I'd consider Yount and others, but I decided to go lefty mode to limit how many players I can buy.

Haha, yeah I have seen the card one upping occur already in my league too. That new Hornsby card is looking like at Meta-God card in my league in a brief timespan of stats collected (197 OPS+). Unless I see an AH offer I can't refuse, I'm holding onto my points until sometime next week. With a lot people taking advantage of the sale right now and people who probably have some card packs to open as they complete missions, it should be a buyers market by mid-point next week similar to last year around this time. Meanwhile, no wildcard birth for me and my Diamond league playoff drought continues, but I hope to finish with 85 wins as I am currently sitting with 77 so far.

I think my team is on steroids. They are averaging nearly 7 runs per game:thumbup1: Clinch the division by taking 2 out of 3 from Moosejaw.:thumbup1::thumbup1:

Ooo, it's getting exciting
 

5 games left & I'm in the playoffs (in a silver league), but I have to finish maybe 5-0 or 4-1 to tie or move ahead of the Sacramento Spiders...real-time update!

We still have a substantial (-49) run deficit. But I've been going for the win all week.

WOOf
 

So for all the fans of the funk, Frank Funk & over-performing players, the Spiders & the Players went into the last game of the season tied with records of 89-72 and the Funk man won out! It was Frank Funk's first victory on the season.

Well the Washington Justice may not have gotten into the playoffs but they certainly were the most competitive they have been at Diamond Level since the 2033 season and finished with 90 wins thanks in part to a 13 game winning streak in September. The bullpen was ranked 2nd in the American Conference and the starting staff finished 5th. A lucky card pull of a historical legend Tom Seaver on Tuesday allowed Jose Fernandez to move to the pen where he flourished pitching 78 bullpen innings, striking out 109 and topped it off with a 0.99 WHIP/1.49 ERA. The pitching staff turnaround was also due in part to the auction house addition on Tuesday of FOTF Al Kaline now roaming CF with a trained up 112 rating. Lastly FOTF Craig Biggio continues to prove he is one of the greatest bargains on the AH and finished with a 4.5 WAR rating. So far, he is averaging nearly a 5.2 WAR through 5 full Diamond level seasons. Not bad for the 50K in points I spent on him when he was introduced. The Justice hope to add 4 more high impact players next week by adding 2 more pitchers, another OF and probably one more IF.

Players/Flyers
 

I got shlonked out of the playoffs. The Flyers went quietly in 3, although all three games were competitive. The Players lost the first 2, won the next 2 by a run, dropped game 5 by something like a run. Not quite enough this week.

Man I hate those 3 and outs in the first round.

I had a good week.

Although the Magpies won 111 games, they are heavy underdogs in their Division Series (from last week). It doesn't help that they enter the series seriously flat, losing 8 of the last 13 since clinching the division. Included in this is being swept by a relegation team to close out the regular season. Nothing changed with the pitching coughing up double digit runs in every game but the one we won by the score of 8-7. Not a pitcher's duel that.

In 2047, our favorite bird team is again in a tough division. Both wildcards are likely to come from it. 17-4 since the all-star break was not enough to gain ground on the division leader, Carpentersville. The team remains two games behind. The faithful have reason to be hopeful, however, as GM Bailey spent less than what it would cost (in PP if PP could be cashed in at par) to take a family of four out to a Major League Baseball game and acquired another Face Card: Warren Spahn.

Ohhh, that FOTF Spahn card is on my wish list.

Another Face Card checked off the list this morning: Tom Seaver. I think that ends my shopping for a bit. Time to clear out the crud, over 30K from quick selling the live duplicates is a start.

The Magpies have powered their way into first place on the strength of 34-8 since the All-Star break. Pitching is now respectable in the top third of the conference.

I'm doing a slow sell off of most of my Live cards. I hadn't sold pretty much any of my live cards aside from when a card might get demoted during the live card in season updates. I did sell off all my duplicate Live irons in quick sell and collected about 8K in points from that. Working on selling off my Silver Live next on the AH since I am not in a huge hurry to add more points at the moment. Most of my bronze will probably be quick sells as well but that will depend on market demand for some of them. With the AH market started to find its way into the winter doldrums, as and FTP guy I have to squirrel away any points I can for use later on. Got about 119 packs to open at some point but I will wait to open those until I see what those last collections missions are. An actual Washington Justice season review update will come either tomorrow or Monday.

Yes, that is quite a race. The Seawolves were fortunate to be in a weak division in the other D355 conference. Even the 2 wildcards have a better record than the Seawolves.

We'll see what happens in the playoffs? I am seeing so many FOTF players that we may need to rename the game to FOTF Team from Perfect Team?

12 games left, your a 1/2 a game up with 6 of the 12 remaining games against your division rival. Good luck.

Oh, well, heading into the final 3 game set at home with the Hammers, we are 1.5 games up and a sweep would clinch the division. Unfortunately, we were reverse swept and stand 2 games back with 3 to play. Counting the game before makes it 4 straight losses. The last time the Magpies lost 4 in a row was back in June when we were swept at home by the Hammers.

Well the Washington Justice won their Diamond level division for the first time since the 2033 season (last Diamond playoff birth was 2036). They also finished with their best regular season record at the Diamond level with 94 wins. Granted it was a weaker division than I normally play in but I'll take it. Unfortunately we exited the playoffs in the divisional round but at least took one of the games.

The Justice also welcomed FOTF DiMaggio, FOTF Plank, FOTF Yount and Snapshot Lefty Grove to the team throughout the course of the week.

The Justice played fairly well in most categories in the American Conference, finishing 6th or better in 13 team total categories. Strange stat of the week was the home/away record in which we went 55-26 at home and 39-42 on the road. It's strange because I have used a pretty generic home stadium without favoring any batter/pitcher or L/R handiness over the other and ended up with a result reminding me of the times in which I did use such a strategy. Oh well, on to next week and hopefully more consistent above .500 play in the Diamond leagues.

The Trojans were demoted back to Gold this week after a quite abysmal showing their first week in Diamond. The demotion did nothing for their performance though, as they barely played above .500 and missed the Gold playoffs. Need to continue tweaking...
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Meanwhiles, my F2P (no pure righties) Haymakers squad won their division in Gold and made it to the semifinals, meaning they'll be playing in Diamond (most likely also in an abysmal manner) next week! The Haymakers have been fortunate enough to have a straight through progression so far since joining PT, with only 1 week appearances at every level so far.

Team MVPs
Johnny Evers - .306/.397/.415, 6.3 WAR
Herb Pennock - 19-11, 3.46 ERA, 162 Ks, 3.7 WAR

I must say that one surprising player on the squad has been Peak Mark Grace (84), who still had a slash of .277/.346/.434 and 1.6 WAR this week. A mid-level Gold performing up to this level is always a pleasant experience.

I think the Washington Justice have finished with at least their last position player upgrades. Was able to snag FOTF Hank Aaron for 119K of the AH a couple hours ago. Haven't really seen a convincing reason to bother replacing old SE 100 Yogi Berra at the moment, I just use the Manny Sanguillen gold card for now as the lefty platoon and backup. Pitching per the norm requires the most investment and that will be where all my future points will be aimed at improving.

This is a first!
 

Happy days for the pitching staff!