Season 28 (2046) Discussion Thread

[Orcin]

The Colonels ran out of gas in the sub-league series, losing game 7 at home 2-1 as we only managed two hits off their perfect Cy.

[JasonC23]

Kingston has come back from a 3-1 deficit to tie Huntley in the AC Sub-League Series with a second consecutive 1-run win. In game 6, Kingston took a 4-0 lead off regular-season ERA leader Walter Johnson behind RBIs from Rickey Henderson, Hank Aaron, and Roy Campanella. Huntley managed to knot the score at 4 in the bottom of the 7th thanks to a 3-run Frank Thomas homer off Nolan Ryan, but The Wizard of Oz singled in Campanella in the top of the 8th to provide the winning margin.

Game 7. Marquard. Pedro. It all comes down to this.

[brrrdt1]

Originally Posted by camonroe

Good luck to both of you.

Sorry it didn't work out for either Alabama or Virginia.

Auburn, let's see how this plays out! Good luck to you. We didn't meet at all during the regular season. Gave up the exact same number of runs -- 523 -- but the Dolphins had a substantial runs scored advantage -- +148.

Headed to Auburn for Game 3, with the series knotted up 1-1. Big Train on the mound for the Dolphins, and Tom Seaver up there for the Doubledays. Both undefeated in the postseason so far.

[daves]

Originally Posted by brrrdt1

Sorry it didn't work out for either Alabama or Virginia.

Auburn, let's see how this plays out! Good luck to you. We didn't meet at all during the regular season. Gave up the exact same number of runs -- 523 -- but the Dolphins had a substantial runs scored advantage -- +148.

Headed to Auburn for Game 3, with the series knotted up 1-1. Big Train on the mound for the Dolphins, and Tom Seaver up there for the Doubledays. Both undefeated in the postseason so far.

5 of the 6 games against Alabama were decided by 2 runs or less, 2 extras.

I'll try to give you a good series.

[JasonC23]

The St George Slammers will be traveling to Huntley to face the Red Raiders in the P413 Perfect League Series! Huntley's bats awoke just in time to club their way to an 8-4 game 7 win over the Kingston Rockers to earn their spot. Arky Vaughan, who had carried the offense through the regular season, had 4 base hits and scored twice; he was ably assisted by 3 hits from Appling and Yaz, and it was Yaz who had the 2 biggest hits, a 2-out, 2-RBI double in the 3rd to extend Huntley's lead to 5-1, and a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the 6th to spark the game- and series-clinching rally.

St George is lead on offense by Mike Trout, who paced the NC with a .538 SLG, .946 OPS, and 7.5 WAR, and Babe Ruth, who blasted 37 homers en route to 5.1 WAR from the DH spot. The standout in the rotation is 99 Walter Johnson (hey, cool, another 99 Walter Johnson gets some love!), with 7.0 WAR; the bullpen features stoppers Bruce Sutter and Kaz Sasaki, who had 17 and 19 saves, respectively.

The Slammers have a Gold League championship under their belt but no Perfect League medallion; Huntley is looking to secure a little superscript 4 by its Perfect League medallion. Can the Slammers, uh, slam the door (sorry) on Huntley? Or will the Red Raiders prevail? P413 is coming down to an exciting finish!

[lencombs]

I have played OOTP since the beginning and got OOTP20 when it released, but this was my first week trying Perfect Team. Had fun with it and my Eureka Lumberjacks have a 2-0 lead in the Iron League 189 Series. Won 115 games this season and facing a 106 game winning team.

[JasonC23]

Stop me if you've heard this one before--there was a tense, low-scoring game 1 in Huntley's series! This time, Ed Walsh threw 7.1 innings of 1-hit ball to carry Huntley to a 2-1 game 1 win. St George's Walter Johnson matched Walsh with a 7-inning, 3-hit, no-run performance, but Arky Vaughan slammed a 2-run homer off Kaz Sasaki in the 8th to drive in Huntley's first, and eventually winning, runs of the game.

Game 2 actually featured a team scoring more than 2 runs! Mike Trout put St George ahead early with a 2-run homer off Don Sutton, but Huntley plated 5 runs in the bottom of the 4th off Nolan Ryan in very Nolan Ryan-esque fashion: Appling walked, Vaughan walked, Mantle was hit by a pitch to load the bases, Yelich hit a sac fly, George Brett doubled--Huntley's first hit of the game!--to tie the game, Berra was hit by a pitch, Yaz walked to force in the go-ahead run, Gehrig walked to force in another run, and Griffey bounced into a fielder's choice to plate Huntley's fifth run of the inning. Sutton and Spahn took it from there, and Huntley won 6-2 to take a 2-0 series lead to St George.

