All New 2020 Manhattan Mothmen

[peterbernard209]

I just played a season with a new team in the 2020 game, and I have to say I don't get this new version of Perfect Team at all. I assembled a team that can hit, field, run, and pitch, but we ended up 14 games out. I'm not really sure what to do besides get good hitters, fielders, runners and pitchers. Maybe I need to sacrifice a goat to Baal to win in this game?

We were first in batting average, first in stolen bases, 3rd in starter ERA, 2nd in pitcher strikeouts, 3rd in defensive efficiency, third in zone rating. Our bullpen faltered a bit at the end but this doesn't seem like a team that should end up 14 games out.

I also have a major problem with card ratings in this game, it's gotten even worse than it was in 2019. So far, I'm wishing that curiosity hadn't killed this cat. I feel so far like I flushed my money down the toilet and might go back to playing the 2019 version. I'll give it another week then see how I feel at that point.

Here are some questions I have for the makers of this:
WHY is the formula for deciding player ratings not transparent and public? Because it looks to me like you give players you like better ratings than players who are actually better.
WHY is Joe DiMaggio rated 25 in center field while his RED SOX brother Dom DiMaggio is rated 100? Is Dom DiMaggio in the Hall of Fame? No. Why not? BECAUSE NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD THINK HE DESERVED IT.

If you're not pulling the ratings out of your butts, then PLEASE come forward with the formula so we can all do the math ourselves.

I had felt a suspicion that there was an anti-Yankee bias in the game with the 2019 version but on one of the YouTube videos, one of the developers came out and said he doesn't like the Yankees. Maybe that explains why 1952 Mickey Mantle, the fastest player back then to go from home to first when batting lefty is rated as so slow he's in the red zone. Maybe that's why DJ LeMahieu who plays 3rd, 1st and 2nd for the Yankees interchangeably, is ONLY listed as a 2nd baseman. Maybe it's why slick-fielding Didi Gregorius and Gleyber Torres are rated as mediocre fielders?

I ASK YOU AGAIN, GOOD SIRS, WHERE ARE YOUR NUMBERS COMING FROM? If you can show that I am wrong to suspect you on this score, I will stand down. I would like to see the formulae but I doubt there are any. I think the only formula is "RED SOX GET A HUNDRED, YANKEES GET PEED ON." I would love to be proven wrong, and if you can't, I would like to see the ratings stabilized and made more fair.

Another thing I've noticed is that everyone across the board is rated lower, it seems, in general. Very few pitchers rated well in all 3 categories. Snaggle had said he liked to use pitchers whose 3 ratings come to 210 or higher. Where are those pitchers this season? Seems everyone is down in yellow on at least one of the 3. Maybe that's more realistic, I don't know. Again, I'd love to read how these numbers were decided on.

After getting my butt handed to me in iron league from teams of players rated under 60, I clearly don't understand how the game works. We've accumulated 7000 pp and I have no idea how to spend it. Maybe I should get a bunch of guys rated in the 40s and 50s and save the rest of it. The diamond cards don't really look any better than the bronze cards, so why spend everything on one player who might stink?

Gripe gripe gripe gripe.

I'll give it another week/season and see if anything starts to make sense. If the Mets and Red Sox players are really so much better than the Yankees players as indicated with these ratings, why are the Mets and Red Sox 10 games out in real life and the Yankees up by 7 or 8 games in first place?

To quote the Flaming Carrot, "IS MYSTERY!"

[peterbernard209]

OK here's a great example of the problem:
GIO URSHELA.
I found his card. He's rated 60.
Even though in real life he's hitting over 300 and has been putting on a fielding clinic all season long (watch the most recent game vs the Mets) he has NOT INCREASED IN VALUE AT ALL and his fielding rating at 3rd base????

64.

