Looking For "Friends" to join "Our League".

[allenciox]

Meanwhile, the Truckers, having been exiled to non-OL Perfect land have thrived, despite the same less-than-perfect lineup that barely avoided relegation the past two seasons. The Truckers continue to get better, all despite *no* intervention from me this week...or perhaps *because* no intervention? Who knows.

One thing I am beginning to wonder is whether the average OL team in perfect league might be better than the average team in Perfect league. Most of us study the game and have learned the players that perform "above their pay grade" and most of us have a coordinated plan as far as players and ballpark factors are concerned. Clyde Truckers provide one more data point that this might indeed be the case.

And we can also see evidence that there is still a substantial jump between diamond OL league and Perfect OL league. It seems like it is mostly the same teams that bounce back and forth --- the worst teams in perfect league are often the best teams in Diamond league.

[Argonaut]

I wager that the OL Perfect League is the toughest in all of PT aside from the whale league(s).

[OMGPuppies]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

The Sanguine Classics have been re-christened to the 3-10-2 Yuma ball club. Abbreviation is 310. This is in preparation for a sabbatical from OL beginning next season. They will be taking the train to the Wild West at 3:10 AM Monday morning.

Great movie.

[Ormondbeachdan]

Boo.. Going out of town for almost three weeks this morning.. Was so hoping the mobile app would have been ready by now.. BUMMER.. Oh well.. hopefully I will have a mess of points when I get back

[Charlatan]

Cowboys Extend Lead In Diamond OL

The Green Lake Cowboys continued playing great ball through the month of August, while their main pursuers, Pablo and Transylvania, both faltered. It appears. Barring a last-minute disaster, it appears Green Lake will soon be sporting the blue crown.

Non OL Playoff News

• Topeka has all but clinched the AC East
• Roncali has a solid lead over 310 for the AC West
• 310 and Pablo hold the top AC wildcard spots, followed by New York, Hampton Roads, CliffMarkle, and Annandale. So it's a pretty good bet the AC wildcard game will be an OL affair
• Green Lake has a solid lead in the NC West
• Janesville currently holds the second NC wildcard spot

So it appears we will have 6 playoff teams this year.

No team is in danger of relegation from Diamond.

[Stanley Kuppchaser]

The leaders each stumbled to varying degrees, allowing the Silver Ferns to grab the top spot with an 11-8 run. San Pedro, 15-7, and Redmond, 11-6, were on fire, resulting in a tight, six-way crown chase.


I will be busy most of today, so it's fairly likely that crowning will be done tomorrow. There will be two crowns awarded in gold, provided the stats get reported and the OL teams have enough competitors and games to fit the OL criteria.


As for the stats, remember, you can send me the team vs. team screen shots to kidheckett@gmail.com. Hopefully, we'll get all the games accounted for, and the friends list is not as flakey in its sorting next week.


Good luck down the stretch.

[Stanley Kuppchaser]

Originally Posted by revmcgator

This week has only confirmed my feeling that the PT game engine just does what it does, without much relationship to the specifics of what we do.

The Hatchets continue their slide to Diamond this week, despite my best efforts to coax them to victory.

Meanwhile, the Truckers, having been exiled to non-OL Perfect land have thrived, despite the same less-than-perfect lineup that barely avoided relegation the past two seasons. The Truckers continue to get better, all despite *no* intervention from me this week...or perhaps *because* no intervention? Who knows.

Based on my teams' results, I would agree. The "stuck in silver" Rustlers seemed poised to finally move up after three seasons in which they won 96, 89, and 96 games. The only change was bringing in a higher rated, across the board, Troy Tulowitzki part way through last season.


I'm guessing that OOTP's engine is more geared toward the universe than the individual results a player's card describes. For me, at least, it explains why players with similar ratings can end up with widely divergent results. It seems rather top down to me, where the results that this seasons are calculated and the pie is baked and put on the table. Your Willie Stargell can grab a 35 HR piece while mine gets 12. I realize there are other factors that contribute to the spread, but I'm fairly convinced that they might explain a difference of say, 35-25. The extremes in PT are quite ubiquitous and seem to be the norm. The ability to direct the AI's actions also seems rather quirky to me as well. You have to coax and cajole the AI, but your directions are treated as suggestions. I really dislike the "sliders" approach, because while they seem to be telling the AI to pull your pitcher slowly, the AI is still gonna yank a guy at around 100 pitches because that is the overall model that the game plays to.


In ESSOM, a play by mail league I played in many years ago, we used a pretty straight forward approach. As an example, say you have Goose Gossage as your closer, his "bring in" instruction might read:


9th inning or later
3:0


This tells the AI that if you're winning by 3 or less, or tied, he comes into the game. As for pulling a pitcher, since stamina is so ill-defined in OOTP they would need to allow you to define a pitch count that the pitcher would be allowed to reach before he gets pulled. It really sucks to look at a box score and see that your starter was cruising along, only to be pulled for a gas can who blows the game.


