Season 15 (2033) Discussion: 3/11/19 - 3/17/19

[DrTobiasFunke]

As we approach the end of the regular season, let's check in on my Sidewinders. Sitting at 87-54, they have again proved adept at adjusting to promotion and are currently odds on favorites to take the American Conference's first seed. On the pitching side of things, it hasn't been a repeat of the dominant silver performance they put in:



Vic Raschi has been shockingly human and lost the closer spot to D-Train, while my most impressive day one starter has been Bob Ojeda (Go figure). Dave Stieb got himself back into the starting rotation after Dock Ellis had another rough start to the season, and it looks like he may hold onto the spot as well. Pete Schourek is on the bubble in the rotation, though I'd likely replace Jim Abbott on the roster if another LHP was added.



Meanwhile, the bats have woken up after a down season last year. After simply embarrassing himself with 15 HRs this season, Hack Wilson has been a force to reckon with and sits at or near the top in a bunch of batting stats. Phil Rizzuto has had a very strong season at 2nd base as well, while Lonnie Smith keeps giving me no reason to even consider moving away from the my RF platoon. George Vukovich continues to scoff at any notions of overall ratings being at all meaningful, while actually pushing Garry Maddox to take time from Pete Rose during Maddox's own excellent season.

Looking at the newer additions, A-Rod has added a bit more power over Jose Vidro while having higher upside as defensive 1st baseman, while Tony Fernandez almost has me thinking I could free up the Mark Belanger roster spot (Almost...). Didi Gregorious and Bert Campaneris have formed a fine 3rd base platoon, and I can live with whatever George Kell and McGriff are doing at the DH. Catchers are especially awful this year, so it may be approaching time that I find some new ones.

Also, I suppose I'd issue one request, that if anyone has a legend 86 OVR Tris Speaker that they don't want anymore, I'd love a shot at it on the AH. I like me some Charlie Hustle but would love to get him off my basepaths.

[Maddox]

Originally Posted by Maddox

The first place team in my league is 61-20 , so in spite of me being 13 games above .500 at 48-35 I am already 14 games behind and relegated to playing for a wildcard berth.

The first place team has an all diamond lineup and rotation (including 3 or 4 perfect cards) so I don't have any reasonable chance to catch them.

I actually caught up with that team. I have gone 28-14 in the last two months and they went 16-28.

[Kushiel]

Good luck everybody in your pennant races across PT tonight. Another exciting PT season comes to an end as we await 2.0 I am a Steam user though so I have to wait until next Friday.

Thanks Markus and all the PT staff for a new part of the game that has really got me involved in OOTP at much more intense level.

[waittilnextyear]

After several winning months in a row, it was looking like the Cubs were recapturing some of their bronze-level dominance. But, alas, a 17-10 August has given way to a 6-11 September. The team has sunk back under .500 at 72-76.

The 1st place Utica Blue Sox have been slumping marvelously in Silver .324's apparent weakest division--they've gone 17-29 since August 1st. So it's only a 6.5 game deficit for the Cubs (that feels much larger) with 14 to play.

Part of the reason Coulee's momentum has been stopped is a really brutal string of starts by staff ace Larry Dierker. He's only been on the team for one season and change, but he's in a funk that hasn't been seen before. He has given up at least 4 runs in 7 of his last 8 starts and has lost 5 of his last 7 decisions. From among the Cy Young contenders to a pumpkin.

The Cubs will use the final part of the season to tinker and see if they can finish about .500 at the same time.

[Westheim]

Magic number is five!

Time to go to bed.

[waittilnextyear]

It all comes down to this...the Cubs are 2 games back in Silver .324 and heading on the road for 3 games against the team they are chasing. This scenario has all the stops coming out. Noticing that the enemy team is RHB-heavy and Patrick Corbin was due up in the rotation for Coulee, the Cubs will be starting relief pitcher/RHB-killer Craig Stammen. The starting rotation is being tossed into the bullpen for a game in this high risk/high reward strategy. Of course, switching the position of each SP to RP eeks out a little bit of a stuff bonus as well. Here we go...

[Westheim]

Ended up winning the division with a cushion. The Raccoons will be the #3 seed again. Patrick Corbin won both the ERA title and tied for the most wins for me, but got nowhere near the strikeout crown.

With the flush of PP I got some more packs, even pulled a gold card… and of course another duplicate (Xander Bogaerts).

[Izz]

91-71 record for the Hoggs nets them their division, and for the first time in ages they performed exactly as their run differential suggested they should.

Midway through the sim today the Hoggs were dead last in the conference in slugging and OPS, as they had been all season, but roared home to finish mid-conference (7th) in OPS and 4th, 6th, and 9th in BA, OBP and SLG respectively.

Lincecum went 22-7 with a 3.00 ERA to notch the most wins of any pitcher on my side of the league and put himself in with a good shot at Pitcher of Year honors. Rollie Fingers picked up 43 saves, league-best and first time he's saved more than 40 for me in a season.

