Season 21 Discussion thread

[bailey]

The Magpies shoot out of the gate 7-0 before staggering to a 15-4 start good for 2nd place and 4 games behind the Ann Arbor Space Cadets who have also played 19 games. I post this to jinx them. I don't play them until May 8, so they should lose a few before then, no?

[Magus978]

After winning with two teams last week, is it bad that I'm already fixing to check out for the week? Some very indifferent starts among my teams and the realization that the leagues this week are tougher than last week, so I'm not looking to drive myself crazy trying to win.

Maybe a quiet Sunday is just what the Magus ordered, but that's a long ways off.

[Westheim]

Very apprehensive in my approach to PT today, like a wild animal engaging with the bait from the outside of a giant steel cage live trap. The reason? The Raccoons are 16-11 in Perfect after April, which made me wonder at first whether my dark sorcery had worked, and then whether they had been accidentally scheduled to play between six and … well, 27 games against the boys from the Willamette Institute for the Limbless and the Blind*, but apparently that didn't happen either…

Just taking my PT with a grain o' salt here…

The 7-19 Rebs appear to be in over their gray caps, clinching a silver goody for ten lost battles in a row in their first season in Gold. Weird. There isn't even a Tecumsehs team in the league…

Accountants aren't much better, 10-16, also in last place. Bad luck seems involved though with most offensive stats seeing them rank much higher than their actual number of runs scored. Probably a case of a few of those 0-for-12 games with RISP. … or doom is near.

+++

*dynasty running gag

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs got out of the gate 10-1 today in P412 and ended up with a 20-7 mark after the first day of sims. A successful day overall and a 1.5 game lead in the division (probably short-lived as one of the two division whales is on a 7-game winning streak and will likely reel me in soon). The team also got to bat against Cool Papa Bell in one of the games and only scored 2 runs off of him in 3.2 IP. I was unaware that Cool Papa Bell had pitching ratings until perusing that box score. The more you know...whoosh.

Made a few adjustments and the team is feeling a bit less sluggish than in recent weeks...

One of the changes involved bringing in Tony Pena to platoon with Mike LaValliere. I've toyed around with extreme offensive and defensive catchers before, but this will be the strongest defensive tandem I've used yet. Buster Posey had been difficult to remove due to his success hitting lefty pitching, but after several weeks of bad LIVE updates for him, Posey has been banished to the inactive roster for the forseeable future. If Tony Pena hits his weight I'd be pretty pleased and so far he's slashing .364/.364/.515.

Another change is going back to the standard 5-man rotation. The Frogs used a 4-man unit last week (mostly because the price of 97 Bob Gibson spiked and I couldn't resist selling him) and I didn't like how that felt. Lots of starts being made at 70% health resulting in 78-pitch outings and a badly exposed bullpen. Plus, it's unclear to me how effective the starting pitcher is in the early innings pitching on short rest. So, Chris Short has been moved out of the bullpen and into the rotation to join Clemens/Sabathia/Scherzer/Plank.

The last change was to re-tweak the ballpark factors from extreme contact to merely half-way to extreme contact. I realized the team had the most success with contact modifiers less than 1.1, so we're trying 1.05 again.

Finally, I'm continuing the "packs only" diversion even though it failed pretty miserably last week. The team is now slightly over 400 packs opened (still none with real money) and still waiting on that first perfect card or valuable historical diamond to reveal itself. In fact, I've yet to unearth a card that fetches more than 15K on the AH. My [flawed] logic here is that my team is nearly maxed out for F2P and it's getting to the point where I need to spend 30-50K on the AH just to make a marginal upgrade. So, hoping to hit on something that's a bit more than marginal by using [wasting] all my PP on packs. lol. Maybe I can be one of those guys that accumulates 1000 PP, opens just one pack, and a card worth 300K pops out? It could happen...

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes relied heavily on pitching in their 1st gold season to get to 14-13 despite a -5 run differential, the hitting has been awful. Surely it can only get better, though it seems like my division is loaded with pitching

Bad News Bulldogs are the number one offensive team in the league but have struggled to a 13-12 record due to poor pitching, Pete Donohue is giving up 4 walks per 9 despite his 82 control. Not really much option besides hoping it gets better.

Neuman Furshlugginers have started life in silver well with a 15-10 record despite the offence not firing on all cylinders yet, top of the order has been great (Pinson/Gwynn/Jim Ray Hart) the rest have been subpar. Pitching has been very strong

[Izz]

B'sin'Glou finished up 65-97 last season. We're 13-13 so far this season.

