Ouran High School Hosts BFF

[Renfro]

After three days, the Hosts are 41-39 and 1/2 game out of a Wild Card spot. For a couple of days we were actually leading the division. Considering this is our first year in Silver, it's quite surprising.

We started the season with this rotation:

Charles Nagy (BaL 100)
Jake Peavy (BaL 100)
Adam Wainwright (BaL 96)
Mike Mussina (BaL 96)
Doc White (SS 96)

During Tuesday's games, after idly working on the Pedro Guerrero Gold Mission, I pulled my second Historical Perfect: Roger Clemens.



I immediately slotted him into the rotation, removing the struggling 94 BaL Wainwright. If this is Wainwright's last hurrah as a Host, he leaves with a 25-33 record and 7.2 WAR amassed over 5 seasons, earning 680 PP.

Doc White (96 RS) was also struggling so I called up 97 FL Luis Patino. Going 1-5 over 9 starts in Bronze last season did not fully deplete the confidence I have in Patino. As for Doc White, over 5 seasons mostly as a starter, he went 8-9 amassing a 0.4 WAR.

After putting up disappointing defensive stats last year, I decided to shore up my defense and start Rafael Furcal (96 HL) at SS and Lenny Dykstra (90 SE) against both righties and lefties.

[Renfro]

TEAM MISSIONS

The Team Mission #1 dropped last night and I cashed in on some Aroldis Chapman love.



At the beginning of the night I was 10 points down on completing Chapman and with a middling Bullpen ERA (currently 4.56, 9th in the league), I briefly considered becoming a buyer. But talking with other BFFs and hearing about some insane successes - this all within 5 minutes of the missions dropping, BTW - I became a seller.

This Friday morning as I write this, there half a dozen Ditmars and Van Attas on the AH, with healthy L10s, but neither above 10k.

I had too many points to unlock Smoky Joe Wood (100 SE). I tried to unload a Wes Ferrell and a Rich Garces, two SS 85s, but had no takers. So I finished the mission and immediately slotted him into 97 FL Luis Patino's spot. Smoky promptly lost his first game.

I also had enough points to finish Washington to unlock Max Scherzer (96 SE). I put him in the rotation and now the starting 5 looks like:

Smoky Joe Wood (100 SE)
Charles Nagy (100 BaL)
Roger Clemens (100 HL)
Jake Peavy (100 BaL)
Max Scherzer (96 SE)

I had enough points to finish a bunch of missions but I was too busy to make assessments as to whether I should actually do so. I'll spend some time today figuring that out.

Currently, we are 58-50, tied with fellow BFFer the Seattle Freeze for 2nd in the AC East, both of us 4 games behind the West Greenwich Apple Sox.

[Renfro]

The Seattle Freeze and I got the jump on the West Greenwich Apple Sox on Friday but by day's end, I was fading. So I bit the bullet and by Friday evening, I finished the rest of the Team Missions. Had to do it then just in case the weekend warriors bought up all the Ditmar'ss and Van Atta's and caused a spike in prices. I bought them back at significantly reduced prices compared to win I had sold them Thursday night. I needed every PP as my balance veered to zero.

As a result, Keith Foulke (SE 96), B.J. Ryan (SE 97), Claude Passeau (SE 97), Aroldis Chapman (SE 100) and toppers Sam McDowell (SE 100), and Robin Roberts (SE 100) all joined the staff. The other SE 100 topper, Craig Biggio, I sold on the AH.

But it was not enough. On Saturda / September, we posted a losing record to finish the season at 84-78, 12 games out of first and 4th in the division. We made improvements, but so did everybody else. The Seattle Freeze would win the division and go on to the World Series and take the heavily favored Humboldt Green (another BFF team) to seven games.

And so we'll spend a second year in Silver, hoping to fight off the rising tide and get a second championship. To that end, I've already made the next major move: unlocking 100 SE Satch Paige. Hopefully with all that Live Spec, I'll have enough to make a dent on Oscar Charleston.

