Season 26 (2044) Discussion Thread

[mcdog512]

Fighting Saints made a couple of moves. I picked up special edition Ernie Banks as a utility infielder and defensive replacement. Dropped old dependable Johnny Pesky.

Picked up Adley Rutschman and dropped Johnny Bench.

Banks set me back 43k which is high for a utility guy and Rutschman was 160k.

Not a bad first game for the both of them as Banks started for a tired Honus Wagner....

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

I picked up special edition Ernie Banks as a utility infielder and defensive replacement.

The Banks card surprised me with the defensive ratings. I remember Banks in the late 50's (before the knee problems) as a sure-handed shortstop with good range and a decent arm, but I don't remember him as better than prime Ozzie Smith.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The Banks card surprised me with the defensive ratings. I remember Banks in the late 50's (before the knee problems) as a sure-handed shortstop with good range and a decent arm, but I don't remember him as better than prime Ozzie Smith.

I saw him near the tail endish of his career and he could barely play the field.

[Westheim]

Oh dear heavens, the PT Raccoons' pitching staff looks like the 2032 dynasty Raccoons' pitching staff. Everybody's getting romped like Rico Gutierrez and Jason Gurney …!

Coons are 20-38, in a relegation spot, and getting grabbed by the tail and whacked on the ground in a huge overhead motion from side to side, side to side, every game, every game. Don't even know who to send in to pitch anymore. They're all getting waffled.

Dan Brouthers has an OPS over one. Not that it helps this team any.

Rebels have sagged to 29-31, nine games out. This it like the fourth straight season where they don't make any sort of PP.

Accountants are off last season's funk for now, 37-23, 1 1/2 behind the only other serious team in their division with the lovely, surely frightening, yet oddly charming name Carcinogenic Coast Oil Barons. Rolls off the old tongue.

[Thornbreaker]

So the Bakery (Braves) experiment this season with RHB/RHP ballpark settings is paying off. 4 out of 5 starters are sub 3.5 era, and Hornsby is raking MVP numbers as of this morning. Bakery leads the division this morning with a considerably better Rdiff than the competition and that's with Hammer Hank on a cold streak hitting sub .240.
They should roll right into the playoffs.

Totallers are in a tough division this week, but were a game above .500. Relief Pitching is still getting shelled.
Completed my first twins mission, and now the slow road to getting the rest done for that Johan Santana.

Gorillas have stormed back to be a few games over .500 and a half game back of the division. They hold the wild card by 2 games. This team wins when Gehrig and Eloy are red hot, and they've been red hot.

[One Great Matrix]

Where the Knights, Red Devils, Flyers, Summoners & Glaziers play...

[scott1964]

Can' compete in Silver so I get to beat up on others in Bronze.

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The Banks card surprised me with the defensive ratings. I remember Banks in the late 50's (before the knee problems) as a sure-handed shortstop with good range and a decent arm, but I don't remember him as better than prime Ozzie Smith.

Was anyone ever better than Ozzie, really?...

[old timer]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The Colonels are playing well (42-11) and all of the changes that I made over the past few days are paying dividends. I have a winning record against every team in the league, which is my metric to measure improvement in head-to-head play against the better teams.

Newcomer Luke Appling has been amazing! His .413 OBP leads the team and he is really consistent. The defense has suffered while he trained at 2B but he is now rated at 61 there and should be average or better from here on. Appling and Boggs batting 1-2 have scored 44 and 41 runs, respectively, with both ranking in the top 10 for the entire league.

Rizzuto is turning in a 3-4 WAR season so far, so he is playing at about 75% of Wagner's level for 10% of the money. If it were not for the speed, Rizzuto would be generating about the same WAR as Wagner did, although more from defense than offense. It is clear that I am losing run differential at this position but I was able to use the points from selling Wagner to improve my run prevention - hopefully gaining runs overall.

