Season 21 Discussion thread

[Charlatan]

Also, this is the first time I've seen this achievement. My 94 OVR George Sisler stole home.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Nero

Trying to get my Halladay duplicate sold for about 140,000, and have a Yadier Molina up for 37k, so after the 10%, call it 160k budget.

Ok, THAT Halladay.

If you want one pitcher, I would watch for the 100 Hubbell. You probably won't get him that cheap, but it's worth checking since he has been around a lot lately and his price is down atm. The 100 Grove and 98 Blue would be good too, but more points. The top lefties would be Rixey and Marquard. They are hard to find and expensive when they do pop up.

Originally Posted by Nero

After another brief look...I'll amend it.... ideally one middle relief type who can give multi-inning stints in a short series, and one lefty specialist.

98 Hubbell
100 Koufax
98 Spahn
96 Glavine
100 Dutch Leonard

All of those would be good middle relief for Perfect level, and could start if you needed it. Glavine probably needs a good infield.

For specialist, you could also check relievers. Ken Dayley is pretty strong against lefties and could also be a setup guy.

[Nero]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Not to beat a dead horse, but I was looking at the 100 Morgan. I really really wanted to see how that card would perform at the plate. But I wondered if his glove was just too terrible to allow him to play in the field and so I chickened out and didn't get him when I had the chance. I realize he's going to be bad in the field but on the whole is using him at 2B a plus or minus? FYI, this would be for a theme team so I don't expect the team to consistently (ever?) compete in Perfect against whales.

Also, has anyone tried him at DH? Seems like he'd do great there (of course, that opens up another can of worms, as he'd then be competing against all sorts of other hitters for that spot).

When I first had him, most of my pitchers were flyball pitchers, and at the worst, he rarely made errors. He was putting up 5.5-6.5 WAR a year, and as somewhat of a traditionalist, I loved having a lead off man who would draw 100 walks, steal bases, and fill up a stat sheet. He gave me the performance I had expected from Rickey Henderson, but never got. My last season I put him at DH, and offensively it was his best year, he only hit against RHP, I think it was a .280/400/500 slash, 101 walks, and 80 odd K's. Despite that I still moved on. I don't know if it was the right call, but I had some bigger power that I wanted to save, and an even worse glove, so I needed a place to hide that glove.

For around 50k though, I think he gives a much bigger value if you can either hide hide his glove at DH, or if you are built around flyball pitchers. I really believed he was the engine that was making my offense go. There is no doubt it's flawed card, but for it's price, it offers one heck of a value.

Just my 2 cents though...

[Nero]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Ok, THAT Halladay.

If you want one pitcher, I would watch for the 100 Hubbell. You probably won't get him that cheap, but it's worth checking since he has been around a lot lately and his price is down atm. The 100 Grove and 98 Blue would be good too, but more points. The top lefties would be Rixey and Marquard. They are hard to find and expensive when they do pop up.




98 Hubbell
100 Koufax
98 Spahn
96 Glavine
100 Dutch Leonard

All of those would be good middle relief for Perfect level, and could start if you needed it. Glavine probably needs a good infield.

For specialist, you could also check relievers. Ken Dayley is pretty strong against lefties and could also be a setup guy.

Thank you! Means a lot! I just hadn't put a ton of time, I'd been juggling like crazy, had the "Mad Hungarian" for a time (hey, Hungarians are awesome, and I thought he had a great nickname growing up.) but since I had been working the future legends collection, along with Negro league, had really been using that spot in the pen as an "audition" for those guys, hoping one of 'em would get hot, and be the guy for an extended period of time. Unfortunately I suspect I'm going to have to fire my pitching coach, because this year he isn't delivering!

I'll start checking the AH shortly!

Quick question, because I never paid attention to the card since it was out of my budget, but the SE Randy Johnson w/Seattle, I don't think I have seen anyone using it, is the card that bad? I'd looked at the 2001 version as a possible lefty reliever since he was priced where the other guys were, but I walked away with a very "meh" kind of feeling.

Rixey is another one....I didn't look hard because of the price, and a few teams I see have him, but they are using him as a bullpen arm. That seemed like a steep price to pay for a 50-60 IP a year, is there something about him that suits him in the pen more than the rotation?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Nero

Quick question, because I never paid attention to the card since it was out of my budget, but the SE Randy Johnson w/Seattle, I don't think I have seen anyone using it, is the card that bad? I'd looked at the 2001 version as a possible lefty reliever since he was priced where the other guys were, but I walked away with a very "meh" kind of feeling.

If this is the card that I am thinking of, then it is up there with Grove and even Marquard but more expensive so I would prefer one of the others.

Originally Posted by Nero

Rixey is another one....I didn't look hard because of the price, and a few teams I see have him, but they are using him as a bullpen arm. That seemed like a steep price to pay for a 50-60 IP a year, is there something about him that suits him in the pen more than the rotation?