Gio Urshela is a 64 fielder when he's asleep. The guy is Graig Nettles-- ANOTHER Yankee third baseman whose fielding is ridiculously underrated in this game. Check Tommy Lasorda freaking out over Graig Nettles single-handedly stomping on the Dodgers in the World Series via his super human fielding. There seems to be some serious bias going on around here.

I would LOVE to have Gio Urshela on my team but there is no Gio Urshela card in this game. There's a card with a crappy player NAMED Gio Urshela but he bears no resemblance to the brilliant player I've been watching all season. HOW can Urshela's card not have increased even one point when he's had a breakout season??????????????

HOW??????

[peterbernard209]

OK I checked my 2019 game and ironically the original Manhattan Mothmen made their gold league world series but lost. Now they are in diamond league.

As for this 2020 version, I decided to buy 2002 Odalis Perez and Live Carlos Carrasco and give them a try in the rotation. We're going with a 13 man pitching staff and only carrying Charles Johnson, Luis Guillorme and Ian Happ as backups. Guillorme has to back up all infielders and Happ all outfielders. We'll see how that turns out. At third base I dropped George Kell for Mike Moustakas just to try to get more power in the lineup. We were great in fielding and led in batting average last time but were down the list for runs scored, so maybe another home run hitter will help, even though it will likely lower our batting average and fielding stats. It's just a guess. If Moustakas stinks the place up, I am keeping Kell in the reserves. We have a little over 1000 left in the bank, not much, but hopefully they'll earn more as the season gets underway.

[peterbernard209]

We've won our first two games, huzzah. Porcello got beat up a bit in the 2nd game but we pulled it out in extras. Tony Oliva has 2 homers, Moustakas has 1, Thurman Munson and Andrelton Simmons are both hitting .400 and setup man Emilio Pagan got our first save with closer Nick Wittgren getting the win. I'm leaving Wittgren as closer because he was good last season, but am willing to swap him out for someone if he starts stinking. If our cash starts accumulating, I would probably be looking for a gold closer, but I'm not sure we can afford that yet. I'm not sure we need it, I have a feeling that we stunk so much last season that we might be in an easier league this time. I haven't got any way of knowing that. We got beat bad in iron league last week by all sub-bronze guys, so maybe I'm just a horrible manager or maybe I don't get the 2020 version of the game yet. I probably need another month to get used to the new players and who actually is worth the price. I admit I absolutely don't get how to judge if a pitcher is going to be good yet, the pitcher ratings all seem much lower than in the 2019 game, at least among the cheaper players. I never expect to get any of the perfect players from history, as they all seem to be on sale for $400.

[peterbernard209]

OK here we go. We got shut out by a control pitcher with no movement from the 1960s and our DH Ray Lankford still doesn't have one hit on the season. Our 2019 Mothmen are doing even worse in Diamond, they are 1 win and two losses. Odalis Perez pitched okay in the loss, going 7 and giving up 2 runs. But he gave up 9 hits to this team of mainly iron hitters. I'm going to turn the game off and let them play out a few weeks while I work. Whenever I can get back online with it, I may make wholesale changes, but I'm going to leave everyone in place and give them a chance to get going by themselves for a few hours.

[peterbernard209]

They must have me in a remedial league because we've gotten off to a 14-6 start and have a 2 game lead in first. Thurman Munson is hitting over .390, Lankford and Moustakas are leading the team with 5 HRs, Corbin is 4-0.

Odalis Perez has been good so far, but Carrasco not so much. Porcello is cold, and I guess I might stick someone else in there for him. Okay I just put Domingo German in for him, or I should say "Domingo German" since his ratings are vastly inferior to the actual guy in real life. Maybe I should give 1966 Juan Marichal the gig instead. OK that's what I did. German in this game only has a 44 stamina, which of course is more sign of prejudice against the Yankees. Marichal has pitched 10 innings so far, given up zero runs, has 1 walk and 11 strikeouts, all in relief. If he bombs as a starter I'll put him right back in relief. I put Porcello as long relief but he's not allowed to throw in high leverage situations until he stops being cold, if that ever happens. This is the 2016 Porcello.

