Season 25 (2043) discussion thread

[BigRed75]

The good news is that the Froggies have jumped out to a fast 13-4 start, playing .762 ball. This is reminiscent of the 109-win season!

The bad news is that the second-place team has jumped out to a nearly-as-impressive 12-5 start.

The worse news is...SSS

[Izz]

9-11 here in P400. Considering promoting Hyun-Jin Ryu to my active roster as my follower.

Other than that, not much else to report yet. Aparicio's hitting .323, Bagwell .192. So y'know, a typical start to the season.

[waittilnextyear]

The Fighting Frogs (now with more Frog!) have been placed into P436 for this week. And everything about this placement seems pretty doable...except for that small matter of being in the same division as the LyinCheatin Senators. You know that 6-time PL champ that methodically slices and dices the competition? So, we'll be hopping to the wild card this year and that should be quite manageable because the rest of the conference doesn't appear too scary at first glance.

The biggest addition to the roster for this week is SUPER ICHIRO via collection mission. That's right, I dub thee SUPER ICHIRO. I overpaid a little bit for 2-3 cards, but got Ichiro for a lot less than he would've cost on the AH. And, in theory, this card fits my team's M.O. If we ever get a perfect-caliber Ichiro, that will be the SUPER DUPER ICHIRO.

I also feel like things are moving a bit better in the AH. Less clog-y. Anyone else? It's not taking weeks and weeks and weeks of agony to sell anything of value. For example, sold my All-Star Bellinger and 96 Koji Uehara overnight. With a minimum of effort. Ah, that's nice.

[One Great Matrix]

That combination of dissecting & frogs sounds like awful news. Keep jumping around all schizophrenic.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes started out their perfect life with a 15-11 month. The lineup are all playing well apart from Biggio. The pitching staff is mostly holding up, Scherzer had a horrible start. Puckett has already hit 7 HR. I probably need another lefty starter

Meanwhile over in P410 the Bad News Bulldogs are 6-21. Pitching and hitting are both proving to be a problem, its going to be a long season

Neuman Furshlugginers started out 16-11 with their traditional win 6 in a row lose 5 in a row style. Jeff Russel has been moved from the closing role after 2 blown saves out of 8 chances, and a 7.15 ERA. Will Clark and Larry Walker, brought in to add some offence, haven't

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs are off to a ho hum start at 16-9. Pitching hasn't been great and is probably due for an upgrade soon. 89 Eck and his 524 career saves are on thin ice as his SV% has dipped below 90% for 3 years running. Might have to creep on a 99 Eck to replace him.

SUPER ICHIRO accomplished something in his 7th career game that the entire team hadn't done in 24 years--he hit for the cycle (just 400 PP is quite the robbery though). The sneaky thing about this card is it has a little bit of pop to go along with the CON and DEF that we all know and love.

[BigRed75]

Season 25 (The Silver Season) seems to be the season of fast starts for me.

Everett Aquasox: 18-8
Thetford Mines Mineurs: 17-10
Amarillo Gold Sox: 17-8
Charlotte Monarchs: 17-10

Even the Sydney Unicorns are out of the blocks in their first season in Gold with a 21-5 record!

Fun fact - Dellin Betances, the Unicorn's 7th-inning setup guy, is 6-0 in 11 games. Needless to say, he is leading the league in wins.

And while the Game Theories didn't get off to a hot start, they were the only team to get a Gold achievement (Hi-Def inning) and, since they're my points team, that's the whole point, isn't it?

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

The Fighting Frogs (now with more Frog!) have been placed into P436 for this week. And everything about this placement seems pretty doable...except for that small matter of being in the same division as the LyinCheatin Senators. You know that 6-time PL champ that methodically slices and dices the competition? So, we'll be hopping to the wild card this year and that should be quite manageable because the rest of the conference doesn't appear too scary at first glance.

The biggest addition to the roster for this week is SUPER ICHIRO via collection mission. That's right, I dub thee SUPER ICHIRO. I overpaid a little bit for 2-3 cards, but got Ichiro for a lot less than he would've cost on the AH. And, in theory, this card fits my team's M.O. If we ever get a perfect-caliber Ichiro, that will be the SUPER DUPER ICHIRO.

I also feel like things are moving a bit better in the AH. Less clog-y. Anyone else? It's not taking weeks and weeks and weeks of agony to sell anything of value. For example, sold my All-Star Bellinger and 96 Koji Uehara overnight. With a minimum of effort. Ah, that's nice.

I'm jealous of your Super Ichiro. I NEED that card for the SmallBallers, but the collection prices are just ridiculous. I don't think I can justify all that PP for the upgrade from the 82 version.


