Season 8 (2026) Discussion: 1/21/19-1/27/19

[Maddox]

His ratings vs the pitching talent he is facing in a bronze league tells me he should be doing better.

Kevin McReynolds batting .303 with more home runs despite having worse ratings in every single category. Shoot even Harrison Bader is hitting for higher average.

I have said it before I expect variance. I understand the randomness of the game but in what baseball universe does Bader hit 20 points higher and McReynolds 84 points better than Albert Belle. There is variance and then there are head scratching anomolies

Maybe it is just not the season for my DHs. JD Martinez is batting .191 with only 9 HR in 434 plate appearances in Diamond

[NYY #23]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

So happy with my new purchase after a rough start. 3 shutouts in first 7 games!

I've had good success with this version of Maddux. Last year he went 16-0 and we didn't lose a game all season when he started. He's cooled off this year, but still is 8-2. Hope he keeps it up for you.

[Izz]

Originally Posted by Maddox

His ratings vs the pitching talent he is facing in a bronze league tells me he should be doing better.

Kevin McReynolds batting .303 with more home runs despite having worse ratings in every single category. Shoot even Harrison Bader is hitting for higher average.

I have said it before I expect variance. I understand the randomness of the game but in what baseball universe does Bader hit 20 points higher and McReynolds 84 points better than Albert Belle. There is variance and then there are head scratching anomolies

Maybe it is just not the season for my DHs. JD Martinez is batting .191 with only 9 HR in 434 plate appearances in Diamond

McReynolds was leading my gold league in homeruns at the end of yesterday's sim. Haven't been able to check in today to see if he's still going long. He rakes against LHP

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by Maddox

I am not sure if he is talking winning and losing streaks or player streaks. I have long complained about wide swings for players.

I have long complained about HUGE swings in player performance. For example explain how this hitter is currently hitting .221 in 96 games in BRONZE league

My league leader in BA last year is currently hitting 220 in the same level league as the previous year.

Also, I leave about 10 runners on base a game. Every year. No matter what.

[Maddox]

Something that has been more consistent? My starting pitching and defense.
This happened last season and it happened again just now. My pitchers have the top three ERAs in the league.

I need to understand how pitching WAR works. Red Faber is 31st in the league.

[Izz]

The Hoggs didn't start July off well, going 6-8 to the All Star Break. They improved afterwards, going 7-4 to finish the month.

Dizzy Dean threw a Maddux on the 1st of August, my first silver achievement for what feels like forever.

We're 65-44, 5 1/2 games ahead of Daytona. We've had a pretty brutal schedule through the end of July. We're 1 of only 4 teams to have played 109 games. 2 of the others are in our division. Some teams have only played 106 games so far.

Our run differential has improved to +79 and we're back to 2 games above our Pythag. We're not drawing a lot of walks this season, but we continue to lead the conference in homeruns. McReynolds has 23 of them, tied for the conference lead. Our bullpen is 2nd-best, while our starters are 4th-best. We had 6 players go to the All Star Game.

PP earnings today (the All Stars gave it a nice boost): 1,390.

[old timer]

Originally Posted by old timer

I'm "proud" to say that my Clippers have lost the most games by 1-run of all the teams in the league. We're 12-23 so far in 1 run games. We just got swept by the division leader, all of which we lost by 1 run each. We're 43-49 with -6 Pyt and +30 RDiff. Surely, we'll get luckier at some point, right?

Well, the good luck hasn't arrived yet. We now have -8 Pyt with a +29 RDiff and a record of 50-59 (13-27 in 1 run games). It looks like the Magicians team is having the same kind of luck... Of course, they had the good fortune of meeting up with us and consequently just swept a 4 game series from us.

We also recently got swept in a 3 game series losing by a total of 3 runs. I have to admit, it's been kind of funny to watch, but I think I've had enough fun for a season.

p.s. - One bit of good news... We had 4 all-stars for the 1st time ever!

[old timer]

Originally Posted by NYY #23

I've had good success with this version of Maddux. Last year he went 16-0 and we didn't lose a game all season when he started. He's cooled off this year, but still is 8-2. Hope he keeps it up for you.

Wow, that's pretty amazing. I wish the game offered up stats like this. Wouldn't it be more fun to read news stories if they just offered up more fun facts like this instead of telling us about a SHO where someone allowed 7 H?

[Kushiel]

After going 27-27 in April-May we have straightened things out. We had a 36-15 June-July to move into 1st place. Hopefully, we can keep playing well the second half. I added a 98-OVR Ruth yesterday to give us a little power boost.

Good luck in the last 3rd of the season, everybody!

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

After going 27-27 in April-May we have straightened things out. We had a 36-15 June-July to move into 1st place. Hopefully, we can keep playing well the second half. I added a 98-OVR Ruth yesterday to give us a little power boost.

