[trman73]

Minglewood Warlocks

At the one-third mark the Warlocks are the team that I’ve easily devoted the most time to. And that’s good, because this is also the team that I feel best about, and with the Auction House basically closed to me in terms of upgrades for the next who-knows-how-many weeks, I’m glad I made some upgrades over the past three weeks or so. This FTP team has also been my most successful of the three clubs.

Overall Record: 1,435-1,360, eight playoff appearances,one Series, one title (Gold)
Best Season: 2031, with a 99-63 record that culminated in a Gold Series title
Highest Level Achieved: Diamond (current)

Franchise MVP: SE 1B Jeff Bagwell (97)
Runners-Up: SE SP Greg Maddux (99), Peak SS Joe Cronin (100), SE ichiro Suzuki (92)
This remains a team where SE cards dominate. And Bags has been the best of them, winning two Gold MVPs and making the All-Star team five times. Maddux has been Maddux and Ichiro has been Ichiro, but the gem (at least in Gold) has been Cronin, who has shored up the SS position and has a 40.4 WAR in 8+ seasons overall.

Biggest Surprise: Peak DH Mike Tiernan (91)
Runners-Up: Peak IF Jose Reyes (91), SE MR Bert Blyleven (94), Peak MR Bobby Shantz (93)
So Tiernan only bats against righties, but his speed/average/power combo against them is good and he’s got a career .779 OPS across Diamond and Gold for me as a platoon DH. He’s had a couple of really great seasons and was a huge contributor to our Gold title. Blyleven has been an excellent 8^th-inning guy for me and Shantz was a steal when I got him and has been an excellent lefty in the pen.

Biggest Disappointment: SE Duke Snider (96)
Runners-Up: SE Randy Johnson (95), SE Adam Wainwright (91)
I could not get most of the second-tier SE guys to work for me, but Snider really disappointed given his cost. I considered Mel Ott here since he was a “larger” reward (NL West), but he wasn’t on the team long enough to make me that mad at him.

Best Decision: The spending spree before FOTF launched. That spree included Edd Roush, Frank Viola, Carlos Correa, Cesar Cedeno, Brian Downing, Joe Niekro, and I’ll throw Mookie Betts in there. I wouldn’t be able to get those guys today.

Worst Decision: The Bryan Harvey experiment at closer was a disaster for me, and I was excited for like three weeks waiting to afford him.

Overall Assessment: This team can be (and has been) competitive in Diamond given the right division. Right now we lead our division at 23-18. And it’s still (and will always be) a FTP team. Since we’re basically a packs-only team for the foreseeable future, just one or two more great pulls, and we’ll be somewhere.