Season 5, 2024 thread

[Marleigh]

Lowdown Lugnuts 63-45 are 15 games behind the Virginia Baseball Furies but 7 1/2 games up in the WC race, but the really great news is that i had 12 packs from challenge mode/tournaments to open and had awesome luck with 4 diamonds, unfortunately 3 were a live, Eddie Matthews and Mel Ott, but the 4th was Bobby Howry, all of that combined with what I had has meant significant reinforcements Mike Trout (95) comes in to play LF, Mookie Betts (93) comes in at RF and Andrew McCutcheon (93) comes in to platoon at CF vsL and backup vsR. (I love the look of these 2010s cards, simple, clean design) Bob Carruthers joins the starting rotation, I feel these changes benefit us more than adding one great arm to the pen. Wainwright is my only all star

Paragon City Heroes 65-41 2 game lead, a below par month Larkin, Berra, Plank and Maddux are all stars (despite DeGrom easily being my best SP) I think Larkin is now capped out at 3b at 105, he's hitting well (.830 OPS) and showing off his speed (27SB) and has now earned 1000pp (only 88k to go to break even) 7 of his 15 HR have been leadoff HR (this led me down the path of checking career earnings, leader is Yaz at 3185 and 2nd is Mussina with 2720, those corner painter/in controls stack up nicely)

San Angeles 70s 58-46 1 game up Reggie Smith and Mike Caldwell, Smith has a .917 OPS and 20 HR, Caldwell is my long relief guy and has a 0.82 whip in 63IP, biggest concern is John Montefusco struggling at 9-12 4.90 era. bought the new Roy White SE for 8k, he'll get a tryout in LF with his nice glove

[bailey]

Hamtramck made a shocking move, today. Starting rotation stalwart, Luis Tiant, was sold this morning. He was successful during the Tiger's 3 successive playoff teams, winning 51 games, striking out 702 and compiling a 3.49 ERA in 105 starts. But the bronze league has not been kind to him or the Tigers who are in last place and just a few games above relegation. Tiant's 3-11 and 6+ ERA was worst among the starters (though not by much), but GM Bailey suddenly realized he had immense value as a collector piece. And so the posting was made, not really believing anyone would pay L7 for it. Yet, it sold within minutes, before I could figure out which bronze pitcher to replace him with. Now, I can replace almost the whole staff!

N.B. This is not a flip, since I used the card for 3 and one half seasons.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I wonder how many gypsy women's black cats Mel Ott ran over while riding his pennyfarthing bicycle drunk and naked to get all the way to the All Star Game on a .185 BABIP.

I think the drunk naked person is the manager who left him in the lineup all season, good sir.



That was actually my second reaction. My first reaction was, "Good Lord!" As was yours, I'm guessing.

[BigRed75]

The Secret Harbour Pirates are holding on to the division league as July winds down. We were actually in second place late in June, but roared back ahead to take a five-game lead over the Trash Pandas.

The Live Oaks new acquistions aren't exactly setting the world on fire. I knew what I was getting into because I had all seven players on the Pirates (although I didn't even play some of them, they were insta-sells), but I was hoping that they would do well in Stone, at least. Not really. Juan Guzman is doing alright in the rotation (a 5-7 record and 4.49 ERA is considered alright in the bandbox that is Lynn Tricentennial Park, designed to maximize point generation), and, surprise! Bret Saberhagen has been lights out in relief. But the hitters with high power ratings are doing anything but. Jay Buhner is projected to hit 27 home runs, which is okay, but right now Cecil Fielder and his 110 PWR has hit exactly half as many HR as Live Rhys Hoskins in the same number of at bats. Still, when a 49-58 record means you're only 5 games out of first, who knows what could happen? Our next targets are the Astros and Rangers missions, because Jeff Bagwell is Jeff Bagwell and I can't wait to see what kind of numbers he'll put up at the LTP, and Ian Kinsler should join Jose Ramirez on the roster as consistent 20-20/30-30 men and should ring up the 50 PP one "Leading Off in Style" at a time.

After blowing almost all of their PP on a starting lineup of Future Legends, the Bibra Lake Quendas new lineup racked up another 7,000PP through the end of July. That was enough to pick up two more Gold Future Legend SP, giving us four in the rotation. We now have 14 FLs on the roster, more than halfway to all-Future Legend roster. Hopefully, the reinforcements will allow us to make a late-season push for a wild card spot as well.