I should say that those instructions were based on A Strat-O-Matic league using the Point of Weakness (POW) system they developed, which I'm sure OOTP couldn't implement. They could however use this system to allow you to keep a pitcher in as follows.


Nolan Ryan


Remove in 7th (or 8th, etc) if


2:0:L


which translates as winning by two or less, tied, or losing. What's nice abut this is that you could have him "take one for the team" and rest your bullpen by leaving him in to absorb a loss. Any abuse could be prevented by making an absolute pitch count of say 130 pitches where he gets yanked. Strat handled it by having a pitcher immediate reach his POW if he was in the third inning past his POW stamina inning. Starters were rated at 5, 6, 7, 8, and very rarely 9. Relievers were 0, 1, 2, 3, and rarely 4.



I've gone on too long. If anybody's interested in shooting the breeze about it, PM me or e-mail to kidheckett@gmail.com. Our instructions used to cover everything and were pretty easy and also pretty simple to adapt if you were a hands-off type.

[stl jason]

Perfect league update:

Southern continues their strong play to remain on top as the final month approaches.

[stl jason]

Bronze league update:


Stephensville remains on top of the OL standings entering the final stretch.

[Diezwraths]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Non OL Playoff News

• Janesville currently holds the second NC wildcard spot

My team has managed quite the collapse, 15 games under .500 since the All Star game to fall out of the WC spot as of this post. We had five all stars!

At least I got the all star PP!

[Magus978]

I'll have the Gold B final standings up before I head to bed. We'll at least be able to give that crown away before morning.

[Magus978]

Update...I'll just post it now since I'm bored and all the games are accounted for...

Everett Silvertips: 6-4, .600
Rockin' Robins: 6-5, .545
Missouri Legends: 5-5, .500
Nico-Nico Kneecappers: 4-7, .363

- Everett takes down Gold B.

- Nico-Nico & Missouri are still technically in a relegation scrap, but Nico-Nico should be safe as they're 9.5 clear with 10 to go. Missouri is 7.5 ahead of the drop, so they should be safe too. Thus, nobody will be relegated.

- Everett & the Robins will make the playoffs. Everett are division champions and fighting for the top seed in the American. Robins are in a fight within the division for what will also be the top seed in the National.

- In the great Magus tradition of failure, the Kneecappers finish dead last in their first OL season.

[QuantaCondor]

These collections have been a real addiction. I churned the Cottons up to 90k PP after finally finishing the Twins collection... and proceeded to let it ride by going after 3 new collections immediately afterwards. Eventually there's an end... right?

[OMGPuppies]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

These collections have been a real addiction. I churned the Cottons up to 90k PP after finally finishing the Twins collection... and proceeded to let it ride by going after 3 new collections immediately afterwards. Eventually there's an end... right?

Twins +EV?

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by OMGPuppies

Twins +EV?

I think I made like something like 40k on the collection, which could have been a tad higher because I bought gold Kirby Puckett instead of Dan Gladden because I thought his playoff bench bat might be useful. I also didn't pull anything on the Diamond pack (pulled 5 diamond packs across 2 teams, all of them giving quicksell-tier LIVE diamond pulls... kind of salty), so if anybody did that could be substantial additional upside. So 40k is a pretty conservative estimate.

[OMGPuppies]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

I think I made like something like 40k on the collection, which could have been a tad higher because I bought gold Kirby Puckett instead of Dan Gladden because I thought his playoff bench bat might be useful. I also didn't pull anything on the Diamond pack (pulled 5 diamond packs across 2 teams, all of them giving quicksell-tier LIVE diamond pulls... kind of salty), so if anybody did that could be substantial additional upside. So 40k is a pretty conservative estimate.

You talking about finishing all 5 senators/twins collections?

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by OMGPuppies

You talking about finishing all 5 senators/twins collections?

Yeah, twins + sens collection. Easily the best value out of the historical team sets, I've done it twice now and one player away from my third on the Gauchos.

[Stanley Kuppchaser]

Southside and San Pedro, who put up final sims of 7-3, and 12-8, respectively, saw their battle for the crown go down to their last game. Each were at home with the Cerrano leading the race .5675 to .5662.The Sluggers fell behind Terra Incognita early, 5-2, before rallying to win, 6-5, and capture the crown. San Pedro fell to Northeast Corridor, 3-1.


Playoff tree is attached. No team is relegated.

[Stanley Kuppchaser]

Congratulations!

[Stanley Kuppchaser]

Congratulations!