Season 34 (2052) - <insert witty title here>

[old timer]

The AC West is so far looking like the most balanced division I've ever been in or seen. We're all busy beating up on each other so our records aren't that great. It would be cool if things stay close like this all the way to the end.

I'm definitely going to like tournaments, but my Raccoons team is not well suited for them at the moment since I sold off so much of my roster to build the best team possible on my budget. The biggest problem I have is I don't have enough players at certain positions, like 2B, for example.

I was thinking of selling either HR Baker or Lajoie so I could get a better fielding 2B, then realized I got them both locked due to missions. That was so dumb! I really didn't think that one through. Oh well, I'll know better for PT21.

[bailey]

In other news, I have clear sailing ahead in my division and expect to meet the Orlando Shockers in the finals.




Both of us having 16 rings, so it should make an interesting tiebreaker. Orlando has a tougher road to the finals with several championship teams in its conference, whereas I face no such opposition in my conference. Nevertheless, after a 35-3 start, this happened.

[Renfro]

The Xenos finished the Expos missions last Sunday by acquiring 97 Pedro Martinez and 98 Vlad Guerrero. The diamond pack yielded Live Verlander.

We are in Perfect League 446, where al the PL title holders are in the other division. Two teams have 13 titles between them: the Ferretville Fighting Ferrets and the Betton Fuchsias, who are running a team of all Diamonds but no Perfects.

I thought I'd throw Live Verlander into the rotation but common sense got the best of me and I thought'd I'd give Mort Cooper his slot back. Verlander in the pen has been great. As a Normal Usage Middle Relief, he's pitched 38.1 innings with a 2.82 ERA and a 9.9 k/9. Expectedly, he sports a 1.4 HR/9 is at 1.4. Unexpectedly, that's worse than my struggling SE Santana, with a gaudy 2.0 HR/9. In his previous 2 full seasons of around 215 IP, he's finished with a 0.8 HR/9.

New pieces: 97 Pedro Martinez is currently at 4.3 with a 4.17 ERA, and 98 Vlad Guerrero is slashing .278 / .344 / .471 with 9 HR and 42 RBI in 209 PA. He's also stolen 7 bases which is odd because I've turned down the global SB slider to -2 and I didn't touch his strategy sliders. He's gone rogue!

[Elligator]

All three of my teams got promoted last season, two to gold and one to silver. My Astros only team has been surprisingly bad (relegation zone) since moving up to silver, with my previously good pitching getting regularly ravaged and my 96 Cedeno sporting a stellar .624 OPS after two months.

My best silver team from last year is shockingly leading their gold division as well this season, after taking three seasons in silver to reach that point. The other is mired in break even mediocrity, and seems to really struggle to get enough PP to upgraded anyone significantly.

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs are out to a healthy 42-12 (+137) start to 2052. The division is pretty much settled with a 14.5 game lead. We're 1st in everything pitching-related (and I just pulled POTM Scherzer to replace All-Star Scherzer) and anywhere from 2nd (OBP) to 6th (HR) in offensive categories.

Looking like a good decision to re-insert SE George Sisler over 100 Lou Gehrig/95 Chipper Jones at 1B because Sisler has responded to the tune of .312/.374/.624 with 12 HR 40 RBI and 7 SB. He's rekindling the magic of his rookie 2041 season when he went off for 30/30 and won MVP.

The defense is back to 1st as well. I decided to move 100 Barry Bonds to DH (from LF), 100 Yelich to LF (from RF), Super Ichiro to RF (from CF), and put SE Dykstra back in center. Any Frog team that's not at least 1st in either EFF or ZR makes me a little bit sick.

The only real hiccup today was losing 2/3 to pappyzan's used-to-be-OL team. The games were at his park and with the ballpark factors juiced for lefty bats, all lefty starters, etc.. so I'm not too worried. I'd be more worried if we didn't have a 5-game lead for best record in the NC. Getting home field advantage could be quite crucial if these teams meet in the playoffs.

I do think it's cool that we can't see our enemies' strategy settings for pitch counts/usage frequencies anymore. Good idea to make that more of a black box. You should have to "scout" a team by looking at their past box scores to get a feel for that.

[Westheim]

Something is seriously wrong with this Kiiiid. He looks sorta sick, doesn't he?

(sigh)

[micpringle]

The Piranha's have had their worst start to a season ever, currently 19-35 and in very real danger of relegation. They're rooted to the foot of their division, 11.5 games back.

