Season 22 (2040) Discussion Thread

[One Great Matrix]

PART I "The Rant"

I put Lindor in specifically for defensive purposes & he can't pick up the ball! I put Lindor in specifically for defensive purposes & he can't pick up the ball!

PART II

[22 Victories dance]

Maroons 28-8 ---
Flyers 22-13 5.5

Get behind me, we gotta catch these Moline Maroons!

[Westheim]

Roy Campanella: .202/.270/.333

But it gets better for the Accountants, who also added 1979 Fred Lynn and are thrilled to see him bat .194/.342/.290 to start his gig.

Can I just have my starter packs back, please?

[dkgo]

Has anyone had success with 97 Brooks Robinson?

Allegedly a 105 rating at 3B but the one I picked up had negative ZR the three seasons before and is doing it again for me after 40 games. I need to dump this guy while there is no last 7 avg showing.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Has anyone had success with 97 Brooks Robinson?

Allegedly a 105 rating at 3B but the one I picked up had negative ZR the three seasons before and is doing it again for me after 40 games. I need to dump this guy while there is no last 7 avg showing.

Here's the fielding stats for my 97 Brooks Robinson. I picked him up in 2033.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Roy Campanella: .202/.270/.333

But it gets better for the Accountants, who also added 1979 Fred Lynn and are thrilled to see him bat .194/.342/.290 to start his gig.

Can I just have my starter packs back, please?

My Roy has 8 HR in 57 PA!

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by bailey

My Roy has 8 HR in 57 PA!

I will now weep bitterly all the way to bed, and once in there, will keep weeping bitterly.

[old timer]

The Raccoons continue to tank, and currently sit at 20-28. I told them this violates the terms of service, but that didn't seem to help any.

The pitching continues to be atrocious. The Hillsboro Hops just beat us 17-3, 10-2, 8-5 and 5-2. Even the weaker teams are in on the fun.

Our defense is also contributing to the poor pitching, but that's equally hard to figure. Maddox, for example, has only a .3 ZR so far in CF. Check out our SPs performance so far:

[Maxfire5]

My Topeka Bombers team retooled a bit the last two days. I snagged a Rick Reuschel and SE Bob Friend to add to my 93 Saberhagen, 93 Pedro and 89 Maddux rotation. Interested to see how it goes. Rick threw went 8 innings, giving up 1 run in his first game so that is a good start. Also nearly done with the Phillies lice collection so I'll be bringing in a SE Lenny for around a total ~12k PP. That'll be a nice upgrade over Richie.

My theme team lucked out with some the Royals Collection. Completed 2 of 3 on release, and just waiting on 1 more card to have the whole set. The 78 Hal McRae instantly becomes my DH so that's a positive. Still figuring out if I want to use the 91 or 95 Otis. Leaning towards the 91 for the better defense. Looking forward to getting my last card for the collection which will provide Wade Davis, LoCain, and Saberhagen.

Side note, I had recently adjusted my rules for my KC royals theme to a Kansas City Legends theme team. It allows a few more players to come in by making anybody who has played for a kansas city team (royals, athletics, monarchs), and players from the area, such as Albert Pujols (high school in the area), Mort Cooper, etc.

Also just created a pack-only team. My second gold card I pull is none other than 88 Pudge so my catcher is set for awhile. I wanted something fresh from the game and packs only is it. Different sorts of a challenge.

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs continue to sit in 1st place by 3 games (35-19) as the calendar changes over from May to June. Hard to say it's been disappointing, but with an RDIFF of +116 after only 2 months (39-15 pythag), it sort of has been. I attribute this underperforming to positional training. Nomar Garciaparra started from scratch at 2B and should train up to 78 or so there. Also allowed me to finish Lou Boudreau's training at 3B, where he'll reach 118-ish. Dykstra and Henderson are still making gains in RF.

Mike Trout is already maxed out in LF and had a much better May (.278/.415/.505) and leads the team with 10 HR. Nomar is batting .352. The team is 2nd in the conference in runs scored (291) and 1st in runs allowed (175).

