The Denver Brewers of the W.P. Kinsella League

[BirdWatcher]

The Denver Brewers:



Raul Melendrez spent a couple of seasons in the Denver organization, even getting one appearance in a Brewers uniform at the end of the 1974 season and getting a championship ring that year, but he was then left unprotected from the expansion draft that offseason and was selected by the Houston Cavaliers in the 13th round. After parts of four frustrating, but not wholly unsuccessful, seasons with the expansion Cavaliers, Melendrez found himself traded to Charlotte in early June of this year. And the change of scenery seemed to do him some good. Although he has only gone 9-9 with the Sting, he has a respectable 3.49 ERA since joining the club and yesterday he got another chance to hurt his old club. And hurt them he did, hurling a 4-hit shutout. (To be fair, in his two previous starts against the Brewers this season he was beaten up pretty badly, losing both by big margins.)
Jim Atwell (15-8, 3.33) had a rocky first two innings before settling down quite a bit, but the rout was on at that point. Atwell lasted 5 innings, giving up 7 runs on 10 hits. The Brewers collected 4 singles off Melendrez, and, well, what more is there to say about this one really?


In other MGL news, Brooklyn got a 10-1 win over Oklahoma City with Aaron McNally improving to 22-8 with a 2.72 ERA. And Eduardo Obando (17-7, 2.45) led L.A. to a 9-0 win over Baltimore.
The Brewers lead over Brooklyn remains 11 games and their magic number is still 2.

The Shoeless Joe League pennant race:





The two teams at the top of the SJL standings- El Paso and Philadelphia- both get wins, while Columbus wins to move into a tie with Boston at 4 games behind the Dawgs. (Philly is 3 games behind El Paso.) The slumping San Antonio Keys are now 6 games back and are seeing their pennant hopes fade fast.

Columbus ace Luis Ramirez improves to 18-8 with a 2.26 ERA. He will likely get his first Pitcher of the Year award and would have a solid shot at a pitching triple crown if it weren't for his teammate Jamar Clay, the Whalers stopper, getting enough innings pitch to also qualify for the ERA title and sitting at 1.95.


And how good of a trade for El Paso was it when they sent center fielder Mike Schimmel (a Gold Glove defender but hitting .228/.280/.311 this year) to Baltimore for starting pitcher/first baseman Vincent Medina and outfielder Nick Thompson? While Thompson is hitting .333/.443/.424 in in a 4th outfielder role (and is also a fine defender, leading to 1.6 WAR in only 162 plate appearances), all Medina is doing is anchoring the rotation with a 15-3 record and 2.62 ERA while also playing first base on a regular basis, hitting .256/.327/.427 with 1.6 WAR in that role.

[BirdWatcher]

And what little drama was left in the MGL pennant race (if it could ever be called that) is over as the Denver Brewers earn the right to defend their WPK Championship in this year's Kinsella Classic Series.



What SJL team they will be facing might not be decided until very near the end of the season.

[Andrej72]

COME ON BREWERS! YOU CAN DO IT!

How can you set up that layout, where you see the scores and also pitchers and P.O.T.G on the right?

BTW I created my own fictional league the North American Baseball League (not a great imagination from my side :-)) and became the manager of the Brooklyn Trail Blazers (it looks that AI has more imagination with team names :-)). I have chosen not to hold the inaugural draft, but I let the AI to distribute players among the teams. Since this is the first year there are no free agents available, and also trade market is calm. I was the only team which initiated a trade, we traded a veteran and overpaid catcher for a reliever. Season has just started, so I'll see how this game develops.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

How can you set up that layout, where you see the scores and also pitchers and P.O.T.G on the right?

This is what you will see if you go to the Scores page from the League tab.

[Andrej72]

Thanks a lot! Do you play or watch you ball games? I usually prefer quick-play.

BTW for testing purposes I am using now the 1-10 scale as well in my save. When rating a player by this scale does 5 means an average "major league" player, or rather higher? In video tutorials I watched and 20 to 80 scale was used the guy said that 50 means an average MLB value.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

Thanks a lot! Do you play or watch you ball games? I usually prefer quick-play.