Jake McGee has been terrible, but he's my only lefty in relief. I suppose I need more lefties. He's only rated 58 overall but he has 87 stuff and 66 control so I thought he should get a shot. I have a silver starter in reserve for when someone really bombs out. It's 1962 Dean Chance whose numbers are all in the 60s across the board with a 73 stamina. You never know, he might work as a starter or reliever in Iron league.

We're currently 1st in homers which won't last long, my teams are never first in homers. We're first in bullpen ERA, first in Pitcher WAR,first in bullpen ERA, first in runs scored against, first in strikeouts, 2nd in batting average, 2nd in batter WAR, but we are way down at 8th in fielding. I guess the way to win in this game is go for hitters and pitchers and forget fielding altogether. Although we have Andrelton Simmons at short, so at least there's that.

My brain is fried so I'd better not make any decisions about further changes till the morning. Good night.

[peterbernard209]

Yesterday I saw that Rod Carew was not lighting the world on fire. He wasn't doing terribly, but he was under .300 and of course he's a terrible fielder, so I went shopping and got Ozzie Albies. I put Albies in against lefties and split their time against righties. It's hard to say what the results have been. We have a much better zone rating (6), our defensive efficiency is up to 2nd, and we're best on errors now, but on the other hand, we seem to win when Carew is playing and lose when Albies is. We seem to have won at least 5 straight with Carew and lost 4 straight with Albies. I guess that's the danger of WAR and so forth. We have more homers now that Albies is playing, but if those homers come in losses, then is his value really more than Carew? Maybe "on paper" but in terms of actual wins, maybe not. I'll give him more time though because "on paper" he's doing okay.

As I write this, we're 9 games up and have the 3rd best record. There's one division that has only one team over .500, and for much of the season they had nobody over .500. There was one season in the 2019 game where a team with a losing record made it to the world series. I fell asleep before the series was decided and was upset, since if you do that, you never know what happened (a huge flaw in the game IMHO). The team amazingly was in my league again on Monday, so I looked into their record and it said they didn't qualify! I guess it's a glitch because the game assumes if you have a losing record that you won't be in the post season? Maybe? Not sure.

So now we're #1 in all rankings for American Conference except OPS, pitcher strikeouts and Defensive Efficiency, which we are 2nd, running which we are 14th (bad), bullpen ERA (3rd), and zone rating (6th). Defense and zone are vastly improved by adding Albies, but like I said, I'm not sure if that has translated well into actual game winning.

Andrelton Simmons is leading the team in WAR with 3.7, Moustakas has 2.9 and leads the club with 21 homers, and 1939 rookie Ted WIlliams is third with 2.6 even though he has 100 fewer at bats than most of the players, having joined us mid-season.

Juan Marichal has been a surprise with a 3.07 ERA and 2.9 WAR leading the pitchers. Nick Wittgren is still the closer with 23 saves and a 2.30 ERA. I dropped Porcello, Chance, Flood, Archer and Masahiro Tanaka is starting for us now. He's 2-0, hasn't been in there long. Odalis Perez leads us with 9 wins, and Madison Bumgarner has been good, with a 4-1 record and 2.19 ERA as a starter so far. Domingo German has been effective as a reliever with a 0.44 ERA and 12.6 k/9, both best on the team so far.

I'll check in when and if I can, I'm going to be very busy through at least Friday, maybe into Saturday.

[peterbernard209]

Well we won our division with a .605 percentage, 13 games up over Seoul but Seoul beat us 7 out of 9 games in September. They are playing OPE in the wild card game. We split the season series with OPE so I guess we would prefer to play them if we had a choice.

I've dropped Tanaka to the reserves and brought up Ralph Garr as an extra hitter. He's a good contact guy and has speed. He has some power and avoids K's but unfortunately refuses to walk. He's got 87 contact against righties and 76 against lefties so that's why I chose him. Not to get a walk but to get a hit.

