Season 9 (2028) Thread -- Make 2028, Great, Mate!

[bailey]

The Magpies meet the Fighting Frogs in 19 games this week. Let the trash talk begin!

[Warhawk]

Boy did I pull a tough draw. In a 24 team league, and my division currently has a 3-way tie for first place at 7-2 with me, Discordia, and Tuscaloosa.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes made a few changes to the OF, Furillo is gone and in come Kaline and Jim Rice as platoons in CF/LF and Vlad as the full time RF. I see we are in a division with the Huntley Red Raiders

San Angeles 70s looking forward to seeing how we go in gold for the first time, no changes other than a full season of Staub

Lowdown Lugnuts in Bronze after 2 straight relegations. Too many changes to name them all but we are relying on Beltran, Andre Dawson and Tommy Holmes to be big run producers

Bay City Boomers, the only change was a big one, spent all of my PP on Peak Pee Wee Reese for 54k which was well under L7, and it might convince me to eventually go for the collection he's in (Appling I believe) but i'd need to generate a lot more PP for that to happen

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by bailey

The Magpies meet the Fighting Frogs in 19 games this week. Let the trash talk begin!

C'mon Bailey set your graphics up.

With logos on the fritz, it's looks like we need to re-brand weekly.

[JasonC23]

Originally Posted by Marleigh

Paragon City Heroes made a few changes to the OF, Furillo is gone and in come Kaline and Jim Rice as platoons in CF/LF and Vlad as the full time RF. I see we are in a division with the Huntley Red Raiders

So, remember how I said a few weeks ago that, through all 3 versions of Perfect Team, the Huntley Red Raiders have never been relegated?

I get the funny feeling that streak is about to end...

[Torgonius]

The Manatees got off to a 2-1 start in their first Diamond series, and then went on to drop their last 13 games and have a -62 run differential through 16 games.

[bailey]

The Magpies started off with 7 wins, but have cooled off. So far, so equal.

[mayday10]

17-4 start for my silver team?

Other two? A bit iffy

[Caedus]

Got slotted into the 16-team Gold League with Letterkenny and it's probably worse than some Silver Leagues. Half the league will get promoted, and although Letterkenny has flirted with relegation our entire time in Gold, we're almost certain to be promoted this season.

But in better news, I got lucky with a couple draws that got two very expensive pieces of the 100 Luke Appling collection out of the way. I decided to invest the proceeds from the Live Collections to finish it off (cost me about 90k) to get a SE card that stands out a bit more than Bagwell or Yogi. He's been fantastic so far.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes started off and cooled a little, but i'll take 16-10 with a 5-1 record against Glendale (who are still probably the division favourite) Maddux has been on fire, 5-0 3.57 era but Perry has been disappointing so far with a 5.40 era. Vlad has been huge, .344 with a 1.020 ops. We've been here before and normally things go south quickly.

San Angeles 70s 10-15, struggling to adapt to gold, losta few close ones and the lineup apart from Rusty Staub (.402 1.267ops!) has been terrible, Tony Perez is hitting .138. starters been good for the most part, bullpen hasn't (3rd in runs against, 13th in bullpen era)

Lowdown Lugnuts 20-7, 7-0 in one run games and 4-0 in extra innings, the bullpen has been great, Zack Greinke (94 HH) has started well 5-1 1.96era and Eddie Plank 3-0 1.22era has been unlucky not to have more wins. the offense still isn't great but is definitely being led by Keith Hernandez and his .903 ops. the defence is great, leading in ZR, efficiency and 2nd in errors.

Bay City Boomers 19-6 2050PP earned. Clearly won't dominate like last season, and the bullpen has been banged up a bit, but the bats are definitely doing the job, 1st or 2nd in every offensive category. Would like to see Yaz pick it p, he's hitting .216 but the biggest slump is from Willie Randolph, hitting just .187

[dbqs]

The Machine are leisurely enjoying the downswing of their bi-weekly cycle of winning in Silver, and getting hopelessly crushed in Gold. Check back in a few months, or whenever there's White Sox-specific missions with good rewards!

[Westheim]

Jon Matlack with a no-hitter for the Metsies!

Nothing else works out in any way, but, but-but-but - Jon Matlack with a no-hitter for the Metsies!

[mayday10]

Sid Fernandez threw a no hitter for the Murder Hornets. All 3 of my teams in or within 2 games of 1st place.

