Season 25 (2043) discussion thread

[gemini615]

Apparently the perfect level has seen enough of my Ohio City Chefs and are flunking us at season's end. They've determined us to be an embarrassment to the good sport of baseball.
It only took 2 seasons.

[BigRed75]

Playoff push roundup:*

Everett Aquasox (B287, 83-50, 1st place, +11, 100% chance)
A big August for the Froggies saw them increase their lead by seven games. JJ Putz continues to play out of his mind, with 30 saves and 76 Ks in 58.2 innings. 100 Kaz Sasaki is middle reliever extraordinaire, having vultured 8 wins and a 1.46 ERA. I'm seriously considering leaving these two in the same roles next season. 93 Junior Griffey is three true outcoming it up, except for the walks. So just HRs and Ks then. But...in 103 games, his LF rating has gone from non-existent to 93 and now outpaces his CF rating! The cherry on the sundae was a 7-4-3 triple play that Junior started on August 18.

Charlotte Monarchs (S306, 80-53, 1st place, +6 1/2, 100% chance)

Quite the turnaround this season for the Monarchs with the playoffs all but secured (they have a 6 1/2 game division lead but are 10 1/2 games ahead of the third-place WC team). Pitching has been solid, if unspectacular, across the board with Sonny Gray and Jonathan Papelbon the standouts. Chuck Klein is our offensive MVP, leading in AVG and RBI, while Michael Conforto has 22 HR and 67 OVR Larry Bowa would make a fine addition to any Bronze-only tournament team. Whoops, I've said too much!

Baltimore Orioles (G357, 63-70, 3rd place, 19 GB, 1.3% chance)

Damn the computer for giving this team a slight chance at the WC and forcing me to write about them! This team sucks, I must have the only George Sisler who can't hit .300, and even Babe Ruth has a minuscule two homers, less than he did last season.

South Side Lumber Company (S301, 70-64, 2nd place, 4 1/2 GB, 50.6% chance)

One month ago, this team was three games under .500 and spinning its wheels. But a few lineup tweaks and the addition of Red Faber sees the Lumber Co. now six games over .500 and in the second WC spot. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but an improbable playoff spot sure would be fun.

Thetford Mines Mineurs (B262, 88-45, 1st place, +21, 100% chance)

The Mineurs continue to pad their lead in the division, and have brought their magic number down to 9. They are headed for a collision course with the Perfect Team Perfect Teamers (remember them?) who, amazingly, have an even better 96-37 record. But we can handle them! Jose Vidro got on his bike and hit for the cycle.

Amarillo Gold Sox (S330, 70-64, 3rd place, 6 1/2 GB, 13.0% chance)

The Gold Sox have spiralled downward, turning a lead into a mere 13% chance of making the playoffs in just a few months. A classic case of peaking early. Van Lingle Mungo did have a Rocket game, though, striking out 15 in six innings.

Rottnest Island Quokkas (G359, 67-67, 2nd place, 4 1/2 GB, 12.3% chance)

Oh Quokkas - despite two sinkholes in the lineup (third base and catcher) the loveable little marsupials are still hanging in there. One thing I'll say about this team - alone amongst all the teams, they tend to have the pack luck. I'll usually open 5 packs this week, and the Quokks tend to average 2 golds in those five packs. This week it was Vladimir Guerrero fils (who delayed my search for another 3rd baseman) and Mark Mulder (who has been fair-to-middling but at least is better than the 2-9, 7.34 ERA effort from Clayton Kershaw who he replaced. Much like Van Mungo, Vida Blue also had a Rocket Game this season, striking out 15, this time in 7 IP.


*Only teams with a chance at the playoffs are listed. If you don't see your favorite team here, assume that they are crap this season.

[JasonC23]

One division remains in play in P426: the AC West, where the Hamilton Thunderbirds, at 64-69, have a 4-game lead over the Seattle Rain Dancers. It's almost a given that only one team from the AC West will make the payoffs as the official AC David vs the likely #2 seed Goliath, AC East leaders IB Breakers, who slowly but surely pulled away from the Eursea Interceptors to open up a 16.5-lead as play starts on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the AC, it is no surprise that the ultimate Goliath, 8-time Perfect champ Mississauga Carnivores, lead the AC, and the whole league, with 111 wins and a +477 run differential. They will cruise to the AC Central title and await the winner of the AC Wild Card game, which will almost certainly be hosted by the Milkbone Underwear.

