Favorite OOTP Fictional Players

[mayberrb]

Originally Posted by jwterps

For those of you with any interest, PEBA is an online fictional league that is run by one of the most articulate, creative, fair, and detailed commissioners I have ever seen. Get your name on the waiting list - and tell John that Warnke sent you!

Another favorite player from the PEBAverse: David Goode, itinerant infielder with a career .235 batting average but a $12 million-a-year contract! He's made the rounds of PEBA clubs, playing for the Florida Featherheads, Yuma Bulldozers, San Antonio of Laredo Calzones, Tempe Knights, and most recently the Reno Tenpinners.



THE BALLAD OF DAVID GOODE
(sung to the tune of The Ballad of Davey Crockett)

Born down in Houston, not in Tennessee

August twenty-eight of 1983

A Texas boy, he played Little League

Swung him a bat since he was only three

Davy, Davy Goode, the Bulldozers’ Albatross.

Drafted by the PEBA in 2007

Ecstatic to join the baseball brethren

Won distinction as Player of the Week

Chose free agency his fortune to seek

Davy, Davy Goode, blind to his fate to come.

What the ‘Dozers offered him was quite unreal

Signed Davy Goode to a six-year deal

Per homer, it averaged $1.7 mil

Yuma’s new owner couldn’t swallow that pill

Davy, Davy Goode, the 12 million dollar man.

Offered to Bakersfield, but they said no

Straight up swap for a regular Joe

But his .217 average was awfully low

So Yuma’s still singin’ this song of woe

Davy, Davy No-Good, rejected by all of PEBA.

Offered to Florida, they’d had him befo’,

Offered to the Calzones of Laredo

Offered to Reno and to Tempe, too

But no one needs a mediocre dude

Davy, Davy No-Good, pris’ner of the Yuma blues.

Yuma tried to force him to free agency

No luck ‘ cuz of a technicality

So they renegotiate an undisclosed fee

For a new kinda “contract” on David Goode

Davy, Davy Goode, target of our own Hitmen.

Ducked himself a bullet from New Jersey
Traded to the Calzones subsequently
On to Tempe and the Tenpinners
Making the rounds of the PEBAverse
Davy, Davy Goode, the player that no team wants.

Someday he’ll play for the Valhalla team

Swingin’ for the fences of immortality

In a lineup with the Babe, Roy Hobbs and Satchel P.

He’ll slug them homers like a man who’s finally free

Davy, Davy Goode, the 12-million dollar man!

[Corsairs]

Originally Posted by mayberrb

Another favorite player from the PEBAverse: David Goode, itinerant infielder with a career .235 batting average but a $12 million-a-year contract! He's made the rounds of PEBA clubs, playing for the Florida Featherheads, Yuma Bulldozers, San Antonio of Laredo Calzones, Tempe Knights, and most recently the Reno Tenpinners.

Ah, Davy Goode. Click that link to revel in his ungodly hideousness, which can be yours for the low, low price of just of $74,400,000! $12.4M/season doesn't buy you what it used to. What it does buy you, apparently, is a career .235 hitter (sixth-lowest amongst qualifiers) with little pop or speed to speak of and not even remotely possessing the glove required to compensate for these deficiencies.

But! He is good for some stories, and good stories are worth something, after all. Not many players inspire a four-part mystery series. Or two ballads. So there's that. Whether the sum of his ability to inspire great literature and his modest baseball skills equal $12.4M/season... well, I'll leave that to you to decide, Gentle Reader.

[scotto313]

I have never been the kind of baseball fan that goes to the ballpark to see monstrous homeruns. I find it far more exciting to see an acrobatic double play or a diving catch. When I go to the park, I hope to see a solid pitcher’s duel that includes timely hitting and smart base running with some flashy defense thrown in and when it does happen, I am in baseball heaven. That is one of the reasons why Jose Marpons is just my kind of player.

Jose was drafted in the second round in the tMBU 2023 inaugural draft (held in the "real world" year of 2004). The Venezuelan native played his first professional season at Triple-A and was called up to the show early in his second season at the age of twenty-three. His first big league hit came on April 11th 2024 off of Frank Castle of the Montreal Royales. His first career home run was almost a month later and he would only record 82 homers in 18 seasons. Of course, it wasn’t home run power that he was known for. Jose hit .304 with 184 hits in 148 games in that first season with the Rumble Fish, which was good enough to win him the Rookie of the Year Award.

