Season 5 (2023) Discussion: 4/22 - 4/28

[Westheim]

Great news, I am in a league with Oggy!

Did you know that Oggy can make the ratings of historical cards change?

Ah. What fun.

There's also my rosters for Opening Day, same as in the roster value thread, but eh, why not put up the info. I am hoping for more performance out of Swannie this year. Last year I accidentally listed him with a 79 rating, and he was moping all season long.

[neugey]

I'm still in Silver league and currently seeing an interesting configuration ...
AL has 2 6-team divisions and the NL I'm in has 2 5-team divisions. Not quite what I expected. I think I'm going to start getting pretty familiar with my NL neighbors!

[OMGPuppies]

My Aina Haina, Ewa Beach, and Kaneohe teams are in a league with you Germaniac! They are all f2p , so don't expect much.

[CurlyKarkovice]

Hey Racoons! I'm in your division, team Miami Jaws. Good luck this year!

[OMGPuppies]

Originally Posted by CurlyKarkovice

Hey Racoons! I'm in your division, team Miami Jaws. Good luck this year!

Reported. LOL JK.

[Westheim]

Big Walt already has 440 PP this year.

Which is three times the rest of the Coons' output combined. 13 games in, four batters have a negative OPS+. NEGATIVE. Not... under 100. NEGATIVE.

Yikes. Gonna be a long season.

[waittilnextyear]

Don't call them toads! That's right, your favorite Frogs will be battling in D357 this week. Just a fleck of the tongue away from getting to Perfect League (despite having exactly zero perfect cards). Even if it's a very short stay indeed...The team has continued to advance 1 level each week so far. Gotta keep it going.

It's interesting to see the diversity of teams in my diamond league. I wouldn't categorize any of them as "whales" in the same way that the Auburn Doubledays were a massive whale in my gold league last week. There are a few teams that are more diamonded-out than others, but there are other teams with zero diamond cards. For a couple of teams, it appears to be their 2nd or even 3rd go round already at the diamond level. Egads.

Unfortunately for me, two of the most decorated teams reside in my division. The Spokane Indians have 21 diamonds, 2 perfects, and 2 golds on their active roster. The Long Island Pizza Rats have 18 diamonds, 1 perfect, and 6 golds. My other 2 division-mates are more comparable to my roster, which contains 5 diamonds, 13 golds, 4 silvers, and 3 bronzes.

After winning 99 games (but no playoff games) last week, there wasn't a whole lot of need (or PP if I'm being truly honest) to rebuild. The starting rotation continues to see the most "churn" from week to week. Out are Dave Stieb, Matt Morris, and Mike Hampton. In are Tom Glavine, Bucky Walters, and C.J. Wilson. The bullpen continues to be among the best each week--fresh arms Felipe Vazquez and Lou Trivino should certainly help that continue.

[Magus978]

21 games in, and I've begun rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Acquisitions of Paul Waner and Todd Hundley have not been enough to help a struggling Patriots offense that is also dealing with their ace getting out of the gate very slowly and their bullpen picking up right where they left off last season by being one dumpster fire after another.

The powers that be have informed the Patriots players that no further help will be brought in over the next two or three days, so it's up to them to decide if they want to snap out of it and start performing to the expectation of a division title. Otherwise, I will have to make wholesale changes.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

I wouldn't categorize any of them as "whales" in the same way that the Auburn Doubledays were a massive whale in my gold league last week.

Yet they did not win the championship.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Yet they did not win the championship.

True, but they won the most regular season games by far. The playoffs are a bit of a crapshoot, but nice work taking that team down.

[Warhawk]

Well, lousy start again for the White Tigers. deGrom's ERA is over 5 although mostly that was his first 2 starts, he's allowed 5 runs in his last 3. We've got the most strikeouts but we're 17th in ERA. Bullpen has been pretty mediocre, I sent Corbin down, and Minter and Vazquez are playing like crap, but at least Treinen and Gossage have been solid. The real problem is my lineup. I only have 2 players over 100 in OPS+. The only bright spot is Judge who went from .225/.325/.346 last season to .222/.352/.556 this season. He's on pace for 42 home runs after hitting only 16 last season. On the other hand, my perfect Guerrero Jr. who hit .323/.375/.532 last year is hitting .211/.330/.267 this season, that's over a 300 point drop in OPS. Carpenter went from 4 straight seasons with his worst OPS being his first (in Bronze) at .776 to having an OPS of .521 this season; I have Alonso too but he's hitting .157, I might bring up Jim Bottomley and see if he can get anything going. Machado is batting .184, he gets worse every season, I project he'll be hitting under .100 2 or 3 seasons from now. Should probably replace him with Tulowitzki or something. Might do that depending on how the moves I just made bringing Bottomley and Robles up, moving Guerrero from DH to third, and moving Bellinger to DH, work out. Grandal is hitting .128 and I've already benched him for Sanchez who's the other guy with a decent OPS. Stanton, Bellinger, and Pujols are at least OK.

Black Panthers, who missed the playoffs by 1 game last season in Silver, are now 6-16. Sixto Sanchez has an ERA of 6.83, McHugh is over 8. LIneup isn't too bad except LeMahieu went from hitting over .300 last season to .161 so far this season.