In the NC, Huntley faces a tall task: the Red Raiders long ago clinched the NC East and are on cruise control to the playoffs, but they are pretty clearly the third best of the 3 big dogs in the NC and so, barring an incredibly hot finish or a stumble by someone else, will likely face the stiff challenge of winning on the road against either the INKO Seagulls or Homestead Grays in the Division Series round. Really, for Huntley, it comes down to this: after winning the championship in 2040, the Red Raiders are 0-4 in the playoffs...can they win a playoff game for the first time in 3 weeks?

The only mystery left in the NC, besides the official seeding of the division leaders, is who will play in the Wild Card game. Four teams are vying for the 2 spots: the Fairview Wildcats, Anchorage Aurora, Nice Aigles, and Guelph Dragons. It will be fun to see how that plays out!

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes have had an up and down 1st season in Perfect but the last couple of weeks of August have been the toughest of the season. At 61-72 we aren't clear of relegation yet and we aren't challenging for any trophies. Bright spot has been Erstad .791 OPS, 22 SB, 17 HR so far.

Bad News Bulldogs are 41-92 and barring a miracle are already relegated. Brightside Roy Halladay is 4-0 with a 2.59era, the rest of the rotation are struggling to get sub 6.0 ERA. Eugenio Suarez at 3B is raking,.885 OPS, 21 HR in 239 AB. Hoping to pick up some pitchers for next season in Diamond

Neuman Furshlugginers, are currently on a 14 game winning streak at 81-53 and holding a 6 game lead. Gregg Jefferies has carried on from his MVP season and the categories he isn't leading are being lead by Sammy Hughes, the pitching staff are doing a great job especially Smoky Joe Williams who has been playing closer. Still struggling to find a LF though

[yno88]

Right now my A's have a run differential of zero a Pythagorean of -5 and are 10 games under .500. A guy in my division has a run differential of -31 a Pythagorean of +9 and is 12 games over .500.

I'm 11-24 in 1 run games but my closer is 36/38 in saves.

Fuuuuuuuck.

My Cardinals team is 12 games above .500 but trails in the division by 40 games.

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs had a nice little stretch where they went 19-1, but have cooled off since. 97-52 with a tough remaining schedule, so I just hope we top 100 wins.

Because the division is already decided for Washington and the top wild card is already decided for these Frogs, I'm getting a little training in at the end of the season. Lenny Dykstra has continued to hit like a pitcher so I subbed him out to level up SE Kenny Lofton in RF. The weird thing about Lofton is his uber-low base running (simply a miss on OOTP's part honestly) which will probably make him a poor base-stealer. SE Appling is already maxed out at 2B, but I might want him at 3B in the long run so he's starting to level up at the hot corner. SUPER ICHIRO continues his rather slow march to fully-trained in CF (his card starts out with something like a 76 rating in CF and it's taken him nearly 50 games to surpass 90).

[Orcin]

The Colonels played out the string and will be in the wild card game. I don't hold high hopes for tomorrow. The team looks a bit flat right now. Sunday is a new day though.

[JasonC23]

In P426, each conference ended up having 3 teams with at least 100 wins, clearly delineating the Goliaths and the Davids. This should set up a memorable playoff run in which the littlest, most unpredictable things--an errant throw or muff here, a called strike 3 there--decides who wins and who goes down to defeat. The seeding is as follows (W/L records, RDiff):

AC #1: Mississauga Carnivores, 134-28, +567
AC #2: IB Breakers, 113-49, +333
AC #3: Hamilton Thunderbirds, 79-83, -19
AC #4: Milkbone Underwear, 100-62, +163
AC #5: Erusea Interceptors, 90-72, +130

NC #1: Homestead Grays, 130-32, +406
NC #2: INKO Seagulls, 125-37, +526
NC #3: Huntley Red Raiders, 124-38, +479
NC #4: Fairview Wildcats, 87-75, +154
NC #5: Nice Aigles: 81-81, +8

For the Red Raiders, winning 120 or more games has never worked out as well as one would expect in the playoffs. With the caveat that this most certainly qualifies as the ultimate first-world problem, here is what has happened in the 4 previous seasons Huntley finished with at least 120 wins:

2032: 121-41, 1st in NC Central, #1 NC seed: swept Division Series; came back from 3-1 down to win Sub-League Series in 7; fell to the La Crosse Fighting Frogs in the Perfect League Series, 4-2

2037: 122-40, 2nd in NC East, #4 NC seed: won Wild Card game; swept in the Division Series by 126-win and eventual champs Long Beach-Compton Anarcho-syndicalists

2039: 122-40, 1st in NC East, #2 NC seed: swept Division Series; defeated in Sub-League Series 4-1 by 121-win and eventual champs Glendale Golden Grizzlies

2042: 120-42, 1st in NC West, #1 NC seed: swept in Division Series by 95-win and eventual NC pennant winner Towers of the Dub

Overall: 14 wins, 17 losses, and an even 4 playoff series won and 4 lost

Not too inspiring, to say the least.