Or...can I? Does anyone out there have a good sample size of SUPER ICHIRO perfect level performance?

[Argonaut]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

I'm jealous of your Super Ichiro. I NEED that card for the SmallBallers, but the collection prices are just ridiculous. I don't think I can justify all that PP for the upgrade from the 82 version.


Or...can I? Does anyone out there have a good sample size of SUPER ICHIRO perfect level performance?

Your park factors actually (relatively) favour the Gold Ichiro. The Super Ichiro would probably perform a little better due to a couple more homers and walks along with better defense, at the expense of fewer singles and productive outs. I think it's a marginal upgrade considering the PP cost, unless maybe you wanted to play SE Ichiro in CF and bench Dykstra for a bigger hitter (or platoon) in RF. Otherwise the PP might be better spent on pitching although that might be less "fun".

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by Argonaut

Your park factors actually (relatively) favour the Gold Ichiro. The Super Ichiro would probably perform a little better due to a couple more homers and walks along with better defense, at the expense of fewer singles and productive outs. I think it's a marginal upgrade considering the PP cost, unless maybe you wanted to play SE Ichiro in CF and bench Dykstra for a bigger hitter (or platoon) in RF. Otherwise the PP might be better spent on pitching although that might be less "fun".

I had forgotten the SUPER version has a lower avoid K rating, which is really important to me on this team. I think you're probably right, it's a fairly marginal upgrade and not worth the cost.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

I had forgotten the SUPER version has a lower avoid K rating, which is really important to me on this team. I think you're probably right, it's a fairly marginal upgrade and not worth the cost.

It depends on what you're looking for.

The SUPER ICHIRO maxes out about 10 points higher defensively at each OF position. Has an OPS about 60 points higher in the OOTP editor (20 points of OBP, 40 points of SLG). CON, GAP, and batted ball profile is a wash for both.

Gold Ichiro has a 20 point edge in Avoid K against RHP. Gold Ichiro is also a slightly better baserunner.

For some reason SUPER ICHIRO is a phenomenal bunter and gold Ichiro is a terrible bunter.

I didn't have the gold Ichiro so the differential in cost is different for me than it would be for someone already invested (probably 20-30K PP) in gold Ichiro.

[Caedus]

What numbers is Diamond Ichiro putting up in Perfect? Gold Ichiro has put a minimum of 3.9 WAR for me, and he's almost always over 5. A high of around 7.

[Argonaut]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

It depends on what you're looking for.

The SUPER ICHIRO maxes out about 10 points higher defensively at each OF position. Has an OPS about 60 points higher in the OOTP editor (20 points of OBP, 40 points of SLG). CON, GAP, and batted ball profile is a wash for both.

Gold Ichiro has a 20 point edge in Avoid K against RHP. Gold Ichiro is also a slightly better baserunner.

For some reason SUPER ICHIRO is a phenomenal bunter and gold Ichiro is a terrible bunter.

I didn't have the gold Ichiro so the differential in cost is different for me than it would be for someone already invested (probably 20-30K PP) in gold Ichiro.

That's a good point about the bunting, that might add some points to SE Ichiro's batting average.

I wouldn't trust the CON rating in the OOTP editor though, as a lot of that will be "fake" batting average from homers he's not likely to hit against high MOV pitchers and with detrimental park factors.

Avoid K is the "best" contributor to CON in Perfect Team, which is why Gold Ichiro is nice. Your point about the bunting is good though, that would probably add some hidden points to CON if you gave it some weight in the sliders.

I also have the Gold one but wouldn't mind taking the SE out for a spin. Maybe I'll slowly collect the rest of the Hit Paraders.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Caedus

What numbers is Diamond Ichiro putting up in Perfect? Gold Ichiro has put a minimum of 3.9 WAR for me, and he's almost always over 5. A high of around 7.

I assume you're referring to SUPER ICHIRO?

It's a bit too early to tell how mine is doing as he's only been in there for 40-ish games. Looking around the league, one of the versions has been used sparingly and has a 162-game average of 3.0 WAR. The other version has 6.0 WAR per 162 games. So not a whole lot of data to speak of.

Originally Posted by Argonaut

Maybe I'll slowly collect the rest of the Hit Paraders.

If you're patient, you can get it for 55K or so. It's going for 120K in the AH so it's not a bad business to be in right now.

[pappyzan]

Here's nearly 2.5 seasons of stats for 90 Ichiro and ballpark factors.

