An Experiment of 3 Teams

[chazzycat]

That was a super helpful comment. I had kinda forgot, as part of my "set sliders to worst possible" previous experiment, I had the pull relievers set to max quickness. Moved it all the way back to slow as possible prior to the 7th inning. Thanks for that!

[chazzycat]

The SmallBallers and Balancers have both won their division series and await the start of the CS round.

The SmallBallers finished the season fairly strong, playing over .600 in the second half and ending up with 93 wins, with a +150 run differential. This was a weird tiny league, so I'm trying not to overreact to a relatively underwhelming regular-season performance. Wade Boggs had a disappointing debut (BA .250) but I'll give him plenty more time to shape up.

The first round of the playoffs had me matched up against a fairly run-of-the-mill whale team with half perfects and half high historical diamonds, but no park factor strategy. Beat perfect Maddux twice in five games. Lenny hit .500 and won MVP. The second round matchup is much more fortuitous - in fact it's the easiest playoff matchup I've ever seen. I'm up against a team that literally won 67 games with a run differential of -184! Crazy things happen in these tiny leagues. I hope I can take advantage unlike the poor Perugia Warriors (not gonna lie I'm happy not to be facing them again).

Another stroke of luck is that the 67 win team actually has a 100 Cy Young card, but he was burned in game five of the division series, so I should only have to face him once. Thanks Perugia for that

The Balancers, amidst a dramatic roster overhaul, somehow managed to win their division by a couple games and also cruised through the division series, losing just one game. They are currently awaiting the completion of the other DS, where the Valhalla Chaos Wolves are set to play game 5 in 30 minutes. Go Wolves!

The SaberCats ended up having a pretty great season actually, despite coming nowhere near the playoffs. They put up a +111 run differential in perfect, which is really nothing to sneeze at. The strategy is working. The only thing making them playoff-irrelevant this year was the horrible Pythag luck (league worst -12) which put my overall record at exactly 81-81. Mike Trout totally bounced back in the second half, he's back atop the team in WAR by a healthy margin and actually just won the "HR King" award. Glavine threw a no hitter (my first time in perfect) and the entire starting rotation overall was just dominant (3.3 ERA). They allowed the fewest homers in the league despite the 1.1 HR factors, while the offense led in both homers and walks. It's pretty much going according to plan. With some better luck this team should be making the playoffs fairly often I think.

[neugey]

The Chaos Wolves won in game 5, so we will be facing the Balancers in the ALCS shortly. The Balancers have clearly improved after their mid-season changes so this is going to be a formidable test. Hoping for an interesting series.

[chazzycat]

Hey, stop scoring runs off of my openers! That's not how it's supposed to work

In all honestly I don't expect this strategy to be effective in the playoffs at all...it just takes is a little active management to nullify any advantage it might be providing.

The SmallBallers are currently tied 2-2 and I'm getting that bad feeling you get when you know your team is way better but you're just gonna lose anyway. I have every advantage in this series I could think of...even his entire rotation is RHP which I typically murder...but two one-run losses and here we are.

[chazzycat]

would you look at that, another one run loss, on a fielding error by the pitcher. Now the SmallBallers have to win two in a row to escape the dreaded 67 win team.

[waittilnextyear]

That team should change its nickname to the 67'ers if it goes all the way this week. LOL

[chazzycat]

Well they got through me at least. Another one run loss, in extra innings this time and my season is over.

The Balancers are out as well after getting demolished pretty handily by the Chaos Wolves. Thanks for dispatching me quickly so I can finish my team makeover...and good luck in the WS! I'm not upset about that one at all, but the loss by the SmallBallers...I'll be feeling that one for a while.

Again all three teams will be in perfect next week. Last time for the Balancers, it was a one-and-done getting relegated right back out. It will be interesting to see if the new strategy can prevent that from happening again.

[waittilnextyear]

Bummer about your SmallBallers going down to a way worse team. Your Ballers is one of my favorite teams to follow. How's the roster looking for them these days? Any moves/upgrades you're thinking of for next week?

[chazzycat]

Yeah, that was rough. But hey, that's baseball...

I haven't made any changes recently, other than the recent infield shakeup I mentioned. Everything was going pretty well after my last round of major upgrades (4 straight 100 win seasons) so I pretty much had been letting it ride and saving up my PP. I'm up to a decent sized bank now (should top 50k or so by tomorrow) and will probably be looking to look an impact upgrade soon, but, I don't know where yet.