This year, Huntley faces the tall task of taking on the INKO Seagulls in the Division Series. Huntley did win the regular season series against INKO 4-3, but if the playoffs are anything like those games, the series is a toss-up; here are the scores of the 7 regular season matchups:

2-1 INKO
4-1 INKO
2-1 Huntley
2-0 INKO
5-1 Huntley
5-0 Huntley
1-0 Huntley

Final standings and playoff bracket follow:

[moalkha]

All 3 teams are in the playoffs.

Doha (114-48) was able to win the division and secure the #1 seed in the AC. We will likely have to face our division rivals Arkport Wolves (104-58) in the first round if they do not suffer a surprise defeat in the WC. The other big team in the AC are the Dyersville Ghosts (99-63) who didn't have as good a regular season as I expected but are still extremely dangerous.
Over in the NC the Pawnee Harvesters (131-31) are head and shoulders above anyone else.

Great Lakes (100-62) finished 39 games behind the mighty Singapore Sluggers and are headed to the WC to be played at home. If we win we are headed to a quick demise against Singapore.
The season's highlight was pulling perfect Josh Gibson, which I put as a DH to have him play everyday compared to the 120 games he would play at C. In 79 games he lead the team with an .844 OPS

Perugia (118-44) had an excellent season only to finish 13 games behind the St.Louis Cardinals in the division, therefore heading for a home WC.
After many seasons of roster stability we made one change when I pulled 96 Lou Gehrig and, after much deliberation, decided to insert him at first base in place of 83 Carew. He responded by playing extremely well in my contact oriented team, batting .317 and adding some much needed pop with a 1.010 OPS.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes finished 74-88 which was a creditable 1st season at perfect level. We used the 2nd half of the season to train at 3b and 2b and also tried erstad at CF, which is why most of my pitchers have better FIP than ERA. Tony Gwynn was batting champion, to go with 20HR, 102 RBI and 99 runs scored.

Bad News Bulldogs highlights in a dismal 47-115 last place. highlights of the season were Barry Larkin having a 20-20 season and flipping a Willie Mays for 15k profit (thanks collection speculators), next season is very dependent on which collections are released tomorrow as most of my PP is tied up in potential investments

Neuman Furshlugginers had a strong 97-65 but the last month wasn't great so they are undoubtedly preparing for the third straight playoff appearance without winning a series. Greg Jefferies had another MVP calibre season, .304 avg, .883 OPS, 28HR 21SB, 6.4 WAR. Sammy Hughes should wina great bat at 2b, and Dihigo was terrific in CF. I'm undecided about Will Clark, he had a solid season, but i think i could get more offence out of 1B. and LF was just a revolving door with no-one performing. Wilbur Wood led the league in wins (19), complete games and shutouts. Smoky Joe Williams saved 36 out of 39 opportunities in a solid season in the pen. 3/5 starters are undoubtedly returning next season and only the LF spot is up for grabs in the lineup

[Westheim]

The Coons were never going to win anything; turned out their league had five good teams and ten garbage teams. The final gap between the second wild card and the first team on the outside looking in turned out to be a crisp 28 games. That wasn't even the Critters yet; they came third in their division, 73-89, in a division that ended up 58 games under .500 - and that will become the theme for today.

Despite a torpid 14-12 September, the Rebels squeezed into the playoffs as the winners of their division. They are not exactly making a convincing case though, with a +23 run differential and with this final division table:

84-78 Rebels
83-79 Curveballs
82-80 Spartans
70-92 Subways
68-94 Solons

That's a division that as a whole was merely 36 games under .500 …

Now they will probably win the title, because this is how this game goes.

The Accountants at least had the common decency to spare me another 98-win season and an LDS exit and played like horse **** for the entire season. Finished 83-79 and four games out in *another* division that came up short of .500 by a mere 34 games… obviously no wild card for them…

So three teams, three terrible division, three horse **** performances, and someone one tumble into the playoffs when none of them deserved anything but having their record expunged and the cards subjected to a dispersal draft.