Marpons spent his entire career with the Rumble Fish and quickly became a front office favorite. His high contact talent enabled him to keep his batting average and run production above average throughout his career despite his low power production. In fact, at the time of his Hall Of Fame induction, no player in the history of the league had more hits. He won a tMBU Championship title with Cleveland in 2029 and holds a .368 career Post Season batting average.

Throughout his career, Jose had 23, 25, 26 and 27 game hitting streaks. Jose was elected to represent his team in 11 All Star games. He has 73 Player of the Game Awards and 6 Hitter of the Week Awards. He has 5 Gold Glove Awards (4 at Second and 1 at Third). He collected 5 hits in a game on four different occasions and reached 6 hits once. He led the league in batting average five times and led in OBP four times. Jose had a .356 batting average and .415 OBP in 9245 career at bats. He is also the first player in league history to reach the elite plateau of 3000 hits.

Jose Marpons was obviously not the type of hitter to strike fear in pitcher’s hearts, but he was one of the most consistent hitters to ever play the game. For that he has been inducted into the MoneyBall Union Hall Of Fame.

[falkonisback]

Originally Posted by OakDragon

It's slowed down a bit, but not much.

Damn, that's awesome!!!

[gglennwill]

Sorry, I'm having a hard time focusing since I read the entry about "Crunchy" Cramphorn. I can't stop laughing at that name! .

[OakDragon]

Originally Posted by falkonisback

Damn, that's awesome!!!

Well, to be honest, I haven't actually measured the difference, but though I know it's slowed down, it's not enough so that I really notice/care.

edit: Just timed it for ya. I have a universe with one 20-team ML, three minor leagues, scouting is off, emails are at the minimum, all ML box scores are saved and the league is autosaved at the end of the year. It took 6 minutes and 20 seconds to sim 2350. (on a Macbook with a 1.83 Ghz Intel Core Duo and 2 GB of RAM.)

[fintach]

I put together a 45-game league to tide me over while waiting for v12, took a team based on its location -- knowing nothing else about it -- and was gifted with this rookie Center Fielder/Relief Pitcher. I'm half-tempted to stay with this league just to see what this kid's career is like. (I admit, though, that he does not steal as well as advertised).

Forest Sanders:

[Beach23BoyP]

Rufus "Boom Boom" Hockenberry. An OOTP6 legend.

[reds1]

After being away from OOTP for a number of months, I recently got back to my fictional league to wrap it up before starting fresh in OOTP12. The reason I wanted to play out a few more seasons was because of this guy:



Nicholas was head and shoulders above his contemporaries as well as all other offensive players that came before him: 17-time all-star & 16-time league MVP. I followed him as he reached the 400 HR plateau, then the 500th, 600th & 700th HR marks. Still going strong at age 37, I kept the league going to see if he could reach 800 HRs. He signed a 2-year contract with his original team & had another brilliant season at age 38 that left him just 33 HRs shy of the milestone. In the second year of his contract his abilities finally started to erode & I got the sense that this would be it for him - 800 hrs or no 800 HRs.
He was no longer the Home Run King but he kept chipping away at until, in the final week of the season after a frustrating dry spell, he finally did it: 800 HRs! He would add 3 more in the final 5 games to finish with 803 - 356 more than the next guy on the home run list. Unfortunately, his team got swept in the League Championship as he went 1 for 15 in the series. Fittingly, his lone hit was a home run. He immediately retired at the conclusion of the playoffs, knowing his legacy was secure. Not bad for a guy who was picked in the supplemental draft!

[OakDragon]

Originally Posted by OakDragon

I really ought to start keeping screenshots like that. I play fictional leagues with 80's era stats and the only one that really sticks out in my mind was I had a 400+ game winner once. It was a number of years ago so I don't remember his name, though.

My current league had a guy who got 395 wins. He also had 5 no-hitters (3 more than anyone else) as well as 10 Pitcher of the Years, 13 All-Stars and 3 Gold Gloves!

[wiggins]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

LOL, they moved "Who's Your Favorite Player" to Talk Sports and left this thread in OOTP 12. I guess fictional >> real around here.

No, fictional only pertains to the OOTP game, which is what this section of the forum is for. While real players pertain to Real Life Baseball, or "Talk Sports" Pretty self explanatory to me.