Decided to keep the 100 All Star Trout I pulled towards the end of last week. I could've sold it, bought the 100 Live Trout and the rest of the live Angels to complete that mission and get some nice returns but I don't know if I can part with my first pulled v20 perfect just yet... So far he's slashing .289/.430/.522, with 6 homers, 21 runs and 23 walks. He's also a big upgrade at CF, even if his defensive stats aren't showing it, and he'll quickly train up at the corners.

My other big change was to make LaValliere my starting catcher vs RHP. Not that he's better offensively vs RHP than Jason Kendall but he's much better defensively. With the generally terrible early innings defense I have (bar Aparicio and now Trout), perhaps his catching skills might give my poor pitchers some help.

Am giving Mitch Keller a go in the rotation this season and he threw a Maddux in his 5th start to repay the favor. I'm not expecting much more from him this season, tbh, though right now he does have the best ERA and FIP of my rotation.

[Orcin]

The Colonels, 22-3, have had a terrific start to the season. "I believe in our guys," said Louisville skipper Orcin. "I like the energy they're playing with."

Newcomer Joe DiMaggio is batting .330 and leading the team with 18 RBIs. DiMaggio needed a place to play so I benched Willie Mays against RHP and let him platoon with Yaz at DH until I decided on a permanent solution. Hank Aaron started slowly and Mays soon pushed him into the platoon with Yaz with Joe D playing RF. Mays has a 1.16 OPS so I think that might be the permanent solution. First world problems, I know..

[BigRed75]

After a disastrous two weeks AFK, I am back and so are the Redlegs. Luckily I arrived back from vacation in time to steer them away from a double relegation, and now begins the work to get back to Perfect. With an 80,000+ PP war chest thanks to selling my duplicate Joe Morgan, we need pitching. I have a pitcher I've targeted, and we've got enough, but we just need him to appear in the AH. I've only seen him twice. With my luck he was on the AH eleventy billion times in the past two weeks and I had no way of knowing.

Oh yeah...on the field. On the field we went 15-11 in the first month and just won our first Tuesday game, good enough for third place in the a very competitive division. How competitive? Well, we're 1 1/2 games out of first and in the second WC spot. Plus, the two teams in front of us are also OL teams.

Early days, but if we can just get back to the playoffs this week, then who knows? I'd like to actually try and manage in Perfect instead of just being along for the ride.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Marleigh

Ban News Bulldogs stay in silver but are transformed by a huge diaomnd pack pull, in come Jose Rijo, Paul Derringer, Pete Donohue at Sp, and almost a full new lineup including Peak Rose, Eric Davis, SE Pinson, SE Concepcion, hopefully if my auctions sell i can also bring in peak Larkin. I've done all of the reds collection so its just a case of saving for the top end players now

Good luck with that Paul Derringer. He's been an absolute flaming bag of dog poo for me.

[CrazyWR]

Decided to put in Cal Ripken that I got for one of the Orioles missions for Scott Rolen at 2B. I lose a little bit of offense and a bit more defense but not a ton and Rolen isn't locked so I can sell him for 30k hopefully. Need to use that money to upgrade my rotation or my middle infield where I'm still platooning Pesky and Trammell.

Started off 10-2 yesterday so maybe last season's final week addition of John Clarkson will pay off this year.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

Another change is going back to the standard 5-man rotation. The Frogs used a 4-man unit last week (mostly because the price of 97 Bob Gibson spiked and I couldn't resist selling him) and I didn't like how that felt. Lots of starts being made at 70% health resulting in 78-pitch outings and a badly exposed bullpen. Plus, it's unclear to me how effective the starting pitcher is in the early innings pitching on short rest.

The Ann Arbor Space Cadets have been using a 4 man starting rotation for many weeks effectively. He uses 8 bullpen pitchers to make it work. And you cannot argue with 28-1 to start this season. It is a good bet that one of the wild card teams will be a 120+ game winner. He has 1 starter I don't have: Curt Schilling and 1 starter in common: Ed Walsh. His other 2 starters I also have, but in my bullpen. On paper, I have a stronger pitching staff, but I am now 5 games behind. Perhaps, it will be like last week where my team muddled about and surged after the All-Star break when I had a streak of 36-1.

[PocketsAintFull]

Okay, I've never had this much PP on one team before, way too much pressure

Considering I've sold 3 of my most valuable players on my Islanders team, their 14-19 record so far isn't all that bad

[Westheim]

New highest profit on a transaction for the Accountants, making 8,999 PP on a 1975 Rich Gossage.

Still no clue what to throw my own 43k PP at... no high-profile card I have added has clicked for a long time.....

[PocketsAintFull]

Originally Posted by Westheim

New highest profit on a transaction for the Accountants, making 8,999 PP on a 1975 Rich Gossage.

