How can this team do this badly?

usa_hank · 10-04-2025, 01:13 AM

I don't understand it, how is this team 15 games under .500 in HG. I've talked to at least 2 streamers who have seen success in PT and I've got a similar team strategy set. I've tried setting individual strategies this year on individual players to stop slower guys from stealing, etc. Didn't help.

Comparing this team to others in the league, this team should at least be in Wild Card contention, if not competing for my division.

Pitching WAR is 3rd in the conference but Bullpen ERA is 15th (yuck), batting war is 9th, errors 5th. Bullpen has hurt me badly but my bullpen looks better on ratings than so many other teams. Batting is killing me, especially vs R and I'm not sure why. I recently threw Charleston back at the top of the lineup (had him on the bottom because he was playing so badly), so ignore his position in the lineup here. Was also shuffling in Darrell Porter as vs R catcher for another LHB most of the season, he's hitting .273 (recently threw Pudge back in because I was playing 2 teams that I felt my pitching needed a boost against). Gave up on closers since everyone I put as closer ended up at a 7+ ERA the first half of the season.

Other than another entire season of bad rolls (this team has been stuck in HG for 5 seasons now after nearly missing a promotion to perfect just before the freefall), the only thing I can look at and possibly blame is chemistry, which is around 11%. Does chemistry have that big of an effect? The top teams in the league are sitting at 14-15% chemistry with comparable roster quality.

Fabtron7 · 10-04-2025, 11:35 AM

It's not chemistry... Great team though. Looks like you're blowing a lot games late.

cwhitman · 10-04-2025, 01:25 PM

you only showed one side of your lineup: what do the platoons look like? as fab said, your bullpen is really bad and definitely needs some work as well.

usa_hank · 10-04-2025, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwhitman

you only showed one side of your lineup: what do the platoons look like? as fab said, your bullpen is really bad and definitely needs some work as well.

So let's focus on the bullpen for a moment. My bullpen staff looks good, skills-wise. But they're last in the league. Why? If I showed you the top teams, you'd say they look worse: they are playing Dotel, Stieb, Misiorowski, Cy Young, Brian Harvey, Gregorson, Neshek, and Petitte.

I agree, my bullpen has sucked - sounds like you know what to do. Care to elaborate? Who shouldn't be there in HG? At some point during the season I toyed with 5-star variant Maddux, Orosco, David Clyde (vsL) - all ended up 6.0 ERA+. Who should I replace? I'd like to think that if this is game-to-game luck, that a guy who's sitting at a 6 ERA on Wed should be able to reel it in by Friday/Saturday, but they haven't. The team is just a big suck this year. I can't believe this team is going to be demoted from HG.

Season's been over since mid-Friday for me. But I still can't believe my team can't win a few more games. I'm 20 games under .500 now. The team just can't string together wins.

I feel like I've gone to Vegas with a $5000 bankroll, played the Pass Line, and every other come-out roll is craps, and I'm sitting here with nothing because there's absolutely nothing you can do with bad luck, and luck is all PT seems to be at this point in the season.

bailey · 10-04-2025, 07:32 PM

I think closers are programmed to blowup. Rich Gossage in low gold has 7 blown saves in 40 opportunities and the ERA is 4.58.

cwhitman · 10-04-2025, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by usa_hank

So let's focus on the bullpen for a moment. My bullpen staff looks good, skills-wise. But they're last in the league. Why? If I showed you the top teams, you'd say they look worse: they are playing Dotel, Stieb, Misiorowski, Cy Young, Brian Harvey, Gregorson, Neshek, and Petitte.

I agree, my bullpen has sucked - sounds like you know what to do. Care to elaborate? Who shouldn't be there in HG? At some point during the season I toyed with 5-star variant Maddux, Orosco, David Clyde (vsL) - all ended up 6.0 ERA+. Who should I replace? I'd like to think that if this is game-to-game luck, that a guy who's sitting at a 6 ERA on Wed should be able to reel it in by Friday/Saturday, but they haven't. The team is just a big suck this year. I can't believe this team is going to be demoted from HG.

Season's been over since mid-Friday for me. But I still can't believe my team can't win a few more games. I'm 20 games under .500 now. The team just can't string together wins.

