Season 2 (2021) - Now It Counts...Again

[Warhawk]

Originally Posted by Warhawk

So last year I had a bit of a saga when it comes to 100 OVR cards. My first perfect card was Jason deGrom. My second was Noah Syndergaard. My third is Noah Syndergaard. My fourth was Noah Syndergaard. Ah, but my fifth, my fifth was Noah Syndergaard.

So this year he's not a perfect card. But I will say that of the live diamonds I've ripped, only one player has appeared more than twice. That player, in fact, has appeared four times.

GUESS.

WHO.

I double checked and I have to admit, I was incorrect about this.


I'VE GOTTEN HIM FIVE TIMES.

[skep]

Thursday is through and although we didn't do great, we made some progress.

Red Bandits ST140 72-35
Jimmie Foxx performing as hoped .312 33HR 84RBI, pulled an Edwin Diaz

Watermelon I192 51-53 4.5GB
Pulled a Freddie Freeman and completed Rockies quest for Tulowitzky

Pink ST134 66-41
Tim Raines and Edgar Renteria get on board and Ray Durham brings them home.

[Marleigh]

Lowdown Lugnuts 66-41 5 1/2 game lead. The only all star was Frank Robinson, despite Mark Portugal leading the league in wins and throwing a no hitter in the 1st half of the season. We added Mike Boddicker (2.1k) to the rotation and Kerry Wood (3.1k) to the pen, sold off the silver Aparicio (1.1k)

Pachuca Pack Rats 65-42 5 game lead, Springer, Suarez, Rizzo, McLain, Bonham and Carrasco are all stars. Carrasco is my long relief guy. Bonham celebrated with his 2nd 15k rocket game of the season. Opened 4 Packs, got Aaron Judge who replaces Incaviglia in the lineup and Colavito moves to LF. Judge started out 1 for 7 with 5 walks giving him a .500 OBP, his only hit being a home run. We end the sim getting swept by the last place team in the division failing to score any runs against 2 60 rated bronze starters.

Paragon City Heroes 76-29 14 1/2 game lead Yaz, Duke, Yogi, Maddux, Blyleven make the all star team. We had a bad run in the middle of the month no doubt because we switched Lindor to 3b.

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs are living it up in Stone 150 this week. 94-11 with a 843-280 run differential.

The little green guys managed to pull off a whopping 39-game winning streak that began on June 4th and went all the way until July 24th. It was a 3-2 loss fueled by the enemy's LIVE Asdrubal Cabrera hitting a 3-run HR that snapped the streak. Then, the Frogs piled on another 8-game win streak to close out the night. Were it not for Asdrubal's shenanigans, the Frogs would be at 48 and counting. Most of the games were not close--I count only two 1-run games and two extra inning games in the span. That's the ticket. Of course this is all substantially less impressive with this caliber team at this level. Things will get tougher in the weeks ahead; we've yet to come up against a true whale team as we continue to climb the pyramid.

Standouts for the PT21 Frog team in their 2nd year of existence?

100 Charlie Gehringer is playing 110-level DEF at 2B, leading off, and batting .348/.461/.661 with 24 HR and 85 RBI. He's fixing for 13.1 WAR at this pace.

100 Ted Williams is batting .364/.484/.679 with 26 HR and 99 RBI as the primary DH. A 10.4 WAR pace, which is outlandish for a DH-only. Ted is 16 points ahead in BA, 4 behind in HR, and 14 ahead in RBI for a run at the Triple Crown.

100 Yogi Berra is hitting .375/.449/.711 with 25 HR and 77 RBI. Yogi has struck out 12 times in 498 PA. He's on pace for 9.2 WAR.