Good luck in the last 3rd of the season, everybody!

I added that same card Wednesday. Got it for 90k which I thought was a pretty good price. I had intended to try and flip him for maybe 120k but how can you ship out Ruth? Maybe the Red Sox could explain it to me.....

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

I added that same card Wednesday. Got it for 90k which I thought was a pretty good price. I had intended to try and flip him for maybe 120k but how can you ship out Ruth? Maybe the Red Sox could explain it to me.....

Well... they must know.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

About to give up on this game, it's just WAY too streaky. I expect some unrealism here, but it's just so beyond unrealistic.

Gave it one more chance, I finally caved and bought 25,000 points because I couldn't score. I used it to buy diamond Goldschmidt and Guerrero and 89 rated Ripken and after a month, I am scoring over 1 run a game less now.

[old timer]

Originally Posted by sharknut

Gave it one more chance, I finally caved and bought 25,000 points because I couldn't score. I used it to buy diamond Goldschmidt and Guerrero and 89 rated Ripken and after a month, I am scoring over 1 run a game less now.

Ripken looks like a good choice since he's got good D and is a decent hitter, but a 70 contact and 70 HR won't put up great numbers (not usually) at the higher league levels since those ratings are nothing special in those leagues.

For example, my diamond league has 200 hitters (out of 433) with a contact rating of 70 or better. Also, there are 156 hitters with a 70 or better power rating in my league. Besides the quality of pitching in the league, the level of hitting in a league affects your own hitters performance as well. It has to do with how league totals affect statistical outcomes. A league with fewer hitters with a contact of 70 or more, will make it more likely your 70 or better contact hitters will do better.

So my point is, when you're choosing your players, look at the competition in your league and that will give you an idea of what to expect from a particular rating. In a solo league, a 70 contact is going to usually produce a nice AVG, but when you're in a PT league where that's more common, you should expect less.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by old timer

Ripken looks like a good choice since he's got good D and is a decent hitter, but a 70 contact and 70 HR won't put up great numbers (not usually) at the higher league levels since those ratings are nothing special in those leagues.

For example, my diamond league has 200 hitters (out of 433) with a contact rating of 70 or better. Also, there are 156 hitters with a 70 or better power rating in my league. Besides the quality of pitching in the league, the level of hitting in a league affects your own hitters performance as well. It has to do with how league totals affect statistical outcomes. A league with fewer hitters with a contact of 70 or more, will make it more likely your 70 or better contact hitters will do better.

So my point is, when you're choosing your players, look at the competition in your league and that will give you an idea of what to expect from a particular rating. In a solo league, a 70 contact is going to usually produce a nice AVG, but when you're in a PT league where that's more common, you should expect less.

In my Gold League, the team batting .290 and leading the league has an average contact rating of 70.44. I am 27th out of 30 with an average of .243 with average contact of 70.88.

[Westheim]

Currently the Raccoons hold the top wild card and are churning out PP nicely. Four All Stars, two Craig Swan shutouts (in Diamond!), including a Maddux (whee!), Lindor hit for the cycle…

Still waiting for the big knell and collapse.

[old timer]

Originally Posted by sharknut

In my Gold League, the team batting .290 and leading the league has an average contact rating of 70.44. I am 27th out of 30 with an average of .243 with average contact of 70.88.

Unfortunately, I lack the knowledge in probability and statistics (it's been too many years and I didn't use it enough) to be able to analyze this. But this variation doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.

There are other factors as well, such as the distribution of PA (some guys with lower ratings getting more PA than some guys with higher ratings can skew things). Then there's park factors (did he boost his AVG totals or did you lower yours)? Plus, have you faced tougher pitchers (in particular, more high stuff guys) than his team? These and other variables might account for some of the discrepancy and then the rest may just be from randomness (which again, would need to be analyzed to know if it's reasonable or not since our intuitions may fail us here).

My point is NOT that you're wrong about there being too much variability in performances, it's just that there are so many different things to consider, we'd really need someone to do a more in depth analysis to see if anything is really wrong or not.

p.s. - This was going to be a short post since I didn't really have much useful to add.

[sharknut]

Scored 1 run total the last 4 games, done with it.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by sharknut

Scored 1 run total the last 4 games, done with it.

Adios man.

[Izz]

3-8 start to August. Somehow still have a 3 1/2 game lead over Daytona, who have had 2 off days while we've had none, so have now played 3 games less than us. Brutal.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by sharknut

Scored 1 run total the last 4 games, done with it.

You have to build an offense to score consistently past silver league level. Just looking for guys with numbers will not work. You also face streaks of dominant pitching.

Hate to see anyone go but... good luck.