Golden Lions are doing alright at 12-9. Pitching is kinda crap but our closer has an ERA under 1 and Severino is somehow 3-0 despite having the worst FIP in the rotation. Lineup has been doing well and future legend Tatis hasn't even hit well yet, if he gets it going we could be really good on offense.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by CurlyKarkovice

Hey Racoons! I'm in your division, team Miami Jaws. Good luck this year!

Sorry I'm not able to give you any sort of challenge.

Walter Johnson is 4-0. Every other pitcher combined? 8-24.

28th in runs scored, 27th by ERA.

Doom.

[mrbucket]

Foreigners leading the way in each division!

[Warhawk]

Originally Posted by Warhawk

Well, lousy start again for the White Tigers. deGrom's ERA is over 5 although mostly that was his first 2 starts, he's allowed 5 runs in his last 3. We've got the most strikeouts but we're 17th in ERA. Bullpen has been pretty mediocre, I sent Corbin down, and Minter and Vazquez are playing like crap, but at least Treinen and Gossage have been solid. The real problem is my lineup. I only have 2 players over 100 in OPS+. The only bright spot is Judge who went from .225/.325/.346 last season to .222/.352/.556 this season. He's on pace for 42 home runs after hitting only 16 last season. On the other hand, my perfect Guerrero Jr. who hit .323/.375/.532 last year is hitting .211/.330/.267 this season, that's over a 300 point drop in OPS. Carpenter went from 4 straight seasons with his worst OPS being his first (in Bronze) at .776 to having an OPS of .521 this season; I have Alonso too but he's hitting .157, I might bring up Jim Bottomley and see if he can get anything going. Machado is batting .184, he gets worse every season, I project he'll be hitting under .100 2 or 3 seasons from now. Should probably replace him with Tulowitzki or something. Might do that depending on how the moves I just made bringing Bottomley and Robles up, moving Guerrero from DH to third, and moving Bellinger to DH, work out. Grandal is hitting .128 and I've already benched him for Sanchez who's the other guy with a decent OPS. Stanton, Bellinger, and Pujols are at least OK.

Sorta scrapped it and went with my second plan around noon today. Stuck Tulo at SS, Guerrero at third, Pujols at first (rookie Pujols to be specific), brought up Joc Pederson to play in left and moved Stanton to DH, and after losing 2 of 3 I went on a 7 game win streak before losing my most recent game. Still in last place but before that streak I was sitting at 13-22. Starting pitching is still kinda lousy (except for Kluber of all people; he's been way better than deGrom, Syndergaard, Sale, and Verlander, and they all have higher overall ratings). Gossage has 5 losses and a crap ERA but he's only blown one save in 14 chances, so, not sure what to make of that. We're first in home runs; Judge is 2nd in the conference and Stanton is 3rd. Pederson has 5 home runs in 11 games so far.

[Westheim]

The Raccoons switched out six players at once roughly a week ago. Since then, I have witnessed a... total lack of improvement.

Ah, and only 20 PP in two weeks. Yikes.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by mrbucket

Foreigners leading the way in each division!

That conference is really looking hot blooded. Playing head games with the American teams. Some of those teams truly are a long, long way from home.

[Magus978]

Things have taken a strong turn for the better from the first night of the new season. From 12-14 and last in the division, to 26-18 and now a 3.5 game lead. A 15-4 record in the month of May has been capped by strong pitching, the team's achilles heel last season. Bullpen ERA is holding steady at 3.52 (last season it was in the mid-4's), and the starting pitching has been better than expected, with Rick Reed leading the way from the #2 hole at 7-1 and a 3.05 ERA.

New acquisitions Todd Hundley and Paul Waner are doing exactly what they were brought in to do: Mash & Cash, while another new acquisition, Randy Hundley, has provided more quality at the position in only a handful of games than Mike Lieberthal ever did

I want that promotion to bronze this season, so I really hope this continues.

[neugey]

Wonders never cease ... just faced Perfect Cy Young at silver level and came out with a 5-0 win! Silver Gwynn and Mark Grace went to work on Cy. My only diamond SP Gary Peters put the team on his back and only allowed 3 hits.

Cy had a 0.56 ERA going in and I bumped him down to a 1.03. Progress

[old timer]

Now that the Raccoons are in silver, I decided to try a high contact offense. The only power comes when we play lefties. So far we're hitting .300 and are #1 in R so that part is working well. Only Smoky Burgess is not hitting well (.212 AVG, with a 91 contact vs R and he's being platooned) and combine that with his poor defense... Maybe I just need to swap him out. I like to keep players in for a while, but if they keep playing poorly long enough (usually about 2 months), I'll send them to the reserve.

At the moment, the defense is costing our pitching a bit too much (it's currently 9th in ZR), but that's because I'm training 3 players at new positions (because I always like to train too many players at once). Now that the trainees are improving their defense, we should be winning at a better clip. We're only 26-25 (-2 Pyt), but that's not too bad and it's still early in the season.

[CurlyKarkovice]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Sorry I'm not able to give you any sort of challenge.

Walter Johnson is 4-0. Every other pitcher combined? 8-24.

28th in runs scored, 27th by ERA.

Doom.

No challenge!? You just took 2 out of 3 from me and we split a 4 game set earlier so pretty good. Just curious, is your Walter Johnson card an awesome pull from a pack?

Anyway, I think San Diego Music will run away with the division if having all diamond cards are any indication. Bradtown Brads looking good only 1/2 a game back right now they are mostly Gold Cards as far as I can see.