Used my hard-saved PP (pulled an Arenado in a Challenge Mode pack this week as well and sold him for 7.5 K, which helped) to buy Norm Cash. Have slotted him straight into my lineup vs RHP but I didn't properly think things through, as now my lineup vs LHP is skewed. I was using Bill Terry as my starting 1B against LHB, and Cleon Jones as my starting 1B against RHB. Jones was starting in LF against LHP, and can easily move to 1B but that leaves me a hole in the outfield. Short term solution is to call Joe Medwick up to play against LHP in the playoffs but what do I do next season? Do I go back to 4 SP so I can run an extra hitter? I went back to 5 SP this season because I thought I was missing out on PP for complete games and strikeouts but apart from the no-hitter (the only 1 I've had in PT) my pitchers only threw 1 other shutout and only struck out 10+ twice, so maybe 4 SP is a viable option.

Jones also hit .300 for me against RHP this season so how can I still get him hitting against RHB? Have him backing up Waner in LF every 3-4 games? Have him replace Waner? Waner is still the superior hitter against RHP, imo. Questions, questions, questions. Oh well. I've got a day to mull over them, at least

[Kushiel]

The Yaks won their division and are lining up their sights on their playoff playoff opponents. They just concluded a very tough Division race against a fine team, the Seoul Scumbags.

Polaris made the Diamond playoffs again. This time as the second wildcard. Three Fingers Brown will be trying to pitch them past the wildcard game and into the playoffs.

Loose Cannons faltered in their first Perfect season as expected. They played hard though and were not embarrassed. It will be a long road for this Cannon team to even make the playoffs in Perfect. But they are proud of their achievement in getting here and will not roll over. They are a quick little team that will expose your catcher if you have chosen an offensive backstop with less than elite throwing skills.

[Izz]

The Healy Hoggs swept their way past the Pahrump Scorpions, the best offensive team in the NC, in the Division Series. They now go on to face the Rockville Robins, the best overall team, in the Sub-League Series. The Robins' pipped the Hoggs for the best pitching this season, while also scoring plenty, so it will be an uphill fight for Healy.

[Westheim]

(wails) Bopped from the LDS in four games, including two blowouts. Sigh.

[Izz]

The Hoggs are into the Diamond Level Series! Not sure who we'll play yet but was pretty surprised to sweep the Rockville Robins to get there.

This means that, regardless of the DL Series result, I'm off to Perfect next season. So, I've made my goal of getting my FTP team into Perfect before OOTP 20. Just.

I have no illusions that I'll be competitive in the top tier next season but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. My lineup conundrums have just got very real!

My Series' opponents are either the Berkeley Flying Squirrels or the Masters of Defense. MoD leads the Sub-League Series 3-2. As their name suggests, they are a defensively-oriented team, though their ballpark is maxed for homers, good for BA, but not so good for XBH. The Flying Squirrels are a strong offensive force with above-average pitching who play in a neutral, artificial-turf ballpark. I'd rather play them if I had the choice.

[waittilnextyear]

Coulee ended up going 81-81 in their first season of silver baseball. It wasn't quite enough to make the playoffs as the team needed to sweep its final series, but lost 2 of 3 games instead. The Cubs were the Pythagorean division champions though at 86-76 (that and $7.50 will get you a cup of coffee these days).

The Cubs are planning a major roster reconstruction based around groundballers and infield defense. After looking over the roster in more depth, it was a bit wasteful having flyball pitchers backed by an elite defensive infield. Even if those pitchers did lead the conference in ERA.

[whobob]

Where do you go to see your team's record against other teams?

[naterg1]

Despite one of my teams starting out with two awful months, including a 10-20 start, and about three days away from my computer, I ended up in the playoffs in all three of my leagues.
Only one of my teams is still alive, but they are in the Gold Championship Series and destined for Diamond. Here’s hoping I move up with a second championship to my name.

[waveruin]

It's a sad day in Cloudsdale... Made it to the Silver .365 finals but faltered at the last minute. Hopefully next season will be better for the Bolts.

[Izz]

The Hoggs lost their Diamond Level Series 4-2 to the Masters of Defense who, somewhat ironically, committed 3 errors in Game 6 but still did enough to win, coming from behind in the 8th and 9th to run out 11-7 winners.

[Westheim]

After months and months in the game and hundreds of packs I have opened a Future Legend card for the very first time - Adonis Medina (76). Gonna try that one in the coming season, because the stats ain't half bad: 75/61/74. And it is not like silver pitchers can't compete at the diamond level...

[naterg1]

The Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks fell behind after losing games 1 and 2 of the Championship in Gold .355.
It looked like Spring Grove was going to all but put the series away in game 3, leading my Crybaby Geeks 4-1 going to the bottom of the 6th. However, doubles by Buster Posey and Willie Wilson and a single by Jose Altuve, pulled Vanderlyle back within 1 run. Then Roberto Clemente hit a leadoff homerun in the 7th to tie the game at 4. The game remained tied until the 15th, when Josh Donaldson drew a bases loaded, full count walk to win the game and change the direction of the series.
Vanderlyle oustcored Spring Grove 13-4 in the next to games to go up 3-2 in the series.
Game 6 was back in Spring Grove. An Altuve home run and a Buster Posey RBI double would be just enough to give the Crybaby Geeks a 2-1 win and the championship trophy!
On to Diamond!

[Izz]

Originally Posted by Westheim

After months and months in the game and hundreds of packs I have opened a Future Legend card for the very first time - Adonis Medina (76). Gonna try that one in the coming season, because the stats ain't half bad: 75/61/74. And it is not like silver pitchers can't compete at the diamond level...

Medina has amazing splits vs RHB, if I recall correctly.