AWARDS and NOTES

Rafael Furcal (HL 96) rewarded my faith in him to play full-time by winning the league's Great Glove Award at SS. He's hitting numbers aren't great (.225 / .293 / .315) but he ran well (54 steals in 68 attempts) and shined on the field, committing only 12 errors over 618 chances and posting a 28.6 ZR with a defensive efficiency of 1.148. He amassed 4 WAR.

Bill Terry (91 SS), also promoted to a full-time role, rewarded the move by winning the Great Glove Award at 1B. 100 BaL Paul Goldschmidt remained as at the full-time DH.

The big disappoints were in the outfield. In RF was 100 BaL Harry Heilmann. He followed his .323 / .413 / .496 5.8 WAR 2028 season with a lackluster .277 / .342 / .437 1.7 WAR line. Len Dykstra (90 SE) was his usual self which is a 1 WAR player at this level. Still, he's my best outfielder. LF was the worst. I first tried Riley Greene (92 FL) in a full-time role. Despite his batting woes (he would finish with a slash line of .228 / .316 / .317) I kept him in the lineup until Thursday. I then finished with a platoon of Roy Sievers and Tim Raines.

I would love an OF of Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, and 100 BaL Tim Raines or Harold Baines. To even start down that path, I'd need Matt Chapman, Aroldis Chapman, Judge, Arenado, and Bieber - among others - to hit it tomorrow.

[Renfro]

LIVE SPEC DUD

This was supposed to be the day I cashed in on all that Live Spec. I was full up on Chapmans (Aroldis and Matt, though both's performance the previous week left something to be desired), Judges, Arenados, and a handful of Biebers all waiting to be transformed into Live Perfects. With a trencher full of golds (Albies, Turner, et al), 1 million PP cash out was in play.

I woke up early out of habit, despite a late night watching a movie on Hulu (the remarkable Plan B). I fired up the game and could not believe my eyes. There should have been so many more 100's. Through the haze of sleep, I thought: Maybe they're still going through the changes? Because Aroldis went down a rating point. But no, of my Live Diamonds, only the Biebers converted. And still I had to quick sell some of that failed Live Spec to make the winning bid for a mint-in-box Cool Papa Bell (NLS 99). By day's end, after arduous selling of non-live dupes, I'm back up to 23. About 157k short of what I need to unlock Oscar Charleston.

But at least there's no pressure right now, as the team is tops in the entire NC at 16-8. Plus it's nice to have Cool Papa Bell. I remember running a team in PT19 that featured all Future Legends and Cool Papa Bell.

Our starting pitching:

Satchel Paige (100 SE)
Smoky Joe Wood (100 SE)
Charles Nagy (100 BaL)
Jake Peavy (100 BaL)
Claude Passeau (97 BaL)

These guys have posted a 3.23 for the first day of play, best in the league. All of them righties while lefties dominate the bullpen, with Aroldis Chapman (100 SE) as closer.

On the batting side, we are also posting a .290 team batting average, along with a .356 team OBP, both tops in the league. At the end of the day's play, we had 51 stolen bases through 26 games, along with +9 in the Base Running metric. My main concern is still with LF, where I'm throwing a Roy Sievers (95 HL)/Rico Carty (92 SE) platoon.

This week is all about continued spamming of Non-Live Silver snd Gold tourneys - had a bunch of success with the latter now that I have Dallas Keuchel (88 HH)- along with forays into Low Diamond and all the fun cap tourneys. I'm still carrying, and playing, 100 SEs Sam McDowell and Robin Roberts. Roberts' L10 is at 40k while McDowell's is at 33k. But I'm going to enjoy them for at least one more day.

Incidentally, I checked in on Lave Cross - as one might do an old flame on Facebook or Instagram. A few weeks, I had sold him for something like 60k or 70k a few weeks ago. His L10 is currently above 90k!