I think that you can get the answer to your question by checking the starters on those teams. For example, Metheun Silver Sox in my league have Rixey in the bullpen. The starters are 100 Young, 100 Walter, 100 Schilling, 100 Pedro, and 100 Walsh. So yeah, Rixey can't crack that rotation but neither can his other middle relievers 100 Clemens and 99 Coveleski. He has a staff of 100 starters on the reserve roster also (Gooden, Ryan, Feller, et al). I doubt that you will find a team starting Live pitchers or even decent diamond historicals using Rixey in the bullpen.

[old timer]

My goal for this season was to finish with the best record, but it's not looking too likely. We have a .707 WPct and are tied with the best Pythag, but we're 4 GB the Crushers at the moment (record wise - they're in the other conference), who are having their best season ever (it figures!). The only 2 other times we were close to having the best record, the team ahead of us was having their best year ever. We do have the best RDiff at the moment, which would be a 1st if we finish this way.

Next season we won't likely do nearly so well since I've joined a group of whales. Of course, there aren't too many of them so we should still have a good record (well, maybe?!) overall. Of course, the weaker teams in perfect aren't as weak as they used to be so they're not as easy to beat as they used to be. One of the weaker teams this season had Vlad Jr and perfect Ruth, for example, and some other perfects too. Another team that's "weak" has perfect Young in their rotation (a lucky card pull I assume).

[Nero]

Originally Posted by Orcin

If this is the card that I am thinking of, then it is up there with Grove and even Marquard but more expensive so I would prefer one of the others.

Makes total sense, and I usually see it around 300k. That said, I just haven't seen someone using it. Exeter is the same set-up that you describe below, and I'm not sure he even has Randy Johnson on his roster. I was just curious, since I saw it pop-up today. (Out of my range, but had to look) was the lower (65) stamina than the others had.

I think that you can get the answer to your question by checking the starters on those teams. For example, Metheun Silver Sox in my league have Rixey in the bullpen. The starters are 100 Young, 100 Walter, 100 Schilling, 100 Pedro, and 100 Walsh. So yeah, Rixey can't crack that rotation but neither can his other middle relievers 100 Clemens and 99 Coveleski. He has a staff of 100 starters on the reserve roster also (Gooden, Ryan, Feller, et al). I doubt that you will find a team starting Live pitchers or even decent diamond historicals using Rixey in the bullpen.

Makes sense as well..and again, thanks! Gave me ample ideas to hunt on the AH.

[waittilnextyear]

The Frogs' owner has spent most of his "managing time" this week dealing with an enormous volume of cards from the pack-apocalypse these past couple of weeks. It's quite the labor opening 675 packs and then listing all the scraps on the AH. But, I'm glad I'm doing this because it has helped the team in several facets. Also a good infusion of cards into the AH to help combat some of the supply issues.

Obtaining 100 Christy Mathewson, 100 Mike Trout, 95 Satchel Paige, and 91 Doug Jones was pretty cool and has given the Frogs a few new starters on the active roster.

The pack-apocalypse also prodded me to reconsider some of the collection missions to see if any would be feasible with fewer gaps to fill. Spent about 8K to finish the Blue Jays and 20K to finish the Yankees missions. Only got a LIVE Verlander from the diamond pack which makes the Blue Jays mission a wash, but 99 Rickey Henderson has been going for 55K, so the Yankees one was profitable. Rickey also seems like a good platoon option vs lefties and he'll commence training next week. Getting really close to having the Phillies (Dykstra will make the active roster) and Negro League missions done.

In order to "break even" on opening 675 packs, the math dictates selling/retaining 675K worth of value. So far, 622K has already been recouped + 250K worth still on the AH + 200K value absorbed into the active roster. So this will most definitely be EV+ and perhaps gives more evidence that pack EV is more generous than a lot of people might think. Of course, this discounts the time and work needed to push the cards through the AH.

With all the proceeds, the Frogs have also added 96 Zack Greinke (Hardware Heroes, Royals version) and 84 SE Mark Belanger (finally got Andrelton Simmons out of there). Also added PEAK Mike Mussina and John Henry Lloyd, but decided to re-auction them due to my fetish for mint cards.

Oh yeah, and the team is 82-51 this week, 15.5 games behind Team To Be Determined, but in very solid position for a wild card. The Frogs will take a 13 game lead over the final team out of the playoff picture into the final day of sims.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Nero

Of course, and apologies.

Trying to get my Halladay duplicate sold for about 140,000, and have a Yadier Molina up for 37k, so after the 10%, call it 160k budget.

Ideally I'd like to find a starter, but that's pretty far from the the top level of lefty's that I've seen, so I'm thinking that perhaps my best value will come from 2 bullpen lefty's. I've run thru 4-5 lefty's in the pen this year, everything from setup, to middle, to specialist, and unfortunately they've all gotten bombed. Just a rough year.....