Everything appears to have gone south for a team who were promoted twice in the last five seasons (Iron to Bronze, then Bronze to Silver), and who made the playoffs three times in that same period.

Even the star players are in slumps that show no signs of ending. Take Phil Rizzuto for example–last season a Great Glove winner and an All Star, with a Batting AVG of .344 and OBP of .388–now projected .210 and .249 respectively, for the season.

Their first season in Silver ended 83-79 and it appeared, at least on the surface, that it was the pitching staff letting the side down as all the stats pointed towards the team being solid in offence and defence. I invested heavily in a new staff in the off-season hoping to build on that first season, but things have just gone from bad to worse. Last night I panic bought a whole new pitching staff in an attempt to stem the flow, but that doesn't appear to have worked.

Can the Piranha pull this back, or is relegation inevitable?

[One Great Matrix]

Originally Posted by stl jason

celebrate the little victories in life, cause you never know if they'll come around again....

my bunch from Waffletown are currently one of only three teams to defeat the New Orleans Brees this season tagged a loss on perfect Cy Young....

might be the high point of my season depending on how things go, so gonna relish the moment.

You still have to beat them & maybe San Diego in the playoffs, though.

[Jackgoboom]

Originally Posted by old timer

The AC West is so far looking like the most balanced division I've ever been in or seen. We're all busy beating up on each other so our records aren't that great. It would be cool if things stay close like this all the way to the end.

I'm definitely going to like tournaments, but my Raccoons team is not well suited for them at the moment since I sold off so much of my roster to build the best team possible on my budget. The biggest problem I have is I don't have enough players at certain positions, like 2B, for example.

I was thinking of selling either HR Baker or Lajoie so I could get a better fielding 2B, then realized I got them both locked due to missions. That was so dumb! I really didn't think that one through. Oh well, I'll know better for PT21.

We are in the death division Best of luck for the rest of the season mate. My Tassie Devils are a better post season team than they are regular season, which is an issue given only two of our division will go through. One of the central teams looks to have one wildcard spot tied up, due to their weaker division. Fun times.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

You still have to beat them & maybe San Diego in the playoffs, though.

heh... I have no illusions about playoff success... if the random number gods somehow smile upon me in a 5/7 game series against those teams, I'll definitely celebrate accordingly (and perhaps sacrifice something to them for their blessings ).... but otherwise... like I said, I'm just going to enjoy the little victories as they come

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Something is seriously wrong with this Kiiiid. He looks sorta sick, doesn't he?

(sigh)

Wow, that's the worst Trout that I have ever seen. He must have come from a polluted river.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Wow, that's the worst Trout that I have ever seen. He must have come from a polluted river.

Maybe he's from Cleveland where the river is from time to time on fire...

Now batting .162 with a .196 BABIP.

(shakes head) I just - ... I ... I don't.

[bailey]

In my whale league entry, my Trout batted .032. I wish I had a screenshot of that.

In other news, I won my 16th in a row in dramatic fashion:

[HelpDodgers]

Originally Posted by bailey

In my whale league entry, my Trout batted .032. I wish I had a screenshot of that.

In other news, I won my 16th in a row in dramatic fashion:

I tried Trout twice... had to AH him twice. He was batting like .220 every season and his OBP didn't make up for it (like a Ruth who may bat .275 but have a .410 OBP.

I feel for you.

--

Oh, and Belfast, last year winning WS in Perfect is now hovering around last place. Nothing is working. Getting owned. May be the worst season ever.

[waittilnextyear]

Nice. The Frogs record Perfect Game #1 in franchise history. 100 Tom Seaver was perfect in the last sim. 83 pitches is pretty nice as well.

[waittilnextyear]

In addition to the Perfecto shown above, the Frogs have been hopping along in P415. We're 65-17 (+215) with a 24.5 game division lead and a 9.5 game lead for top seed in the conference. Ending the night with an active 14-game winning streak is always a good time. Hopefully we can get a couple more to make it a 3rd gold achievement so far this season.

Another "first" for the team possibly is SE John Smoltz won Pitcher of the Month...as a relief pitcher. I guess going 5-0 with 3 saves and a 2.11 ERA is what the voters like to see.

We're 1st across the board in pitching and defense, and even the offense has taken pole position in OBP (.370), WAR (23.8), and OPS (.824). Although SE George Sisler fell off a cliff in the month of June, LIVE Christian Yelich picked up the slack nicely with 10 HR and a .330/.429/.727 outpouring of production.

