PT Nostalgia from a 9/10 year old - Meet the Woodinville Infinite Powers Team

[joehart]

This is the story of my son(s) and his PT20 team.
I will try to tell and capture his (their) comments from the last few weeks and coming
days as good as I can. If we find enough time, we may also write a story about the second team built by kiddo #2.


But before we jump into it, it all started with OOTP 18 and me trying to teach both boys the inner workings of OOTP. It took some time but they became efficient with PT19
and now really enjoy building teams in PT20.


Given all the recent Marvel frenzy, the team was named the Woodinville Infinite Power.
It was supposed to be Infinite Hits to match the long term strategy of focusing on
contact (singles/doubles) but due to the kids making their own logos and dad trying to not micro manage the process, it ended up as the Infinite Powers team.



The kids love old retro logos but it would require someone much better working with graphics (than anyone in the family) to really make a cool retro logo to match
their team name. There are some amazing artists in the forums....if you ever want to see really neat retro logos.


Note 1: One of these days, I will teach the boys the inner workings of Photoshop but for now
the justafan logo creator application did its job and both kids made their own logos.
In fact, the software is terrific and should be used by anyone that does not have a logo and
wants their own logo. In 5-10 minutes, you can have your own personal team logo without having to be an expert.


After a few weeks of sitting back and browsing through the spreadsheet and database of all players,
many lists were created with potential candidates. At that point, the kids decided to invest the collected points and
a small amount of Steam points to get the team underway.

Dad offered both boys to be whales this year but both kids declined the offer and decided they wanted to
grind their way to the top and make adjustments along the way.
Fighting off relegation and going against much better teams was going to be part of the plan since it brought
the most enjoyment in PT19.
They still have printouts of teams that they battled with in the Orcin 50-points league (Zorros, Titans, ….)


Note 2: It is interesting to see how kids manage to find joy in not always winning and finding other
ways to enjoy Perfect Team. Wish more of us adults could enjoy PT that way.

Note 3: Dad learned that installing the printer drivers on the kids computer was probably not the smartest
idea. With dad busy and not paying attention, paper and ink became a rare commodity in the house.
I think it was the first time that the kids asked me to take them out shopping to Staples so that they could
make more lists and print out teams that they like.


Pitching staff:
To avoid giving up HRs every game all pitchers were going to be Groundball pitchers and a focus was made to
look for pitchers that also have high movement.

P1: Zach Greinke (91 Hardware Heroes). He was chosen because his stats were pretty even (70 Stuff, 71 Movement, 76 Control).


P2: Felix Hernandez (89 Hardware Heroes). He was chosen because of Nostalgia. We were at the stadium when he pitched his perfect
game and the following night when everyone received a yellow shirt and the stadium was filled in yellow.
While my son was still too young to remember, we still have the yellow shirts and it has been a talking point over the years and he was at the game when Iwakuma pitched his
no-Hitter game on a Wednesday afternoon game.

Initially, Iwakuma was supposed to be part of the team but his Movement rating (44) was below the bar set by the kids.


P3 & P4: Both look very similar in their stats. Tommy John and Paul Splittorff have very high movement (81-83), control of 71,
and very low Stuff (46 & 57). Tommy John is an Extreme Groundball pitcher while Paul Splittorff is a Neutral pitcher.
Both will probably be replaced in the long run but for now they should help the team move through the first 2-3 levels (Bronze, Silver, Gold).

P5: This was a nostalgia purchase. Bob Gibson (95) was one of the more reasonable prized diamond pitchers and performed very well
on the PT19 team. He helped win so many games that he had to end up on this new team.

While there are much better versions of him available (96, 97, 100), they were out of reach in terms of points.
He is the only top100 pitcher on the team (probably closer to top70) and has great stats (84 Stuff, 80 Movement, 65 Control).
He will probably be on the team for a very long time and could also become a Reliever as his Stuff rating would jump up by an extra +6
to 90 once changed from SP to RP.


