Season 43 (2061) - Discussion Thread

[macacks]

Originally Posted by old timer

Hmm... I looked at your roster again and I'm not sure why I considered it a mini-whale. I think I I just assumed this when you joined us and even after seeing all those top notch players, it never occurred to me, oh, that's a whale.

Great! I went from mini-whale to underachieving whale just like that.

[dkgo]

Has anyone tested if strategy sliders actually do anything or are they like elevator close door buttons that just make you feel like you have control?

I have pinch hit for position players and favor l/r maxed but the game will never put in griffey for mays against a righty in the late innings.

I move stealing bases around and it doesn't change a damn thing. Anson attempts 60 times from the leadoff spot no matter what with his mode set to Adjust.

[scott1964]

Another first

[JasonC23]

Well, complaining about the Red Raiders' relatively regretful 15-11 June and an offense that ranked 8th in the AC and 15th in the league in runs scored seemed to do the trick for Huntley, as the boys (OK, cards) have strung together a 16-3 July and now rank 8th in the league in runs scored. More significantly, Huntley now trails the St. Louis Cardinals by a mere 1.5 games--and actually has the better RDiff, +191 to +173. (<shakes fist> Curse you, -3 Pythag! </shakes fist>) Huntley also has the third best record in the AC, trailing only St. Louis and the obvious AC favorite, the 9-time Perfect League champion Adirondack LOLCats.

Unfortunately, 2 of Huntley's July victories came at the expense of old timer's Evergreen Forest Raccoons. In the first game in Evergreen Park, Huntley had 11 hits while the Raccoons had 10, but Huntley scored 7 off Pedro and the Big Train while Evergreen Forest was shut out over 6 innings by Curt Schilling and only managed to scratch across 2 runs off Huntley's bullpen. In game 2, the Raccoons' Don Sutton gave up 3 runs in 4 innings, and while the bullpen blanked the Red Raiders over the final 5 innings, those 3 runs held up, as Huntley's Roger Clemens allowed only 1 run in 6 innings and Huntley's bullpen shut the door from there.

In other AC Central news, July hasn't been kind to the Rilzemer Deifel, as they've followed a rough 11-16 June with a 7-11 July to fall 13 games behind St. Louis and 11.5 games back of Huntley. The Deifel are still clinging to the second Wild Card spot at the break, though, 3 games up on the Las Vegas Silver Knights. Come on, Rilzemer--hang in there!

All-Star standings follow...

[old timer]

So what to do about this lefty cheese thing? The user of lefty cheese can just set this up and forget about it and benefit without having to worry much (except in the playoffs) since most people aren't micromanaging enough to try to counter this.

Well, I can use 7-day lineups to try and counter this, but it's only available for 7 days in advance, so I can't just tell the AI to use this particular lineup if we're playing a team employing this strat if it's further in the future. But even setting the lineup in advance is not enough. One weakness of 7-day lineups is that I can't tell them to start with my vLHP lineup and then once they change to a RHP, swap out certain RHB for a LHB (or switch).

If we were playing out games, we could counter this better. If we're around to set 7-day lineups, we can counter it better. In other words it feels like it's effectiveness is enhanced due to a limitation of the game. So this is the part about this strat that bugs me.

[old timer]

Did player fatigue get altered? Appling was slightly tired so the AI benched him, but then subbed him in at the end of the game. He remained tired and it benched him again and then subbed him at the end of the next game. He's still just as tired and I expect he'll be benched again! This has happened for 2 straight games for not only him, but Suzuki as well.

Maybe it's just a glitch? Bad timing since we're playing Stone Island, but it's worked out fine so far since we've won both games. But they'll no doubt get benched (unless I override it) for a 3rd straight game which is something I've never seen happen before.

[Pine Tar]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Has anyone tested if strategy sliders actually do anything or are they like elevator close door buttons that just make you feel like you have control?

I have pinch hit for position players and favor l/r maxed but the game will never put in griffey for mays against a righty in the late innings.

I move stealing bases around and it doesn't change a damn thing. Anson attempts 60 times from the leadoff spot no matter what with his mode set to Adjust.

When you set player strategy, do you also make sure mode is changed to ---> Override Team Strategy Settings? I missed it for the first couple seasons.

Pine Tar

[waittilnextyear]

The hottest team in P441 right now is daves' Auburn Doubledays who are on an active 13-game win streak. The Doubledays (76-28, +287) and Silicon Valley Outlaws (76-29, +270) continue to stick to each other like glue in the AC Central. Looking around the league, the only division with more than 3 games of separation between 1st/2nd place is the NC Central where Monterey Bay separated from Madison by 9.5 games today.

The Frogs (82-26, +340) had a pretty dismal July (15-13) and the division lead has been sliced to 1/2 game over Long Beach-Compton. The Anarcho-Syndicalists helped themselves immensely by taking 5/7 head-to-head matchups today. The season series now stands at 4-6 (from Frogs POV). The Frogs are still holding an edge in RDiff for the time being.