Still no clue what to throw my own 43k PP at... no high-profile card I have added has clicked for a long time.....

I feel like I've found a secret part of the sweet shop, but it makes things way too confusing

[CrazyWR]

Originally Posted by bailey

The Ann Arbor Space Cadets have been using a 4 man starting rotation for many weeks effectively. He uses 8 bullpen pitchers to make it work.

If you don't mind looking - does he have a pitch count for his starters/are his bullpen guys all starters/strict order or highest rested?

I've been tempted to try it out but I'm concerned about so many starts on short rest

[Caedus]

Drew my fifth perfect (out of probably 1500-1600 packs), the third on my Letterkenny team.

It was Letterkenney’s third 100 Lindor. That’s my eight perfect drawn across PT (DeGrom, Betts and Trout in ‘19, Arenado, Chapman, Lindor, Lindor, Lindor, in ‘20).

At this point I’d rather see the Diamond blue than the shiny black :’(

[bailey]

Just as some people cannot fathom spending money on points, I cannot fathom spending points on packs.

[Caedus]

Originally Posted by bailey

Just as some people cannot fathom spending money on points, I cannot fathom spending points on packs.

It’s just more fun. It’s sort of like going to the casino. You’re probably going to lose, and you might regret it after. But you’ll go back and do it anyway.

I sold an Ozzie Smith for 250,000k a few months ago and all I wanted to do was open packs. I ended up buying a 99 Ruth for 100k (which I sold after collections for 150k) and a live Freddie Freeman. The rest I spent on packs. Was it worth it? No. My team would almost certainly be better now if I didn’t. But it’s fun to rip 100 packs. Arguably more fun than winning for me.

[bailey]

The 29-2 Space Cadets crash to earth in Collingwood. Now only 1.5 games back.

[Nero]

Wholeheartedly dove in to the "next phase", okay...even I'm calling B.S. on that one....I'd decided before to send Joe Morgan off, and find a different path, but I kept looking at Joe on the reserve roster, and looking for ways, and reasons to bring him back up. I listed him on the AH, went to run some errands and take care of some work, and I came back a couple of hours later, with every intention of pulling him down, and putting him in the lineup again. To my dismay, he'd already been bought, and to whom ever got him...enjoy. Loved his production, hated his glove, but you'll have a hell of a player, use him well!

I laugh a bit because I have created that rivalry with Exeter, after he knocked me out of the playoff's last year, and this year we find ourselves as division mates. Hell, he doesn't know who I am, and his roster is a hell of a lot deeper and better. That said, I opened up the first week with some struggles, and my defense has been even worse than anticipated. We started putting it together, and ending the evening we had a 3 game series against Exeter, and I took 2 of 3, with Roy Halladay outpitching Waite Hoyt. (Justifying my hope yesterday that I like Halladay in the 5th spot, and that he's a great investment so I can invest in other spots. Ask me again in a few weeks, lol, that's subject to change) When things closed up for the night, I had a 2.5 game lead in the division, but I'm not sure that will last. We got there with hot hitting, and we needed it, because errors and D-inefficiency is rough. Still hoping to find either the perfect Mays or the '54 version that had the high D rating. I missed a couple last week, and figured I would eventually find one, but that led me to platooning Vada Pinson and Roberto Clemente for last year, and those two guys are still out there for me this season in RF. No complaints, but it always seems to be the case that once I decide on who I want, (and there are a ton of choices while I'm looking) that guy disappears from the AH. Who knows? Still debating in a few other places trading off some offense for improved D.

Iron level team is playing well, and I'm slowly trying to assemble old Cubs, and some of my favorites from when I was growing up. Randy Hundley has had a hot start, and looks like an all-star behind the plate, Kerry Wood has turned into Kerry Wood, he's had flashes of brilliance (two games with 15+ K's) and a couple of games with 8 BB. It does remind me of his early years. I suspect this team will settle in the Gold League eventually, I don't think I want any Diamond Players. and I'd like to keep things in the Late 60's to early 90's.

Completed the Negro League mission last night, and immediately called up Buck O'Neill because I love his glove at 1B. The fun part was the two diamond packs that came with, and pulled a 95 Tris Speaker, which I'd love to use, but another subpar defender is too much, so will probably move him. The second pack gave me a Roy Halladay, which would have been great a week ago, when I had bought Halladay...hopefully can earn that back.

The wife passed her good news (yeah...she is a baseball fan, and our first date so many years ago was to a Cubs game). She has toyed on and off with OOTP, largely because she liked doing some 80's replay seasons, she saw me playing PT, and decided to give it a shot. I do believe she is sliver or gold right now? She's off and running, and and is in first place in her division....we will see how the week plays out!