[chazzycat]

Impact move - made. Woke up to nearly 60k after selling some leftovers last night, and so welcome to the SmallBallers, 99 Clayton Kershaw. I've had my eyes on him for a while, since it's basically the same card as 98 Warren Spahn, who has performed really well for me (3.3 ERA/FIP over 7 seasons). Now I've got three true frontline lefties at the top of my rotation, and Braxton can go to the pen where he gets a nice 11 point bump to stuff. I'm back in a regular sized league again, and free of megawhales in my division, so that's nice. Goal: win the division.

The SaberCats look like they drew a tougher league and division, so will be interesting to see how they compete this time around. Haven't made any changes since adding Bonds, currently sitting on about 20k PP. Goal: make the playoffs.

The Balancers makeover is complete. Here are the new-look rosters:

Primary Lineup:


Bonds & Brett are the 89 versions. Ventura is the 91. Cano & Goslin are the special editions.

As you can see it's all lefties baby. Park factors have also been updated to 1.1 LHB AVG, .9 RHB AVG, 1.1 LHB HR, and .9 RHB HR. Doubles and triples stayed neutral.

Pitching "Rotation":


And Bullpen:


All the quasi-openers are the gold versions. For the followers, Felix is the 89, Stieb the SE 91, and Mort Cooper is the 96.

Everything was bought from selling off the previous roster, no money was spent but my PP bank is completely empty now.

The pitch counts are set (to 25) in the global strategy, which is why the rotation shows zeroes. All the long relievers have overridden that, and my "hook relievers" is set to slowest prior to the 7th inning. The idea being hopefully the "quasi-followers" can get the game to the 7th inning at least and hand it off to my stopper crew.

Goal: don't get relegated

[Maxfire5]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Impact move - made. Woke up to nearly 60k after selling some leftovers last night, and so welcome to the SmallBallers, 99 Clayton Kershaw. I've had my eyes on him for a while, since it's basically the same card as 98 Warren Spahn, who has performed really well for me (3.3 ERA/FIP over 7 seasons). Now I've got three true frontline lefties at the top of my rotation, and Braxton can go to the pen where he gets a nice 11 point bump to stuff. I'm back in a regular sized league again, and free of megawhales in my division, so that's nice. Goal: win the division.

The SaberCats look like they drew a tougher league and division, so will be interesting to see how they compete this time around. Haven't made any changes since adding Bonds, currently sitting on about 20k PP. Goal: make the playoffs.

The Balancers makeover is complete. Here are the new-look rosters:

Primary Lineup:


Bonds & Brett are the 89 versions. Ventura is the 91. Cano & Goslin are the special editions.

As you can see it's all lefties baby. Park factors have also been updated to 1.1 LHB AVG, .9 RHB AVG, 1.1 LHB HR, and .9 RHB HR. Doubles and triples stayed neutral.

Pitching "Rotation":


And Bullpen:


All the quasi-openers are the gold versions. For the followers, Felix is the 89, Stieb the SE 91, and Mort Cooper is the 96.

Everything was bought from selling off the previous roster, no money was spent but my PP bank is completely empty now.

The pitch counts are set (to 25) in the global strategy, which is why the rotation shows zeroes. All the long relievers have overridden that, and my "hook relievers" is set to slowest prior to the 7th inning. The idea being hopefully the "quasi-followers" can get the game to the 7th inning at least and hand it off to my stopper crew.

Goal: don't get relegated

You did it! I'm really interested to see what you come up with on this. Good luck! I didn't have the personnel to get it done when I tried it but might go back to it soon enough.

[chazzycat]

It's still super early, but it's working well so far. The Balancers are currently 8-5 with a +21 run differential. Second in the division behind only a whale. I've already played a 4 game series at the whale's park too, so it's not like I've had an easy schedule. I'm 7-2 so far against the non-whales.

I don't trust such a small sample very much, but I'm slightly encouraged. We'll see if it holds up at all.

[chazzycat]

Holy Cow. The SaberCats just had my best single game of all time. Over 15,000 PP in achievements from this one:



Judge finished with 4 HR and 11 RBI himself. Just...wow.

[chazzycat]

Today must seriously be my lucky day. The SmallBallers also just had a huge PP game where they scored 16 runs in one inning, which is apparently good for 7K PP. And that was off of perfect Pedro. I'm pretty sure overall that's my best ever game, and second-best-ever game, both on the same day. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket...

For the SaberCats, I am pretty happy with the rotation but had been neglecting the bullpen for a while. I've had my eyes on 96 Mariano Rivera, the best RHP high-MOV groundballer in my price range (92 MOV). Their huge game earlier put me over the hump, and he was available at market price, so I got him. Dropped my last silver card (Quantrill) and moved Burgmeier to middle relief.