[Warhawk]

Black Knights just finished up the live missions, so that's all 3 teams complete. We're tied for the top record in the conference at 70-38, unfortunately we've lost 4 of our last 7. Both Ron Reed and Randy Johnson are top 5 in ERA, wins, and WAR; Johnson has a huge lead in Ks.

White Tigers are on a bit of a rough stretch, losing 3 of the last 4, but we've still got the best record in the league at 74-34, though we only have a 6.5 game lead in the division since Old Town has the second best record in the conference. Lajoie is on a bit of a cold stretch with regard to home runs, so the triple crown is probably out of play now, but he's still leading the conference in RBIs and WAR, second in SLG and OPS, and third in average. Good year for the pitchers; Carlton is first in ERA and second in WAR, Richard is third in ERA, first in wins, and first in Ks, and Maddux is 3rd in WAR. McDaniel is leading in saves.

Sun Kings have the best record in the conference and second best in the league at 80-29, but again we're on a bad run, losing 7 of the last 13. Maddux is 19-1 with a 2.44 ERA and a 5.8 WAR, all best in the conference. Bagwell and Kiner are both tied for the HR lead; Yasztremski and Bagwell are 1st and 3rd in WAR.

[sam10gle]

Won my first Iron tourney in what felt like 2-3 weeks. Pulled an 82 Victor Robles, my first upgrade in that same time span (replacing a 67 Michael A Taylor). Also a minor upgrade against LHP at Catcher.

The Wyverns are flirting with relegation in Silver 250, so hopefully this will be just enough to keep them in Silver.

[Warhawk]

Bad day for tournaments for me. My expensive and meticulously constructed gold team got booted in the first round of the Jackpot by a team with a bunch of bronzes.

[Warhawk]

Black Knights, in their second to last game of the day, had a game that managed to fill the ENTIRE recent achievements box, nearly a page and a half of the transaction history. 28-0 victory, featuring a complete game 5-hit shutout by Eddie Plank, 10 home runs including two home runs by four different players and two absolutely preposterous performances:

Piazza: 4 for 5 with 2 BB, 2B, 2 HR (1 Grand Slam), 5 RBI, 5 R

Bagwell: 5 for 5 with 3 BB, 2B, 3B, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 5 R - CYCLE

We followed that up with a 10-0 win with another complete game 5-hitter, this time by Maddux, to cap off a series sweep that we won by a combined score of 54-1.

And the really crazy thing is that this is against a team that about 4 hours ago took 2 of 3 from us, at home.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes 82-51 lead by 6. Despite having no players put up monster numbers we are 1st in homers led by Bagwell (27) every starter except for ichiro has at least 15 HR, 3rd in the league in runs, 1st in runs against, -4 pythag is keeping things closer than they should be in the division. i completed the Pee Wee Reese mission as i only needed a couple of cards, and he is training at 2b and 3b as a backup utility guy, also completed Bichette as i had all of the cards, but he is strictly for gold DH tournaments or capped tournaments

San Angeles 70s 78-55 1 game lead, we started the month with a 16 game win streak then promptly lost 7. ( don't try this at home kids, but i was down to my last 10k, so i opened 10 packs, got 100 Soto and 95 Trout making around 30k profit, used that to complete Rose as i was only a silver and gold short, it also funded an upgrade from 88 Blyleven to Peak Blyleven)

Lowdown Lugnuts 78-57 22 games behind but 8 games up in the WC race. Yesterdays nice pulled translated to a 95 Mike Trout (up to 81 in LF already) 93 Mookie Betts (not started great tbh) and 93 Andrew McCutcheon as a platoon CF/backup OF. i also bought the SE Strasburg and he got hit for 10 runs in 1.2 innings in his first start, he has improved since then.

[BigRed75]

As we head into the final month of the season the Secret Harbour Pirates (78-56) hold on to a 5 1/2 game lead over the Trash Pandas, having taken 2 of 3 from them in the final series of the season. We are given an 88% chance of making the playoffs, but that seems a bit high as we embark on an absolutely brutal stretch of the schedule that see us play three fellow division leaders as well as a second-place team that would have a good enough record to lead any division except the one they are in.

The big news of the month is that, while I was sleeping, Adam Wainwright pitched the third no-hitter in Pirates history, joining Carlos Carrasco and Bret Saberhagen. I know that I had said Saberhagen's was first, but I went back through the archives. Cookie had actually thrown a no-hitter in his second start with hte club, during that glorious stretch where we went from having a 1.1% chance of making the playoffs on August 29th all the way to the championship game. In all that excitement, his no-no got overlooked. Sorry, Cookie.

