Season 2 (2020) Discussion: 4/1 - 4/7

[Warhawk]

Well, we're basically locked in enough to do an end-of-regular-season update, with everyone with 2 games left.

The Las Vegas White Tigers (my money team, the others are F2P) have won the AC West in Silver .238, sitting at 103-57 25 games ahead of second place. Machado leads the conference in RBIs and is 5th in WAR, while Khris Davis has the third most HRs with 37. Corey Kluber was our best player this season, unfortunately he's likely to end up missing out in the Cy Young race. Kluber went 23-5 (most wins) with a 3.23 ERA (4th), 1.21 WHIP (7th), 208 Ks (5th), and a 5.7 WAR (2nd). Now, he'd be in a close race with Max Scherzer on our cross-town rivals, the Nighthawks, if it wasn't for Hal Newhouser, a pitcher for one of the wild card teams, who went 18-7 with a 2.36 ERA, a 1.07 WHIP, 231 Ks, and an 8.1 WAR. We do have the top closer in the conference, as A.J. Minter racked up a conference-leading 41 saves with a 1.61 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP. He is the only qualifying reliever in the conference who converted 100% of his save opportunities. As for late-season additions, Patrick Corbin is 2-0 despite giving up 14 runs in his first 3 starts; he's allowed 4 in his last 2 and will be the 3 or 4 along with Carrasco in the playoffs. We also have Joc Pederson moving into left field with Michael Conforto as our backup outfielder; Pederson (though only through 15 games) has the second highest OPS on the team, trailing only Charlie Blackmon, who was a mid-season addition himself. Blackmon's 400-something at bats aren't enough to qualify for the leaderboards but if they did he would be second in the conference in OPS.

The Las Vegas Black Panthers are 96-64 in Iron .181 and out of contention for the division at 3 games back. In fact, we're in third place, 2 games back of the second place team, so we will likely be playing a road wild card game even if we get to 98 wins. While McHugh seems to be coming out of his slump, I am planning on starting late-season addition Rick Sutcliffe in the wild card game, who hasn't allowed more than 2 runs in his last 7 starts and currently has a 2.22 ERA. Ernie Banks won't win the triple crown, but he will end up with the most HRs, 3rd most RBIs, and 5th highest batting average, plus the best OPS and second best WAR in the conference, a good candidate for MVP.

EDIT: Just checked and we have a losing record against the second place team in our division, so even if we catch them on the last day, which we might since we just won and they just lost, we're playing on the road in the wild card regardless.

The Las Vegas Golden Lions slumped a bit in early September, but still locked up the AC Central in Iron .161 easily, currently holding a record of 94-66 and a 10 game lead. Severino at least has an argument for the Cy Young though he joined the team late; he's now played enough to qualify for the leaderboards and has the second best ERA in the conference at 2.56, the third best WAR at 5.6, the fourth best WHIP at 1.10, the third best K/BB ratio, and a 16-6 record. Rizzo was our best hitter, racking up 32 HRs with an OPS of .860. I've been pleased with my late-season addition of starting pitcher Brad Peacock, who is 4-1 and hasn't allowed more than 2 runs in his last 5 games, and currently has an ERA of 2.81. He'll probably be my #2 guy in the playoffs, followed by Eduardo Rodriguez and J.A. Happ. Not loving my closer situation, Yoan Lopez has blown 10 saves in 49 attempts.

[neugey]

Gentlemen, this is how you secure a wildcard berth! And to think a month back at this time we were sitting a game under .500. The PP coffers increase!

I actually did not try too hard to push the win streak beyond 13. Need to have my top starters ready for the playoffs so I started a reserve SP instead. Will do the same for game #162.

[waittilnextyear]

Woo!

The La Crosse Fighting Frogs were able to rebound from some summer doldrums to usurp their B232 division at the literal final moment. Trailing the division leader by 1 game, the Frogs took 2/3 to force game #163 in which the squad triumphed on the road 4-3 in 11 innings. Backup/utility bronze catcher John Wockenfuss homered off of Billy Wagner in the 9th inning to send it to extras. He homered off of Wagner again in the eleventh to put it on ice.

MVP candidate Aaron Judge homered as did late hour acquisition Justin Bour (I got Bour from the auction house literally seconds before the simulation began). The opposing team was starting Zack Greinke who is slightly susceptible to both lefties and the long ball. It worked out. Hopefully this is a harbinger of the PP to come...