[Renfro]

I had thought that I would not be able to unlock Oscar Charleston (100 SE) until sometime next week at best, but I hadn't really taken stock on how much PP I had tied up in failed Live Spec. It wasn't until I lucked into a Live Perfect (Cody Bellinger) on Tuesday courtesy of a Twitch Pack that I thought to even look.

The Bellinger pull coincided with a couple of Sam Jethroes (NLS 91) on the AH, and so I QS'd and then looked into all that failed Live Spec: Matt Chapmans, Arenados, etc. I QS'd what I needed, feeling like I was peeling off twenties from a hefty stack, and got that Jethroe. I proceeded to do the same when a Heavy came on the AH. I thought that was going to be up but I saw that I had a ton of failed Gold Live Spec. Lots of Gleyber's that I don't know what I paid for them. I took the loss on that but gained a Heavy Johnson (NLS 89) and finally a Hurley McNair (NLS 73) to unlock Oscar Charleston.



I really only learned about Oscar Charleston last year because of this game, and because I packed him. That led to me reading Jeremy Beer's excellent biography of the man, "Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball's Greatest Forgotten Player."

I immediately slotted Charleston at CF and moved Cool Papa Bell (NLS 99) to right field. Left field is still a platoon: Sam Jethroe and Rico Carty (SE 92).

Near the end of Wednesday's games, we lead the division by 1 game with a 44-35 record. Part of the impetus of getting Charleston was that this division is going to be a bear:



I demoted Satchel Paige (NLS 100) to the bullpen and promoted Robin Roberts (SE 100) to the rotation. Paige went 6-9 over 17 starts, posting a 4.99 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, 3.69 FIP and loser of his last 3 starts.

Sights turn toward the Negro League Infielders mission, of which I've only got 65 out of the 270 points needed. It's going to be a long haul.

[Renfro]

POST SEASON

Had to let the team float on its own as I went camping with the Missus and the Kid. Camping was fun and it was nice to get away from the screens a bit but if OOTP Go was available for us North Americans, you can bet I'd be squinting at my little iPhone screen in the darkness of the tent.

As it was, I did wake up at around 4 AM and hung out by myself in the very early dawn in front of an extinguished campfire. As the birds tweeted all around me, unseen but active, I thought: "How I wish I could spam some tourneys right about now."

And so the end of the season held no tension for me. A fellow BFF-er did inform me via Discord that we were facing off in the Division Series. (And yes, I still had access to Discord. It wasn't totally primitive where I was!) If I were smart, I would've did the usual playoff prep: set rotation, scout matchups and adjust strategy as needed. As it turned out, I took the DS in 5 games, winning the 5th game by 1-run. And I would go on to lose the Championship Series to the Valinor Eagles, who finished only 1 game behind me in the division by had beaten my 11 times out of 19 in the regular season. Even though we lost in 6, I felt that pivotal moment came in Game 5, when their Jorge Posada hit a walk-off single off of Satchel Paige.

That's our 7th playoff appearance and still our only championship is in Rookie.

SUMMATION

The team earned nearly 16k PP, at least a quarter of it as a result of Charles Nagy (100 BaL). Pitching as our SP3, Nagy had a career year. Over 35 starts, he went 17-6 with a 2.71 ERA (second only to Belmont Bouncing Amazon's Claude Passeau (97 SE), who posted a 2.49 ERA). Over 239 innings, he gave up only 13 home runs. His FIP was 3.42 and he amassed 5.3 WAR. For his efforts, which included a quality start streak of 17 games, he won Pitcher of the Year.

Switching Satchel Paige to the bullpen helped, as he posted better numbers all around (2.10 ERA as a reliever versus 4.99 as a starter, 0.97 WHIP vs 1.71, 2.22 FIP v 3.74). And Robin Roberts, who took Paige's place in the rotation, did well over 21 starts, including 2 wins in the postseason.

