Help with my lineup (What am I doing wrong?)

ebbets1956 · 11-30-2023, 08:54 PM

Not sure what I am doing wrong. I can win up to Gold Leagues, but when I get to Diamond League I get obliterated. I feel like my team had solid hitting and great defense, and I felt like my pitching was good enough to maybe at least get to .500 or at the very least not get religated, but in never fails, I always get stomped:

My team

Nap Lajoie 2b Immortal Seasons
Ellie Delacruz 3b Future Stars
Mickey Mantle LF Collection Reward
Don Mattingly 1b Immortal Seasons
Alex Rodriguez SS Mission Peak
Yordan Alvarez DH Baseball Ref
Josh Gibson C Collection Reward
Cristobal Torriente RF Negro Leagues
Kirby Puckett CF Basebal Ref

Bench
Heavy Johnson Backup C
Mule Suttles (platoons with Torriente)
Rickey Weeks 2b Baseball Ref (IF backup with others shifting around)
98 Lou Gerhig
98 Jose Canseco Immportal Seasons
99 John Henry Lloyd (pinch runner)

Rotation
100 Hilton Smith (Negro LEagues)
100 Ray Brown (Negro Leagues)
100 Satchel Paige (collection reward)
100 Bob Caruthers BB Ref
100 Carl Hubbell BB Ref

Bullpen
100 Rob Dibble BB Ref Closer
100 Rich Gossage SE 1981 Setup
100 Bert Blyleven Dream Bracket Middle
100 Dellin Betances Middle
100 Johan Satana Collection Reward (Long relief)
100 Dan Plesac LH specialist

only cards that arent locked are Carruthers, Santana, Hubbell, Paige, Hilton Smith, Josh Gibson, Yordan Alvarez, Arod, Mantle, Lajoie

PunishedF2P · 11-30-2023, 09:40 PM

It's honestly just not a good enough squad to win in diamond. You could have a lucky season where everything goes your way and make the playoffs, and you never know in the playoffs, but it's very unlikely.

I've made the playoffs 8 seasons in a row in diamond (and I have a 10 game lead in my division right now) including 5 division titles - and pretty much every playoff team is fairly similar to mine; other than Willie Mays (or Charleston after today), my team is basically maxed out.

At the minimum, you need to have completed all the Immortal Seasons missions and have Kershaw, DeGrom and Aaron to be a playoff team in Diamond League.

rburgh · 11-30-2023, 10:37 PM

I've made 4 trips to PL and stuck there once for 3 weeks. My current team is

C - Pudge, Berra
1B - Brouthers
2B - Childs
3B - BBR Brett, Glaus
SS - BBR Seager, Sewell
OF - Aaron, BBR Mays, Kaline (L to R), Shoeless Joe bench
DH - T. Williams, BBR Manny

SP - deGrom, Richard, K Brown, NeL Hilton Smith, Koufax
RP - Gagne, Chapman, Uehara, Eck
Long Men - Kershaw, Newhouser, Exclusive Valenzuela

You probably need at least 4 of my SP/long men in your rotation and at least one of my RP, as well as a lineup that includes at least 6 of my position players in your lineup, to be competitive at the diamond level.

bailey · 12-01-2023, 02:35 PM

I see you have Mattingly and Canseco, so you have all you need to complete the IS2 - Defense mission and get Gary Carter for free to replace Heavy Johnson.

rburgh · 12-01-2023, 08:11 PM

It's a good policy to check your collection missions regularly and have them sorted by decreasing % complete and only show incomplete missions.

PunishedF2P · 12-02-2023, 02:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rburgh

SP - deGrom, Richard, K Brown, NeL Hilton Smith, Koufax
RP - Gagne, Chapman, Uehara, Eck
Long Men - Kershaw, Newhouser, Exclusive Valenzuela

What's the reasoning behind Kershaw being a long man out of the pen? He's the best SP on paper in my opinion, and he's been my best starter easily, winning 20+ games 5 years in a row, one CY Young, and another Cy Young he got robbed of - 2.72 career ERA and 32 WAR.

Just curious.

My pitching squad is very close to yours, with different immortal season guys swapped out (Wagner instead of Chapman, Miller instead of Gagne, Walsh instead of Brown). Is Chapman worth playing? I have him, but don't use him. And I never picked up Valenzuela, so I have Rollie Fingers in that spot.