I feel like I've gone to Vegas with a $5000 bankroll, played the Pass Line, and every other come-out roll is craps, and I'm sitting here with nothing because there's absolutely nothing you can do with bad luck, and luck is all PT seems to be at this point in the season.

maybe it's fine in comparison to the quality of the players in HG. but it's definitely the weakest part of your team. again, haven't seen your depth charts so i can't really judge if you're having stamina issues or having bad fielding or anything, or if you're not pitch counting and thus losing late constantly...you haven't given close to enough information for us to judge

bailey · 10-05-2025, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwhitman

maybe it's fine in comparison to the quality of the players in HG. but it's definitely the weakest part of your team. again, haven't seen your depth charts so i can't really judge if you're having stamina issues or having bad fielding or anything, or if you're not pitch counting and thus losing late constantly...you haven't given close to enough information for us to judge

I don't pitch count and I do lose games late. So, I wonder what the strategies are for pitch counts. My defense is decent up the middle Glasscock, Ripken, and Mays. Even catching isn't terrible: J. Gibson and Munson.

OswanX · 10-06-2025, 08:23 PM

My team is very similar to yours except for having Honus Wagner base at 3rd instead of Leo, Teixeira at 1st, C. Raleigh/J Bench at Catcher, and Cespedes/Geurrero instead of Jackson in the OF with Parker and Charleston. Pitchers are Sale, Walsh, Young, Smoltz and Fernandez with a very similar Bullpen I'm using Sabathia as a L Specialist. Pretty much it seems like mostly your team but a little weaker in some spots and I just made World Series and lost 2 weeks in a row in HG and then LD. Now I'm in HD and sitting around 500 not looking so great. Not sure what advice to give you except to agree with you that it doesn't seem like they should be doing that bad.

I'm often rotating starters in the pen over into the starting role for 20-30 games when one is struggling. Every day or other day If I have a MR with a better ERA than a starter he's getting swapped out. Or a MR with better ERA than SU guy they're getting swapped, even the closer isn't safe. I order my lineups based off of descending BA and try to keep my highest OBP above my best sluggers (going by Splits not overall stats).

About all the advice I can offer.

usa_hank · 10-07-2025, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OswanX

My team is very similar to yours except for having Honus Wagner base at 3rd instead of Leo, Teixeira at 1st, C. Raleigh/J Bench at Catcher, and Cespedes/Geurrero instead of Jackson in the OF with Parker and Charleston. Pitchers are Sale, Walsh, Young, Smoltz and Fernandez with a very similar Bullpen I'm using Sabathia as a L Specialist. Pretty much it seems like mostly your team but a little weaker in some spots and I just made World Series and lost 2 weeks in a row in HG and then LD. Now I'm in HD and sitting around 500 not looking so great. Not sure what advice to give you except to agree with you that it doesn't seem like they should be doing that bad.

I'm often rotating starters in the pen over into the starting role for 20-30 games when one is struggling. Every day or other day If I have a MR with a better ERA than a starter he's getting swapped out. Or a MR with better ERA than SU guy they're getting swapped, even the closer isn't safe. I order my lineups based off of descending BA and try to keep my highest OBP above my best sluggers (going by Splits not overall stats).

About all the advice I can offer.

Appreciate your comment. I agree, something's off. I do the same thing with starters - swap out the guys who are struggling every 25-30 games (doing that now).

I'm in LG and sitting at 22-18, a 1-game lead over a team starting Live Eovaldi and live Skenes (who have better ERAs than Sandy Koufax and Bret Saberhagen). My starting pitching is 12th in the conference and my bullpen is first - which is opposite of last season and tells me my pitcher strategy isn't the problem, it's all luck. My batting WAR is 9th in the conference. My team got swept in two 3-game series by a team that is 16-25 starting Reggie Smith and Ryan Tannehill (I represent half of this team's wins, I reckon). Not trying to say I'm better than these guys, but this team I'm fielding should be competing in LD/HD, not struggling to be barely over .500 ball in LG.

I love this. I'm definitely buying this game next year. </sarcasm>

Hawkwing7423 · 10-08-2025, 10:05 PM

I looked at your Jose Fernandez vs. mine and mine has never had an ERA that low.

He has not performed like a 102 for me at all.

His best season so far was 13-10 3.72 ERA in LD. He also has an 0-3 6.66 and 3-4 4.81 in HG.

I may be doing something wrong but I sure don't know what it is. I use pitch count 85 with him.

LeeD · 10-09-2025, 09:57 PM

Fernandez is a modern era pitcher, and stamina is definitely an issue. He just opened the second half in High Gold by throwing six innings of two-hit, shutout ball and then coughing up three runs over the next one-plus inning. Started the seventh by giving up a home run and a triple before the AI yanked him. We were ahead 7-3 at that point, so it's a W, but I'm going 18 BF with him from now on. 11-8, 4.30 and averaging just over six IP per start.