Relievers:
Most of the Relievers were added without the focus on Groundball pitching.
Only Blake Treinen is an Extreme Groundball pitchers. Almost all other pitchers are Neutral.
One of the many goals was to avoid 2019 Live pitchers so the team would not see any rating fluctuations throughout the season.
Setup and Closers were selected with a focus on Stuff and Movevement while the Middle Relievers have
lower Stuff but high Movement and high Control.


RP1 (Closer): Blake Treinen. Since our home team (Mariners) is in the same division as the Oakland As we got to see Blake Treinen and Edwin Diaz
have amazing 2018 years. So nostalgia took over the selection process.
Edwin Diaz won 2018 Reliever of the Year while Blake Treinen was the runners-up reliever of the year.
The AH prize was reasonable so Treinen was added while Diaz was too expensive. For some reason, people listed him at 3x the average selling prize.

RP2 (Setup): Trevor Hoffman (2009 All-Star). 75 Stuff, 82 Movement, 72 Control.

RP3 (Setup): Ryan Brasier (2018 Unsung Heroes). 73 Stuff, 73 Movement, 69 Control.

RP4 (Middle Reliever): Kent Tekulve (1979 Hardware Heroes). He was chosen because he looks like a masked superhero.
His facegen has him wearing sunglasses, which translate into
a Zorro look-alike hero.




The kids had too much fun talking about his facegen and he was purchased before ever looking at his ratings
(Stuff: 61, Movement 81, Control 73). Fortunately, they meet the criteria.

RP5 (Middle Reliever): Bobby Jenks (2008 All-Star). 56 Stuff, 79 Movement, 76 Control. He is the giant on the team: 191 cm and 270 lbs!!!

RP6 (Middle Reliever): Steve Howe (1980 Rookie Sensation). 50 Stuff, 85 Movement, 86 Control.




Batters: The goal was to make a very defensive minded team so the database was searched for players that could be re-trained to superstars
in the infield. One of the goals is to reach 110+ Defense for SS, 2B and 3B. Unfortunately not enough points were available to make it happen
right away.

Since no further money was going to be invested, all future players would be aquired via points gained, player sales, or Steam gift cards
(rare birthday/major occasion gifts from grandparents and friends).
As the winner of our annual March Madness NCAA tournament with friends, family, and co-workers, there will be a another Steam gift
card coming down the road ($20). In the meantime the Infield has

1B: Silver (77) Keith Hernandez. He has 83 defense at 1B.

2B: Diamond (91) Travis Jackson. He should reach close to 120 at 2B once re-trained to the new position.

3B: Gold (84) Johnny Pesky. He should reach close to the 110 Defense goal once re-trained to the new position.

SS: The goal was to get Lou Boudreau but his prize was too high. So for now, the team will use Larry Bowa (67).

Extra Infielder: Cecil Travis (Gold 85) and Pete Runnels (Silver 76). They are short term options but Cecil Travis
may provide some needed contact offense against Right Handed Pitchers (86 Contact, 84 Gap, 86 Avoid Ks).

Note 4: Both Johnny Pesky and Keith Hernandez were nostalgia picks from PT19. They were on the team for almost 20 seasons
and produced many great seasons and plays. The kids watch a lot of games so many decisions are based on what they
see rather than what the stats show.
In other words, the kids make notes when their players do well in important situations rather than put up
great stats in blowout games.

The team was also supposed to have Ozzie Smith and Eddie Collins but they were also out of reach financially.

Note5: Strangely, I expected my son to ask for more money to get all the players but he settled for what he could get given
the initial investment and put all other players on the "wishlist" for down the road.
The kids usually leave PT running in the background so they often check the Auction House to see if players fall into
their hands at very good prizes.
One of the kids earned himself $5 for using dads account and monitoring the AH for players on his wishlist.


DH: No money was available to fill the DH slot at this point. In the meantime, Matty Alou is filling in.
While he hits for contact & gap, he provides little to no power.
The kids have not made a decision for the DH spot yet. Willie McCovey (Gold 89) is high on the list but too expensive or not available.


The Outfield is filled with PT19 nostalgia and watching players at the stadium.

LF: Silver Pete Rose (73) and Silver Tony Gwynn (77). Both hit for great contact and Pete Rose already comes with 90 Defense.

