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

[Jackgoboom]

I know its not our season stuff, but a team already has 38 tournament wins. 38? Wow.

[pappyzan]

Haven't posted a team update in quite some time, here's the goods on my teams in 2052.

Baby Senators (FTP 0$, prior OL team) are inexplicably 64-31 at the break in P415, on pace to 100+ wins. Dunno if this league is just really weak or if adding Sisler and Yelich are that much of an improvement over 80 Gwynn and SE Oliva, or a little of both. 4 all-stars on a team made up primarily of low value diamonds and 1 perfect card; 1.5 game lead in the division, 3 playoff teams will come from this division. 4-2 over waittilnextyear's Frogs, all super close games. If these teams meet in the playoffs, it could easily go either way, but odds should lean towards the Frogs who are the better overall team.

LyinCheatin Senators are having as good a season as they've ever had, 77-19 at the break. However, the record is pretty indicative of the league in general, not a single PL title in P434 outside of the Senators (yep, just jinxed it!). Several good, solid teams just none who have won a PL title. Additions to WLCS over that past 4 seasons are 100 Josh Gibson, 99 Jackie Robinson, 99 Mays, 100 Griffey to replace 92 McCarver, 99 Appling, 90 Ichiro and 100 Yelich. The idea being to upgrade offense at C, to upgrade defense at 2B & RF w/o sacrificing offense in the process, and to upgrade offense at CF w/o sacrificing defense. Trusty 84 Pesky/91 Rizzuto still platooning SS, will replace with either SE Boudreau or SE Ozzie if they're ever replaced; I just don't care to finish one of those collections yet, don't have enough PP either.

[JasonC23]

Huntley and RealMadrid just faced each other for the first time since the 2047 Perfect League Series (won by El Blanco 4-3 over the Red Raiders), and I can safely say I didn't except any of the games to go like they did. And also, a small bit of revenge for the Red Raiders!

[Westheim]

Coons: 59-47, up by three games. This remains tight and the lead has gone back and forth a bit throughout the season. Trout is batting .201! - HUZZAH!!

Rebs are doomed; after semi-decent months in April and May they won only eight games in June, and only FIVE in July. They are definitely headed to Diamond and I could be sadder about that. Their only achievement between July 5 and 28 was their All Star, Xander Bogaerts, bringing in 100 PP.

KC has all but collapsed. The leading team in that division is 52-55... and they are 2 1/2 games behind those guys. Sad...

[micpringle]

Originally Posted by micpringle

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?

After the panic-bought pitching staff failed to make an impression, I took a more pragmatic approach and took a look at the stats to try and find the problem (along with some advice from @chazzycat).

It turns out that because I employed flyballers exclusively, and the roster were up against more elite batters and therefore giving up more hits, my outfield were struggling to cope. So I returned to the AH and acquired a handful of competent groundballers to try and drive those hits into the infield, where I'm more defensively sound.

The result?

The Piranha have had their best 1.5 months of the season...

The changes were done mid-June.

And they've clawed themselves off the foot of their division, as well as the league overall, culminating with a 13-game win streak, the longest in club history...

I'm blown away by the turnaround!

Is it too late to make a push for the wildcard?

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

Huntley and RealMadrid just faced each other for the first time since the 2047 Perfect League Series (won by El Blanco 4-3 over the Red Raiders), and I can safely say I didn't except any of the games to go like they did. And also, a small bit of revenge for the Red Raiders!

Just try and find a player who's name is similar to Messi and that team will be all but crying.... easy

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

Just try and find a player who's name is similar to Messi and that team will be all but crying.... easy

Don Mossi?

Perfect plan.

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Don Mossi?

Perfect plan.

That should work

[old timer]

The Raccoons are back in 1st by a 1/2 game over Tassie in the Division of Death (7 perfect titles, 6 titles, 8 titles, 7 titles and 1 title in order of our current records). We just got swept by the last place team Neutonia (which won over 120 games in a recent season) and barely stayed ahead of Tassie by taking 2 of 3 from them. We're 22-29 vs our division mates, so that makes us 55-15 .786 vs everyone else. For fun, I compiled our records in this division if we didn't have to play each other:

(our intra-divisional records are in parenthesis)
Evergreen Forest (22-29): 55-15 .786
Tassie (26-26): 51-19 .729
Denver (32-22): 51-26 .662
Cottage Grove (23-27): 45-27 .625
Neutonia (22-21): 46-33 .582

So we're doing the worst in the division, while Denver is doing the best. It's typical of the Raccoons. We're the typical bully... Picking on the weak, but fleeing from the strong.

A bit of bad luck may be hampering us here, but it's hard to say. Our record is -7 our Pythag and our RDiff is 3rd best and very close to 2nd best (Acton Avalanche).

We've got 9 more games against our division mates this month so we'll probably be out of 1st and maybe even 3rd by then.