10-04-2025, 01:13 AM	#1
usa_hank Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2025 Posts: 74	How can this team do this badly? I don't understand it, how is this team 15 games under .500 in HG. I've talked to at least 2 streamers who have seen success in PT and I've got a similar team strategy set. I've tried setting individual strategies this year on individual players to stop slower guys from stealing, etc. Didn't help. Comparing this team to others in the league, this team should at least be in Wild Card contention, if not competing for my division. Pitching WAR is 3rd in the conference but Bullpen ERA is 15th (yuck), batting war is 9th, errors 5th. Bullpen has hurt me badly but my bullpen looks better on ratings than so many other teams. Batting is killing me, especially vs R and I'm not sure why. I recently threw Charleston back at the top of the lineup (had him on the bottom because he was playing so badly), so ignore his position in the lineup here. Was also shuffling in Darrell Porter as vs R catcher for another LHB most of the season, he's hitting .273 (recently threw Pudge back in because I was playing 2 teams that I felt my pitching needed a boost against). Gave up on closers since everyone I put as closer ended up at a 7+ ERA the first half of the season. Other than another entire season of bad rolls (this team has been stuck in HG for 5 seasons now after nearly missing a promotion to perfect just before the freefall), the only thing I can look at and possibly blame is chemistry, which is around 11%. Does chemistry have that big of an effect? The top teams in the league are sitting at 14-15% chemistry with comparable roster quality. Last edited by usa_hank; 10-04-2025 at 01:27 AM.

10-04-2025, 11:35 AM	#2
Fabtron7 All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2020 Posts: 1,086	It's not chemistry... Great team though. Looks like you're blowing a lot games late. __________________

10-04-2025, 01:25 PM	#3
cwhitman Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2017 Posts: 416	you only showed one side of your lineup: what do the platoons look like? as fab said, your bullpen is really bad and definitely needs some work as well. __________________ OOTP affiliate streaming competitive content on www.twitch.tv/cwhitdcfc as well as strategy and tips content on https://www.youtube.com/@CWhitDCFC

10-04-2025, 07:32 PM	#5
bailey Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,389	I think closers are programmed to blowup. Rich Gossage in low gold has 7 blown saves in 40 opportunities and the ERA is 4.58.

10-06-2025, 08:23 PM	#8
OswanX Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2025 Posts: 2	My team is very similar to yours except for having Honus Wagner base at 3rd instead of Leo, Teixeira at 1st, C. Raleigh/J Bench at Catcher, and Cespedes/Geurrero instead of Jackson in the OF with Parker and Charleston. Pitchers are Sale, Walsh, Young, Smoltz and Fernandez with a very similar Bullpen I'm using Sabathia as a L Specialist. Pretty much it seems like mostly your team but a little weaker in some spots and I just made World Series and lost 2 weeks in a row in HG and then LD. Now I'm in HD and sitting around 500 not looking so great. Not sure what advice to give you except to agree with you that it doesn't seem like they should be doing that bad. I'm often rotating starters in the pen over into the starting role for 20-30 games when one is struggling. Every day or other day If I have a MR with a better ERA than a starter he's getting swapped out. Or a MR with better ERA than SU guy they're getting swapped, even the closer isn't safe. I order my lineups based off of descending BA and try to keep my highest OBP above my best sluggers (going by Splits not overall stats). About all the advice I can offer.

10-08-2025, 10:05 PM	#10
Hawkwing7423 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2024 Posts: 92	I looked at your Jose Fernandez vs. mine and mine has never had an ERA that low. He has not performed like a 102 for me at all. His best season so far was 13-10 3.72 ERA in LD. He also has an 0-3 6.66 and 3-4 4.81 in HG. I may be doing something wrong but I sure don't know what it is. I use pitch count 85 with him.

10-09-2025, 09:57 PM	#11
LeeD All Star Reserve Join Date: Jan 2022 Posts: 843	Fernandez is a modern era pitcher, and stamina is definitely an issue. He just opened the second half in High Gold by throwing six innings of two-hit, shutout ball and then coughing up three runs over the next one-plus inning. Started the seventh by giving up a home run and a triple before the AI yanked him. We were ahead 7-3 at that point, so it's a W, but I'm going 18 BF with him from now on. 11-8, 4.30 and averaging just over six IP per start.