PunishedF2P · 12-02-2023, 02:23 AM

My current roster:

C - Pudge, Salas
1B - Helton
2B - Childs
3B - BBR Brett, Glaus
SS - Young, Sewell
OF - T. Williams/BBR Manny, Aaron, Kaline (L to R), Trout (bench)
DH - Brouthers

SP - Kershaw, deGrom, Newhouser, NeL Hilton Smith, Koufax
RP - Fingers, Wagner, Uehara, Eckersley, Miller
Long Men - Richards, Walsh

I did pick up Helton, and he's been great for me so far.

I'm sitting on around 800K in points (and a ton of live cards, waiting for the awards missions) but I'm F2P, so I don't like buying cards like Mays when they're still so expensive - I've thought about Seager now that he's dropped to 300K. And the NeL 4 collection (other than the toppers) is just too new to drop all my points for.

But I'll have Baseball Ref 4 missions all complete whenever those drop, hoping that is this upcoming week. Same with Future Legends 2, I've picked up everyone there as well.

I'd love to breakthrough into Perfect League, but I'm 0-13 so far in DL playoffs, with 3 WS losses, two in game 7. Just need a little luck eventually and I should get there.

bailey · 12-02-2023, 12:56 PM

Not sure posting multi-million point rosters is helpful. But to improve the OP's team would have to know how much PP he has, could raise by selling unneeded cards, whether he plays tournaments or collects drops or even logs in every day. Has he read New Team Primer?

tehsuigi · 12-02-2023, 01:51 PM

The gap between Gold and Diamond is huge. Don't get too put out by getting relegated in your first week in Diamond.

PunishedF2P · 12-02-2023, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bailey

Not sure posting multi-million point rosters is helpful. But to improve the OP's team would have to know how much PP he has, could raise by selling unneeded cards, whether he plays tournaments or collects drops or even logs in every day. Has he read New Team Primer?

I was posting the lineup for rburgh to see after he posted his, less a response to OP - but I do think it's still helpful. That's a second example of lineups that are competitive in Diamond League, which is what the OP is asking about.

rburgh · 12-03-2023, 03:54 PM

It's hard to stick in Diamond without a multi-million PP roster. That's just the way it is.

Diamond-worthy players as of 12/2 - guys with asterisks are very hard to get since they.were either one-off tournament rewards or are LE's.

C - Hartnett*, NeL Campy, Pudge, Cochrane, Berra, Salas; if you have one of the LH bats Carter is an adequate platoon mate

1B - Brouthers, Helton, Thomas*, possibly Gehrig, Olerud, or Cash platooning with XX or Dick Allen (not the Mission reward card)

2B - Childs, Sewell (trained up), Wright*, maybe Morgan or, better, Gehringer in a platoon with BBR Altuve

3B - Miggy, or a Brett/Glaus platoon. Brett might be OK as a stand-alone if you have other lefty mashers. BBR Arenado might be an adequate platoon mate too.

SS - BBR Seager, Yount, Wright, Sewell - this is one of the few positions the game has gotten right. There's a LH bat and a RH bat each for power parks and no-power parks.

OF - Aaron (LF), Mays, Oscar (RF) is the best right now. Other guys you might get by with are Kaline/Walker in RF, Shoeless Joe as a poor man's Oscar, Crews*, TE Griffey, BBR Harper (also OK at 1B), Tip O'Neill, Wyatt Langford, TE Joe Kelley, TE King Kelly, or Sherry McGee

DH - lots of options here, Manny/Teddy is a really good platoon there. You can find others.

SP - If you have 2 of deGrom, Kershaw, TE Arrieta, and BBR Verlander you're OK provided the rest of your rotation doesn't suck. But 30K perfects will suck at that level.

Pen - lots of good options. Two of Eck, Gagne, Kimbrel, Aroldis, and Britton are sufficient, again with the proviso that the rest of your pen needs to not suck. But lots of 50K relievers are adequate as depth pieces.

Kushiel · 12-04-2023, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rburgh

It's hard to stick in Diamond without a multi-million PP roster. That's just the way it is.

Which is the greatest obstacle for new players. We have played since day one or for several seasons at least. We have seen the steady climb in costs(time and/or money) as they have especially escalated the past two years. This is major sticker shock for new players that I have talked to. It is causing a decline in the player base. Fewer teams in PT yearly confirm this.

The OP has what looks like a great team to a lesser experienced PT player. The responses have probably scared him away after seeing how far the team is from sticking in Diamond consistently.

People including myself have been quick to say find your level and compete there. Honestly, most competitive people are not satisfied being told that their maximum achievement level is Silver or Gold League. They are not hard core baseball fans so have no hook set in their jaw. So, they swim away downstream and the spawn of new players dwindles.