Sam McDowell (SE 100) did well in his reliever role. His card is still retaining value, with an L10 of 32k. I'm about 180k from finishing the NL Infielders and selling McDowell would obviously help out. Although I've been getting packs through tourneys (still mainly Silver Non-Live, but also the occasional Low Diamond and Low Diamond cap) but I haven't had a post-worthy card in a while. The Live Perfect that spurred me to finishing NLS Outfielders doesn't count.

Speaking of Oscar Charleston, his first 93 games with us were somewhat underwhelming from an offensive point of view: .234 / .314 / .395 with 11 home runs, 45 RBIs, 44 runs scored and 41 stolen bases in 58 attempts. Defensively, though, he came as advertised, achieving a 10.1 ZR in less than 100 games.

But Rafael Furcal (HL 96) posted the best batter WAR for the team for the second straight year. The guy is good. From the bottom of the lineup, he slashed .276 / .348 / .408, scoring 78 runs while driving in 49. He had the most total chances (691 to Alan Trammell's 633) assists (472 to 424) and putouts (202 to 196) of all shortstops. If it were not for Furcal, the defensive stats leaderboard for shortstops would be all Trammells. For his efforts, Furcal wins his second straight Great Glove Award.

If I don't sell Sam McDowell or pull something from a recent Gold Non-Live Cap placing, the off-season will be relatively quiet.

[Renfro]

I don't have much expectation in Gold, esp. since there are 15 other BFF teams here. I didn't scout any teams yet but it's safe to say that the BFF teams are generally of higher quality.

My main goal is to make good progress on the last Negro League mission. Currently, I have about 24k. I ended up putting Sam McDowell (SE 100), and after losing two games in relief, Satchel Paige (NLS SE 100) on the AH. Neither move affects my rotation, which looks like this:

Robin Roberts (100 SE)
Smoky Joe Wood (100 SE)
Charles Nagy (100 BaL)
Claude Passeau (97 SE)
Jake Peavy (100 BaL)

As for the starting lineups, I brought back Harry Heilmann (100 SE) after two lackluster seasons in Silver to serve as the strong-side platoon. I couldn't resist. I'd actually put him on the AH but I'm just too curious about the Franchise Heroes missions set to drop in the near future.

I'm most interested in seeing how Oscar Charleston plays throughout an entire season.

[Renfro]

FRANCHISE HEROES #1

The whole having to lock the "goal" / "fake topper" cards is kind of depressing for an FTP team like my Hosts. I do appreciate the two Diamond Packs as rewards, but I dislike having to hope for an amazing pull (which sort of happened) to generate the real PP needed to advance. Otherwise, it's the grind.

After a bit of debate, I decided to lock the 4 BaLs that I have. I mean, each of the 100 BaLs play an important part. Charles Nagy (8-7) and Jake Peavy (6-3) are in the rotation while Paul Goldschmidt and Harry Heilmann are in the everyday lineup. Heilmann is having his best year, slashing .345 / .425 / .524 with 60 RBIs and 59 runs. He's on track to beat the 5.8 WAR he posted in Bronze in 2028.

So I unlocked Ken Caminiti, Rocky Colavito, Justin Upton, and Dick McAuliff.

I immediately slotted Caminiti in for the struggling Rico Petrocelli (HL 100). Petrocelli had been a solid hitter ever since 2024 but this year he's been struggling to the tune of .221 / .303 / .332.

I also put in Dick McAuliff for Tony Fernandez (90 BaL). McAuliff takes over for Craig Biggio (92 BaL) at 2B, and Biggio moves over to DH vR, replacing Rico Carty (SE 92).

The other two I kept on reserve. Caminiti hit a home run in his first game.

The 8 Diamond Packs resulted in: 2 Live Juan Sotos, 2 Live Aaron Nolas, a Live Aaron Judge, Hitter of the Month Carson Kelly (95), Randy Ready (OHW 91), and Emmet Heidrick (SS 91). The latter has an L10 above 65k because he's needed for Tim Raines BaL.

