Season 32 (2050) Discussion Thread

[old timer]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Subtle changes for the Raccoons, who get back to Perfect after three years in Diamond.

Congratulations to the (original) Raccoons on their 1st championship!!!

[Argonaut]

I don't see any teams I recognize in any of my 3 Perfect Leagues this week. That's kind of boring. Thinking of having my teams all friend each other so that they can keep each other company. Also, I'll only have 1 league to keep track of.

Finished Hit Parade and am giving Super Ichiro a spin this week, we'll see how he fares. Still painfully waiting for some bottleneck cards to finish other missions.

[old timer]

A 20 team league and a career .750 WPct (and 7 perfect titles) division mate... So much fun! The Scottsdale Scorpions have your typical whale pitching staff so we'll almost certainly be looking at a WC game this year. At least, I hope 20 team leagues have WCs?

[bailey]

8 teams qualify, so no wildcard game. You are guaranteed a best-of-5 as a wild card team.

[screamingpalm]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Yes. Donaldson is just a backup though. And to be fair, Syndergaard is having a rough time anyway unless the fence is 750 feet away...

Oh man... well, at the risk of jinxing things, Thor has been outstanding for 2 of my teams. Big part of my championship run for the Ents last week, and this week he has started off: 3-0, 1.23 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 0.4 HR/9, 2.0 BB/9, 7.4 K/9, 0.5 WAR and Player of the Game all 3 starts.

Absolute worm killer to feed some gold gloves hopefully.

[sharknut]

Originally Posted by sharknut

In my division is a team just promoted from Diamond and 3 other teams who averaged 66 wins in Perfect last year. Wonder if all 5 of us will be below .500.

11-8 with a 1 1/2 game lead so far, but I just blew a 5-0 lead with a man on 1st and 2 outs in the ninth. Ouch.

[BigRed75]

The bad news: The Beltways are 8-11 and in last place.

The good news: The division leaders are 10-8 so we are just 2 1/2 games out of first in what at first glance appears to be a weak division.

Garland Braxton has been our best pitcher this month, although Hoyt Wilhelm has done well also. Jim Johnson did not shape up, so he has been shipped out as promised with Dick Donovan joining the staff and taking over the setup role.

1921 Babe Ruth is now on notice. Fortunately (for him, unfortunately for me) he has no obvious replacement in the starting rotation. But if 95 Camilo Pascual comes available at a decent price, watch out, Bambino!

Also upset with Ken Singleton's performance, I have done some reshuffling. Singleton is out, Frank Robinson moves to RF, Jim Gentile moves to LF (he's not a LF, let's hope he can train to be one), George Sisler goes to 1B and Frank "Hondo" Howard joins the roster as a DH.

We take a big hit on defense, but we'll hopefully get a huge lift on offense, which is what we need to counteract our sorry-ass bullpen. Let's score enough runs so that it doesn't matter what the bullpen does. It worked for the Nationals (at least, until Game 3).

[JasonC23]

This week, Huntley is in P432. The AC Central residents have 4 Perfect League titles. Over in the NC West is the Kogarah Kings, who have won 2 Perfect League championships.

No other team in the league has won a Perfect League title yet.

There are a few familiar team names among the ranks, either from PT2.0 or PT1.0, such as the Oquendos Friendos and Durham Devil Dogs (AC East) and Dual Space Annihilators and Yonkers Stompers (NC West), but otherwise, this is a largely unfamiliar group of opponents for your Red Raiders.

And, well, right now the Red Raiders are being very rude to their fellow P432 residents...

[waittilnextyear]

Open my OOTP and what do I see?

The Frogs with the utmost Fight have been popped into P442 this week. We've been placed into a very open NC Central division, which we're leading by 4 games despite having four 1-run losses already and three of those coming in our last 4 games. I suppose the 1-run game RNG was gonna catch up to me after running a .750 Wpct in 45 or so such contests last season.

P442 is one of the more loaded leagues I've been in...

We have the 9-time PL champ Battery Park City Tamps and the 6-time PL champ Tassie Thunder sharing the AC East. Even the third-best team in that division, Bloomington Blazers, has a PL medallion.

In the AC Central, the 6-time PL champ Slumberton Slumlords will probably romp to a division title.

The AC West boasts the 4-time PL champ Westvleteren XII being chased by the 3-time PL champ Bump City Buzz.

In the NC East, the Coffeyville Golden Tornado caught my eye because they are off to an 18-2 start. Was pretty shocked to see this team hasn't won a PL medallion yet, considering the 2529-1541 (.629) lifetime record and thirteen 100-win seasons in Perfect. A couple of those being 120+ wins. Seems like they're due.

Frogs be chilling in the NC Central with 3 PL titles.

Just when you think the fun is over, we then spot the 11-time PL champ SINGAPORE SLUGGERS sharing the NC East with the 11-time PL champ Exeter Blue Hawks. R.I.P. other 3 teams in that division.