TLDR: things went well. And hopefully continue to go well.

[Westheim]

The flagship operation here, the Raccoons, dawdled away their division lead while I slept and are now sitting at 44-37, one game behind London in their division. The wild card race is dense.

Mike Trout now has over 1,000 PA of batting .187/.320/.375 ... not sure how much longer I will try to wait for him to come around. Unfortunately I already locked him in, so we're stuck with each other...

Accountants are 40-39 and lead the division within a rounding error. I am stuck with a few diamond cards that won't sell, preventing me from making a major upgrade anywhere...

The Rebs are 32-51, which is probably not as bad as I expected them to be, but might be plenty bad for relegation, especially since they are stuck in a 20-team league that will shed 20% of its teams. They are easily in the worst 20%.

[Catchthedamnball]

Don't look now, but the Mashers are 51-31 holding a 4-game lead on the division. The advanced stats stay this performance isn't necessarily a fluke; Medford's pythag is 47-35 and we're only 14-10 in one-run games.

Grote, Kell, Colavito, and Maddox are all hitting .300 or better, and Colavito appears to be leading the league with 4.0 WAR accrued so far.

The defense finally seems to be compensating in part for lackluster pitching. The team is 9th in Starter ERA and 5th in bullpen ERA conference-wise, while also being 13th in FIP. Carrasco and McCullers have sub-4 ERAs, and Kirby Yates leads the league in saves with 26.

Upgrades in the rotation and at 1B, 2B, and RF are still desired but could be overcome, at least this year. I don't say I fancy my chances in Perfect should I gain promotion but it gives me an opportune time to scout for those positions.

[JasonC23]

Over in P412, Huntley is comfortably in first place in the NC East, and also comfortably in position for the #2 seed in the playoffs. RealMadrid El Blanco has raced ahead of the Virginia Beach Freaks in the NC West and the NC as a whole, with a 6.5-game division lead and 10-game lead for the #1 seed. In the NC Central, the Elon BrewBallers are in the "must face Huntley in the Division Series" position with a 5.5-game lead over the Morristown Frackers; they trail the Red Raiders by 10 games for home field advantage in the projected Division Series matchup--which might not be a bad thing, as Elon took 2 of 3 from the Red Raiders in Huntley while losing all 4 home matchups against the Red Raiders.

That actually highlights an odd season-long trend for the 2052 Red Raiders, who are, confusingly, a mighty 32-9 (.780) on the road and a still-good-but-much-less-mighty 31-16 (.660) at home so far this week. Part of the reason for this weirdness is Huntley's 4-5 record in extra innings and 11-10 record in 1-run games. Eric Gagne is not having his best year at closer (19 saves vs 3 blown saves, but a poor 4.13 ERA and meh 108 ERA+), which also explains it a little, but overall, this looks more like bad luck than anything else to this point (he says, willing it to be true).

The real pitching staff standout is nominal fifth starter Rube Marquard, who has put together an outstanding 12-2, 1.55 ERA, 288 ERA+, 4.3 WAR pitching line over the first half of the year. Not far behind is last year's Pitcher of the Year Rube Waddell, who is at 12-3, 2.03 ERA, 220 ERA+, and 3.8 WAR. Continuing the southpaw dominance, reliever Harry Brecheen has been lights-out (34 games, 56.2 innings, 2.22 ERA, 201 ERA+, 1.5 WAR) in what would easily be his best season in a Red Raiders uniform if he keeps it up.

Offensively, Barry Bonds is having a bafflingly bad year, sitting at .196/.349/.324, 85 OPS+, 0.1 WAR, and has been benched against lefties (cover-your-eyes-bad .155/.315/.268), meaning he will start fewer than 162 games for the first time as a Red Raider. On the plus side, Luke Appling is putting together an outstanding season, slashing .348/.439/.445; Arky Vaughan is a solid .305/.390/.454; Ken Griffey Jr is picking up some of Bonds' slack with a .273/.350/.536 slash line; and Hank Aaron is killing it in a part-time role at .356/.464/.689.

Current standings follow...

[Orcin]

The Colonels hit the all-star break with the best record in P421 (79-19). We had nine all-stars: SP Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Curt Schilling, Ed Walsh, stopper Eppa Rixey, C Tim McCarver, LF Mickey Mantle, DH Babe Ruth, and highest vote-getter CF Willie Mays.