[Germaniac]

Winning Game 163 on the road to clinch the division

[mrbucket]

My Angels were put in a Silver division of death with two stacked teams and kicked the season off in an abysmal fashion before turning it around and finding itself in the second wildcard spot. The wheels fell off in the last two months of the year (lots of games against the stacked teams didn't help!) and we fell to finish the season 83-79: good enough for promotion to Gold level next season but not good enough to see any action in October.

My one bright spot: my Record Breaker Ty Cobb card just absolutely raked it in.

He finished the season with a .365/.419/.610 slash line with 21 home runs and 40 stolen bases.He led both conferences in runs, hits, doubles, triples, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, extra base hits, OPS+, WPA, and WOBA. He had a 9.6 WAR, with the next best 5.9.

[Treydmarq]

Originally Posted by Chico Guilbault

Sitting here looking forward to the playoffs in my Iron league and decided to open a couple packs. Pulled this baby out of the second one...my night is made.

That card is a monster, for sure.

[Westheim]

Both my teams won their respective Silver League division!

Chattanooga ended up 90-72, six games ahead of the competition, and put up their subleague's batting champ with 1970 Wes Parker, who batted .368! We did all of this mostly on offense; the pitching was thoroughly mediocre and I *still* have three bronze SP's (although the names keep changing…). Put the end-of-year rewards gave me two more packs and I managed to pull a 2004 Livan Hernandez (75) … yaay, a non-terrible silver starting pitcher!!

I don't see 'Nooga going far in the playoffs; we are the #3 seed, will play a 104-win team to begin things, and then probably the winner of a series with the best team in the league (115 W) and a wild card bonanza featuring another 114-win team.

Portland scuffled a bit down the stretch as far as you can call it that way, because despite only modest blubber content we ended up mauling the league at a 111-51 pace and ended up 12 games ahead of the nearest competitor in the division. We might face that 99-win wild card team in the first round, when I would have much rather faced the Rancho Bernardo Dropped Balls (great name!) from the Central division. They won that division with an 80-82 record.

Significantly, Walter Johnson won the triple crown with a 25-2 effort, a 2.36 ERA, and 288 K. That alone is worth 4,800 PP.

Ripped some packs right away ...but got nothing to improve my team. … I am also tempted to buy me a 1979 Craig Swan (85), which retails for around 2.5k, and was my favorite play toy in PT 19, but then rated at 71.

[Morug]

My Expos back in playoff this season 2 in bronze league and my Angels made the playoff for the first time.

Its will be a funny sunday! Goof luck all in playoff.

[Warhawk]

Originally Posted by Warhawk

The Las Vegas Black Panthers are 96-64 in Iron .181 and out of contention for the division at 3 games back. In fact, we're in third place, 2 games back of the second place team, so we will likely be playing a road wild card game even if we get to 98 wins. While McHugh seems to be coming out of his slump, I am planning on starting late-season addition Rick Sutcliffe in the wild card game, who hasn't allowed more than 2 runs in his last 7 starts and currently has a 2.22 ERA.

The inclination to start Sutcliffe turned out to be the correct one, as he allowed 2 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks over 7 innings, his 8th game in a row allowing 2 or fewer runs. He actually got into the 8th but didn't get an out before we pulled him for Buttrey. On offense we also only got to their pitcher, Sam McDowell, for 2 runs, both in the 4th inning, but we shelled his bullpen of Betances, Minter, and Hader in the 8th and 9th innings, as Polanco hit a 2-run shot in the 8th, and then in the 9th Freese, Moore, Cruz, and Banks each singled to start the inning, then Hader issued RBI walks to Bradley Jr. and Urias, and we eventually won the game 8-2.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Chico Guilbault

Sitting here looking forward to the playoffs in my Iron league and decided to open a couple packs. Pulled this baby out of the second one...my night is made.

nice pull indeed.... the Verlander in my Iron league this season (not on my team unfortunately) won the pitching triple crown; so definitely a beast at this level...


good first season for all 3 teams under my account.... old timey Waffletown Syrups won their division and head to their first LDS game in less than an hour...

my 'not sure what I want to do with them yet' O'Fallon Owls secured the 2nd wild card spot in their Iron league and won the WC game, so on to the LDS there as well....

and my daughter's 'so far it's a pack-only built, set it and forget it' team, the Lannisport Halfman secured the second wild card in their Iron league and won the WC game, so onto the LDS there....

lots of games to watch today

[neugey]

Just won the wildcard game, now the fun begins. I take on the guy who won my division by 12 games. And I see he just added a shiny new 97 Trevor Bauer to start game 1. This guy means business.