Math sez we have a combined 54 PL titles in this league (29 in the AC and 25 in the NC). Pretty insane league. Only place to go from here is the Whale League.

...but I am more preoccupied with the thought...if I were to friend the Huntley Red Raiders...and also friend the Singapore Sluggers...do you think...?

[scott1964]

This sucks

[scott1964]

I'm lucky at Diamond Packs
First a Cy Young now a Sandy Koulfax

[Renfro]

When Joe Cronin is hitting .302 with 14 RBIs from the very bottom of the lineup you are either doing something right or the bottom is going to drop out any simulation now. But my Xenos just put up a 20-5 month in P445.

[waittilnextyear]

Frogs are playing uninspired ball right now, but complaining about 17-10 is a first world problem if I've ever seen one. Not a terrible place to be, I guess.

I think the aggravating thing was losing so many 1-run games (2-6) and losing to teams we probably shouldn't. I'm not sure how many times we got shut down by LIVE Justin Verlander today, but I guarantee the answer to that question is in the ballpark of "too many." Also, we're playing 17-10 ball with the run differential of a 21-6 team (131 runs scored, 68 runs allowed), which is a bummer and a half. PEAK Satchel Paige (0-3, 11.05 ERA) has been particularly bad so far.

Oh, well. Tomorrow will probably be better.

[JasonC23]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

...but I am more preoccupied with the thought...if I were to friend the Huntley Red Raiders...and also friend the Singapore Sluggers...do you think...?

I believe I would also have to friend you and Singapore, and getheroff would have to friend us both, for whatever it is you're concocting to work. What did you have in mind?

Not that the Red Raiders are in any rush to leave P432...

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by JasonC23

I believe I would also have to friend you and Singapore, and getheroff would have to friend us both, for whatever it is you're concocting to work. What did you have in mind?

Not that the Red Raiders are in any rush to leave P432...

Maybe. I'm not a friend list expert by any means. My setting has been on random for the whole game cycle. My thought was if Markus isn't "randomly" placing Huntley and Singapore together anymore, then steps might have to be taken.

Also 26-1??!?!?

[Westheim]

I will for once, just once, include my PT 19 teams here, in a comprehensive list of the current records of my five ramshackle outfits:

14-13
9-16
9-17
9-18
8-20

That is sufficient desolation that it does not even make much sense to go through the hassle of naming and shaming all the relevant troublemakers. Rest assured that nobody is pitching, fielding, hitting, running, and sleeping particularly well. Heck, half the players on both Raccoons teams have explosive diarrhea as we are speaking!

The only thing worth noting is the 14-13 team, which is actually the 20 Raccoons, you know, the team with no shortstop to speak of. But Brooks Robinson in one month has already come up to a 34 rating at short, so things should get better going forward. He's piled up -3.5 ZR, but that will reverse itself at some point.

And I hope the same for him batting .213 with two homers.

[dancariaz]

I'm 6-21, I win

[HelpDodgers]

Perfect .430 reporting.

I'm hanging in. Some players underachieving.

My last 12 games in Sept/Oct will be against current last place teams so if I can be in striking range until then, we could get home park advantage going into playoffs.

That is unless the underachievers continue to underachieve (cough cough, John Clarkson to bullpen, cough cough).

[BigRed75]

I hoped to write in and tell you that the mid-April changes I made were all worth it, that the ship was turned around, and the Beltways have come good in the second half of the month.

But I'd be lying if I said that.

In fact, the Beltways are still propping up the Eastern Division with a 12-15 record. That's still only four games out, though, so within striking distance.

In fact, our offense has gotten a bit of a spark, as we are up in every offensive category since the inclusion of Frank Howard in the starting lineup (except for stolen bases - go figure!). Hondo himself is hitting .323

The problem is, as it always seems to be with this team, pitching. Babe Ruth has gotten worse. Grayson Rodriguez clearly is not the answer, even as a fifth starter. And Dick Donovan has performed even worse that Jim Johnson did, and is almost making me count down the five more games before I can re-activate Johnson. Hoyt Wilhelm crashed back to earth, and while Zach Britton may have a 90 MOV and a 62 CON, you wouldn't know it from his 6.75 ERA and 3 blown saves (out of 5 chances).

Meanwhile, over in Silver, the rebuild is more or less complete and the newly re-christened Bibra Lake Quendas (because a quenda is like a small quokka, you see) are...17-10 and in first place. So pretty much exactly the same as last season. Using a roster of rookie Wes Ferrell, Vladimir Jr., Juan Soto and 21 new players (plus Dutch Daulton because we need another catcher), the Quendas are shaping up nicely for a repeat season.

Its the bullpen that is this team's strength - the top-rated bullpen in the league, made up entirely of Future Legends cards. Soto is doing exactly what he did in real life this year; lots of power, not so much contact. And I think I finally found the perfect spot for Keston Hiura - DH

[screamingpalm]

My Ents are off to a hot start in their rookie season in Diamond at 18-8. Thor leads the charge!