CF: The highest CF defense goes to Diamond Paul Blair (90). He should be a GG award winner every year in CF with his 109 Defense.

RF: Gold Ichiro (82) has a 104 Defense rating in RF. He hits for Contact and can be a long term option as the utility outfielder
if the team ever gets high end players.


Catchers:
Catcher 1 is an experiment. The idea is to see how badly a hitting catcher with very low catcher ratings impacts the team (CERA).
Smoky Buress (Gold 86) has 88 Contact/91 Gap and 93 for Avoiding Ks. However, his catcher defense is only 43.

The real long term catcher on the team is Gold Ivan Rodriguez (88). His catcher rating is 119 (Top3 Defensive catcher).
He currenly serves as the defensive replacement until a decision is made what to do with Smoky in the long run.







Expectations:
Many losses while the players climb from 0 to 100 Defense in their new positions.
But once they get better, the team expects to reach the playoffs every year until they reach Diamond level.
Despite starting late and with a bad start (.370 win record in April), my son announced that he would be
in the playoffs by year end. Dad tried to urge caution as there are teams with .700 win records in the league.

[Dunzie]

Very cool writeup. Even cooler to see younger people taking an interest in baseball and in building their own teams in PT. Many kudos.

[gemini615]

It's awesome to see a younger generation interested in statistics and general managing. I'll enjoy reading about their decision making and how it's different from us adults.

Just out of curiosity, what was the starting points count? P2p? FtP?

Good luck to Woodinville! I'll be reading

[Magus978]

I'm glad you prepared the boys for a little disappointment, at least for this season. Training players up while still trying to win will be a pain. Should still be able to win 80-85 games with that roster on pitching and offense alone while they become good at their positions.

I will be following this one closely. Good luck, kids! Also, if you ever get put in a league with me, please don't beat me too badly. My ego is already fragile enough by the reality check that I stink at OOTP as it is

[joehart]

They both started out F2P for a little over 5 seasons and then one team stayed F2P (a future story if we find the time) and this one became P2P with the goal to compete in Perfect league.

I don't know the exact card pulls & sales during the last 5 weeks without looking through the history. I know they pulled some diamond cards during those seasons.

They sorted out the points with mom while I was at the stadium so I need to double check. They also had 4 steam cards from prior gifts so it is anywhere between $40 to $100 depending on how they sorted this out with mom. Last I heard both boys wanted to combine their cards into a single account instead of two smaller P2P accounts.

I will ask the kids to start tracking their AH purchases too so it is easier to mention them as we update the story. It will be a good practice for them to track this in Excel with some simple formulas.

[Magus978]

I genuinely love how much effort is going into this. Blows my stuff out of the water and makes me want to work harder. Go get'em kids.

[joehart]

Originally Posted by Magus978

I genuinely love how much effort is going into this. Blows my stuff out of the water and makes me want to work harder. Go get'em kids.

They love to strategize. I think it started when they were in the Orcin points league and knew that they would not be able to just blow away the competition with their teams. So they decided to keep record of all the top players in their prize range and review their actual performances vs. their ratings.
They tried to understand how the game values certain cards and then tried to get players that met that criteria.


Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of trial and error and lots of competition between them but it kept them interested in the game.
This is probably why they never got bored and did not mind losing. They cared more about the data and building their own teams on paper than worrying about championships.


And as a dad, I would rather have them play OOTP all day instead of playing Fortnite or other games like that.

Their new way of getting into trouble is telling their teacher that Jackie Robinson (on Jackie Robinson day) should not have played every day but instead should have been used against left handed pitchers and maybe platooned with another player. What have you done OOTP?

Next time teacher comments go directly to Markus and DEV team.


Also since they both love collecting baseball card, it adds a great new dimension to their hobby. OOTP taught them about the best of the best and now they get very excited when they see or end up with one of the historic baseball players.
It is just sad that not many kids today know about the game or the players from the past.

I had to smile and shake my head at the game tonight. Kiddo was playing First Base (after going 2/2 for singles) and yells...."I am playing like Rod Carew tonight".
Neither his teammates nor any of the parents had any clue what he was saying.....except for our family on the bleachers. We knew exactly what he was referring to.