Madison Bumgarner is our hottest pitcher right now so I stuck him on top of the 4 man rotation, followed by Odalis Perez, Juan Marichal, and Carlos Carrasco. I've moved Fernando Rodney to closer with Domingo German, Emilio Pagan and Edward Mujica as setup men. I acquired Mike Soroka right at the end of the season so I have him as a long man/emergency SP. I hope to put him in the rotation next season, no matter what league we end up in.

Moustakas led the team with 38 homers. Bip Roberts led with .398 on base. Andrelton Simmons got 6.2 WAR. Roberts got 47 SB but got caught a ridiculous 38 times. How can I manage to prevent that? I've fiddled with game strategy but keep getting guys who get caught as much as they steal. Ted WIlliams had 147 ops+. Moustakas had a .256 iso. Williams had a .396 woba.

On the pitching side, Bumgarner led the league in ERA with 2.63, part of the reason I have him as #1 starter for the post season. Wittgren made the top ten in saves with 37 but had no chance to lead because I replaced him with Fernando Rodney for the last month. Marichal and Carrasco made the league top ten in WAR with 5.2 and 4.9. Carrasco was #3 in the league with 231 strikeouts. He was also #3 for having 9.9 k's per 9. Carrasco led the league with 7.0 k/bb rate, and Marichal was 2nd with 5.54. Bumgarner was 4th with 4.7. Marichal, Carrasco and Perez were 3 4 and 5 in BB/9 with 1.4, 1.4, and 1.5. Carrasco and Bumgarner tied for league lead with 1.04 WHIP and Marichal was next with 1.05. Bumgarner led the league with a 160 ERA+. There's more but that's a lot. Mujica has 22 holds, Odalis had 24 Quality Starts.

We were bad in base running obviously rated 14th in our division. However we were first in stolen bases and all other categories except Homers (3), Zone Rating (4) and Errors (3).

All in all, an excellent season, but the 7 losses out of 9 games to our potential first round playoff opponent looms large in a gloomy-doom sort of way. So we are rooting for OPE or Operation Tank4Main (??!!??) in the wild card game. They ended the season only 4 games over .500 and as I said, we split the season series against them.

On to the playoffs! Let's see how far we can get into them.

[peterbernard209]

Well it went down to the 5th game but we finally beat our chief rivals Seoul. Bumgarner had to pitch a complete game 5 hitter to win it.

We had lost game 4 because Rodney blew a save, so I had restored WIttgren to the closer role. I'll keep him there for the next round. If he fails I might try Domingo German. Fernando Rodney is in middle relief now.

Oliva and Moustakas each had 2 HRs in the series. Bip Roberts, Carew and Skowron are all hitting over .400.

Next we play the Manilla Thrillas at 4 PM NYC time. Looking at their lineup, I wonder if the owner is aware they are in the playoffs. They have Don Mattingly batting 9th. They led their division in home runs but seem to field badly and have a mediocre bullpen. They had a .531 winning percentage this year but I'm assuming they must be hot right now since they have gotten this far. They beat the Bishops in only 4 games and have an extra day of rest over us, too.

Actually it looks like Rodney is better against this team than Wittgren so I'll return him to the closer role and cross my fingers. Odalis Perez has been beaten up by this team this year so I just got Walker Buehler from the Auction House and sent Perez down. Juan Marichal has also been bad against them so I moved him to relief and put Mike Soroka in the rotation. It looks like nearly all the hitters have fared well against these guys so I'm going to leave it pat, but let Carew get all the at bats against right handed starters.

[peterbernard209]

They walloped Walker Buehler game one but Soroka and the bullpen threw a shutout in game 2. Next we fly to Manilla for game 3.

Ralph Garr got a 2 rbi single pinch-hitting for Oliva, that's just what he's on the roster for.