Other thought would be to find one quality left handed arm for the pen. Looking at potential playoff match-up's, I notice that two of the division leaders are very lefty heavy, even against a lefty starter. I'd love to have a quality lefty starter, but I suspect that in a short series, I'm better off trusting my rotation, and having a quality arm that can give me a few outings in key situations in those games, at least for what I can spend.

Clear as mud? That's how I feel after blowing a 7 game lead! Even if I knew it was coming, I still had that glimmer of hope...


Updates:

After another brief look...I'll amend it.... ideally one middle relief type who can give multi-inning stints in a short series, and one lefty specialist.

For a lefty specialist role, you'd be hard pressed to get a better value than LIVE Felipe Vazquez. Can be snatched for 8K. He's very vulnerable to righties though. LIVE Aaron Bummer is the poor man's version.

If you want a reliever that's not quite as vulnerable to righties, the Unsung Heroes 93 Tug McGraw looks pretty sweet. I haven't tried it though. The Historical All-Star 92 David Price also looks interesting, 84/74/78 as a starter against lefties (not sure what the stuff boost would be), and relatively inexpensive at ~20K. Alas haven't tried that one either. For a bit higher tier of a card, the 100 Dutch Leonard has been going from 60-70K lately. The 98 Carl Hubbell goes for about 75K and is rated 87/80/88 against lefties as a starter so it should be passable for all but the whale-iest of the whale teams.

Of ones that I have used, the SE 94 Eddie Plank card is in theory a good option for multiple innings and gets a nice stuff boost going to the bullpen, but it's been a mediocre card for me. I've had some success with the Chris Short card, which is kind of a 'starter' diamond and pretty cheap at around 10K.

[Marleigh]

Paragon City Heroes managed to finish the sim 67-67 despite being very up and down. Collections continue to frustrate, been 1 player away from the SE Dykstra for 2 days now. Trying to get the team built ready for next season. At least I finished Lonnie Smith and he has been incredible so far looking forward to a full season from him.

Bad News Bulldogs added a new SP, Mario Soto with the last of the PP I got from selling Brouthers and discovered that Paul Derringer apparently pitches really well as a follower (to Lodolo). They moved to 72-61 within 3 1/2 of the leaders and within 1 of a WC game. We have 5 players at 70+ RBI, Votto is probably the best 1b in the league due to his 100 walks and is leading all 1b in WAR and OPS+. Eric Davis is up there in many stats for CF, was looking a potential MVP earlier but has dropped off a bit. Someone's perfect Cy Young is clearly going to win pitcher of the year leading in pretty much every pitching category, but his team are 64-69.

Neuman Furshlugginers ended the sim with a 4 game losing streak to move to 68-65 well out of playoff contention, which will give me sunday free to sell off a bunch of players and bring in fresh scrubs. The highlights of the sim being a Hank Aguirre 1 hitter and POTM for Red Ruffing

[Westheim]

The 59-74 Raccoons could play out a very boring string today, 10 games out of the wild card, but then they're only five games above the abyss. Yeah, there's like six teams in between them and said abyss, but I've seen my teams do worse than that…

Rebs are 66-68 and 8 1/2 out of the division, 3 1/2 for a wild card with in-between traffic. I'd say a concerted push could make them relevant but they haven't been able to show they'd be capable of such thing all year long…

Accountants have already blown a 7-game lead, so I assume they're gonna drop from 75-58 into nothing in September... currently barely good enough for the second wild card…

[Marleigh]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

Good luck with that Paul Derringer. He's been an absolute flaming bag of dog poo for me.

Derringer started the season awfully so i moved him to the reserves, i recently brought him back and have been using Lodolo as an opener. In his 5 games since he's been a follower he has a 3-1 record (his loss was a 2-0 loss) with a sub 3.0 era, he gives up less than 1BB and HR per 9, so far its an experiment i'm really happy with, obviously the main advantage of using Lodolo is that it flips lineups so that its a vs LHP lineup

this linescore from the most recent played game is pretty typical of how it's been going with Derringer,, his ERA has dropped from over 7 when i sent him to the reserves

[Izz]

B'sin'Glou are 62-71, 4 games above Pythag but, more importantly, 11 games above the relegation zone.

Completed the Knuckleballers mission yesterday, and the gold pack netted me 89OVR Carlton Fisk. I'd say that's a win. He replaces 84OVR Jason Kendall, who can hit but is pretty bad behind the plate. I'm considering swapping out LaValliere for 84OVR Victor Martinez (pulled several weeks ago) but LaValliere's defense is keeping him on the 25-man.

Today I completed The Z-Collection and pulled 81OVR Ryan Pressly from the standard reward pack. That might not sound like such a big deal but while I'm not short of high stuff relievers, I am short of high stuff relievers who can keep it around the plate.