[joehart]

Originally Posted by Magus978

Training players up while still trying to win will be a pain. Should still be able to win 80-85 games with that roster on pitching and offense alone while they become good at their positions.

Also, if you ever get put in a league with me, please don't beat me too badly. My ego is already fragile enough by the reality check that I stink at OOTP as it is

I think you are absolutely correct. I like how OOTP takes poor defense into account.

I always wondered if players get a drop in batting performance while they are busy training a new position (not sure if this is actually true in real life).
Baseball is such an ego and mind driven sport. I wonder if players overcompensate when they make more mistakes playing a new position.

I will let the kids know to look out for your team.

[joehart]

June / July report:

Updated Goal: My son expects to move into first place by September and then try to make it past the first round in the playoffs.
He wants to earn an extra 3000 points this season to help with future player purchases.



I have been trying to teach the kids more about the various stats and we continued reading some of the baseball metrics books.
I am happy to report that more and more discussions between them are starting to be about the various numbers instead of
trying to focus on just a single data point like ERA for pitchers.

They are also trying to develop their own check-mark system. I am still a bit confused on the inner workings (two kids with
different methodologies and plenty of subjective criterias) but they want to use it to

a. select future players
b. gauge performance of players during the season

Essentially, they questioned some of the ranking lists that you can get that help rank players.
Example, a pitcher with high stuff/high movement and very low control may be ranked higher than
a player with average ratings across all three areas.
So they started to apply a negative towards players that are too unbalanced (too many HR/9 or BB/9).


A lot of it still seems subjective and players seem to get double credit for the same performance but this is not my team and
I am trying to avoid looking too much over their shoulders. Instead, I will try to let them continue on their path and mention some areas of concern
without guiding them towards my decision making process.



Grades up to month of July (last two month):



Starters:

SP1 Bob Gibson - Grade A. You can't ask for more than what he delivered. Dominant performances and 15 Quality starts (.833 %).
He is the ace on the team with a 2.47 ERA/170 ERA+. 12 wins - 3 Losses. As my son put it: "We should find some videos of him pitching in real life".
Note to self: Make sure to get a Gibson baseball card for his birthday next month.

SP2 Zack Greinke - Grade B. Some of his last starts were below 6 innings but he kept the team in the game.
My son wants to up the number of pitches he is allowed to throw (105) to see if he can consistently finish 6 innings without giving up additional runs.
Most of the damage came at the very beginning so it was not an issue of lack of stamina. 2.77 ERA/151 ERA+. 8 Wins - 5 Losses.

The kids really like his average ratings across the board: 70 Stuff/72 Movement/77 Control.

I suggested to look at Corey Kluber (82/67/72) but I was told "we can't add him to the same team as Felix. He won the Cy Young when Felix
should have won that same year". Wow....they really seem to pay attention when AM sports radio is playing in the car or on their Nucleus (great video intercom system with Amazon
Alexa functionality).


SP3 Felix Hernandez - Grade C. Several games of 4-5 earned runs in June until he turned things around in July and pitched several
consecutive quality starts with just 1-2 ERs. He dropped his ERA to 3.98/105 ERA+.


SP4 Paul Splittorff - Grade B. 8 Wins - 4 Losses. 7 of his 10 starts were quality starts with just 1-2 earned runs. ERA at 3.05/138 ERA+.
He is almost on par with Bob Gibson in terms of Quality starts (11). At 1/3 the cost of Gibson, he is becoming a fan favorite for the kids.
The kids have identified Brett Anderson as the next purchase as his ratings are very similar. Unfortunately, he is not listed in the Auction House.
They asked me for more data about him but I have no record of him in the database yet as we only captured data from Perfect level.
The kids asked to once again record all player results for all levels and make them searchable in a db.


-SP5 Tommy John - Grade D. As the #5 pitcher on the team, he had fewer starts and did not deliver consistent results.
As a result, my son decided to move on and add Claude Passeau to the team. It was essentially an even trade in points.

+SP5 Claude Passeau - He was added at the end of July so no data is available yet.
His Stuff is low (55) but he has good Movement (74) and Control (76). He is a low velocity pitcher so my son hopes that he can pitch into the 8th inning in some of his games.