Just prepped my roster for the playoffs - no starter has rest days set now and I deactivated my second catcher in favor of a platoon option at 2B. Should be fine unless my catcher gets ejected - pretty unlikely. Let's rock.

[W0rmzbr0]

Two of my three teams made the postseason. In Bronze, my eventually-all NY team, the New York Boroughs, won their wild card game thanks to a sterling effort by Whitey Ford. They now take on the division champ, who won by 10 games. Game 1 starts shortly.

My pack-only team, the Port Washington Pack Rats, also earned a wild card in Silver and thanks to pulling Live Max Scherzer in my two packs this morning, won the WC game after he threw 7.1 scoreless innings. Their reward is playing the best team in the league in the division series, none other than Westheim's Portland Raccoons. The squad lucked out in game 1 after Walter Johnson stymied them for the first 7.1 innings. After a 5-run 9th to tie the game at 5, they went on to score 3 in the 12th to take the game 8-5.

I'm not expecting much more of that in the coming games...

[Warhawk]

Check out this stat line from Kluber in the White Tigers' first playoff game:

9 IP, 4 HA, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K, 93 pitches

EDIT: Syndergaard tried to one-up him, he got through 7 2/3 allowing 1 hit and 1 walk as we built a 3-0 lead, and then all hell broke loose. He gave up a single, a home run, and another single, he ultimately got credited with allowing 3 runs, and my closer, Minter, had his first blown save all season, ending his 41 game streak. We scored on a sac fly in the bottom of the inning to tie it at 4, they drove in a run on a single in the top of the 9th to take a 5-4 lead, then we scored on a Machado single in the bottom of the 9th before Daniel Murphy hit a sac fly that sent Piazza home for the 6-5 win.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by W0rmzbr0

My pack-only team, the Port Washington Pack Rats, also earned a wild card in Silver and thanks to pulling Live Max Scherzer in my two packs this morning, won the WC game after he threw 7.1 scoreless innings. Their reward is playing the best team in the league in the division series, none other than Westheim's Portland Raccoons. The squad lucked out in game 1 after Walter Johnson stymied them for the first 7.1 innings. After a 5-run 9th to tie the game at 5, they went on to score 3 in the 12th to take the game 8-5.

I'm not expecting much more of that in the coming games...

(calmly knots himself a rope into a suitable sling)

[mcdog512]

PT 20 edition of the Fighting Saints advance to the ALCS...

[Westheim]

Juan Soto moves the Critters to the LCS with a walkoff homer in the 10th of Game 5. That was some tough battle from those Pack Rats!

Chattanooga gave decidedly less battle in their LDS and went down in four games.

[Warhawk]

The Las Vegas Black Panthers won the wild card game and took a 2-1 lead in the division series, only to lose games 4 and 5 by one run each, knocking them out of the playoffs. Good season, 98 wins and a likely MVP winner, but still a bit disappointing at the end.

The Las Vegas White Tigers swept their first round opponents and then waited around while the 109-53 Las Vegas Nighthawks lost in 5 games despite Giancarlo Stanton hitting five dingers in the series. So we get the Mississaugua Mudskippers in the conference championship series.

The Las Vegas Golden Lions won their divisional series in 4 games, scoring 14 runs in the final game, and are now up 1-0 in the conference championship series against the Burnaby Biplanes.

[mcdog512]

Saints aren't playing around - ALCS on deck and they add Big Ed or Del as we like to call him around the clubhouse.

Al Simmons put on the AH - that dude can hit too!

[neugey]

Went down fighting in 5 games in the Divisional round. Very happy with the way the team fought in the last 2 months. Looking to strike a better balance between offense and defense in season 3 at Silver silver.

[neugey]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

Saints aren't playing around - ALCS on deck and they add Big Ed or Del as we like to call him around the clubhouse.

Al Simmons put on the AH - that dude can hit too!

That's a lot of gap power. If I were managing I might ask the ump to check out his bat!