Oh, and I finished the day on a nice note: Curt Simmons threw a Maddux against 89OVR Maddux to help us to a 1-0 win.

[Orcin]

The Colonels are enjoying what is possibly their best year yet at 101-32, one game ahead of the Metheun Silver Sox for best record in the league. We also have the best run differential at +380. We are 3-4 vs. Metheun this year so there is hope that we can win a sub-league series against them.

The big change this year was a lot of platooning and playing the hot hand since I had time to micro-manage this week. I have six outfielders splitting four spots including DH: RHBs 100 DiMaggio, 100 Aaron, 99 Mays, LHBs 100 Yaz, 99 Charleston, and SWH 100 Mantle. Mantle has played LF full-time. DiMaggio has played full-time in either CF or RF. The others have split the remaining PAs with Yaz and Mays getting the most. All 6 are above 120 OPS+ so it has been hard to decide on a full-time lineup. If pressed it would be LF Mantle, CF Mays, RF DiMaggio, DH Yaz/Aaron platoon, 4th OF Charleston.

[Josquin]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The Colonels are enjoying what is possibly their best year yet at 101-32, one game ahead of the Metheun Silver Sox for best record in the league. We also have the best run differential at +380. We are 3-4 vs. Metheun this year so there is hope that we can win a sub-league series against them.

I lost to the Silver Sox in the World Series 4-2 after my best regular season (.840 winning percentage). They are really tough in the playoffs. Hopefully with some luck you can keep them from adding to their ridiculous championship total.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The Colonels are enjoying what is possibly their best year yet at 101-32, one game ahead of the Metheun Silver Sox for best record in the league. We also have the best run differential at +380. We are 3-4 vs. Metheun this year so there is hope that we can win a sub-league series against them.

The big change this year was a lot of platooning and playing the hot hand since I had time to micro-manage this week. I have six outfielders splitting four spots including DH: RHBs 100 DiMaggio, 100 Aaron, 99 Mays, LHBs 100 Yaz, 99 Charleston, and SWH 100 Mantle. Mantle has played LF full-time. DiMaggio has played full-time in either CF or RF. The others have split the remaining PAs with Yaz and Mays getting the most. All 6 are above 120 OPS+ so it has been hard to decide on a full-time lineup. If pressed it would be LF Mantle, CF Mays, RF DiMaggio, DH Yaz/Aaron platoon, 4th OF Charleston.

Nice going against Metheun. I hope you win in the playoffs. What happened to Ruth 100? I had 7 OF and I sold Aaron.

The Magpies entered August 9 back, but got really hot and narrowed the gap to 2.5 by month's end. Twice they entered a 3 game series with Ann Arbor 2.5 back and twice won the first two and twice lost the last one. Currently 1.5 back and 1 more 3 game series with them remaining. Pythag is not my friend once again; according to that I should be leading by 4.5 games. Cy Young is in the hunt for pitching triple crown (again) with a commanding lead in wins, a tiny lead in K, and trailing slightly in ERA. A terrible week for PP with no gold achievements and only 3 silvers.

[Westheim]

The Accountants' newest toy, Roy Campanella, starts his career 1-for-16. Boy, oh boy. Wait. Let me see the card. Does that state "1953" or "1959" …??

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by bailey

Nice going against Metheun. I hope you win in the playoffs. What happened to Ruth 100? I had 7 OF and I sold Aaron.

I sold Ruth a while back to buy Charleston.

Good luck to you too!

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Westheim

The Accountants' newest toy, Roy Campanella, starts his career 1-for-16. Boy, oh boy. Wait. Let me see the card. Does that state "1953" or "1959" …??

My Campanella based on 777 perfect league games has a 162 game average of .282/.341/.480. 26 HR and throws out 25% of base stealers. Let's see how that rookie Adley does for 6x the price.

Magpies enter the final regular season series against the Space Cadets 1 game behind and 2 down in the lost column. BOTH teams enter riding a 10 game winning streak, so to clinch the division I have to win these 3 and the 15 more following it to win by 1 game.

[Nero]

Oh Dutch Leonard.....


I found him nice and cheap, right before the big series with Exeter last night, and because I felt they were too heavy lefthanded, gave Dutch a start. 1.1 IP 9 hits, 9 runs, 9 earned runs, 3 walks. Ended up splitting the series 2-2, but now sit 3 games back as he has run off another 12 in a row, thinking I'm going to have to go the WC route and try it again in the playoffs.


I did buy Vasquez, and he's done a nice job against lefty's for the time being, and Dutch is back in the pen, so I think I'm in better shape in the playoffs. Exeter is a tough match-up, and he's got more talent, that said, always looking for that little match-up advantage to do anything I can to level the field. Either way....going to be fun checking in later to see if we can close the gap.