Season 22 (2040) Discussion Thread

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by daves

Wow, Sutter gave up two big homers in game 5 of your series. I thought Cy Young was going to pitch you into the next series?

Good luck against the Poets!

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs lost G1 of the LDS (3-6), then rallied to win 3 straight (3-2, 6-2, 14-4) and advance to the LCS. They'll face the Montanejos Camineros (89-73). The Frogs took 4/6 against Montanejos during the regular season.

On the other side of the bracket, the Sam Dimas Wyld Stallions did everyone a favor by taking down the Battery Park City Tamps in the divisional round. Battery Park won the most games (120) and had the largest RDiff (+495) in P406.

Other 100+ win teams Malibu Waverunners and Saint Paul Fighting Saints were eliminated in the wild card and divisional rounds respectively.

The Frogs are going with a bit of trickeration in G1 of the LCS and starting RHP Satchel Paige on a pitch limit to be backed up by LHP Johan Santana in long relief. Montanejos is very platoon-y, so getting one platoon in there and ambushing it with a like-handed pitcher is the goal. Of course, this is probably being too cute and likely to backfire as pinch hitter after pinch hitter enters the game against Santana.

[waittilnextyear]

We'll call it a success on the strategizing. Satchel Paige and Johan Santana combined to give up 1 run over 6 IP and La Crosse's Garry Maddox walked off both teams with a 9th inning RBI single against Craig Kimbrel to give the Frogs a 2-1 win and a 1-0 series lead.

[Magus978]

Mixed bag for me in the early afternoon...

New York Patriots, Raleigh Rage, and St. John's Silver Sox all dumped out in the divisional rounds and are going nowhere.

Brooklyn Dynasty in a favorable spot on their side of the bracket after the megawhale Maine Gems were knocked out in 5 games. (Naturally, the team that knocked htem out was a WC2 and are up 2-0 on me. Conspiracy theories intensify)

Steelport Saints, aka the Lefty Grove show, are going up to silver after an easy sweep.

New York Mets end their 2-month stay in bronze and finally advance to silver.

...and finally, the Blitzkrieg Boppers make it 3 promotions in 4 weeks and are going up to the land of the giants in Perfect.

[Izz]

B'sin'Glou finished 78-84, going 19-9 in September, remarkably only 3 games out of a wildcard. We conceded our most ever runs however, 860, while posting our highest ERA, 5.07. Next season shall be interesting...

89OVR Eckersley finished with 37 saves, 2nd-highest in the conference. He put together a streak of 27 across the middle of the season.

[JasonC23]

Got home earlier than expected to see that Huntley, Doha, and TTBD all swept through the Division round! The Macon Whoopees, who finished a very strong #2 in the AC, needed all 5 games to advance to the Sub-League Series...slackers.

So far, the Doha-TTBD deathmatch is every bit as exciting as advertised, with Doha taking the opener 3 to 1 and TTBD bouncing back with a 5-4 win to tie the series at 1. Meanwhile, Huntley is up 2-0 thanks to a 5-run outburst in the bottom of the 8th inning of Game 2 that turned a 3-1 deficit into a 6-3 win! Going to watch the highlights of all my games so far as I wait for Game 3...

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Izz

B'sin'Glou finished 78-84, going 19-9 in September, remarkably only 3 games out of a wildcard. We conceded our most ever runs however, 860, while posting our highest ERA, 5.07. Next season shall be interesting...

89OVR Eckersley finished with 37 saves, 2nd-highest in the conference. He put together a streak of 27 across the middle of the season.

Love me some 89 Dennis Eckersley. Along with Boudreau, Pesky, Maddox, and Raines he's one of the few gold cards I still use regularly.

I've thought about replacing him with 99 Eck (for the low, low price of 60K PP!!), but my 89 version has a 2.84 ERA 1.02 WHIP and 435 saves in 14 seasons of Perfect level. If it ain't broke...

[diamond3017]

My Eskimos just finished their third season back down at Diamond, and while my roster was a little bit better than last year's 88-74 squad, I got stuck in a division with an ascendant whale that finished 128-34 (15-4 against me), so I ended up with only 84 wins this season.

After winning the wild card game, I drew the whale in the first round, and went down 3-1, so I'll be spending at least one more week in Diamond.

A few notes from this season:

Catcher

This year I went with three catchers: Josh Donaldson as the starter, Brian McCann as the backup vs. RHP, and Buster Posey as the backup vs. LHP and defensive substitute. Donaldson has trained up to 29 at catcher, and I wanted to see how viable his defense would be back there as a full-time starter.

Donaldson: 94 G (all starts), -0.2 ZR, 1.018 EFF, 3 PB, 26.9 CS%, 4.13 CERA
McCann: 54 G (all starts), -2.1 ZR, .875 EFF, 3 PB, 23.4 CS%, 3.77 CERA
Posey: 100 G (14 GS), -1.2 ZR, 1.138 EFF, 4 PB, 22.9 CS%, 3.60 CERA

I've never had any idea what to make of ZR/EFF from catchers, but it would appear that Donaldson is at least holding his own on the "fielding" side of catching, but I'm wary that his poor catcher ability may be hurting the pitching staff. CERA is quick and dirty metric, but this season it correlated pretty well with each guy's catcher ability.