Relievers:

The boys do not have a reliable way to distinguish their relievers yet. The bullpen seems to be reliable so far and
with contradicting views on how to move forward and rate relievers, everthing is set on hold for now.
The kids have a wish list of top closers but given the lack of points, they want to make the most of their existing silver-level relievers.
Only Steve Howe received a small adjustment. He was given the Left-handed specialist assignment with a Middle Relief secondary role.

RP Trevor Hoffman - no grade yet.
RP Steve Howe - no grade yet.
RP Bobby Jenks - no grade yet.
RP Kent Tekulve - no grade yet.
RP Ryan Brasier - no grade yet.
CL Blake Treinen - no grade yet.


Catchers:

Talking about a short leash. The Smokey Burgess experiment has come to an end already and
Mike LaValliere has been added to the roster. Burgess was cold as a hitter and did not fit the long term goal
of building a defensive team. Essentially, an expensive gold card was sold in favor of a much cheaper top defensive catcher.


C Ivan Rodriguez - no assessment yet. He played too few games.
+ Mike LaValliere - added to the roster. No assessment yet.



Batters:

1B Keith Hernandez - Grade A. If it was not for the late start, he would probably challenge Goldschmidt and Rizzo for a Golden Glove award.
My son expects to see his name on the Batting and Fielding Leaders list before the end of the season.
He had a terrific June/July with an AVG of .324, OBP of .379 and OPS close to .900.

2B Travis Jackson - Grade A. Defense already climbed to 94 at 2B. OPS of .934. He is leading the team in bringing in runners (RBI: 64).

2B Cecil Travis - Grade C. Reliable supportive cast member. Defense at 2B is rising at a slow pace (25). When given an opportunity, he delivered great results (134 OPS+).

-2B Pete Runnels - no Grade. He was moved to the reserves and will be sold in the future.

+Infielder 2016 All-Star Francisco Lindor. Points from the sale of Smokey Burgess were used to aquire the 87 Gold Lindor card. He will be trained at all Infield positions before a
final decision is made on his final location in the lineup. His defense at SS is 103 so he should be a top notch defender at all other positions.

3B Johnny Pesky - Grade C. Defense at 3B climbing at a good rate (89) but he started slow and is just starting to hit for average consistently.
My son expected him to be much better vs. the league competition.


SS Larry Bowa - Grade A. Outperforming expectations. .305 AVG, good defense, and good base running. Stealing is still too aggressive and
adjustments to global strategy and individual player strategy still needs to be completed for all players.

LF Tony Gwynn - Grade A. .981 OPS while climbing in LF defense (56).

LF Pete Rose - Grade D. Has not met expectations. Average just .250. Has taken care of business when it comes to LHPs but he was expected to
also do well against RHPs. But to be fair, he has not played enough to really make an impact. July numbers were better than June.

CF Paul Blair - Grade C. Defensive superstar. ZR of 8.4 and going up quickly. He won't be able to catch up to Kiermaier but should be
runners-up for the Golden Glove in CF. His offense has not taken of yet. If his offense picks up, he should be a Grade B soon.


RF Ichiro Suzuki - Grade A. He brings top defense (8.0 ZR) and offense (.340 AVG, .849 OPS). He may be able to catch up and win a Golden Glove in RF.

RF Babe Herman - no Grade. He is not in the long term pland and just holds a spot for a future player.

+DH Tommy Holmes - Grade A. He was added to bring some needed Contact+Power against RHPs. .382 AVG after 21 games and 1.066 OPS.




- Matty Alou - Grade B. He did more than expected but was removed from the DH spot and moved to the reserves. Hit for contact .335 before getting pulled.
His HR Power (5) and positional rating (36 CF) was too low to justify keeping him for the long term. He will stay on the reserves for now.



Overall assessment:
Team is too good for Bronze and it shows. They are winning most of the games but there is a long term concern.
About 1/3 of the games are high scoring against much weaker competition. Good F2P teams are keeping up and winning games.
At this point my son wants to wait 2-3 more month (days) to see if this is due to the lack of defense at two infield (2B and 3B)
and one outfield (LF) position.