The pitching staff just got a little bit deeper with finishing the Johan Santana missions. Eventually, in the "end game" for this team, I see him as a lefty stopper in the bullpen. But, he's more than adequate as the #3 starter for now. Satchel Paige and his 31 STAM gets to go back to the bullpen, even though he had a 1.93 ERA as a starting pitcher. Other than 95 Rollie Fingers (5.14 ERA) and 96 Roger Clemens (4.63 ERA) having off years so far there's not much to complain about.

[Warhawk]

So I just opened 10 regular packs. The good news is I somehow managed to end up with 2 perfects and 3 diamonds in those 10 packs. The bad news is that the only one I didn't have was Blake Snell (the others were deGrom, Bellinger, Vazquez, and LeMahieu). Should be a decent auction haul at least I suppose. Way more than I got from the huge number of packs I opened a couple days ago after being on hiatus for a while, think I got one diamond the whole time, though I did pull a perfect Gagne at that point. Oh and another Bellinger. I think I've gotten 6 or 7 of him all told.

[Westheim]

The Chattanooga Rebels walked off on the Pittsburgh Rebels, 3-2 in 13, to finish the month of May, which also squeezed the Chattanooga Rebels into first place in a tight division. Their record? 27-28.

Accountants are in a similarly meh division, 26-28 and two games behind, tied for third place. They managed 110 PP for the entire second half of June. Roy Campanella (.193) wasn't responsible for any of them.

And the Raccoons? Still in first place, 35-21, but the tide is turning for them. The second half of May they already played to their usual 7-10 tune and I think they will be caught by the second half of June. Their lead is 4 1/2 at this point.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes had a horrible month we ended it at 22-31, we can't score runs and most of our starters (Dizzy Dean, Eddie Plank and Hippo Vaughn) got destroyed, Catfish Hunter is the only real bright spot, but he lost out on wins due to the lack of run support. Don't know what else i can do with this team, may just blow it up again and go full live since I've done quite a few of the collections

Bad News Bulldogs cooled off a little to finish the month 37-18, though i feel we need Joey Votto to start producing, luckily Eric Davis is leading the team in HR, RBI and SB, the biggest worry is at catcher were neither Bench or Lombardi can hit the ball. The pitching staff has been very good, especially the bullpen, Rob Dibble is the standout with an era of 0.00 in 23 IP. At his current pace Eric Davis is projected for 8.4WAR and 77 steals, hopefully he can get somewhere near those numbers.

Neuman Furshlugginers finished the month at a not entirely unexpected 25-29, while we score plenty of runs, our pitching and defence is the worst in the league and that hasn't been helped by training people at new positions. We brought in the 84 rated Mickey Mantle to our all switch hitting lineup and he pomptly went 1-21, recovering a bit towards the end of the month to a mighty .186 BA and a -0.5 WAR

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by old timer

The Raccoons continue to tank, and currently sit at 20-28. I told them this violates the terms of service, but that didn't seem to help any.

The pitching continues to be atrocious. The Hillsboro Hops just beat us 17-3, 10-2, 8-5 and 5-2. Even the weaker teams are in on the fun.

Our defense is also contributing to the poor pitching, but that's equally hard to figure. Maddox, for example, has only a .3 ZR so far in CF. Check out our SPs performance so far:

This is a bit weird..... I know you're facing a few top teams, but the pounding these guys are taking is just not at all expected....

[sharknut]

Still hate the streakiness of the game. Win 13 in a row, lose 9 in a row right after.

[old timer]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

This is a bit weird..... I know you're facing a few top teams, but the pounding these guys are taking is just not at all expected....

I agree. When I said I expected to struggle to get to .500 this season, I didn't really believe that. I think you were right that we should be capable of about .600 in this league. The competition is very good, but not THAT good. Heck, we're struggling against the weak teams. For example, we struggled to take 2 of 3 from the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds who are 11-49. I mean no offense to them, but they're not a team that belongs in this league (they lost 90-100+ previously in perfect) and yet Clarkson and Johnson got hit hard by them too (they're 14th in R).

It's kind of funny, actually. We've got 7 games coming up against the Soniqs and I'm wondering just how badly can the Raccoons do. We're finally in 3rd place and have won 7 of 10, but that's against 3 weak teams.