This means that I can complete Tim Raines tonight if I wanted to, as there're two HAS George Springers (91) on the AH right now and I have nearly 100k to burn. But that 100k was ear-marked for John Henry Lloyd (NLS 99). But his L10 has been cratering, and 100 Tim Raines looks amazing. So the Diamond Pack rewards did payoff. And now I'm faced with the delicious choices that often presents itself to an FTP player.

I think I'll sleep on it.

At the end of today's games, our Hosts are 3rd in the AC East with a 58-50 record, a 1/2 game out of a Wild Card spot. It's quite a turnaround because we stumbled badly out of the gate, going 9-17 in our first 25 games. I hope that my meager improvements after tonight's content drop are enough to keep us in the hunt.

[Renfro]

LATE SEASON

The drive for the Wild Card spot was intense, a real rollercoaster as the Hosts followed a 7-game losing streak with a 6-game winning streak, only to be followed by another 4-game losing streak in Saturday's games, the month of September. On September 20, we shared the division lead with the So Cal Earthquakes - BFF. The Eden Prairie Landsharks - BFF were only a game behind. A week later, we were in 3rd, 2 games back of the Prairie Landsharks. In the end the Earthquakes would take the division with a 90-72 record, and the Landsharks would take the wild card spot.

I couldn't really do any managing as I spent the entire afternoon at the pool, looking at the Discord and hoping for an update.

To have any chance, we would have had to win the 162nd game. But in that game, after clawing back to a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the 8th against the Brooklyn Dynasta - BFF, Jamie Moyer (SE 94) gives up a run-scoring double against their Harry Heilmann (SE 100). We finished the season 1 game out of a wild card spot. Looking back at the previous post, one could say that our moves were almost the equal to my opponents' moves.

CARDS

I had ended up unlocking 100 BaL Tim Raines Friday morning. From the Diamond Packs, I pulled a Ron Cey which is in the Adrian Beltre missions. Since I already had a Rafael Furcal (96 SS) I just needed one more card to unlock 100 BaL Beltre, which I unlocked this Sunday morning as the second off-season move. This move effectively puts on hold acquiring 99 SE John Henry Lloyd as a major piece to unlock 100 SE Jackie Robinson.

The first off-season move was making the decision to put Ken Caminiti (100 FH) on the AH. And technically, I put the struggling Caminiti on the AH with three games left to play in the regular season, replacing him with Ryan Zimmerman (98 FH).

Despite Caminiti's great first game, he did not do very well in the playoff push:

Caminiti's slash line over 189 PAs: .212 / .269 / .360 amassing a 0.4 WAR.

100 BaLTim Raines was a tad better, posting this slash line over 200 PAs: .253 / .305 / .440 amassing a 0.8 WAR.

Ryan Zimmerman's 3-game cup of coffee was promising, going 5-13 and driving in 3 runs. If my recently acquired 100 FH1 Adrian Beltre does end up going by way of the AH, then Zimmerman's going to have the starting job.

YEAR 2031 SUMMATION

I was frankly amazed at how well we did in our first year of Gold. I had been hoping to maintain a winning record but I never thought that we would be contending for a playoff spot.

100 BaL Paul Goldschmidt, given the chance to play 1B full-time, did not disappoint as he lead the team with 4.2 WAR, slashing .296 / .369 / .520 with 27 home runs, 88 RBIs, and 85 runs scored. He also stole 35 bases, making this his first 20/20 season in 4 years with the Hosts. He also earned the Great Glove Award for 1B.

100 BaL Harry Heilmann, also given the chance to play full-time (RH vs R, and DH v L), stepped up as well. He hit 17 home runs, drove in 87 and scored 85 and his .322 batting average was best in the league. Next best was the West Greenwich Apple Sox' 100 SE Alan Trammell with a .314 batting average. He earned the Great Bat Award for RF.

Rafael Furcal's (HL 96) run of top WAR of the team ends at 2 years, but he did manage 3.6 WAR in his first year in Gold, slashing .263 / .344 / .366.