PPs: 5,752 due to sale of Smokey Burgess and Tommy John and one 1,500 PP award (win streak of 10 games).



Future purchases:
SS - Lou Boudreaux. Joe Cronin is also on the list of candidates but he is #2. Too expensive at this point.
SP - Low priority. Current lineup is reliable and good enough. Brett Anderson is a candidate but hard to find.
RP - Low priority. A long term Setup and Long reliever is on the wishlist. But without a reliable way to evaluate existing staff I don't see any investment coming this season.
LF - Medium priority.

Team owner: He wants to keep Gwynn but give him a RHB with top notch defense and make LF a platoon. Top candidate: Roberto Clemente (LF defense: 95)
Brother: He is suggesting to move on from Gwynn (won't go higher than mid-70s defense in LF) and add a single player to LF. Top candidate: 89 Ken Griffey Jr (LF defense: 93).
Dad: I stayed out of the conversation but I can see that there is more to be discussed. There will be a big hole in CF with no player being able to fill in
when Blair takes a breather. Neither Rose, Griffey, or Clemente are great in CF.


Other plans:
Once Pesky and Travis Jackson are fully trained, they will swap positions so they can train and eventually play 2B, 3B, and SS.
The goal is to have at least 3 players with 100+ Defense at the positions.

Similar swaps will happen in the outfield, Ichiro will have to learn LF while Paul Blair will need to learn LF and RF.

[joehart]

A lot has happened since we last reported on the status of the team.

Standings:
The Infinite Powers team was able to climb all the way to the top and tied for 1st place in the NC East Division.
This triggered a game 163 to determine which team would be able to skip the wild card race.




Game 163:
Greinke dominated the game and pitched 8.1 innings with 0 Earned Runs. This performance helped lower his ERA down to 2.88
making him the 3rd best pitcher behind Gibson and Splittorff.





Team changes and updates:

1. Claude Passeau was aquired during the last report so here are his stats for his last 12 starts.
He lead the team to 7 wins and 2 losses while pitching 81 innings (average of 6.2 innings) for an ERA of 3.11 (ERA+ of 134).
Essentially, he reached 2 WAR in just 12 games.
Felix Hernandez also reached 2 WAR but it took him 25 stars (12 win - 6 losses).


PP Earnings:
Bob Gibson: 1880 points (1500 for Domination award: 9 innings, 1 walk, 0 Hits, 0 Runs, 5Ks). Almost a Perfect game.
Zach Greinke: 610 points
Felix Hernandex: 0 points
Claude Passeau: 100 points
Paul Splittdorr: 100 points.

While Passeau is not a points earner like Bob Gibson, he is a reliable #3 or #4 starter pushing the much more expensive Felix Hernandez into the #5 pitching spot.





2. My son pulled the trigger on Roberto Clemente.
He will be the backup RF and platoon LF player (Gwynn/Clemente).

This created a bit of a nightmare since the team has no backup for Paul Blair in CF against RHPs.
Ichiro can play CF but he is already in the lineup against RHPs.

In other words, my son will have to find a solution next season.
Most likely, Pete Rose will be traded for a CF utility player like Richie Ashburn or Garry Maddox.





3. Francisco Lindor was added during the last report so here is his first recap of his performance.
46 Games started - .327 AVG, .401 OBP, .829 OPS, 129 OPS+, 1.3 WAR.

Again, my son is very happy with the addition. You can't ask for more from someone that came in to play SS and train at 1B.

Initially he was supposed to become the utility infielder on the team but his performance justified a full-time move to SS.
Once again, the team is without a utility infielder and a new player will have to be trained next season.
Larry Bowa can learn 2B and 3B but it is not clear if he will stay on the team for the long run.

Eventually my son still wants to find a way to get Lou Boudreau or maybe go for a 2019 Live player like Andrelton Simmons.