The pitching staff has changed quite a bit in the past two days. I had a pile of points saved to buy a front-line pitcher and the opportunity came Monday. Several great cards were auctioned with no BIN and I was able to obtain perfect Walter Johnson in the wee hours for 400K. I then used the funds from Wagner to buy perfect Pedro, whose price has come down a bit recently. So, added to the perfect Cy Young and Schilling that I already had, I can now run out the "whale rotation" for a playoff series or head-to-head matchup with a division leader. I sold my 99 Walter and put those funds toward a perfect Lee Smith to go with Gagne and Sutter at the back of the bullpen. Maybe now I can hold those late-inning leads.

Today will be the first time that I will see this revised staff completely in action, and I am still sorting out what to do with the rest of the spots. Tim Keefe is now the fifth starter with perfect Hubbell in the bullpen, joining Blyleven and Blanton as middle relievers. That may be too many points allocated to bullpen innings, but I would like to keep at least one lefty. There have been so many changes in the past 48 hours that it probably makes sense to do nothing for the rest of the week and see what I have. I like what I see so far. Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions.

At one time, I was hoping we'd be in the same league together. That's no longer the case.

I'm glad to hear how your changes are working out. Appling's having a great year for me too, but he's done well every year (even vs whales). Using Rizzuto instead of Wagner so you could use the funds was a great idea too. And getting Johnson and Pedro to go with Young and Schilling... Wow!

It will be interesting to see how your team does now when facing whales. Are there any in your league that you'll get to play?

[old timer]

The Raccoons are hanging in there, but Westvleteren's offense has finally come around (they're now up to 3rd with 385 R while we're 1st with 446) and combined with that pitching staff, I expect us to fall off the pace at some point.

Then again, who knows, maybe we'll top our previous best (124 W season) and if so, we might actually keep up with them. Doubtful, but something to shoot for. To try and keep up, I've been doing a little extra micro-managing and while I don't know if that helps or not overall, I do know it helps sometimes. For example, twice we were going to face Westvleteren and Schilling was scheduled to start for us right before our series with them so I used someone else instead (the other opponent was much weaker) and used Schilling against Westvleteren and he beat them both times.

I am pleased with my recent (past 2 seasons) offensive upgrades. After winning the MVP last year (9.2 WAR), Willie Mays is on pace to possibly do it again. And while Ruth's not hitting as many HRs as expected, he's still got a 144 OPS+ and is now trained up to a 44 (55 max) at 1B.

The pitching on the other hand, is not doing quite as well. For a while there, we were right behind Westvleteren in RA, but we've been getting hit hard for a while and are now 4th in RA. Of course, we've been training Ruth and Appling so that might be part of the problem.

Speaking of pitching, 99 Johnson has never pitched as well for me as I had hoped and so I'm tempted to sell him and help fund getting a better pitcher.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by old timer

It will be interesting to see how your team does now when facing whales. Are there any in your league that you'll get to play?

The San Francisco 49ers are giving me all that I can handle right now. We are in the same division, with the 49ers at 59-16 while I am 60-17. They have a career .699 win pct. with 3 PL titles, so they are a really good test. I won 2 out of 3 in our first meeting at my park this morning. We play 7 more with them tomorrow before the all-star break. I am looking forward to those games as a barometer, but I don't want to place too much importance on a small sample. Winning the division and beating them head-to-head are the real goals.

The Spearfish Blackhawks (61-17) are in the other conference with a .744 career win pct. and 4 PL titles. I won't play them in the regular season though. The Monterey Bay Irukandji (huskerdan's team) are in the other conference also with a similar resume, but again I will miss them. I hope to see one of these two opponents on Sunday, but there's a lot to do first..

[JasonC23]

Following up a 21-5 May with a 23-5 June, the Singapore Sluggers have vaulted past the Collingwood Magpies and into first place by 3 games in the NC Central. Collingwood has the better run differential (+272 vs +266) but is 6 games below its Pythagorean record. All 3 NC divisions are in play at the halfway point, with the largest lead 5.5 games, and the second Wild Card spot is currently shared by the San Antonio Riptide and Sunset Town Kings, with the Phoenix Firebirds 2.5 games back of them.