Of course in his first save opportunity, he gave up a game-losing HR, because baseball.

The SmallBallers, with their windfall plus the profits from selling off my previous long man Catfish Hunter, are already back up to 23k PP, just a day after emptying my bank on Kershaw. That's just fantastic.

[chazzycat]

The SmallBallers are playing some crappy ball right now, having lost ten of their last eleven. They started the day with a 3 game division lead, but now they're five and a half back (4 straight losses to the division rival didn't help). I hope they get their act together soon...

The silver lining, is that the SaberCats are playing like my best team at the moment. I think that is the first time I can say that. They're already up to a +100 run differential in perfect while the SmallBallers are closer to +50. The strategy is working just fine.

The Balancers have been a pleasant surprise too. They have stayed around .500 the whole time, with a matching neutral run differential. Considering their last time in perfect resulted in insta-relegation, with a -200 run differential, this seems like a huge improvement. The main question I'm curious to answer though...is it the quasi openers turning things around? Or could it just be the ballpark factors and new lineup? So far the offense is vastly outperforming the pitching, so I'm leaning towards the latter. Time will tell...

[chazzycat]

The SmallBallers and SabreCats ended up having nearly identical seasons. Both ended up with exactly 90 wins, a run differential around +130, and a wild card berth. It doesn't get much more even than that.

For the SmallBallers, who have averaged 100 wins since I spent the money a couple months back, this was a somewhat disappointing season. I did not make my goal of winning the division, having to settle for a wild card spot instead. At least, I won the wild card game. Currently I'm battling a whale team in the DS and don't like my chances too much...they match up well against me with strong lefties.

Ichiro had an amazing year, winning the batting title with a .364 average. Unfortunately that was balanced out by Lenny Dykstra having BY FAR the worst year of his career, a full 50 points under his career OBP. While he usually leads my position players in WAR, he was dead last this season among full-time starters. On the pitching side Clayton Kershaw had a very underwhelming debut with an ERA near five, so I'll definitely be expecting a rebound from him next season.

For the SaberCats, 90 wins and a wildcard berth were much stronger results, relative to expectations. I fulfilled my goal of making the playoffs. Unfortunately, I lost the wild card game and the season ended without fanfare. Pitching & groundball defense are still the strengths of this team. Mariano Rivera had an excellent debut, putting up 60 innings of 2.0 ERA ball. I think my next upgrade will be at third base. 96 Eddie Matthews has been a solid contributor at diamond level, but his defense is obviously a liability and he has struggled to consistently perform at perfect. Unfortunately the pickings at 3B are pretty slim...I don't even know who to target really. Maybe 100 Mike Schmidt?

The new-look Balancers first season was...interesting. They played .500 ball all year, finishing with a run differential of +9 on the season. So if you remember that last time in perfect they were a -200 run differential team, you might think that the quasi-opener strategy was some kind of miracle cure. But when I look at the pitching stats, it doesn't appear to be the case. Overall my pitching staff's WAR for the season is negative, with a collective ERA of 4.6. In particular, the quasi-openers themselves performed disastrously. All four of them have ERAs in the 6-8 range. So I was consistently handing my opponents a lead in the beginning of the games. I guess this is mostly just a result of playing gold-level cards in perfect league...but honestly I was not expecting their performance to be THAT bad. Maybe ERAs of 4-6...not 6-8. Will give it another season to see if it stabilizes at all.

The offense definitely performed much better than previous Balancers teams. My highest rated players Gehrig & Dickey both had the best years of their careers, thanks to the new park factors favoring lefties. And the new acquisitions played well too. All told, my offense ranked middle of the pack in runs scored. Considering the overall talent level of this team ($20) compared to average perfect teams, I think it's a fairly strong result. I don't have a single perfect card on this roster and just 4 cards 95+. Considering also that I sold off half the team at a 10% loss and rebuilt everything at such a late juncture, which is extremely inefficient way to build a team...yeah I count this as another win for park factor shenanigans. Lefty contact + power mix seems pretty viable.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

...

For the SmallBallers, who have averaged 100 wins since I spent the money a couple months back, this was a somewhat disappointing season. I did not make my goal of winning the division, having to settle for a wild card spot instead. At least, I won the wild card game. Currently I'm battling a whale team in the DS and don't like my chances too much...they match up well against me with strong lefties.