I'd like to blame myself for tinkering, but the dropoff doesn't appear to have anything to do with: (1) inserting 99 Eddie Collins, who is batting .370, and SE Willie Randolph, who is batting .438, or (2) inserting 99 Coveleski into the rotation, 2.57 ERA in 3 GS, and 100 Seaver into the pen, 2.25 ERA. We'll do like the Bard of Avon and chalk it up to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The offense lost about 10 points on its batting average after today's sims, so those six 1-run losses (2 of them against LBC) are likely due to not getting the key hit. Getting held to 2 or fewer runs in 11 contests didn't help either.

Shall we dig into some of these losses? No, you don't want? But...sounds like fun?

*July 5th hosting the Madison Tycoons...Frogs leading 3-0 until Madison scored in the 6th/7th/8th innings to win 4-3.

*July 8th @ St. Louis Sapphires...leading 1-0 until St. Louis puts a 2-spot up in the 7th thanks to gold Tony Fernandez.

*July 18th hosting the Hanover Brewers and lost 5-2 as Hanover scores all 5 runs in 7th/8th/9th innings. Wait, is that gold Tony Fernandez getting the party started again?

*July 26th @ Despair Woe. Pretty self-explanatory. Frogs tie it 3-3 with a Scioscia RBI single in the 9th only for Tony Fern...err 99 Rickey Henderson to provide a walkoff single in the bottom half.

*July 28th @ New York Mjolnirs...LIVE Trea Turner provides the walkoff single in the 10th for New York and their gross minimum ballpark factors. Bro, raise your ballpark factors--you're messing with my stats.

*July 30th @ New York Mjolnirs...gold Dizzy Dean, LIVE Woodruff, and LIVE Hendriks combine on a 5-hit shutout of the Frogs.

*August 3rd hosting Long Beach-Compton...Frogs rally to tie the game in the 9th off the enemy's Eppa Rixey only for the game to go 16 innings wherein Harry Brecheen issues a bases loaded BB to the enemy's Luke Appling. That was the night cap...fitting.

Here's to better sims ahead...

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by Pine Tar

When you set player strategy, do you also make sure mode is changed to ---> Override Team Strategy Settings? I missed it for the first couple seasons.

Pine Tar

I set all of my individual players to adjust. I'm talking about changing the global ones like "pinch hit for position player" not appearing to do anything

I can't for the life of me figure out how to tell the AI that I want to pinch hit lefty hitters against righty relievers. Every time I look at a box score I see something like Mays batting against Eckersley/Hoffman/Rivera when Griffey is on my bench. It's why cheeseball pitching "strategies" will continue to be effective until the game lets you do something about it.

[macacks]

Originally Posted by dkgo

I set all of my individual players to adjust. I'm talking about changing the global ones like "pinch hit for position player" not appearing to do anything

I can't for the life of me figure out how to tell the AI that I want to pinch hit lefty hitters against righty relievers. Every time I look at a box score I see something like Mays batting against Eckersley/Hoffman/Rivera when Griffey is on my bench. It's why cheeseball pitching "strategies" will continue to be effective until the game lets you do something about it.

Have you moved your ' favour L/R matchup' preferences?

I notice on the lefty cheese strategy that I was getting lots of PH after the 'opener' left the game.

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by old timer

So what to do about this lefty cheese thing? The user of lefty cheese can just set this up and forget about it and benefit without having to worry much (except in the playoffs) since most people aren't micromanaging enough to try to counter this.

Just balance your lineup better, don't let that strategy fool you to thinking right handed batters won't do well vs RHP.... the problem is that most people go crazy with platooning and that is a mistake IMO....you'll find that not platooning as much gives you very similar results vs traditional pitching and with this particular strategy it does not end up being that big of a deal.

[old timer]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

Just balance your lineup better, don't let that strategy fool you to thinking right handed batters won't do well vs RHP.... the problem is that most people go crazy with platooning and that is a mistake IMO....you'll find that not platooning as much gives you very similar results vs traditional pitching and with this particular strategy it does not end up being that big of a deal.

They adjust ballpark factors in their home park to minimize stats for RHB so adding that to vs RHP negative factors does matter a fair bit. So when playing in their parks, it can really help to adjust your lineup.

In 16 games against this lefty strat (with parks modified to fit), we've scored 29 runs while in their parks. We've scored 30 R in 9 games against the same teams in our park. In 25 games, that's 59 R scored. When I altered my lineup against Stone Island (a whale), we scored 18 R in 4 games while at our park.

So vs the lefty strat, we're averaging about 2.4 RPG (1.8 RPG in their home), while against everyone else, we're averaging 5.5 RPG. This has been like this every season so I'm trying to figure out how to counter this without having to be present ahead of time.

I'll do more experimenting with Favor L/R Matchup and Pinch-Hit for Position Player settings to see if that can help more. As far as handedness not mattering too much, I'd say that depends on a number of factors, like their park factors and the splits for your hitters. But even someone with seemingly good splits (like 97 Lajoie), may still have problems facing pitchers from the same side. Lajoie has consistently performed poorly vs RHP through the years, even though his splits vs RHP and LHP are nearly identical. So getting players who do better vs both would help.