[Shawn0531]

My favorite fake guy of all time.

[Left-handed Badger]

Originally Posted by Bobbuttons

I spent many seasons bringing in ground ball pitchers before I finally decided it would be a good idea to actually have a good defensive infield to get to all these ground balls...

And to think I brought in a bunch of groundballers BECAUSE of my great IF defense.


Heh, actually that seems to be my formula, when I take over a team, I've gotten to where I immediately start putting together as good an infield defense as possible. Then load up on the groundball pitchers. Course, sometimes I do bleed for runs on offense during the early stages of this process. But, the pitcher in me just hate seeing high scores and bobbled balls.

[Big Six]

My favorites would, obviously, be Pat O'Farrell and Tom Haley.

Besides them, I had a few memorable players in my Keystone League dynasty. Bradley Foster, Clarence Flippen, Ezra Numbers, Jerome Patel, Warren Price...I can still remember the names, even though I'm pretty sure I was using OOTP7 back then.

Great thread!

[polydamas]

My favorite guy would have to be Parisan Bob. Don't ask me how he got that nickname being a Venezuelan named Jesus, but that's how he is known around the league. The now 26 year old set the standard for excellence in college hitting a collegiate record 31 homeruns his senior year which while contested still remains to this day. He also won Collegiate Hitter of the Year. Valdes was drafted with the 6th pick in the 1st round of the 2015 draft by the Chicago White Sox and spent less than a year before being called up to the majors. He has since become a legend in the few short years that he has played and White Sox fans everywhere hold a special place for him in there heart.

I wonder what the 5 GM's that past up on him are thinking now.

[OakDragon]

Originally Posted by polydamas

My favorite guy would have to be Parisan Bob. Don't ask me how he got that nickname being a Venezuelan named Jesus, but that's how he is known around the league. The now 26 year old set the standard for excellence in college hitting a collegiate record 31 homeruns his senior year which while contested still remains to this day. He also won Collegiate Hitter of the Year. Valdes was drafted with the 6th pick in the 1st round of the 2015 draft by the Chicago White Sox and spent less than a year before being called up to the majors. He has since become a legend in the few short years that he has played and White Sox fans everywhere hold a special place for him in there heart.

I wonder what the 5 GM's that past up on him are thinking now.

Maybe that's the style of his haircut?

[awick]

Here's the best hitter I've seen. He's an 11-time all star and 6-time hitter of the year (5 of these consecutive). Look especially at his walk and strikeout numbers.

At 36 his power went away. At 37, in the last year of his current contract, he's about ready to hang 'em up. Also, FWIW, he's always been slow and his defensive skills were weak at best. Today he is slower than ever and a defensive liability.

[RonP]

This is a great thread and it does give one some momentum towards starting a fictional league. At least I would think it does, I'll let you know.

[Left-handed Badger]

Originally Posted by lt2cents

Favorite player was way back in OOTP 5/6. Would have to get out the old zip file of that league to get his name. A decent fielding outfielder, without a lot of other skills, but one. He would get 80 - 100 sac bunts a season hitting second. This player and the leadoff batter would generate a run or two every game, reliably for 5,6,7 seasons. The league had era settings so that these two, along with above average pitching, produced a championship and several close contenders over a few season, without any big sluggers and such.

(I play with handicap rules that helps the AI win 95% of the championships so those were special years with that player.)

I had a SS I carried for a season that reminds. He wasnt even much of an A-ball hitter actually. But, my SS went down. And the 2 things he had was bunting and friggin outstanding defense. I generally called him up for def. sub. for my utility guy now starting (and maybe to tell his grandkids that he got to play a month in the bigs).

But, I started him one game and we won. Made some great defensive plays. Couple games later started him again. And he made some more great plays. So, I basically started him regular until my SS got back. Luckily it was a Dh league. Batted him 9th, and treated him like a pitcher was batting. We won first 6 games he started. When the SS came back I kept as def. sub with one start a week (an extreme groundballers personal SS) I even PH in extra innings with him twice to lay down a bunt. I think he ended up with near 30 sacs and only about 140-150 official ABs. (His BA was awful. I think he had less hits than sacs).

After the season my bad fielding SS went FA, and I picked up the best defensive SS on the market, so he never saw any more action in the majors.

[Klew1986]

Here is my RF from my Marlins game (now Memphis Outlaws). Discovered him in Cuba.