In the AC, the Excelsior Dodgers have the best record and the best run differential (+174). Huntley did manage to take 2 out of 3 from the Dodgers at the end of May/beginning of June to even the season series between the two at 3-3. It's shaping up to be a season-long battle for the #1 AC seed.

As for the Red Raiders, the offense did improve a bit versus right-handers; now two-thirds of the lineup has OPS+'s above 100 vs righties, but the 3 who don't are surprising: last year's home run champ Lou Gehrig (.222/.307/.411, 94 OPS+); Ken Griffey Jr (.227/.295/.384, 84 OPS+); and Yogi Berra (.208/.292/.326, 69 OPS+). Here's hoping good ol' regression to the mean, or at least some seeing-eye singles, start to work in Huntley's favor soon...

Standings:

[waittilnextyear]

The half-way point is upon us, and the Frogs are riding one of their better pitching seasons in franchise history to a 60-21 mark (+190 RDiff). With a 19.5 game lead in the division, I think the Frogs can start printing playoff tix. The Parish WhoDats have a 1.5 game lead for top playoff seed. The WhoDats and the Frogs have already completed their season series with the WhoDats taking 4/6.

What a difference an Ed Walsh makes.

Walshie--as I've taken to calling him in my head--was just ok after being acquired part-way through the season last week. But, he's having a Cy Young caliber season this week: 13-1, 1.24 ERA, 2.34 FIP, and 5.4 WAR already in the bank. Leads the conference in wins, ERA, and WAR. So I guess I'm gonna keep him.

The team as a whole has allowed a conference-best 227 runs (2.92 starter's ERA, 1.62 bullpen ERA). The pitching has been supported by a league-best defense in both EFF (.716) and ZR (+26.1) despite having somewhat elevated ballpark factors. The pitching has been so tight that I've actually been able to reduce down to a 5-man bullpen for the first time ever. There just weren't enough innings to go around for 6 guys.

Bringing gold Richie Ashburn back has helped enhance the defense (115 in LF) and he's also batting .324 as a bonus. Garry Maddox was having a bit of a down year in CF, so I subbed Lenny Dykstra back in as a platoon-mate and Nails' bat has gotten hot for a change (.369/.419/.500). The defense goes without saying (106 in CF). SUPER ICHIRO is doing his thing in RF (117 DEF) so I'd imagine almost no baseballs are falling in for hits out there.

Luke Appling has reached 71 DEF at 3B after already being maxed at both SS and 2B. So the INF defense is improving as the season goes along with Chipper (88 DEF at 1B), newcomer gold Frankie Frisch (90 DEF at 2B), and the old faithful platoon of Boudreau/Pesky at SS. The team's also rolling with Lava/Pena at catcher and the pitching staff seems to like it.

After whiffing on a MINT Buck Ewing, I bought a John Henry Lloyd which also had stats. Mr. Lloyd joins Mr. Ewing back in the AH. It's getting to the point where I'm not even sure I want to use the AH at all..."pack only"? Maybe so. Thankfully there was no diamond pack sale to accompany the latest batch of missions, so people are spending their hard earned PP on my wares instead of those infernal 20K packs. Doing brisk business!

[Westheim]

Accountants are 49-33 on the morning of July 4, in a virtual tie with the Oil Barons. They're in the top 5 or at least top 10 in so many categories that I think it's due time they finally make it over the hump. The exception is pitchers' strikeouts (21st). And it has been like that for a long time. None of my starting pitchers has more than 7.5 K/9 and Rube Foster and Corey Kluber don't even have 5 K/9. That will slow you down, I guess.

Rebs are 41-41 and going nowhere, 11 games out at this point. The record is actually too kind to them; they have a -60 run differential and should really be more like 12 games under .500 …..

And then there is the forsaken Raccoons. They amounted to 300 PP in June. They're 29-52, 36 games out in their deadly division. That, at current, would be a relegation spot.

[HelpDodgers]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

Was anyone ever better than Ozzie, really?...

Mark Belanger,

More range then Ozzie. Got to more balls, made more outs. He was the better fielder on the left side on his team (and Brooks was at third)

So, my pick is Belanger. Winning Golden Gloves is all good (and both won many) and errors are overrated. Mark got to more balls and recorded more outs. I could give up a few errors if he is getting more outs and keeping the ball in the infield.