Game 3 features Huntley's Rube Marquard vs the Slammers' JR Richard, who is one of the great what-ifs in baseball history and will be a tough matchup for the Red Raiders. St George went 61-20 at home, so it could prove vital that Huntley won both home games to start the series. Stay tuned...

[gemini615]

Originally Posted by Orcin

- 30,000 points so far with playoffs to go

Wait...what? How did you accomplish this? Did you infiltrate OOTP headquarters? lol

[daves]

Originally Posted by brrrdt1

Sorry it didn't work out for either Alabama or Virginia.

Auburn, let's see how this plays out! Good luck to you. We didn't meet at all during the regular season. Gave up the exact same number of runs -- 523 -- but the Dolphins had a substantial runs scored advantage -- +148.

Headed to Auburn for Game 3, with the series knotted up 1-1. Big Train on the mound for the Dolphins, and Tom Seaver up there for the Doubledays. Both undefeated in the postseason so far.

Randy Johnson could not close the series at home. Now it's off to Somerset to try to beat Perfect Schilling or Perfect Johnson?

Bad feeling that I am blowing a 3-1 game lead again?

[HelpDodgers]

I got my first championship. And it wasn't my whale that got it. It was my free-to-play all live team.

Now, my minor league team is going to the perfect league!

[One Great Matrix]

Me & my team, the New York Flyers were in the P427 this last week.

My division consisted of us, MILKBONE UNDERWEAR, THE GROTON GALES, THE HAMPTON ROADS RHINOS, & THE HASSELBERRY HOUNDS. ...(2 PL Titles (Underwear, Rhinos) & about 69 playoff appearances between the 5 teams)...

The Flyers and the Underwear engaged in an epic-ish battle for the AC Central crown. After 60 games or so, they were 5-6 games ahead, after 75 games or so, I was 4 ahead myself, just a couple weeks later they had a 2 game lead again. At about 130 games the Flyers were then ahead by 3 games...Milkbone Underwear swept a 3 game series to tie our records at exactly 84-62, I believe. They went up by 1 game again in the final week annd a half...With 1 day left on the schedule though, I had re-gained the lead & had a magic number of 1. But I lost my game 2-1, & the Underwear forced a 1-game playoff for the division crown.

This was truly an exciting season-long race. The game was at their place has they had edged me in the season head-to-head series. Flyers took a 2-run lead into the bottom of the 9th inning but Mets great Al Leiter allowed a walk-off 3-run HR to Phil Rizzuto as they finished the year 96-67 and we 95-68.

Curiously it was my 1867th regular season loss, same number of regular season losses the Underwear have. They've played 28 seasons out, I've played 27, they are 2670-1867, I am 2509-1867.

This loss sent me to the wild card game against the Fighting Ahabs. I was able to beat Walter Johnson in this game, 6-2 with some timely hitting and a fiiine performance by Sandy Koufax. Step one: Slayed the 117-45 Fighting Ahabs complete.

The Divisional Series put me up against the Seoul Canaries. This is a relatively new team with an impressive 808-164 all-time record. First game was easy...all I had to do was beat up on perfect Cy Young while perfect Bob Gibson shut their offense absolutely down. 8-3 win.

Game 2 is where it got interesting...again. Facing perfect Walter Johnson again, this time we were only able to muster 1 run in 6 innings. However, we did some work against their bullpen...took the game tied at 2 into extra innings & took the lead on a Mike Trout single in the top of the 11th to make it 3-2. However the Canaries answered with an Eric Davis solo HR off of Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the 11th, & in the bottom of the 12th L. Boudreau hit a walk-off solo HR off of Christy Mathewson.

Wow...In game 3, Koufax was not nearly as good as he was in the wild card game, allowing 6 runs in almost 7 innings while 100 Greg Maddux only allowed 8 baserunners while getting the first 21 outs of the game for the Canaries...who went on to win 7-2...Josh Gibson, Cap Anson & Honus Wagner all hit homers for the Canaries.