On the pitching side of things, it's more of "who's not having a great season"? And the answer to that would be nobody. SE 99 Greg Maddux has already won 20 games (20-1, 1.95 ERA). 100 Clemens is 16-1, 98 Brown is 17-2, 100 Lefty Grove (the only decent pack pull over the past 1000+ packs or so) is 9-0 as the newcomer to the rotation. The pitching staff is getting crowded to the point where tough decisions need to be made. Already, SE 91 Adam Wainwright, SE 91 Eddie Plank, and 95 Steve Carlton have been benched. If we add another whale-caliber pitcher, it'll probably either be SE 95 Randy Johnson or SE 94 Bert Blyleven as the next cuts.

It's worth noting that the entire roster was accumulated via pack pulls or SE collections. Without a MINT card filter (that I know others will roll their eyes at when reading this), I have little use for the AH other than as a seller.

[Westheim]

Ta-dah! Mets now have "les autres" down do five players...! ...some of which are right not easily replaceable. Menosky is close to the only speedy thing on the team, and I can't any even near-adequate replacement for Springer as centerfielder.

Four of those five are the last vestiges of my starter and bonus packs (picked up Shocker on the side), and the Mets haven't opened a pack since, because a) there are no Mets-only packs to buy, and b) they haven't won one from tournaments yet.

[Warhawk]

Just had a game this morning where Maddux gave up 1 run over 8 innings and Bagwell hit for the cycle against a team 45 games behind us in the standings and we lost. Mostly because my 1, 2, and 3 hitters - Lajoie, Piazza, and Heilmann - went 0 for 18.

[daves]

My Rookie season in a new game and it appears I didn't leave PT 2.0 Perfect level as there is always one team at least in my league that is tough to beat. I really thought rookie would be an easy championship.

[macacks]

Matt Arnold's Nomadic Developers with at 33 game win streak!

Coming for the Warbirds hard.

[sam10gle]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

The Huntley Red Raiders are in Iron 176 this season and are off to a great start, currently sitting in first place in the AC East with a 54-23 record.

Tough league for my FTP team... between you and the Yinzers being in the same side of the bracket.

[skep]

Friday is over and I did great in tournaments. In the finals of the Daily Early Silver now.

Red Bandits ST140 89-46
Scott Sanderson is 16-4 holding down the fifth starting pitcher slot.

Watermelon Bandits I192 65-67 5.5GB
Closest thing to a star on this team is Craig Kimbrel Live closing with 29SV an 1.99ERA, completed Orioles collection

Pink Bandits ST134 84-49
Pulled a Ralph Kiner 92

Smooth sailing on the server front today, I'm very happy about that.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes 95-38 21 game lead, the biggest problem we have is management. I keep changing my mind about players, Lindor is back training at 3B, I bought 96 Honus Wagner who should be a massive upgrade over Tulo.

Pachuca Pack Rats 81-52 7 1/2 game lead. We continue to score plenty and surprisingly give up few runs. Letterkeny Irish Jeff Bagwell looks a certainty to win a Triple Crown

Lowdown Lugnuts 84-49 11 game lead. Completed the first collection on this team, Toronto Live, Guzman is just too good a pitcher to pass up for under 1k on a f2p account. Will be working on a few others but unfortunately most don't fit our team ethos of speed and defence. Bryce Harper has been great so far, .846OPS, 24HR, 18SB, solid glove.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Warhawk

So last year I had a bit of a saga when it comes to 100 OVR cards. My first perfect card was Jason deGrom. My second was Noah Syndergaard. My third is Noah Syndergaard. My fourth was Noah Syndergaard. Ah, but my fifth, my fifth was Noah Syndergaard.

So this year he's not a perfect card. But I will say that of the live diamonds I've ripped, only one player has appeared more than twice. That player, in fact, has appeared four times.

GUESS.

WHO.

Cole Tucker?

Oh no wait, that's me.

I'm sad to say Cole Tucker's 2020 mugshot looks almost EXACTLY like his 2019. Same stringy mullet, same rubbery face, same stupid grin.

And yes, I've pulled multiple Cole Tuckers on most of my teams.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by macacks

Matt Arnold's Nomadic Developers with at 33 game win streak!