[Izz]

The 'Glou finished up 73-89, 3 games below Pythag. We scored 749 runs, 51 down on last year but still good enough for 4th in the conference. We allowed 805 runs, however, the first time in 3 seasons we've conceded more than 800. We finished the season with a positive ZR (+6.9) for perhaps the first time ever, though we're still not a good defensive team, particularly in the early innings.

Considering whether to bring Bo Bichette up into the 25-man (packed him a couple weeks ago from a Gold mission pack) to learn 3B and replace 85OVR Tony Perez. Perez hit .278/.321/.440, with 33 doubles and 17 homers this season, for a wRC+ of 107. However, he's an awful 3B, with a ZR this campaign of -11.4, which is actually one of his better results. Still, I'm not sure if Bichette will train up that much higher (I can never be bothered going into the game proper to work out what players will train up to). Yulieski Gurriel is another option (pulled him in the same pack as Bichette, actually) but he can't hit LHP.

As always, plenty to think about before next season.

[Marleigh]

Originally Posted by Izz

Still, I'm not sure if Bichette will train up that much higher (I can never be bothered going into the game proper to work out what players will train up to)..

Bichette trains to a 47 rated 3b

[Izz]

Originally Posted by Marleigh

Bichette trains to a 47 rated 3b

Thanks. 16 points better than Perez. So, slight upgrade defensively but probably a bigger than slight downgrade offensively (depending on how his ratings shift on Monday)...

[sharknut]

My Sharknut squads' Scherzer just won the pitching Triple Crown. First one of those for me.

[Solafide]

Iron League .232

In only their second season since forming, the Dayton Lawmen are heading back to the playoffs, but this time as division winners posting a 105-57 record (.648); second best in all of baseball.

Riding the arms of Roger Clemens (23-3, 2.94 ERA, 208K), Jarrod Parker (16-5, 3.25 ERA) and Brandon Woodruff (17-8, 2.93 ERA, 293K) along with the mighty bats of:

Daniel Murphy, Jim Thome, Matt Chapman and Jose Bautista.

Anything less than a WS championship will be disappointing.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The Colonels played out the string and will be in the wild card game. I don't hold high hopes for tomorrow. The team looks a bit flat right now.

As predicted, I lost the wild card game at home to a team that I beat 6 of 7 times this season. We were 15-12 in September and the mediocrity continued in October.

There were two outstanding teams in my conference this year: the Metheun Silver Sox (won my division by 16 games) and the Kogarah Kings. I was 6-18 against these two teams and 111-27 against the rest of the league. This is typical and indicative of the problem that I am considering today. I have been sitting on a pile of points waiting for one card, which I believed would put my team over the top. However, I am now questioning that strategy. Perhaps I need to improve several spots to get to the next level.

I want to be able to beat the best teams at least half of the time, and be a threat in the playoffs. However, it is a long way from +420 run differential to +550 where the Silver Sox and Kings reside. The Kings outscored me with a heavy platooning strategy. The Silver Sox outscored me with only one platoon position (catcher). I scored 915 runs, so I don't think my offensive strategy is that bad. The pitching and run prevention was #2 in the league (behind only Metheun). I don't see a clear pattern as to why the best teams are that much better than mine in head-to-head play.

The solutions are not obvious to me at this moment. However, my current strategy of doing nothing isn't working well, so something needs to change. I have plenty of time to think about it today.

[Westheim]

I would love to see Orcin's roster. And the reserve roster. The worse half of the reserve roster would probably still whoop the Raccoons.

Rebels fell to 0-1 in the LDS already, so there's that.

But thanks to whoever bought out a score of the Critters' auctions within minutes. Well, it was mostly bronze cards except for the Doubl' O'Day, but I appreciate every single PP...

[JasonC23]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

This year, Huntley faces the tall task of taking on the INKO Seagulls in the Division Series. Huntley did win the regular season series against INKO 4-3, but if the playoffs are anything like those games, the series is a toss-up; here are the scores of the 7 regular season matchups:

2-1 INKO
4-1 INKO
2-1 Huntley
2-0 INKO
5-1 Huntley
5-0 Huntley
1-0 Huntley

As noted, in the 7 games Huntley and INKO played during the regular season, the most runs scored by one team was 5.

So, naturally, in the second inning of game 1, INKO scored 6 runs off Roger Clemens--he of the 1.84 regular-season ERA.

Huntley has still not won a playoff game since 2040...

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

So, naturally, in the second inning of game 1, INKO scored 6 runs off Roger Clemens--he of the 1.84 regular-season ERA.

Wow.

Originally Posted by JasonC23

Huntley has still not won a playoff game since 2040...

Double wow.