My two cents.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

What a difference an Ed Walsh makes.

Definitely.

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

After whiffing on a MINT Buck Ewing, I bought a John Henry Lloyd which also had stats. Mr. Lloyd joins Mr. Ewing back in the AH. It's getting to the point where I'm not even sure I want to use the AH at all..."pack only"? Maybe so.

I have three cards (at least) that are haunting me, mocking me, with their many seasons of accumulated stats right now. I try to ignore them. I tell myself that it doesn't matter.... but it is useless. I can't/won't sell them until I have replaced them though, so it could be a while before I am free. I agree with your thought about avoiding the AH. Next version, I am probably going "pack mostly", which is pack-only after buying (and selling and re-buying) enough silver and gold cards to make a team that I like early in the process.

[Matt Arnold]

I just finished the mission for Walsh earlier this week. In 14 starts this season he has a 2.58 ERA (3rd in the league) and 4 WAR (#1 in the league). Combined with adding the Johan Santana card before the season too, definitely has been 2 big names for the rotation.

Although unfortunately for me this year, I've got 3 really tough teams in the league, one in my division so I'm already 13 games out of 1st despite a .600 winning pct on the season. Although interestingly enough, all 3 are running a super-LH team - between the 3 of them, there's only 5 RH hitters in their default lineup, and 2 of them are going with the 4-man LH rotation with each of them on a very short pitch count, so if I do end up facing them in a division series, will have to think what roster moves make sense. I think I still have to start Walsh in the WC game since he's my best, gonna have a lot of lefties in the pen ready, I think.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Today will be the first time that I will see this revised staff completely in action, and I am still sorting out what to do with the rest of the spots. Tim Keefe is now the fifth starter with perfect Hubbell in the bullpen, joining Blyleven and Blanton as middle relievers. That may be too many points allocated to bullpen innings, but I would like to keep at least one lefty. There have been so many changes in the past 48 hours that it probably makes sense to do nothing for the rest of the week and see what I have. I like what I see so far. Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions.

Heck of a 5 man rotation you have now Orcin, super nice team you've assembled. Get back out there and take that division back from the 49ers!

[BigRed75]

Quick mini-update:

The Everett Aquasox continue to toy with B268 like a frog snapping flies out of mid-air. A 60-26 record is in line with the great team of 2041, which went 109-53 and won promotion.

The Nashville Game Theories, improbably, are above .500 and have a positive run differential. Not bad for a team that has practically abandoned pitching and plays in a bandbox of a ballpark (I've even named it Bandbox Stadium) in a bid to maximize point generation.

The Thetford Mines Mineurs have stumbled (if you can call playing .622 ball stumbling) and are now in 2nd place, a mere 1/2 game back. Robby Alomar, of all people, hit 2 HR to lead the Mineurs to their latest victory.

The Forest City Tribe, still waiting on a 2016 World Series hero to emerge from the Auction House at a reasonable price, have slipped to 3rd place at 47-40, albeit just 2 games back. Player/manager 88 OVR Lou Boudreau, perhaps concerned about the rumors that he is to be replaced by himself, is pressing a bit, hitting just .267 this season, 20 points below his career average and his worst mark since 2037. However, the slack has been made up by his new middle infield partner, 91 OVR Bobby Avila, who's slashing .315/.357/.410 with 10 HR. General manager Hank Greenberg, sick of Manny being Manny below the Mendoza line, benched the mercurial star and installed himself at DH. He's now currently below the Mendoza line as well, hitting .179 with one measly homer in 21 games. And Bob Lemon continues to impress on the mound, with a 12-5 record and a 2.53 ERA. Don't discount Herb Score, who had struck out 105 batters in 92 1/3 innings with a 7-4 record.

The exploits of the Reno Silver Sox have been well-documented in the OL thread. The Rottness Island Quokkas are still mediocre in Gold. And the Redlegs still suck.

[Westheim]

Holy ****ing flying furball...!