This is just my opinion and has no bearing on anything,

rburgh · 12-04-2023, 08:46 AM

Compare the situation at SS

Sewell is a lefty contact hitter
Wright is a righty contact hitter
Seager is a lefty power bat
Immortal Yount is a righty power bat

You can use any of the 4 to build a very competitive team.

There is no other position I can think of where there are an equivalent number of disparate options, and most positions simply have one guy who is head and shoulders above the rest. Even CF, with Mays, Oscar, and Aaron is really just a 3-man OF you have to have.

If they managed to have a similar choice of weapons at every position, perhaps with several positions where a platoon was optimal, building a lineup would be a far more interesting problem. Similarly, with both starters and relievers, multiple righty/lefty cards with roughly equivalent expected performance in neutral parks but differences in GB/FB and platoon balance from both sides would make constructing a pitching staff to suit your park a very interesting challenge. And when the Fenway guys met the League Park guys in a playoff series, it would come down to game 7 more often than not.

bailey · 12-04-2023, 12:01 PM

The cards recommended in this thread are not cards that make a competitive diamond league team; they are cards that have a shot at winning perfect league. There are many cards at every position that would make a competitive diamond league team, that would get smoked in perfect league if the hypothetical competitive diamond league team actually got there.

The OP asks in the title "What am I doing wrong?" I'm sure he knows he's got the wrong cards, but may want to know why the cards he has suck. But, since he is not participating in the thread, we'll never know.

PunishedF2P · 12-04-2023, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bailey

The cards recommended in this thread are not cards that make a competitive diamond league team; they are cards that have a shot at winning perfect league. There are many cards at every position that would make a competitive diamond league team, that would get smoked in perfect league if the hypothetical competitive diamond league team actually got there.

The OP asks in the title "What am I doing wrong?" I'm sure he knows he's got the wrong cards, but may want to know why the cards he has suck. But, since he is not participating in the thread, we'll never know.

I'm assuming "competitive diamond league team" means a team that can make the playoffs, possibly win the WS.

Every single playoff team in my Diamond Leagues basically looks like my team, with a few Immortal Season swaps and a few minor differences. I haven't seen a team that isn't made up of the players rburgh mentions makes the playoffs.

bailey · 12-04-2023, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PunishedF2P

I'm assuming "competitive diamond league team" means a team that can make the playoffs, possibly win the WS.

Every single playoff team in my Diamond Leagues basically looks like my team, with a few Immortal Season swaps and a few minor differences. I haven't seen a team that isn't made up of the players rburgh mentions makes the playoffs.

To me, competitive means has a chance to make the playoffs, but is not a lock. If it's a lock, then I would call that a dominant team.
Anyway, here is my alternate team that made the playoffs the last 5 weeks in a row and only has 6 recommended cards. Interestingly, I did well without any of the recommended pitcher cards.

PunishedF2P · 12-05-2023, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bailey

Anyway, here is my alternate team that made the playoffs the last 5 weeks in a row and only has 6 recommended cards. Interestingly, I did well without any of the recommended pitcher cards.

That's actually a solid team; you're right, not a lock, but solid.

A lot of your replacements are the next best thing to the cards mentioned and it's still a multi-million PP team.

Dimaggio at CF is 250K, Nap is 125K, multiple pitchers going for 100K+, not to mention the guys you do have off the list (Brett, Williams, O'Neil, Brouthers, Kaline) are worth a million right there. 2 million PP for the whole squad, at least?

Newhauser is a top 5-7 option at SP, even though he didn't mention him.

Even then, you've been fortunate to land in weaker overall Diamond Leagues. My last three seasons I've had teams that were as good as mine on paper not even make the playoffs, and they weren't beat out by worse teams, it's just all the big boys landing in the same league together.

Last week, there were 4 teams in my league that already had Charleston

bailey · 12-05-2023, 08:47 AM

I spent a little over 2 mil to assemble this team. I only need 2 cards to complete the 7 missions of IS2, but I quit playing this team a month ago.
That sounds like a lot of points, but you have to plan for this from day 1 by not squandering your points early on. During 30 weeks of active play I earned ~55 packs a week from logins, twitch drops, and tournaments. So, not a very ambitious effort because you can make more than 55 packs a week from twitch drops alone.