4. My son used his free achievement pack from playing regular OOTP to open one regular pack. He was lucky and pulled Diamond Juan Soto,
who was sold for 7,800 PPs.
He then opened 11 packs and sold a Diamond Paxton for 4,000 PP, a Joey Votto for 2,070 PP, and kept two Gold cards for the future:

A. Unsung Hero Closer Gene Garber (Gold 84) - 62 Stuff, 79 Movement, 88 Control.





He fits in perfectly and now all Relievers have 79 or higher Movement.
He decided to ignore the lack of Stuff for now and worry about it when his pitchers fail to keep the team in the game.




B. Future Legend Keston Hiura (Gold 89).
Hiura does not have elite defensive stats but should be able to reach 68 at 1B.
He hits for high contact against both LHPs and RHPs so he may be an ideal 1B replacement for Keith Hernandez or
platoon candidate for Left Handed 1B Hernandez and Left Handed DH Tommy Holmes.



My son has not decided how to make it happen and left him on the reserves for now.
He will be added once he has a long term plan or can start the training process.





Defensive training:
1. Travis Jackson is up to 105 at 2B (108 games to get from 0-105)
2. Johnny Pesky is up to 100 at 3B (130 games to get from 0-100)
3. Francisco Lindor is up to 39 at 1B (32 games)
4. Roberto Clemente is up to 37 in LF (23 games)
5. Tony Gwynn is up to 68 in LF (85 games)

[joehart]

PT playoffs have arrived....

The team secured a spot in the Division series (best of 5) and was matched up with the Chicago Penderloins (NC West division leader with a 87-75 record).

The opposing team featured a pitching staff with good control and two gold star pictures:

Hank Aguire - well balanced stats: 75 Stuff, 63 Movement, 64 Control.
Chris Paddack - great stuff with great control: 80 Stuff, 48 Movement, 89 Control.




Overall, our team looked better on paper so my son figured he would make it to the next round without too much trouble.
He was wrong. He lost the first game 12-0. Hank Aguirre pitched 9 innings with 7 Hits and no Runs and no Walks.
On his team, Bob Gibson gave up 5 ER in just 2.2 innings.
The series went back and forth (0-1, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2) before the all important 5th match in our own ballpark.

It was going to be a rematch between Hank Aguirre and Bob Gibson.
While not quite the rematch of epic proportions like Ali vs Joe Frazier in the Philippines (The Thrilla in Manila), it was enough for both boys to wait at the computer for the results.

This time, Gibson was able to last 5.1 innings and gave up only 2 hits.
Again, Aguirre was the better pitcher but his team failed him with 3 Errors and 3 additional Unearned Runs.



The Woodinville team would move on to the next round with a much needed win.



Semi Finals (Best of 7) against the Pangalactic Gargleblasters

I had to tell the kids that the Gargle Blaster was from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is described as "like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped 'round a large gold brick."

It gave the kids a great laugh and now I am on the hook to make a non-alcoholic sour drink that makes them feel like they had a "Gargleblaster".


The series went very unexpected. We expected to have some trouble with pitchers focused on high stuff (less movement and control).
but as quickly as the series started, it was over.
My son won 2-0, 6-1, 5-1, and 3-0 and secured his first spot in the finals.




My son reminded me of the kid he faced yesterday in his baseball game, the kid was a flame thrower and could throw far harder than
any kid we have seen this season in Little league.

Unfortunately, his lack of control put my son on base pretty quickly.
Perfect team matches real baseball....without Movement and Control, Stuff alone is not enough to win.



Finals (Best of 7) against the Boulder Blue.

With 5 Diamond players, 11 Gold players and a few silver pitchers, we expected this to be a long battle for the title.
However, with many Left Handed starters on the team this was going to be a problem. We knew that we would not do well against Left Handed pitchers.

And exactly that happened...the team lost the first match 2-5 against LHP Fernando Valenzuela and then 6-9 against LHP Patrick Corbin.
With 3 away games next, this will be a tough one to solve.

However, the unexpected happened and the team won 3 games in a row
despite being drawn into high scoring games.



With two opportunities to win it all, my son got really excited and made some last minute adjustments. For the last game, he decided to put in Paul Splittorff, who had the lowest WHIP in the league.

His hope was to keep the game number of hits and final score low so he could take advantage of his top notch defense.

