109-53 loses to 81-81 in first round

[Dodger_Dave]

Being new to this game, I have really enjoyed playing it BUT, this is the second time my team has dominated the regular season only to get knocked out in the first playoff series by mediocre squad. How often does this happen to the rest of you?
I think I am done pouring $$ into this game trying to create a dominating team only to get beaten in the first round.

I will focus only on my F2P team instead. It is way more gratifying.

[fredbeene]

pour MORE money into the game!!!

[Boomcoach]

If you follow baseball, this isn't that bizarre of an occurrence (ask Mariners fans for instance). One thing, with my own teams, that I have seen, is that often when I have dominating record, it is in part because I am in a very weak division, where sometimes I have a team with more mediocre record that out performs its record in the playoffs because a tough division led to the poorer record.

[chazzycat]

It happens sometimes. Honestly it's one of the great things about baseball, and by extension, this game. You can never guarantee a championship in a given year, no matter how much money you spend. I would think as a Dodger fan, you would understand this well by now.

[Hwilensky]

Welcome to what many know as wild card magic. The more you play, the more you will notice how many wild card teams ride the magic to a world series. But also look at his roster, did he make any changes to it? Did he somehow improve the last two days of the season?

[bailey]

My 87 win team lost to a 104 win team in 3 games. No wild card mojo here.

[chazzycat]

and my 112-win #1 seed took down the title.

[neugey]

If your division was a cupcake and your opponent's was much tougher, records can be pretty deceiving.

[Dodger_Dave]

Last season my 119-43 team lost in the Sub-League series...I could stomach that more than this last season,

[JesseBarfield]

Unlike real baseball teams it is fairly easy to do a major upgrade in the middle of a season. Particularly this week with the addition of players such as Smoky Joe Wood and Bagwell.

[Leo_The_Lip]

My three teams have played only the past three seasons. None of them has won fewer than 111 games (high of 133). Yet I'm only 7 for 9 in winning championships.

When it comes to championships, we are all Bobby Cox's Atlanta Braves.

[ncap99]

Since they added the wild card in MLB seven times a wild card as won the world series, including 3 consecutive times between 2002-2004. Just food for thought!

[Marleigh]

I had three teams in the gold playoffs

Team 1 118 wins, best record in league, lost in the first round to a wildcard

A lot of time, effort and PP into building the team



Team 2 98 wins, division winner, lost in 2nd round to wildcard

Team 3 91 wins, wildcard, won the Gold series
Barely any effort into building the team

[dboeyr12007]

Originally Posted by Hwilensky

Welcome to what many know as wild card magic. The more you play, the more you will notice how many wild card teams ride the magic to a world series. But also look at his roster, did he make any changes to it? Did he somehow improve the last two days of the season?

Yeah I agree. A lot of times this stems from people majorly upgrading their team Saturday night/Sunday morning.

[trainwreck]

It happens to all of us. You might as well get used to it.

[brotherblues]

This was in solo franchise ootp 21, but I once had a team with a really crazy amount of wins (like 130 or close) get knocked out in the wild card round against a sub .500 team. I had a backup save so I ran that series again a few times. My team would always lose. I checked everything, morale, chemistry, etc, nothing stood out. I could only scratch my head and move on to the next season.

[professor ape]

Just based on overall winning percentages, a .500 team has about a 15% chance of winning a seven game series over a 109 win team. It’s higher for a five game series, I think somewhere around 20%, maybe a bit higher. It’s frustrating when it happens to you, but it is going to happen.

[Will_L]

My Elitist Scum had the second wild card spot and I expected them to lose the wild card game to a somewhat better team. Didn't get the opportunity to check until later in the afternoon yesterday and they were tied 3-3 in the finals, and lost game 7 in a blowout. They got lucky and hot at the right time.

[ineedplayerpics]

Another reason not to spend money on extra PP, it allows us F2P players to compete with the whales

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by Dodger_Dave

Being new to this game, I have really enjoyed playing it BUT, this is the second time my team has dominated the regular season only to get knocked out in the first playoff series by mediocre squad. How often does this happen to the rest of you?

It happens, as it does in real life. 162 games is plenty for the superiority of a team to manifest itself in results. Over five games, obviously less so, and with a bit of luck any team reaching the playoffs can beat any other.