Coming for the Warbirds hard.

And the Secret Harbour Pirates are stuck in the middle. We've got Arnold in the Central and you're opposite us in the NL East.

We'll just wave bye-bye to you guys and try again next season. Barring an epic collapse (and now I really wish I hadn't put that out there) we'll still get promoted to Iron. But there ain't no 175 packs coming down the pike to rescue our September this week...

[JasonC23]

Originally Posted by sam10gle

Tough league for my FTP team... between you and the Yinzers being in the same side of the bracket.

Your Wyverns are hanging in there! 73 wins in the same division as the Yinzers is a solid showing, especially considering that you are 2-17 vs the Yinzers and the Red Raiders (sorry ), which means you are 71-46 (.607!) against the rest of the league. Here's hoping you can hang onto that Wild Card spot and then score an epic upset in the Division Series against the Yinzers!

Huntley, meanwhile, is trying to hold off the Brawlin'Birds vs. Everybody for the #2 seed in the AC playoffs. The Red Raiders have been treading water lately, with a 14-12 August during yesterday's sims, which has allowed vs. Everybody to close the gap between the 2 teams to a mere 3.5 games. Mike Donlin, the 2020 Stone MVP, continues to hit in Iron, at least against righties (.311/.379/.469 overall, .323/.400/.507 vs R), and the gambit of keeping Jose Altuve at 2B and playing the completed-Yankees-Live-Mission-addition Robinson Cano at SS has paid off, at least offensively; Altuve continues to hum along at .326/.364/.517, while Cano is at .353/.381/.592 through 51 games. Please pay no attention to the defensive numbers behind the curtain (Altuve at 2B: 3.81 RF, -8.1 ZR, .940 EFF; Cano at SS: 3.62 RF, -10.1 ZR, .839 EFF, but already up to a 56 at SS)!

On the pitching side, Ted Lyons (White Sox!) is pacing the rotation in WAR (17-5, 2.98 ERA, 18 BB, 166 K, 146 ERA+, 3.04 FIP, 6.0 WAR); Bert Blyleven has had an odd year, second on the team with 4.1 WAR but only a 12-11, 4.21 ERA, 103 ERA+ stat line; his 3.59 FIP hopefully points the way to better days ahead. In the bullpen, Joe Nathan (38 SV, 2.53 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 172 ERA+) anchors a unit that will need updating if and when Huntley makes its way up the PT 21 level ladder.

Good luck to all in I176 as the season winds down!

[daves]

When deciding to play PT 3.0 I had tried to set guidelines this time:
1. Only One team!
2. Spend very minimal to nothing.
3. Consider packs only.
4. Don't get caught up to making it to Perfect.


Well, at least I am following the 1st guideline. The problem in my 1st season is the Vikings. I can't catch him and I have to prepare to face him in the ACS. He had an advantage of pitchers and especially Greg Maddox 99 card. I did manage to upgrade my staff and today splurged on obtaining my own 99 Maddox to level the playing field. So guideline 2 and 3 is officially out the window since I spent money to upgrade to beat just ONE team at the ROOKIE level! Hopefully this will be it.

We will see what happens tomorrow. It would be a shock if the Vikings or the Seawolves don't take the title, but this has been known to happen in PT.

[macacks]

Originally Posted by macacks

Matt Arnold's Nomadic Developers with at 33 game win streak!

Coming for the Warbirds hard.

They finally lost...once...literally. They are on a 51-1 (i think they might have even won the All-Star game) run and 6.5 back of the Warbirds.

21-8 in one run games.

[sam10gle]

81-77 (1 game up for last wild card spot) going into the last 4-game series against... those darn 128-win Yinzers.

They took the first 3 games, leaving me and two other teams at 81-80 for the last playoff spot. Any chance they rest their guys for the last game before the playoffs??

[skep]

Saturday is over and I did great in tournaments. I think I've finalized the batting side of my Iron lineup.