11-30-2023, 08:54 PM	#1
ebbets1956 Bat Boy Join Date: Feb 2019 Posts: 18	Help with my lineup (What am I doing wrong?) Not sure what I am doing wrong. I can win up to Gold Leagues, but when I get to Diamond League I get obliterated. I feel like my team had solid hitting and great defense, and I felt like my pitching was good enough to maybe at least get to .500 or at the very least not get religated, but in never fails, I always get stomped: My team Nap Lajoie 2b Immortal Seasons Ellie Delacruz 3b Future Stars Mickey Mantle LF Collection Reward Don Mattingly 1b Immortal Seasons Alex Rodriguez SS Mission Peak Yordan Alvarez DH Baseball Ref Josh Gibson C Collection Reward Cristobal Torriente RF Negro Leagues Kirby Puckett CF Basebal Ref Bench Heavy Johnson Backup C Mule Suttles (platoons with Torriente) Rickey Weeks 2b Baseball Ref (IF backup with others shifting around) 98 Lou Gerhig 98 Jose Canseco Immportal Seasons 99 John Henry Lloyd (pinch runner) Rotation 100 Hilton Smith (Negro LEagues) 100 Ray Brown (Negro Leagues) 100 Satchel Paige (collection reward) 100 Bob Caruthers BB Ref 100 Carl Hubbell BB Ref Bullpen 100 Rob Dibble BB Ref Closer 100 Rich Gossage SE 1981 Setup 100 Bert Blyleven Dream Bracket Middle 100 Dellin Betances Middle 100 Johan Satana Collection Reward (Long relief) 100 Dan Plesac LH specialist only cards that arent locked are Carruthers, Santana, Hubbell, Paige, Hilton Smith, Josh Gibson, Yordan Alvarez, Arod, Mantle, Lajoie Last edited by ebbets1956; 11-30-2023 at 08:58 PM.

11-30-2023, 10:37 PM	#3
rburgh All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 1,085	I second Punished I've made 4 trips to PL and stuck there once for 3 weeks. My current team is C - Pudge, Berra 1B - Brouthers 2B - Childs 3B - BBR Brett, Glaus SS - BBR Seager, Sewell OF - Aaron, BBR Mays, Kaline (L to R), Shoeless Joe bench DH - T. Williams, BBR Manny SP - deGrom, Richard, K Brown, NeL Hilton Smith, Koufax RP - Gagne, Chapman, Uehara, Eck Long Men - Kershaw, Newhouser, Exclusive Valenzuela You probably need at least 4 of my SP/long men in your rotation and at least one of my RP, as well as a lineup that includes at least 6 of my position players in your lineup, to be competitive at the diamond level.

12-01-2023, 08:11 PM	#5
rburgh All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 1,085	Yeah It's a good policy to check your collection missions regularly and have them sorted by decreasing % complete and only show incomplete missions.

12-02-2023, 01:51 PM	#9
tehsuigi All Star Reserve Join Date: Sep 2019 Posts: 842	The gap between Gold and Diamond is huge. Don't get too put out by getting relegated in your first week in Diamond. __________________ OOTP Streamer Affiliate on Twitch - come get your drops! Project Isekai no Yakyu - Japanese league full mod Canadian Baseball Confederation - Canadian league full mod Forever on Guard - Cleveland fauxbacks

12-03-2023, 03:54 PM	#11
rburgh All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 1,085	Sorry It's hard to stick in Diamond without a multi-million PP roster. That's just the way it is. Diamond-worthy players as of 12/2 - guys with asterisks are very hard to get since they.were either one-off tournament rewards or are LE's. C - Hartnett, NeL Campy, Pudge, Cochrane, Berra, Salas; if you have one of the LH bats Carter is an adequate platoon mate 1B - Brouthers, Helton, Thomas, possibly Gehrig, Olerud, or Cash platooning with XX or Dick Allen (not the Mission reward card) 2B - Childs, Sewell (trained up), Wright, maybe Morgan or, better, Gehringer in a platoon with BBR Altuve 3B - Miggy, or a Brett/Glaus platoon. Brett might be OK as a stand-alone if you have other lefty mashers. BBR Arenado might be an adequate platoon mate too. SS - BBR Seager, Yount, Wright, Sewell - this is one of the few positions the game has gotten right. There's a LH bat and a RH bat each for power parks and no-power parks. OF - Aaron (LF), Mays, Oscar (RF) is the best right now. Other guys you might get by with are Kaline/Walker in RF, Shoeless Joe as a poor man's Oscar, Crews, TE Griffey, BBR Harper (also OK at 1B), Tip O'Neill, Wyatt Langford, TE Joe Kelley, TE King Kelly, or Sherry McGee DH - lots of options here, Manny/Teddy is a really good platoon there. You can find others. SP - If you have 2 of deGrom, Kershaw, TE Arrieta, and BBR Verlander you're OK provided the rest of your rotation doesn't suck. But 30K perfects will suck at that level. Pen - lots of good options. Two of Eck, Gagne, Kimbrel, Aroldis, and Britton are sufficient, again with the proviso that the rest of your pen needs to not suck. But lots of 50K relievers are adequate as depth pieces.