[JasonC23]

The teams with Perfect League championships to their name have come out strong to start the 2043 season in P426. Unsurprisingly, the class of the AC is the Mississauga Carnivores, who have an incredible 47-8 record and lead the AC Central by 13 games. The other 2 AC divisions are much closer, as 2-time Perfect champ IB Breakers in the AC East have yet to pull away from the Erusea Interceptors and Long Beach Landsharks, and the Waterford Lancers in the AC West have a slim lead over the Hamilton Thunderbirds.

Meanwhile, the NC has turned into a story of dominance, as the gaps between the first- and second-place teams in each division are already at least 16 games! Setting the pace is the team that actually has the best run differential in the league, the NC Central-leading INKO Seagulls. Hot on their heels in the race for the #1 NC playoff seed is the Homestead Grays.

The Huntley Red Raiders find themselves in a strange position. They are 16 games up in the NC East and are the only team in the division above .500 (that's good!), but they are also a combined 2-7 against INKO and Homestead (that's bad). Getting home field advantage in the NC playoffs is going to be incredibly important and also ridiculously difficult to achieve; it's shaping up to be a heck of a race to the top of the NC.

The player Huntley acquired early in the year, one whom the team has coveted for a long time, is off to a great start. In 25 games, Diamond 99 Yogi Berra is hitting .286/.337/.480 (.297/.340/.473 vs righties), has thrown out 34.3% of would-be base stealers, and has a CERA of 2.48. Early team WAR leaders on the hitters' side are RF Christian Yelich and 2B Arky Vaughan; Eric Gagne is a bullpen standout with 12 saves and an unsustainable, but fun while it lasts, 0.00 ERA, while Lee Smith is up to his usual tricks: 23.2 innings, 0.38 ERA, 1124 ERA+.

[Izz]

The 'Glou finish the day at 27-26. The hot team in P400 is the Virginia Beach Freaks, who are 46-9, which includes a very recent 4-game sweep of the 'Glou.

Mookie has a 24-game hit streak going, which is kinda funny seeing as his slash-line is .224/.307/.307. Moved Trout to 5 in the order, which might seem like a waste but I figure it might give him more high-leverage at-bats. He's hitting .271/.393/.486 so far, with 8 doubles, 3 triples, and 8 homers. We've scored 246 runs (4th) but allowed 255 (11), which puts us a game above pythag.

Pulled 91OVR Deion Sanders today. Got a rookie Chipper in the same pack so I now have 5 of the cards needed for the Braves: America's Team mission. Not that I'm going to try to complete that one - way too expensive for an FTPer like me!

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes are 4th in their division at 29-24, but only 4 1/2 game seperate 1st to 5th, could be a very entertaining season. Tony Gwynn is leading the league in hitting at .387. I'm trying Erstad in CF, which allows to bring in Raines at LF who should provide more offence than Dykstra.

Bad News Bulldogs are 17-38, still can't pitch, but they can score some runs. Highlight of the month was Eric Davis getting 3 OF assists in the same game.

Neuman Furshlugginers moved to 35-19 opening up a 5 1/2 game gap. The starting rotation are all doing a great job, a couple of relievers aren't, and the hitters are hitting. looking a very balanced team who could be very good if i can find a couple of decent bullpen guys

[Westheim]

Critters are 27-25, just over .500, and 4 1/2 out in the division. That is the fourth straight year where they are over .500 (sometimes by plenty) in the first half, and then enter into a fatal tailspin.

Rebs are 31-23, leading their division by three. The pitching staff is still fourth in ERA, but fourth from the bottom in strikeouts, and the defense is rather indifferent to passing baseballs, plus the offense is meh at best. How they made it to eight over .500 is a mystery to me, but at least I know it won't last, either.

For a pleasant change, the Accountants started the year in a barrel tumbling down a set of endless M.C. Escher stairs. They were 7-18 on April 25. They have not improved a measurable amount since, sitting at 23-32, 4 1/2 games out in a terrible division where at times in the first half of May the leader was four games under .500 …

It's neither the pitching, nor the offense. Their run differential is *negative two*. It's the universe deciding to give them an audit, and the universe will want to see every single damn invoice as proof they deserve to stay at Gold.

[One Great Matrix]

A few seasons back I finished 30 games over .500 with a +54 RunDiff & lost to Brooklyn in the playoffs (LDS)...So far this season we have climbed 19 games over .500 with a +29 RunDiff so it brings back memories of that week a bit.

'Wee' Willie Keeler (known in some circles as the best pure hitter in the game) is hitting .223 in 166 ABs.

Otherwise...Lou Gehrig & Darryl Strawberry (both representing NY) got off to very nice warm (hot in Gehrig's case) starts/player of the week for Straw...

& the pitching has been good, very good except for Sandy Koufax & Jacob deGrom. In fact, that's probably what has allowed us to win in part without piling on the runs.