Ichiro had an amazing year, winning the batting title with a .364 average. Unfortunately that was balanced out by Lenny Dykstra having BY FAR the worst year of his career, a full 50 points under his career OBP. While he usually leads my position players in WAR, he was dead last this season among full-time starters. On the pitching side Clayton Kershaw had a very underwhelming debut with an ERA near five, so I'll definitely be expecting a rebound from him next season.

...

My Frogs had a tough season as well, going 103-59 but missing the playoffs in a stacked conference. Hopefully your SmallBallers can pull off the upset, but if not there's always next week.

I have to thank you for talking me off the ledge about SE Lenny Dykstra. He's been much better these past couple of weeks and now has career per-162's of: .282/.342/.406, 6 HR, 59 RBI, 14 SB, 5.0 WAR. Passable for a defensive outfielder of his caliber. Doesn't have any gold gloves yet, but part of that is him being jerked around from position to position and benched when he's not hitting.

When you mention your Ichiro having a great year...are you still using the gold version?

My diamond Ichiro just finished his 3rd season and here's his per-162 line just in case you want some more data for keeping the gold one or shopping for the diamond one [ballpark factors are 1.05 average, 1.5 doubles, 1.0 triples, 0.9 HR]: .306/.343/.414, 112 R, 209 H, 35 2B, 6 3B, 9 HR, 71 RBI, 4.5% BB, 13.5% K, 32 SB, 17 CS, 10 GIDP, 3.25 P/PA, .333 wOBA, .345 BABIP, 2.0 WPA, 2.0 BSR, 5.0 WAR. He'll almost certainly win the GG in RF this season also because he has +23.4 ZR before the offseason adjustment (so his WAR will probably also go up a bit).

As for your Kershaw, I wonder if a lefty pitcher (other than perfect Lefty Grove) can really have sustained success in the Perfect Leagues. My 94 CC Sabathia is rocking a 3.85 ERA/3.85 FIP over about 15 seasons, but he's probably the first starter I'd replace if I got a great pack pull.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

My Frogs had a tough season as well, going 103-59 but missing the playoffs in a stacked conference. Hopefully your SmallBallers can pull off the upset, but if not there's always next week.

Wow...not even a wild card with 103 wins? That's pretty rough.

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

When you mention your Ichiro having a great year...are you still using the gold version?

Yup. While I would love to have the diamond version, the collection is still super pricey for what amounts to a fairly marginal upgrade, IMO. Actually my gold version is also 5.0 WAR/162, so thanks for providing that data...kinda confirms my suspicion it's not worth it.

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

As for your Kershaw, I wonder if a lefty pitcher (other than perfect Lefty Grove) can really have sustained success in the Perfect Leagues. My 94 CC Sabathia is rocking a 3.85 ERA/3.85 FIP over about 15 seasons, but he's probably the first starter I'd replace if I got a great pack pull.

Well my Spahn and Johan Santana have really both been fantastic, especially with minimum park factors for righties on both contact and power. Spahn in particular has nearly identical ratings as Kershaw, and has a career 3.3 FIP/ERA in nearly 2,000 innings.



Anyways, Kerhsaw has a chance at redemption in a minute - he is slated to pitch game 5 in the DS

[chazzycat]

well that didn't work out. Kershaw gave up five runs and I lost. It was actually a super-dramatic game with multiple late-game lead changes, so it wasn't totally his fault or anything. Oh well. Try again next week...

[chazzycat]

Made a couple small changes. For the SmallBallers I have been eyeing 93 Tug McGraw as a bullpen upgrade. I only have one really good lefty (Willie Hernandez) and since my park favors lefties heavily it seemed to make sense to add some lefty depth. JJ Putz has been my worst performing reliever for a while now so he's gone. Unfortunately that card is locked from my Kaz Sasaki mission so can't sell. I was HOPING to spend my bank on 95 Charlie Gehringer instead, since my Pesky isn't locked and would sell at a good price. But that Gehringer card is like my white whale. He seems like a perfect fit for the team, but pops up on the AH very rarely....only when I don't have enough PP. So I went with McGraw instead and am saving up from close to zero PP now.

For the SabreCats I hadn't really planned on making any move but someone on discord wanted my Huston Street card. He hadn't really performed that great for me (don't like his low control) but collections got his price up to 20k. So I did guy a favor selling at market price while grabbing Mike Schooler card for about the same price, which I think will be a nice upgrade over Street anyway. I probably could have asked for more, but that community was helpful to me in the past. Anyways if I can nab an upgrade at no cost while helping someone....seems like a win-win.