Even though Patrick Corbin proved to be the better pitcher, Splittorff kept the score low and the team won the championship when Blake Treinen and Corey Knebel gave up additional runs late in the game.





First championship in the books. Congrats to my son and his brother who had a blast this season.

Awards won:

Golden Glove: Ichiro Suzuki (RF)
Silver Slugger: Tony Gwynn (LF)
Pitcher of the Year: Bob Gibson (SP)


Now it is time to fix the mistakes made last season.

[joehart]

When my son build his team, he did not always pay attention to his training.

He placed players into new roles without checking to see if they would be better in other roles. In other words, we try to place players into positions where they can make the most of their Defensive rating skills (Range, Error, Arm, Double Play):

3B - focus on Infield Arm
2B - focus on Infield Error and Infield Range, and Double Play
SS - focus on Infield Range and Double Play.
1B - focus on Height.

So based on that, it would have been better to move Travis Jackson to 3B (103 Arm) instead of 2B (78 Error).
At the same time, Johnny Pesky would have been better at 2B (92 Error) instead of 3B (96 Arm).

With the points collected from the playoffs and championship, Joe Cronin was acquired. He fits perfectly at SS with his 103 Infield Arm and 103 Double Play.

This move freed up Francisco Lindor to become the Infield Utility player
and Larry Bowa was moved to the Reserves.

Other adjustments before the start of the new season:

+1B - Keston Hiura
- Cecil Travis

+ CF DomDimaggio (new CF backup)
- LF Pete Rose

[Crash]

Ha! this is great. You have so much more detail and knowledge to this game than I do. Enjoyed reading this and will continue to follow!

My 13yr old is playing ootp20 with me as well. We are free teams, he prefers his online currency for fortnite.

I joined #1 with everyone else, got slotted in silver off the bat and haven't had a winning season. Save all points for packs.

#2 I purposely waited for the first league to start and joined the entry pool that same Monday. Won 98 games and missed the playoffs. now I've won the Iron WS and just missed the playoffs in Bronze. Earned a crazy amount of PP in entry pool and leagues and just keep updating this all Giants team. Running out of sub 10k players, will be more of a grind soon.

#3 my sons team, Morada Mustangs. Just logged into see his team, He has 15k saved and he just won the bronze series. Great for him, he'll be excited to hear it but he hasn't logged in since last Monday. He has a much subpar team but now in a higher league than my #2 team. funny how this all works out.

[joehart]

thank you. We have tried to pick up on what some of the other great managers are doing and it has been a blast playing the game as a family.

We will keep a look out for your team....I am sure we will cross path at one point or another.

Good luck with your teams and your pack opening.
Personally, I don't have that much luck with packs but the kids are way ahead in their odds when it comes to getting Diamond players.

[joehart]

A new Season has arrived. Welcome to Silver 286 !!!


The team is almost all set for the season so we don't expect too many moves anymore.

The only major addition was Brett Anderson.
After great seasons from Claude Passeau and Paul Splittorff, my son wanted another player with similar stats.
My son hopes to continue to make up the lack of Stuff with great Infield defense.




Defensive training:
Keston Hiura: reached 22 at 1B
Johnny Pesky: reached 46 at 2B
Travis Jackson: reached 52 at 3B
Tony Gwynn: reached 73 in LF


The only other change was the addition of DomDiMaggio, who was added as the backup Outfield utility player
(mostly for CF to backup Paul Blair).
He is on the team to provide great defense in the outfield...nothing else.




As mentioned last season, my son is still looking for a long term replacement but none of them have shown up in the Auction House.

[joehart]

Just as I walked into the door, my son told me that he pulled a "Mallex Smith".
For non-Seattle fans, Mallex Smith was traded to Seattle but before he could pack his bags and travel to Seattle, he was traded again to Tampa Bay.

DomDiMaggio went through the same, he was acquired and traded away on the same day.
Richie Ashburn was not available in the AH but another great defensive player showed up: Carlos Gomez.

Gomez meets the criteria for defense (95 in CF) and brings some extra speed, stealing, and base running to the team.
The purchase was possible thanks to the sale of Felix Hernandez.