The man I was keeping my eyes on was 100 SE Oscar Charleston at CF. In a park that suppresses left-handed hitters, he slashed .279 / .331 / .411 with 11 homers, 52 RBIs, and 73 runs scored. He led our team with 154 strikeouts and amassed 2.4 WAR. Even with a home field unfavorable to lefthand hitters, his performance was kind of disappointing. I dangled him on the AH for a spell. He still stands high above my other top centerfielders: Cool Papa Bell (SE 99), and Lenny Dykstra (SE 90).

For comparison's sake, the Eden Prairie Landsharks - BFF's 100 SE Oscar Charleston slashed .313 / .377 / .533, led the league with 187 hits, and put up an 8.5 WAR in a neutral ballpark. Seeing that made me take him off the AH and consider serious changes to the park.

[Renfro]

I stuck with the same rotation throughout the season, my second in Gold:

Robin Roberts (100 SE)
Smoky Joe Wood (100 SE)
Charles Nagy (100 BaL)
Claude Passeau (97 SE)
Satchel Paige (100 SE)

As a group, they posted a 3.77 ERA. My bullpen, anchored by Aroldis Chapman (100 SE), was even better: 2.98 ERA. The pitching staff had 612 runs against, good for 2nd best in the league.

The lineup remained largely stable, at least after I put in Adrian Beltre (100 BaL) at 3B. Beltre replaced Ryan Zimmerman (98 FH), who stayed in the lineup as a DH v RH and at 3B v LH. His first full year with us resulted in a .275 / .352 / .439 slash line with team-leading 109 RBIs. Mighty impressive. His 3.6 WAR was tied with Beltre's for 3rd best on the team, although Beltre did need only 99 games to amass that much. Beltre would go on to win the Great Glove at 3B.

The top WAR of 4.5 went to 100 BaL Tim Raines, who slashed .287 / .368 / .454 while stealing 69 bases in 86 attempts. He led the team in run scored with 94 and won the Great Bat at LF.

The man I adjusted the stadium for, Oscar Charleston (100 SE), again had a lackluster season: .235 / .306 / .404 with 17 home runs, 75 RBI, and 73 run scored. Lefties murdered him, limiting him to .159 / .221 / .283 and 48 strikeouts in 122 PAs. Since I don't play many Open or Diamond tourneys - with the rare exception of the one running this Sunday (6/19/21) - I can see myself selling in order to supplement the 72K I have right now.

PLAYOFFS

All throughout the season, I trailed Seattle Freeze - BFF in the AC Central. We got close a few times but we never overtook. The Wild Card game was our destiny. The playoffs were a veritable BFF landmine. All but one team was part of the formidable BFF crew.

In the Wild Card game, I faced off with the Eden Prairie Landsharks BFF and won 6-1. My Smoky Joe Wood went 7.2 while Eden's went only .2.

I went up against the Seattle Freeze BFF, whom I had a 9-10 regular season record against. In a 5-game series, anything can happen and we came away with a 3-1 series victory. Paul Goldschmidt (100 BaL) went 8-14 in the series. Hitting was on point.

In the CS, I faced the 91-71 Alisa Viejo Factors, who not only features an Oscar Charleston but a 100 SE Jackie Robinson in their lineup. Luckily, we were able to subdue Jackie, holding him to only 2 hits as we swept the series.

In the World Series, we faced the Brooklyn Dynasty BFF who had our old friend, Lave Cross, (96 HL) in the lineup. Brooklyn went 90-62 but had a solid team that up until we took Game 2, had not lost a game in the post-season. Unfortunately, we would only take one more game and we lost the Series 2-4. The Dynasty peaked at the right moment.