The Zeniths are trying to find one last piece for the Whitaker SE to complete the infield of Berra, Bagwell, Whitaker, Appling (SE), and Cano (trained at 3B)

[bailey]

The Tigers were unfairly promoted to gold after posting a 79-83 record in silver. FOUR teams with better run differential trailed them with 78-84 records. So, it is no surprise that they are flirting with relegation this week. I managed to complete the AL West to bring Ichiro Suzuki (92) on board and if someone buys my Soto on the AH, I'll have enough points to do the AL Central (and the infamous White Sox I did such a good job of flipping and helped make so expensive).

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes 31-23, but as predicted Glendale are pulling away in the lead. Blyleven as closer saved 18 straight before his 1st BS, better than any actual closer i've tried. Pitching is doing well apart from Halladay who has been roughed up a bit. Ichiro caught fire and won player of the week, Bagwell and Vlad still doing most of the heavy lifting on the offence, with Robinson and Lansford doing the run scoring.

San Angeles 70s 18-34 on their way back down to silver, can't keep up with all of these collection teams, only Staub, Wilson and Rose are doing anything with the bat. Bullpen is ok but my starters apart from Blyleven are getting blasted.

Lowdown Lugnuts 35-19 leading a tough division with 3 other 30+ win teams, cooled down a bit after hot start. Bullpen has been great , starters great apart from SE Mordecai Brown, but luckily he's my 5th starter. Offence is a bit up and down

Bay City Boomers 39-14, 3800 PP earned, own 10 tourney packs, got live Strasburg and 3 live golds, its all free PP. Team continues to dominate offensively but a bit weaker on the pitching side, especially the pen, not a fan of Joe Nathan

[Caedus]

Diamond is points purgatory. In two seasons I don't think Hollywoo has made even 3,000 points.

[Morug]

Nice upgrade for the Angels, 2 gold packs and addition of Heinie Groh(88) and Ty Cobb (90). Hope to make the playoff but pitching staff is so so..hard to built a balanced team with only pack club.

[waittilnextyear]

Frogs checking in from D352.

We've built a 5-game early season lead. The team is mostly as it was last week--a team that won 110 games and peace'd out in the Divisional Series.

Minor changes, then?

Broke up the 1B/DH troika of 98 Roger Connor/98 George Sisler/97 Frank Thomas. I had Sisler bouncing between 1B and DH and the other 2 in what was functionally a platoon. Decided that, although I much liked 98 Sisler doing yeoman's work, I wanted Big Frank's righty bat in there full time to make me a little less susceptible to running a lineup with tons of lefty batters in series. Connor should hit lefties pretty well and Big Frank should do the same with righties.

That roster move freed up a space which I used on....silver Maury Wills? The hope was to make him into some sort of super utility/switch hitter/base running captain of industry late in games. So far, he's had 10 ABs and has stolen zero bases. Hmmm, turning up the pinch runner slider, but this seems to not be working as I'd hoped.

We're also auditioning 95 Frank Tanana (98 Newhouser to the bench) and 92 Pie Traynor (95 A-Rod to the bench). Both of those moves are working out so far.

As for the divisional lead, the 2nd place Poughkeepsie "Singles Club" has this bad habit of hitting late, high-leverage HR off of my bullpen. I demand they change their nickname to Poughkeepsie Frog Killers! As for Frog-killers, the team we've had the most trouble with so far? The last place St-Ephrem Warriors. They've beaten us 2-1 in three separate series.

[Torgonius]

Exciting news from Diamond tonight as the Manatees won their 20th game, finally. Their Bronze tourney team has pulled down several scratch-off tickets, but with no result except to get the occasional card that's good enough to blow on a few more scratch-off tickets.

At least the other two teams are moderately competitive in Iron, each sitting a game out of the 2nd wild card spot. They have each managed to finish off a few missions.

[lightningbolts35]

After winning a Diamond League Championship three weeks ago, the Jonestown Rockhounds have not made the playoffs in two consecutive weeks dispite having 93 & 96 wins respectively. Welcome to life in Diamond League. The Hounds are doing well in the first half of this week leading their division with a 50-23 record. Strong pitching, which has been rare for Jonestown, has lead the way. The last two weeks, the Hounds were hitting extremely well but had no pitching. This week, the hitting hasn't been a good, but the pitching has been great.

Roger Conner, who has typically been a fine hitter and still is for many, has been a huge disappointment. Last season and the the first half of this season, his combined batting average is .236 with on OBA .322. I don't know what his problem is, but I hope he gets his head out of his rear end and starts hitting. The same for 100 Nap Lajoie, who for other teams I've seen, tears the cover off the ball and is hitting around .300+. For the Hounds over the passed two seasons, is hitting .261 with OBA of .307. Jonestown is going to need these two guys to contribute if they have any plans on making and going far into the playoffs.