Red Bandits ST140 106-56
Got the one seed, will be playing either the Post Falls Pastafarians or the Myrtle Beach Pelicans.

Watermelon Bandits I192 83-79 2GB
Managed a wildcard spot and will be facing the Derry Girls. Picked up an Ozzie Albies and completed the Nationals collection.

Pink Bandits ST134 100-62
Got the one seed, will be playing either the Minnesota Blizzard or the Waterdeep Wizards.

Good luck tomorrow!

[Warhawk]

White Tigers finish at 123-39 in the AC East in B.201, best in the league by 2 games over Marshall in the NC East. All 5 playoff teams in the AC had 100+ wins; we'll be playing the winner of 105 win Birmingham and 103 win Portland. Lajoie led the conference in average at .334 and the league in WAR at 8.9. Carlton led the league with 25 wins (to 4 losses), Richard was second with 24 (to 5 losses). McDaniel's 43 saves led the league. The team led the conference in runs, home runs, OBP, and FIP.

The Sun Kings in I.154 finished at 100-62 and will be the 2 seed in the NC, and will play 93-win Uranium City. We had the best bullpen ERA in the league, and were second in runs scored and allowed and FIP. No major standout players although Arenado and Joyner both had solid seasons.

Black Knights in ST.155 finish at 97-65 and win the NC Central by 6 games over Cascade Avenue, as the 2 seed we'll be playing 89-win Highland. Mike Soroka finished with 19 wins and a 2.92 ERA, both best in the conference. We led the conference in FIP and were second in starter ERA.

Over in PT20, the White Tigers in P.414 got the 2 seed in the NC at 116-46 with (as usual) the best bullpen ERA in the conference, Eck leading the conference in saves, and Gossage leading the league among relievers with a 0.65 ERA; the Golden Lions in G.302 got the 2 seed in the AC going 95-67 and Arenado leading the conference in home runs and RBIs; and the Black Panthers in P.449 finished strong, going 29-18 down the stretch to snag the second wild card spot in the NC at 82-80, with Liam Hendriks actualy leading the conference in saves somehow.

Opened 21 packs between the 6 teams and only got one card better than a silver, a Bo Bichette for the Sun Kings that they don't really have any use for.

Anyway, that's the second straight season all 6 have made the playoffs. Last year I had 3 one-seeds and only made it to the finals with a wild card team (who lost). This year I have a one-seed and four two-seeds, hopefully things might actually go right for once.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes 117-45, 2nd in NC behind Marshall Cardinals, due to play Madison Mallards in the first round (at least i won't get swept by the WC team this season. Made a couple of roster changes, brought in 96 Honus at SS and Toby Harrah at 3b (shamelessly scouting the other teams paid off thanks Warhawk) he has 25 hits and 32 walks in 27 games for a fat .446 OPS, and a big part of the reason why Bagwell won batter of the month. Bert Blyleven won the ERA crown going 19-7 2.77. We were 1st in runs scored (1024) and 3rd in runs against (593) and 1st in home runs (303).

Pachuca Pack Rats 98-64 2nd in AC to Long Island Monks will play the Cranbrook Crusaders in the 1st round. Rocky Colavito won the HR crown with 37 (it appears all of the collection players are in the other conference) Bill Bonham was definitely the ace pitcher (17-9 3.62) leading the league with 247 Ks, decent showing for a f2p pack team but the only upgrade i got this season was Aaron Judge, my bullpen is still very shaky in middle relief

Lowdown Lugnuts 101-61 1st in the NC, opponent unknown as yet. I hate playing WC teams. We prepared for the playoffs by completing the Pirates live collection, Kendall is an upgrade on Bresnahan at catcher though i'll miss a catcher who stole 36 bases. Mike Boddicker was a key pickup during the season after losing his 1st start he won 10 straight. Very happy with the Bryce Harper I packed, 29HR/20steals, .395 OBP, 5.1WAR