in which we went 11-7 overall, coming close to the current maximum of 19 or 20.

Through the first 6 seasons, the Flyers won their division 5 out of 6 times. 2025 marks a decided change in that trend. Let's fly right into it:

In my first year in Perfects, I won my first game! Vida Blue pitched great and the Flyers were 8-1 winners… From there the Flyers won just 53 of the remaining 161 games on their schedule to finish 54-108, or an average of 1-2, for a .333 Win Pct. …David Cone's performance was most memorable: David Cone's 1988 card is a good one; I watched him that year and he was great…& to this point in Flyers' sims he had gone 70-40 overall, his ERA ranging from just under 3 to just under 4. But he ended up with a pretty different line in my first season in Perfects: a 5.61 ERA to go along with a 3-16 record.

I wasn't really sure how aggressive to be about getting better but my record was 54-108, BA was .232, and ERA a very high 5.68 for 2026 & I figured I'd at least see what I could do about improving the BA & ERA for 2027.

So in 2027 the Flyers got back at it in Perfects this time littering their batting order with guys who hit .300 or better in real life… The BA improved from .232 to .265 (which is still my best in Perfects), the ERA improved from 5.68 to 4.62…and so the overall Runs-Runs Against improved…from 646-961 (-315) in 2026 to 737-787 (-50) in 2027. Cone found a home in the bullpen. The Flyers won 23 more games as well, improving from 54-108 to 77-85.

So I figured I could get back to competing with a few more additions/tweaks in 2028 and compete we did…The Flyers finished 91-71, lowered the team ERA to 3.91…and got to play the Aoteroa Angels in the playoffs. But my refined pitching and batting order alone were not enough to get by the first round as the Flyers fell 3 games to 1 to the Angels.

I wasn't sure exactly what sim year 2029 had in store & in a way I thought maybe I'd missed a chance to excel in the playoffs in 2028 by sitting one of my very best position players…for arbitrary…but reasons that made sense to me reasons…hehe…I thought "I'm not even sure if I'll make the playoffs again next year, I could win about 90 again and EASILY not get a spot."

Anyway, this player was Lou Gehrig, and I just wanted to start him off in 2029 even though I acquired him about 25 games before the 2028 playoffs. 2029 was quite a regular season for the New York Flyers…we finished 102-60 (best mark in perfects regular season to-date) and finished 1st in our division for the 2nd time in Perfects in just 4 seasons after the lousy 54-108 inaugural season. I had 5 good pitchers in the rotation for a whole year and they all lived up to expectations or better. In the 1st round, our old friends, the Wisconsin Beer Barons were our opponents. They had won their division as well…WELL, they beat us 3-1 in a best-of-5 series and I let another opportunity to win a Perfects League get away. The Beer Barons didn't even play .500 ball, but maybe I shouldn't have thought of it that way…Or maybe they just played better in 3 out of 4 games & that marked the end of the Flyers' season and I did not under-estimate them one bit. Not sure.

In 2030, the Flyers went 95-67…we had to go on a late-season run of sorts to secure our 7th or 8th division title in 11 seasons. The Bayou WhoDats made sure we didn't win our first Perfect Leagues playoff series by beating us modestly but handily, 3 games to zero. This left me feeling a bit uninspired, it was like I was riding a wave and it finally crashed…

In 2031, the Flyers finished with a 78-84 record… we hit just .244 as a team which was our worse to date in Perfects except for season one. Our pitching staff posted an ERA over 4 after 3 consecutive seasons of being in the 3s. We finished 4th in the division (I think) but all in all considering the seasons that some of our individual players put forth, 78-84 was not too bad.

In 2032, I strayed from my plan, or original formula, even further (to have some fun with the sim aspect of the game if not win maximum number of games, just cause I had become a bit exhausted)… & boy was the schedule TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH…WOW…I made it through at 75-87, and we were outscored 758-821 by teams that for the most part outscored their opponents by more than 300, 400 even 500? Runs on the year? The Flyers had one month where they went 18-9 and another month where they went about 6-21! This wasn't strictly schedule woes as I had to beat a great team 4-0 in a series in the month where we went 18-9 & did not take any advantage of non-juggernauts in the month where we went 6-21 but the first example of months within one season that were that extreme. To that point, the most irregularity in my monthly records was from a bit under .500 to .655 or so.

Anyway, the Flyers acquired the rights to LHP Johan Santana PEAK SE not by finishing all of those Twins missions but by trading 110,000 PP for him in the AH to gear up for 2033 (6-4 start)…our pitchers look good, and I am going to see if I can put some runs on the board for all the Flyers' fans out there…Or casual followers of the team.

From here the plan is to post occasional or frequent (IDK) updates on the team in this thread & keep on playing ball.