Roy Halladay started for the Flyers against Ed Walsh in game 4 of the series. If Halladay could beat Walsh, we could send the series to a game 5. Jackie Robinson hit a tremendous home run in the bottom of the 6th inning to make the score 5-4 Canaries with plenty of time left for a comeback. There was some promise for one as 2 of the 5 runs that Halladay had allowed were unearned & he cruised through much of the lineup, with the bullpen being mostly solid all season...But the final 3 innings of the game were scoreless, as Lee Smith & Mariano Rivera worked their magic for the Canaries and Mathewson & Lincecum worked theirs for the Flyers. Except no magic in the playoffs again, a 4-5 loss to the Seoul Canaries ending our season this time.. Except that we have made them for 5 seasons in a row now.

The Malibu Waverunners (107-55) are up 2-0 in the P427 WS on the Neutonia Rebels (97-65). They are 2 of 14 teams in the 30 team league that played .530+ ball.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by gemini615

Wait...what? How did you accomplish this? Did you infiltrate OOTP headquarters? lol

I ended at 35,600, which is my second-best week. I had a perfect game and a 19-game win streak, so those helped a lot.

[waittilnextyear]

Asgard's miracle run fizzled in the P421 series. They ran into the 135-win Glendale Golden Grizzlies and got swept. The end.

Anyhow, the Frogs took home 2 bits of hardware...

*John Smoltz wins reliever of the year (ironically, considering how the DS ended) even though he didn't get added to the team until the end of May. Smoltz becomes the 2nd consecutive Frog to win it--Vida Blue and his 4.1 WAR took it last season. In his stopper role, Smoltz was 7-3 with 10 saves, 1.73 ERA/2.32 FIP, 0.91 WHIP, and 3.3 WAR in 99 IP. Looking forward to getting a full season out of him next week.

*Ichiro's 1st gold glove. I thought he got robbed last week and should've been the clear choice, but amends were made this week. The SUPER Ichiro started 147 games in RF and put up +22.4 ZR (note: that's before the "correction" so it'll probably be ~+50 ZR on his baseball card for posterity), 1.104 EFF, 8 outfield assists vs 2 errors. He was 96.5% on routine plays, 83.6% on likely plays, 85.7% on even plays, 53.6% on unlikely plays, and 30.6% on remote plays. The OOTP scorer thought there were 85 impossible plays that neither man nor beast could dare attempt.

Have opened about 375 packs over the weekend (luckily this habit basically feeds itself if you are willing to sell off all of the cards properly and not quick sell) and it was a pretty dry run. Pulled a 100 Bregman which sold immediately for 35K. The only other card worth even mentioning was the diamond Heath Bell--a MINT card on the AH right now for 40/45K if anyone is interested in a high MOV reliever and/or I assume he might be involved in the 100 Trevor Hoffman missions (?) I really could use a, you know, 100 Cy Young or 100 Lefty Grove to come out at some point rather than a raft of LIVE diamonds resting on an ocean of LIVE irons. Even though the packs have run dry on me lately, I take solace in the fact that I've amassed a small army of historical Cardinals, Yankees, Tigers, Dodgers, Giants, Phillies, Mets, and so forth. Looking forward to the next Weimar Republic day!

[bailey]

I'm in a quandary. I'm facing a team with mostly the same players as my own, so here's how it's gone down so far:

Game 1 -- My Cy Young beats his Walsh
Game 2 -- His Cy Young beats my Walsh
Game 3 -- His Maddux beats my Walter Johnson
Game 4 -- My Maddux beats his Walter Johnson
Game 5 -- My Cy Young beats his Walsh
Game 6 ???

If the pattern repeats, I lose in 7.

I could try Pedro Martinez in game 6 and go with Walter for Game 7, however Pedro has the lowest % of quality starts throughout the season. Or, do I stick with Walsh, who has the best QS% (of available pitchers) despite his card going 0-3 so far?

In any event, I have secured a consolation prize. By winning Games 1 and 5, Cy Young has achieved 20 wins in a row.

[JasonC23]

The Huntley Red Raiders defeated the St George Slammers 4 games to 1 to win the P413 Perfect League championship! This is Huntley's fourth Perfect League championship, which is just surreal to say. The Red Raiders' regular season MVP, Arky Vaughan, was also the Perfect League Series MVP, with a .316/.409/.684 batting line, but that honor could have easily gone to Ed Walsh, who threw 16 innings across his starts in games 1 and 5 and only gave up 2 runs (1 earned). In fact, in his 5 playoff starts, Walsh tossed a total of 37 innings and allowed a mere 5 runs (4 earned), so I'm going to go ahead and give him the I-just-made-this-up-right-now Overall Playoff MVP Award. His performances carried Huntley to multiple low-scoring, nail-biting wins, which propelled the Red Raiders to the championship. Woo-hoo!