[Jackgoboom]

Originally Posted by old timer

The Raccoons are back in 1st by a 1/2 game over Tassie in the Division of Death (7 perfect titles, 6 titles, 8 titles, 7 titles and 1 title in order of our current records). We just got swept by the last place team Neutonia (which won over 120 games in a recent season) and barely stayed ahead of Tassie by taking 2 of 3 from them. We're 22-29 vs our division mates, so that makes us 55-15 .786 vs everyone else. For fun, I compiled our records in this division if we didn't have to play each other:

(our intra-divisional records are in parenthesis)
Evergreen Forest (22-29): 55-15 .786
Tassie (26-26): 51-19 .729
Denver (32-22): 51-26 .662
Cottage Grove (23-27): 45-27 .625
Neutonia (22-21): 46-33 .582

So we're doing the worst in the division, while Denver is doing the best. It's typical of the Raccoons. We're the typical bully... Picking on the weak, but fleeing from the strong.

A bit of bad luck may be hampering us here, but it's hard to say. Our record is -7 our Pythag and our RDiff is 3rd best and very close to 2nd best (Acton Avalanche).

We've got 9 more games against our division mates this month so we'll probably be out of 1st and maybe even 3rd by then.

Hey, where was the update when I was on top of the division?

Considering we have a fifteen game and an eight game win streak during the season, the rest of our form has been patchy at best. Tough end to the season. Should be fun

[old timer]

Originally Posted by Jackgoboom

Hey, where was the update when I was on top of the division?

Considering we have a fifteen game and an eight game win streak during the season, the rest of our form has been patchy at best. Tough end to the season. Should be fun

Some other team (that won't be named) moved back into 1st for the time being... Unable to take screenshots at the moment.

Yeah, it's looking like it will be a fun fight to the finish. Good luck to you the rest of the way!

[Jackgoboom]

Originally Posted by old timer

Some other team (that won't be named) moved back into 1st for the time being... Unable to take screenshots at the moment.

Yeah, it's looking like it will be a fun fight to the finish. Good luck to you the rest of the way!

One disappointing sidenote to the fun division fight, is the Cottage Grove team. Obviously it has been on auto pilot for a long time, given Treinen is in the bullpen. So most of its titles have been non managed. As a micro manager myself, that hurts

All those titles with Smokey Burgess as the main catcher. Obviously defensive ratings don't count that much, at least at catcher anyway. My focus on defensive players just seems so pointless now

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs cruised to a 23-5 record in August. That makes for 104-31 (.770) baseball. Other than subbing in SE Keith Hernandez for a slumping SE George Sisler (card is boom or bust for me), the team is basically on cruise control. The division is already in the bag with a 36.5 game lead. It looks like we've also created some nice separation from #2 seed in conference as well (+16 games) which should help come playoff time. The Bridgeville Bucs, denizens of the other conference, have the best overall record in P415 (111-22).

Was away from the cpu and travelling for most of the day, so I'm just checking in. And, either it's just really late and I'm imagining things, or the latest patch has provided breakdowns of achievements earned in the manager history & achievements tab. Nice. No longer have to total them up manually. Was able to quickly determine we had just passed 20K PP for the season.

Here's a peek at how the NC West is being won in 2052...

[Westheim]

Just when I thought I had lost my touch.

[Catchthedamnball]

As we enter the last day of regular season simulations for the week, the Mashers are 75-58 and clinging to a half-game lead in the division.

As expected, the pitching regressed to the mean. Carrasco and McCullers remembered they were only live gold cards and returned to the land of 4 ERAs. The bullpen isn't as lights-out as it was earlier in the year but is still performing admirably given its ceiling; Robles and Ohtani are performing admirably as complements to Yates, and Tug has rediscovered his form as a lefty specialist.

The offense continues to chug along, sustaining Medford's surprising season. The team is ranked 3rd in the NC in runs scored, thanks to Altuve (August Batter of the Month), Maddox (.295, 41 2b, 23 sb), Colavito (20 HR, .840 OPS), and Kell (.305 BA).

I pulled live Matt Chapman the other day, and figured that meant I could finally say goodbye to Max Muncy and train up Chapman at 1B. This experiment could not have gone worse, as Chapman is slashing .100/.171/.200 through 18 games.

Fingers crossed for a good stretch run that gets me a shot at promotion.

[JasonC23]

I will do a full league recap later today, but for now, I'm enjoying seeing how Roger Clemens, who is not having his best year, has decided to take his frustrations out on the rest of the league...

[micpringle]

After a momentary stutter in August, the Piranha have just hit .500 and are now 73-73 and well and truly in contention for the wildcard...



3.5 games back and 16 to play. Can they do it?

Still blown away by the turnaround, especially considering they were 32-49 at the end of June and rooted to the foot of both their division and the league as a whole.

Matty Alou, a 62 Bronze, currently leads the combined for Batting AVG (.346), At-Bats (613), Hits (212), Doubles (59), and Total Bases (288). He's also 7th for Runs (91), where the 1-6 places are dominated by > 86 OVR cards. HE IS A MONSTER!

[Jackgoboom]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

I will do a full league recap later today, but for now, I'm enjoying seeing how Roger Clemens, who is not having his best year, has decided to take his frustrations out on the rest of the league...

lol

[Jackgoboom]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Just when I thought I had lost my touch.

Not that I open many packs anymore, but I cant remember the last good card I pulled. Nicely done

[Westheim]

Raccoons and Accounants hold 1 1/2 game leads, the latter while playing three games under .500 ... meanwhile the Rebs have broken through the line of 100 losses and are - as expected - back to Diamond on Monday.