OFF SEASON

By the time of this posting (Monday evening 6/21/21), the off season came and went and we made nary a move. Charleston remains on our roster and we're still sitting at around 70K. The John Henry Lloyd's have all but disappeared from the AH, and the ones that do appear are posted at around 120k. I'd lock to unlock Alex Gordon (FH1) because I'm playing the Low Diamond PTCS but that'll probably take all my PP, and with Live Spec on the horizon, I figure I'm move my stack towards that.

[Renfro]

First year in Diamond and, as usual, I was not expecting much. And so it was a pleasant surprise to find us, on May 2 leading the AC Central by 1 game with a 16-13 record. The AC Central was BFF Central. The Verndale Vikings, the Ronkonkoma Rangers, the Bowman Chrome, and Humboldt Green were all BFF teams. A month later we were 26-30 and 7 1/2 games behind the Vikings.

We would eventually finish the season 30 games back of the Vikings, with a 76-86 record and 8 games above the relegation zone.

FUTURE LEGENDS

The Thursday content drop featured the Future Legends missions. That was fun as I had a lot of the FL cards and was able to complete all of the East teams and quite a few of the other regions. This meant that I had unlocked one of the toppers, Schoolboy Rowe (100 SE). I tried to sell him on the AH but his L10 kept falling and falling. I did this, too, with Luis Patino, one of the needed cards for 100 FL Wander Franco. But I neither had the patience nor the conviction to play the market. As I stands, I'm still waffling on whether to continue to try to sell Patino, or to lock him and try to sell or play Franco. The latter offers a path to finishing the FL East and unlocking 100 SE Dick Allen, but I don't see a place for him in my roster and his L10 is already down to around 33k.

The long and the short of the content drop on Thursday is that the Hosts got a few new pieces:

Schoolboy Rowe, whom ei eventually put in and got 10 starts out of him, went 3-2 with a 3.01 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 3.59 FIP, and 1.5 WAR. He struck out 57 in 68.2 innings.

Nate Pearson (FL 98) did horrible as a starter. Over 6 starts, he went 1-5, posting a 6.04 ERA and a .315 BABIP. He went 1-5 before I placed him in the bullpen.

His replacement, Forrest Whitley (FL 95) did not fare much better. In 3 starts, he went 0-2 with a 6.38 ERA and a .319 BABIP.

Sixto Sanchez (FL 94), who's making a name for himself in my Low Diamond squad, gave us 18 innings in relief. In 18 innings, he did gave up only 12 hits, no home runs, and struck out 14.

Spencer Howard (FL 92) also put in the work in the pen, but with less success. In 15 games, he pitched 21 innings, also gave up 12 hits, but 3 of these were home runs. He went 3-2.

On the bats, I decided to try Spencer Torkelson (FL 98). He had helped my Diamond team get 2nd place in the Friday Super Diamond and I thought, why not try him out at first. Over 53 games, he slashed .260 / .321 / .450. Of his 52 hits, 10 were home runs. He drove in 28 and scored 32. That's promising.

SUMMATION

Because of the Future Legends, the season proved to be a lot of fun, but mainly because I was finding some success with my Low Diamond squad. In the 10 Low Diamond Bo7s I entered since the June 25 2021, we went 78-61 and placed 2nd in two of them.

As for this team, the main team, Oscar Charleston finally put up a marginally good season compared to my admittedly lofty expectations of him. Charleston led the team in WAR with a 4.6, homers (22), RBI (76), run scored (83). He slashed .278 / .325 / .462 and stole 57 bases. I'm glad I did not keep him on the AH.

Smoky Joe Wood (100 SE) led our team with a 2.95 ERA over 259.1 innings spread throughout 35 starts. He amassed a 5.6 WAR.

On a sour note, 100 SE Aroldis Chapman put a stinker of a season. He started out as our closer and ended as our Lefty Specialist. Along the way, he posted an 8.09 ERA over 41.1 innings with a 2.15 WHIP. He finished the season with a -1.4 WAR. Looking at the stats closer, he performed amazingly against lefties (0.89 WHIP) than against righties (2.51 WHIP). He'll remain in this new role as we continue in Diamond next season.