[old timer]

One other observation. It seems (no real evidence to back this up) like pitchers who pitch the start of a game for only about 3 innings do better than they would otherwise do if they pitched longer. Do starting pitchers tire and have a tendency to perform worse as the game progresses? If so, then that would be another good reason to use your SPs for less innings.

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by old timer

They adjust ballpark factors in their home park to minimize stats for RHB so adding that to vs RHP negative factors does matter a fair bit. So when playing in their parks, it can really help to adjust your lineup.

In 16 games against this lefty strat (with parks modified to fit), we've scored 29 runs while in their parks. We've scored 30 R in 9 games against the same teams in our park. In 25 games, that's 59 R scored. When I altered my lineup against Stone Island (a whale), we scored 18 R in 4 games while at our park.

So vs the lefty strat, we're averaging about 2.4 RPG (1.8 RPG in their home), while against everyone else, we're averaging 5.5 RPG. This has been like this every season so I'm trying to figure out how to counter this without having to be present ahead of time.

I'll do more experimenting with Favor L/R Matchup and Pinch-Hit for Position Player settings to see if that can help more. As far as handedness not mattering too much, I'd say that depends on a number of factors, like their park factors and the splits for your hitters. But even someone with seemingly good splits (like 97 Lajoie), may still have problems facing pitchers from the same side. Lajoie has consistently performed poorly vs RHP through the years, even though his splits vs RHP and LHP are nearly identical. So getting players who do better vs both would help.

My point still stands... don't just start all RHB, look for LHB with good splits, the big mistake is to heavily rely on platoon players... balance a good mix of LHB and RHB vs these tactics and you'll find that their ballpark factors are not as relevant....

[bailey]

Originally Posted by old timer

One other observation. It seems (no real evidence to back this up) like pitchers who pitch the start of a game for only about 3 innings do better than they would otherwise do if they pitched longer. Do starting pitchers tire and have a tendency to perform worse as the game progresses? If so, then that would be another good reason to use your SPs for less innings.

Then there are the teams that use 4 starters normally. These SP will often start games at 70% rest and do just fine. It would be quite cool if pitchers getting worse the 2nd and 3rd times through the batting order were modelled in the game since that is the reality.

[old timer]

...

[JasonC23]

Huntley was riding high, 1 game behind the St. Louis Cardinals but with a better Pythag record and a 7-5 advantage in the head-to-head matchups for the season. St. Louis was in Huntley for a 4-game series to wrap up an August that had seen the Red Raiders put together a fine 17-6 record to that point. This was the Red Raiders' chance to pull ahead of the Cardinals and position themselves as the AC Central team to beat in the last month of the season.

<sigh>

Wild Card, here we come.

[Magus978]

State of play in P471 shows that there are 4, maybe 5 contenders for the title this week. The Glendale Golden Grizzlies have won 8, but their last triumph was in 2056. Central Coast Giants have won 7, including 3 on the bounce (2058-2060). Topeka Defenders have 4 to their name, all coming in a 5-season timeframe from 2053 to 2057. Grove City Grannies have won twice, claiming victory in 2057 and 2060. The 5th potential contender would be your Steelport Saints, champions in 2059.

I believe we are just a touch weaker than the big four this week, but anything can happen on Sunday, so we'll see what happens as both Topeka and Steelport prepare to be part of the Whale Invitational next week.

[waittilnextyear]

Nothing like a 23-4 day of sims to erase a bad day the day before.

The Frog offense got hopping once again and the team (105-30, +452) finds itself with a 3-game lead over Long Beach-Compton (101-32, +389) in early September. Once again the victor of the head-to-head battle du jour was sparked to the better month. La Crosse and LBC only squared off 4 times, but the Frogs took 3. And pretty convincingly at that (7-2, 12-1, 5-1).

The season series is now all square at 7-7. What's left? A quick 2-game series at LBC on 9/8 and 9/9. Then, the finale of the regular season is a 3-game set at home.

Newcomer 99 Eddie Collins has been quite a welcome addition. The lefty-hitting second baseman is batting 3rd in the order vs RHP (platooning with SE Willie Randolph). In his 42 career starts, Collins is slashing .388/.439/.559 with 22 doubles and 10 SB. It's a shame he'll not qualify for a batting title, awards, etc. The symmetry of this platoon has been nice as well; Randolph just so happens to be slashing .390/.490/.537 in just 10 starts.

The race for the #1 overall seed in P441 is on.

[old timer]

Fatigue is a problem once again. It really seems like a bug so I'm going to try and get more data on this so I can log it. Anyone else have someone who keeps getting sat by the AI, but doesn't get rested until there's a day off?

Appling has had 2 times where he sat out 2 games and still wasn't rested, but a day off came both times so he got rested from that. On two other occasions, he was benched for 3 days and didn't get rested, but was saved by a day off after that.

Suzuki had streaks of 2, 3 and 4 straight games where he didn't start (due to remaining fatigued) and only got rested after we got a day off.

Both of these guys are set to start every day unless too tired and each time I saw them being benched and their fatigue level didn't change. Anyone else see this?