I'm tempted to stay in this league for another season (I originally just wanted to try one season) just to see how much better we can do. But I don't want to stay too long since I'm now finding the PP from achievements to be much more important since I'm not spending on this team at the moment.

Edit: Keefe and company get clobbered by the Soniqs in 1st game, 11-4. It's truly weird seeing so many good pitchers simultaneously struggling. Speaking of weird... Lava is leading the team (and would be 3rd in the league if enough ABs) with a .345 AVG.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by old timer

The Raccoons continue to tank, and currently sit at 20-28. I told them this violates the terms of service, but that didn't seem to help any.

The pitching continues to be atrocious. The Hillsboro Hops just beat us 17-3, 10-2, 8-5 and 5-2. Even the weaker teams are in on the fun.

Our defense is also contributing to the poor pitching, but that's equally hard to figure. Maddox, for example, has only a .3 ZR so far in CF. Check out our SPs performance so far:

Do you use max offense ballpark factors? If so, those factors combined with a pretty large uptick in increased competition might be playing more of a part than expected.

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by old timer

I agree. When I said I expected to struggle to get to .500 this season, I didn't really believe that. I think you were right that we should be capable of about .600 in this league. The competition is very good, but not THAT good. Heck, we're struggling against the weak teams. For example, we struggled to take 2 of 3 from the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds who are 11-49. I mean no offense to them, but they're not a team that belongs in this league (they lost 90-100+ previously in perfect) and yet Clarkson and Johnson got hit hard by them too (they're 14th in R).

It's kind of funny, actually. We've got 7 games coming up against the Soniqs and I'm wondering just how badly can the Raccoons do. We're finally in 3rd place and have won 7 of 10, but that's against 3 weak teams.

I'm tempted to stay in this league for another season (I originally just wanted to try one season) just to see how much better we can do. But I don't want to stay too long since I'm now finding the PP from achievements to be much more important since I'm not spending on this team at the moment.

Edit: Keefe and company get clobbered by the Soniqs in 1st game, 11-4. It's truly weird seeing so many good pitchers simultaneously struggling. Speaking of weird... Lava is leading the team (and would be 3rd in the league if enough ABs) with a .345 AVG.

Right on, I agree, it's the sheer number of great teams but you've faced and beat teams that quality just about every season....

I wasn't expecting you to have a 120W season, but 100+ should be doable. I think the laws of average are going to make you go through some good winning streaks soon.

[old timer]

Originally Posted by pappyzan

Do you use max offense ballpark factors? If so, those factors combined with a pretty large uptick in increased competition might be playing more of a part than expected.

Yes, I do have my park set to max offense and always have. That worked well even in a league where there were at least 10 whales in it. Nevertheless, I did consider changing this before the season started, but decided to keep things the way they were.

So how's it working out for us at home and on the road? Currently, we're 20-19 at home and 9-16 on the road. Our 5 SPs ERA's on the road are: 5.17, 6.03, 6.30, 7.29 and 8.14. At home, they're: 3.05, 4.06, 4.31, 5.33 and 6.53. Makes no sense, right? It's just bad luck and will almost certainly get better.

Edit: The DH gets a 5% penalty which I never knew about until PT came along, so does any know if there's some kind of bonus for home teams? I've always assumed not, but I wonder if anyone knows for sure?

[Argonaut]

Originally Posted by old timer

Edit: The DH gets a 5% penalty which I never knew about until PT came along, so does any know if there's some kind of bonus for home teams? I've always assumed not, but I wonder if anyone knows for sure?

Yes, I assume there's a built-in home field advantage aside from park factors. This is true in all sports, somewhere to the tune of 55%-60%. Aside from the qualitative factors at play, there's also the advantage of batting last in baseball.

Although baseball seems to have less of a home field advantage than other sports like soccer -- where for some reason the home field effect is comparatively huge.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by old timer

Our 5 SPs ERA's on the road are: 5.17, 6.03, 6.30, 7.29 and 8.14. At home, they're: 3.05, 4.06, 4.31, 5.33 and 6.53. Makes no sense, right? It's just bad luck and will almost certainly get better.

Yep, that's pretty unlucky there; I'm sure it'll get better soon enough.