Donaldson had a 111 WRC+ compared to McCann's 57 and Posey's 47. I'll probably roll with the same setup next season. I would probably never let a 29-rated fielder start at any other position, so it feels weird doing it at arguably the most important one, but Donaldson's glove hasn't hurt me enough to outweigh his offensive production, at least as far as I can tell.

Bullpen Roles

Last season I was really pleased with the results I got from using this setup with hook starters on the quickest setting (secondary role in parentheses):

Setup 6th+ (Long Relief): ~130 IP
Setup 6th+ (Long Relief): ~130 IP
Setup 8th+ (Closer): ~60 IP
Closer 8th+ (High Leverage): ~60 IP

The late-inning guys are my two best short relievers, while the 6th+ guys are starting pitchers with good stuff and control. Leverage-based use is hard to control, so my main goal is getting my best relievers as many innings as possible, hence the long relief secondary roles. Luis Severino has posted back-to-back 2+ win seasons pitching about 125 innings exclusively out of the pen.

[waittilnextyear]

The 110-win Frogs are on the cusp of their first League Series berth since 2032.

The 109-win Sam Dimas Wyld Stallyns are cleaning out the other side of the bracket.

[Magus978]

Just like two weeks ago, when the bracket opened up nicely for my $ team in perfect, they got waterboarded by a WC2.

Two weeks later...whole bunch of deja vu, and I hate it.

RNGjesus sucks.

[Dogberry99]

The West Covina Ex-Girlfriends are promoting to Perfect. The 94 OVR George Sisler had an off year (by his lofty standards), but the Special Edition Vlad Guerrero more than picked up the slack, winning the Triple Crown (.360 BA, 35 HR, 131 RBI) and also leading the league in hits (227), SLG (.626), OPS (1.016) and a lot of other random categories that I'm too lazy to look up and list.

I had planned to expand the theme next year to allow cards for any team that later moved (which would allow me to play the Buck Ewing I pulled recently). However, since we promoted, I think I want to see how this Browns/Senators/Expos theme plays at the highest level.

[One Great Matrix]

Wx-Girlfriends. Ha.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Good luck against the Poets!

I was up 3 games to 0. Now it's 3-2. Argh!

[waittilnextyear]

Little suspense on the AC side of the bracket as the Frogs apply the old 'how sweep it is' to Montanejos with a 7-run 5th inning against 100 Randy Johnson. That clustering, tho. The Frogs banged out 9 hits, but 7 of them (along with BBs and a wild pitch) came in the same inning. Montanejos actually out-hit the Frogs, 10 hits to 9, but were shut out by Roger Clemens all the same. The Frogs gave up a total of 4 runs in the series.

The NC side of the bracket will need at least 6 games after the Carmel-By-The-Sea Otters staved off elimination game 5. Either San Dimas or Carmel-By-The-Sea are likely to give the Frogs all they care to handle in the Perfect Leagues Series.

[JasonC23]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

Little suspense on the AC side of the bracket as the Frogs apply the old 'how sweep it is' to Montanejos with a 7-run 5th inning against 100 Randy Johnson. That clustering, tho. The Frogs banged out 9 hits, but 7 of them (along with BBs and a wild pitch) came in the same inning. Montanejos actually out-hit the Frogs, 10 hits to 9, but were shut out by Roger Clemens all the same. The Frogs gave up a total of 4 runs in the series.

The NC side of the bracket will need at least 6 games after the Carmel-By-The-Sea Otters staved off elimination game 5. Either San Dimas or Carmel-By-The-Sea are likely to give the Frogs all they care to handle in the Perfect Leagues Series.

But, and I speak from experience here, I am confident the Frogs can handle it.

[JasonC23]

Both Sub-League Series are progressing the way everyone predicted--tensely! Huntley took a 2-0 lead over Macon, but then Macon dominated games 3 and 4 at home, 7-2 and 5-0. But in Game 5, Don Sutton of the Red Raiders stepped up big time, allowing a mere solo homer in 6 innings to help the Red Raiders win the pivotal game 4-1! After a travel day, it's Macon's Bob Gibson versus Huntley's Ed Walsh in Game 6.

Meanwhile, the Doha-TTBD battle has been as intense as expected, as Doha raced out to a 3-1 series lead, only to have TTBD rally with a series-saving win in Game 5, 1-0. Game 6, featuring TTBD's Roger Clemens against Doha's Ed Walsh, is mere minutes away...

[brrrdt1]

Oof. The Dolphins had the best record in the NC in P439, but got swept right out of the LC by the Winterfell Direwolves (after taking 5 of 6 from them in the regular season). Good luck, Direwolves, in the championship. The North Remembers!

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by brrrdt1

Oof. The Dolphins had the best record in the NC in P439, but got swept right out of the LC by the Winterfell Direwolves (after taking 5 of 6 from them in the regular season). Good luck, Direwolves, in the championship. The North Remembers!

Swept me right out of the LC three weeks ago...? or four now?

Close games but alllll Direwolves.
Now we have something in common. Ha.

[JasonC23]

The P405 championship will feature the 124-38 Doha Oilers versus the 112-50 Huntley Red Raiders! Each won their Sub-League Series 4-2. The teams did not meet during the regular season, so it's anyone's guess how this series will transpire. Will Huntley win its third Perfect League championship? Or will the favored Oilers win their second? Exciting baseball ahead on this championship Sunday!

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by daves

I was up 3 games to 0. Now it's 3-2. Argh!

THAT was a tough loss. I would expect your team to be back strong season, assuming that your computer survived the finale.