We've got Carrasco vs their Jim Perry after the off day (5:30 PM NYC time) then Bumgarner vs Candelaria in game 4. They seem to be using a 5 man pitching staff. I am debating possibly replacing Buehler for game 5 with someone else currently in the bullpen. I have stuck Domingo German in the rotation to keep him from being used in relief before then and getting tired. I want to decide after we see how the next two games play out. I may let Buehler pitch if we win the next two, I'm not sure.

Let's just see how Carrasco and Bumgarner handle this team.

Both teams have the initials MAN, so it's a little confusing to follow haha.

[peterbernard209]

Playing the Indianapolis Brigands! Starting in a couple minutes.

[peterbernard209]

Bumgarner wins Ralph Garr and Ozzie Albies home runs. Ted WIlliams benched for being cold, Ralph Garr is the DH for now. Williams has a good history against this team. If we can win game 2 I'll let him play game 3 to see if he breaks out of his slump.

[peterbernard209]

Carrasco pitches 7 innings, gives up 5 hits and gets 10 K's. Walker Buehler pitches two scoreless innings in relief and strikes out 3. Moustakas homers, Olive homers TWICE. Moose Skowron hits a TRIPLE!!!!!!

Now we fly to Indianapolis on their home turf for game 3. Juan Marichal pitched well against this team in the regular season so I'll try him in game 3. I'll also give Ted Williams a chance to hit.

[peterbernard209]

In a vast improvement over the 2019 version, I can see that we won the series 4-2 and we are now the Iron Age Kings for the next hour or so.

Huzzah

[peterbernard209]

I checked the team last night and we were in third place and playing poorly. Bad pitching, bad hitting, bad everything. I sold Walker Buehler who had a 6 ERA (IN THE BRONZE LEAGUE!) for 5,250. I am still trying to sell Moustakas, who forgot how to hit apparently. I moved Ted WIlliams to right field to make room for Bill Madlock at DH because he can't field well enough at 3rd base, and put Rafael Devers at 3rd. Neither Devers nor Madlock is hitting yet so I may have to change them too, but I'm trying to be patient.

I've still got Road Carew and Ozzie Albies platooning at second base and as I write this they both have nearly identical lines! They BOTH are hitting .321 with a .387 on base. Very strange. Carew has somehow managed to get caught stealing 4 times when he only has 2 steals. What do I do about this? All my teams lead the league in caught stealing, I must be doing something wrong in game strategy or something??? How can I correct that?

I sent Munson down and replaced him with Mike LaValliere from the 1987 Pirates who is doing okay so far. His backup is Charles Johnson, and both of them are top of the line defenders at catcher. LaValliere can't hit homers and Johnson can't hit anything but homers.

I had to drop Bumgarner, Juan Marichal and Tony Oliva to stop the bleeding. Paul Dean, Masahiro Tanaka and Rick Porcello got brought up. Porcello did badly in his first start but the other two have started off okay. Our only hot player is Mike Soroka.

I hope to find time to search out players in the auction house, I never like to buy packs. I like the new ability to search using contact or power or whatever and only wish I could also search based on fielding and all the other things too: stamina, lefty or righty, etc.

I have Odalis Perez in relief and he has a 7.59 ERA. He could fix that with two good starts, and I'm considering putting him in the rotation to see if he can right his ship. I want to give Porcello one more start before I jettison him though because I remember he was good at bronze level in the 2019 game.

I probably need another good reliever or two. I have a lot of pitchers in my reserve, one or more of them might work. David Cone, Chris Martin, Chris Archer, Ralph Terry. Jake Diekman looked interesting because he has stuff rated at 128 but I tried him earlier in the season and he got blown out. 8 innings pitches, 8 walks, 7.88 ERA and MIINUS 0.7 WAR. Hard to lose that much WAR in 8 innings, but he managed it.

I've got top fielding singles hitting outfielders Curt Flood and Adam Eaton in reserves too, as well as Ralph Garr and Edwin Encarnacion.