For its best-ever regular season record and championship run, Huntley earned a season score of 1723, which is by far its best ever. The team didn't take home a ton of hardware--Platinum Stick awards for 2B Vaughan (.319/.398/.520, 154 wRC+, 6.9 WAR), 3B George Brett (.316/.369/.512, 140 wRC+, 5.3 WAR), and RF Christian Yelich (.255/.359/.528, 141 wRC+, 4.6 WAR)--but it showed up quite often in the award voting, finishing second (Eck) and third (Gagne) for the Reliever of the Year and second (Walter Johnson) and third (Walsh) for the Pitcher of the Year, and having a whopping 6 players place in the top 11 for the AC Best Player Award: Vaughan (third), Johnson (fifth), Yelich (seventh), Walsh (eighth), Mantle (ninth), and Brett (eleventh).

Congrats to all the champions and all the playoff participants in 2046! On to 2047...in which, I assume, Huntley will be "randomly" placed with a certain alliterative team once again, right, Markus?

[One Great Matrix]

The Perfect League ambience is a little serious...(even though I'm a bit of an offender myself)...so I don't know what league I will be placed in this season...but there's a chance I may be fielding something like a B or a C team as a public service announcement & explanation for those of you who don't like to see great cards sit on the shelf. I feel like maybe a relaxing week whether I get relegated or not, whether my team remains competitive or not...(that's the key really, that I won't really concern myself with the arms (and bats) race for a week) might be necessary.

[bailey]

I opted to go with Pedro for Game 6 after I noticed that Walsh had gone 0-3 with 5+ ERA during this postseason and he did well. He left the game in the 7th after the leadoff hitter singled, but leading 4-1. John Smoltz was ineffective allowing 2 runs in the 7th. Nevertheless, the AI allowed John Smoltz to attempt to pick up a 3 inning save, which, of course, didn't happen, so the game went into extra innings. In the top 12th, the AI brought in my opponent's expected game 7 starter Maddux and Ken Griffey launched a 2 out 3 run home run setting the stage for Ed Walsh to pick up his 1st perfect team save.

[Maxfire5]

End of Season Update.

Topeka Defenders: Made it to their first ever Perfect League Playoff appearance thanks to the additions midweek. However, it was shortlived. Ed Walsh vs Ed Walsh in the wild card game and both were garbage with each giving up 5+ runs in 5 innings. The worst part? I had the lead against a 118 win team, but my manager brought on 95 Liriano who somehow gave up 5 consecutive hits and 5 runs without recording a single out. Oh well, progress has been made. Hope to be competing more regularly now.

Missouri Legends: The Missouri Legends made it through the Division Series and then went down 3-0 in the Conference Series. However, we fought back and tied it up at 3-3. In game 7, it was a heartbreaking loss in the 11th inning. They'll be headed to Diamond next week.

Kansas Rangers: RNG came through in a big way right before playoffs. My pack only team adding 91 Pedro Astacio to the rotation. We swept our way through the division series. In the conference series, we were up 2-0, then down 3-2 and then came back to win it 4-3. We made our way to the World Series. Second ever World Series appearance for them. We won the World Series in 5 games, taking the first 3, then dropping 1, and then winning game 5. In addition to that, Bob Gibson pitched over 240 IP, recording a 1.53 ERA with a 0.8 WHIP on his way to a 10.0 WAR season. Duke Snider and Ray Lankford picked up silver slugger awards for LF and CF. Bob Gibson won a Cy Young award and also the MVP Award. They'll be headed to Gold next week.

All in all, a successful week. Big upgrades on the Defenders and first perfect league playoff appearance, promotion for the Legends and a World Series win for the Rangers!

[moalkha]

Originally Posted by HelpDodgers

I got my first championship. And it wasn't my whale that got it. It was my free-to-play all live team.

Now, my minor league team is going to the perfect league!

Congratulations

[Argonaut]

All I need is one Perfect Series victory and I'll have completed the F2P ribbon!