The Pirates are also pleased to announce the acquistion of both SE Billy Williams and SE Ralph Kiner. Both will hopefully provide some much needed pop in the lineup and run support for the pitching staff down the stretch. Kiner will play LF, Williams DH and Juan Soto moves over to CF.

The other team with a chance at October baseball is the Bibra Lake Quendas (78-54). The Baby Bandicoots are 24 games above .500, but find themselves in a situation similar to the Pirates last week where that's just good enough for 3rd place. So they are in a dog fight for the final WC spot, 1/2 game back and with a game in hand. Despite the tougher schedule, the computer actually gives us a 57.1% chance of making the playoffs, with 44.1% to our opponents. Perhaps that's because they have been overachieving more that us (+7 Pythag to our +4), it accounts for the game in hand, or who knows? Either way, it's been a fun season. And our offense is quite balanced - every member of our starting lineup has at least 12 HR (Oneil Cruz leads the way with 33), except for our catcher and No. 9 hitter, Luis Campusano. But no matter - Campy leads the team in hitting with a .317 average.

Needless to say, the Quendas are leading the league in most offensive categories - first in Runs, AVG, OBP, OPS, wOBA and Home Runs, and 2nd in WAR. Our baserunning is sub-par, but we're built more like the 1970s Baltimore Orioles - at least, that's the plan. Still working on training up the defense and building out the pitching staff, but that's coming along.

[daves]

Bronze 218 seems more competitive than my prior seasons where there was only one or two decent teams that you knew were going to win it all. There are 8 teams that can take the championship. All 8 teams are very good, but none are really overly whale-ish.

Should be an interesting post-season.

[mayday10]

Buffalo Blues. Stone 153 League. 70-63, 2nd place, 3.5 out of the wild card

However, other than opening my packs, buying more with the PP I get, and AI setting the lineup an leaving, this is the first time i actually paid attention to Perfect Team. I always have avoided these type of things in sports games.

Yesterday, I dove in and watched Snaggle's (great) tutorial. OMG this is addicting. I spent like 6-8 hours until midnight wheeling and dealing in the auction house to fill out collections, culminating with my Harold Baines special edition and 1 card away from Saberhagen. haha. But then, paying attention to the relegation/promotion system, all the cards, strategies, etc...

Then another rabbit hole with the tournaments and looking at other teams and the strategies used.

This thing is fantastic

[BigRed75]

Have fun. That Saberhagen can be quite good in the lower leagues, particularly if he has a good defense behind him. He pitched a no-hitter for me in Iron.

[bailey]

Collingwood clinched its division yesterday and looks forward to the playoffs. I added Mookie Betts (100) in RF sending Winfield to the showers. 94 DEF should offset the slightly weaker bat against RHP (compared to Klein). Buffinton is doing OK, but is not my 2nd best pitcher as his rating are heavily tilted in favor of RHB making him weak against lefty lineups. So, I picked up lefty Andy Pettitte (94) who has stronger ratings than Buffinton no matter who is at bat.

Meanwhile, every day the Alabama Farmers are picking up something new and terrifying. That GM likes high K pitching at the expense of movement, so we'll see how that goes (if I get to play him in the LCS as expected).

I still can't believe I sold Luis Tiant for 22K yesterday. I saw the reward card for that collection in the AH selling for less than that. I only added Wainwright to the Tigers, for now, and it looks like they are safe from relegation about halfway between that and a wild card berth.

[JasonC23]

Just wanted to acknowledge the teams and managers in G310. No matter what happens down the stretch, this has been a really fun, competitive season!

[daves]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

Just wanted to acknowledge the teams and managers in G310. No matter what happens down the stretch, this has been a really fun, competitive season!

Nobody above a 70% winning percentage. Very nice!

[JasonC23]

And I'm totally not just saying that because this is how Huntley's September has gone so far...

[mayday10]

OK, I just pulled a 1/2 game lead for the 2nd wild card spot with 9 games left.

I am also in Game 7 of the final for a 32 team tournament


Anxiety


Just grabbed my Guzman mission reward though!

[Torgonius]

Got off to a great start, but the team has been underperforming saving themselves for the playoffs lately.

Lazy September

[JasonC23]

That thud you heard was the Huntley Red Raiders, who have gone from neck-and-neck for a division title to quite possibly not even getting promoted (if the season ended today, the San Diego Golden Grizzlies would be the last team moving up to Diamond), thanks to an awful September. Need to finish some more collections, I guess.