I wish there were a Gary Sanchez in the game but instead there's only an expensive card CALLED Gary Sanchez with 40 contact. That was LAST YEAR, not this year. This year he started in the All Star Game. In fact I think there are two nearly identical cards called Gary Sanchez and neither of them could hit .200 with those ratings. So I've got LaValliere who I never heard of before in there instead. Gripe gripe

[peterbernard209]

That guy LaValliere was terrible so I looked in the auction house and found a Thurman Munson rookie card for 4000 and snagged it. He's got 72 contact which is very good for a catcher in this game. He's got 55 eye, 86 fielding and a 75 arm. He went 1 for 3 in his first game. He's got no power, he didn't develop power until 1973 and this would be a 1970 card, but otherwise I'm quite happy to have him.

As I write this the team is 20-13 and 2 games up in first place.

[peterbernard209]

Team is looking good. Starting rotation is good. Up near the top on most conference ratings. Some of the relievers have bloated ERAs but I'm not yet concerned. We'll see how well we can hold the lead this month and I'll try to check in tonight to see if I want to make any major changes. Dizzy Dean's brother Paul and Rich Hill are hot at the moment. Gold Munson is hitting .338, Carew is at .345, Bip Roberts at .312, DH Encarnacion at .324, Tony Gwynn at .311, Ted Williams with 10 homers. I put Moustakas back at third because the other plan wasn't working out.I'm trying to auction off Devers since he's up 6 points and this might be the high point for selling him.

I'm disappointed silver Tony Oliva can't play as well as bronze Tony Gwynn and he's in reserves. I don't think I have anyone expensive to sell so I hope we earn some points via playing today to give us room to make changes if we need to later on. I'm wondering if I should invest in some relievers as our bullpen has been erratic but we're listed as #1 in bullpen ERA in our conference so I'll wait on that. We are only #6 in runs scored so I might have to make changes tonight.

Oops we just lost and dropped to only a 7 game lead in first. We'll see where we are tonight because I have to work now.

[peterbernard209]

We went down to 4 games up at one point but when we had a chance to play the teams in our division, we did well and now we're up to 8 1/2 games over both Kenhorst and Rockland.

Moose Skowron went dead cold and I replaced him (a Yankee) at first with a MET- Keith Hernandez. Keith is hitting .371. I got Jose Ramirez to play 3rd and he's hitting .361. Carew at 2nd is .344. Munson at catcher is .310. Ted Williams has 15 homers and a .309 average. Paul Dean has gone cold after a good stretch. I'm trying out Juan Marichal for what I hope is just one start or two until Dean warms up again. Sammy Sosa is only at .229 and not hitting for power-- none of the team is hitting for power really -- and we're still ranked 7th in runs scored which is not good. But we're 1st in runs against and zone rating so we're way up in first, at least for now.

I hope we can hit for more power down the stretch, these guys are all capable of it. Maybe Sosa will get hot so I don't have to replace him.

[peterbernard209]

99-63, first place. The other teams competed through much of the season but ended up 16 games behind us. We improved to 3rd in runs scored by the end, when we had been 7th earlier. Nelson Cruz hit 12 HR in 183 ABs to help us in that department. Carew ended up at .355 with 5.5 WAR. Ted Williams 27 HR, .299 and 106 rbi 4.9 WAR. Carrasco led the pitchers with 4.2 WAR, Ryu second with 4.1 WAR and 2.52 ERA. Wittgren 37 saves, 2.20 ERA.

On to the playoffs where we are set to play the Vancouver Gales who had a 92 win season. They are first in runs scored but 13th in runs against. We need to score against them to win. We were 3rd in runs scored as I said earlier but we were first in runs against.

[peterbernard209]

We swept the Gales in 3 games and got extra rest before facing the Motor City Reddogs in the sub league series which starts in about 10 minutes. Motor City were the wild cards but they beat the Ironbirds and face us next. We beat them 5 out of 6 games in the regular season, but the post season is not the regular season.

Keeping my fingers crossed!