11-30-2023, 09:40 PM	#2
PunishedF2P Major Leagues Join Date: Nov 2022 Posts: 323	It's honestly just not a good enough squad to win in diamond. You could have a lucky season where everything goes your way and make the playoffs, and you never know in the playoffs, but it's very unlikely. I've made the playoffs 8 seasons in a row in diamond (and I have a 10 game lead in my division right now) including 5 division titles - and pretty much every playoff team is fairly similar to mine; other than Willie Mays (or Charleston after today), my team is basically maxed out. At the minimum, you need to have completed all the Immortal Seasons missions and have Kershaw, DeGrom and Aaron to be a playoff team in Diamond League.

12-01-2023, 02:35 PM	#4
bailey Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,424	I see you have Mattingly and Canseco, so you have all you need to complete the IS2 - Defense mission and get Gary Carter for free to replace Heavy Johnson.

12-02-2023, 02:23 AM	#7
PunishedF2P Major Leagues Join Date: Nov 2022 Posts: 323	My current roster: C - Pudge, Salas 1B - Helton 2B - Childs 3B - BBR Brett, Glaus SS - Young, Sewell OF - T. Williams/BBR Manny, Aaron, Kaline (L to R), Trout (bench) DH - Brouthers SP - Kershaw, deGrom, Newhouser, NeL Hilton Smith, Koufax RP - Fingers, Wagner, Uehara, Eckersley, Miller Long Men - Richards, Walsh I did pick up Helton, and he's been great for me so far. I'm sitting on around 800K in points (and a ton of live cards, waiting for the awards missions) but I'm F2P, so I don't like buying cards like Mays when they're still so expensive - I've thought about Seager now that he's dropped to 300K. And the NeL 4 collection (other than the toppers) is just too new to drop all my points for. But I'll have Baseball Ref 4 missions all complete whenever those drop, hoping that is this upcoming week. Same with Future Legends 2, I've picked up everyone there as well. I'd love to breakthrough into Perfect League, but I'm 0-13 so far in DL playoffs, with 3 WS losses, two in game 7. Just need a little luck eventually and I should get there.

12-02-2023, 12:56 PM	#8
bailey Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,424	Not sure posting multi-million point rosters is helpful. But to improve the OP's team would have to know how much PP he has, could raise by selling unneeded cards, whether he plays tournaments or collects drops or even logs in every day. Has he read New Team Primer?

12-04-2023, 08:46 AM	#13
rburgh All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Pittsburgh Posts: 1,085	The game design is flawed Compare the situation at SS Sewell is a lefty contact hitter Wright is a righty contact hitter Seager is a lefty power bat Immortal Yount is a righty power bat You can use any of the 4 to build a very competitive team. There is no other position I can think of where there are an equivalent number of disparate options, and most positions simply have one guy who is head and shoulders above the rest. Even CF, with Mays, Oscar, and Aaron is really just a 3-man OF you have to have. If they managed to have a similar choice of weapons at every position, perhaps with several positions where a platoon was optimal, building a lineup would be a far more interesting problem. Similarly, with both starters and relievers, multiple righty/lefty cards with roughly equivalent expected performance in neutral parks but differences in GB/FB and platoon balance from both sides would make constructing a pitching staff to suit your park a very interesting challenge. And when the Fenway guys met the League Park guys in a playoff series, it would come down to game 7 more often than not.

12-04-2023, 12:01 PM	#14
bailey Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,424	The cards recommended in this thread are not cards that make a competitive diamond league team; they are cards that have a shot at winning perfect league. There are many cards at every position that would make a competitive diamond league team, that would get smoked in perfect league if the hypothetical competitive diamond league team actually got there. The OP asks in the title "What am I doing wrong?" I'm sure he knows he's got the wrong cards, but may want to know why the cards he has suck. But, since he is not participating in the thread, we'll never know.

12-05-2023, 08:47 AM	#18
bailey Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,424	I spent a little over 2 mil to assemble this team. I only need 2 cards to complete the 7 missions of IS2, but I quit playing this team a month ago. That sounds like a lot of points, but you have to plan for this from day 1 by not squandering your points early on. During 30 weeks of active play I earned ~55 packs a week from logins, twitch drops, and tournaments. So, not a very ambitious effort because you can make more than 55 packs a week from twitch drops alone.