BTW for testing purposes I am using now the 1-10 scale as well in my save. When rating a player by this scale does 5 means an average "major league" player, or rather higher? In video tutorials I watched and 20 to 80 scale was used the guy said that 50 means an average MLB value.

I play out every regular and post-season game for my team, the Brewers, and as mentioned earlier I control only the setting up of the lineups and the in-game substitutions for my team.

And yes, I think the 1-10 ratings can be understood pretty intuitively, with 5 being a very average big league player (assuming you are looking at the ratings relative to the top league in your universe). But if, like me, you use the scouting system and not 100% accurate ratings then you do need to take these with a grain of salt. And each individual rating is also influenced by other ratings, by the way that ratings interact with one another. I certainly have seen players who seem to over-achieve in certain areas relative to their rating for that skill and others who under-achieve.

Basically, my point is that this is all quite complex and I wouldn't want to over-simplify it. It is the sort of thing that is best figured out through playing the game, through trial and error, with experience being the best teacher. (As I see things, anyway.)

[Andrej72]

That means that you watch animations. For me it is better to push quick play, if I see opposing hitter cracks a home run on the first pitch, I get mad. I let manager and bench coach to handle games.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

That means that you watch animations. For me it is better to push quick play, if I see opposing hitter cracks a home run on the first pitch, I get mad. I let manager and bench coach to handle games.

Yes, I watch it all, the good and the bad.

And yes, there are times when it can be very frustrating. But that is when you remind yourself that baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. And all the bad stuff, all the errors and losses and blown leads, etc., well, that's all part of the journey too.

And a glorious journey it is.

[Andrej72]

But then I assume that you are the GM and the Manager in one person, right? If you are in the ball game, after setting the lineup, how do you everything to the bench coach excluding substitutions?

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

But then I assume that you are the GM and the Manager in one person, right? If you are in the ball game, after setting the lineup, how do you everything to the bench coach excluding substitutions?

Yes, I am playing as GM and manager but I let my bench coach take care of most of the in-game decisions.
Remember- I had posted a picture of him earlier in the thread in answer to one of your questions and indicated this.

[Andrej72]

Setting these to AI control means that bench coach controls everything except substitutions, right?

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

Setting these to AI control means that bench coach controls everything except substitutions, right?

Correct.

[Andrej72]

Can you please show me what view settings do you use? I mean on the lineup screen where you can set pitcher warmup rules there are so many options that I am lost. I want a bit closer view on the action. Right now I have a kind of birdview. Plus if my pitcher is in action I wish to see the game from his view.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

Can you please show me what view settings do you use? I mean on the lineup screen where you can set pitcher warmup rules there are so many options that I am lost. I want a bit closer view on the action. Right now I have a kind of birdview. Plus if my pitcher is in action I wish to see the game from his view.

I remember well how overwhelmed I was when I first started playing OOTP. And I really appreciate your enthusiasm. I get the distinct sense that you are already progressing rapidly in picking up the game.

I know that when I first was learning OOTP I read the forums voraciously, searching for the answers to my questions. And I consulted the manual regularly (as I still do, though perhaps not quite as frequently.) One thing I would suggest is to google some of your questions and if you try enough combinations you will almost surely find some helpful threads from the forums over the past many years that will help clear things up for you.

But I feel the need to get this thread back to the world of the W.P. Kinsella League. Although I don't mind the occasional small step away from the imagined reality of that world, I do prefer to mostly keep this thread confined within the immersion of that baseball universe.

(I hope you understand, and as always feel free to send me private messages- I realize I haven't answered every one that you have sent me in the past few days, but it has also been a very busy work week for me, so I promise to try to do better.)

[Andrej72]

Sure, no problem!

I am eager to read further the story of the Brewers. How long was the longest game of the Brewers that you can recall?

[BirdWatcher]

The Denver Brewers:



Steve Green (15-8, 3.59) has certainly had a tale of two halves this season, having gone 4-6 with a 5.28 ERA up until the All-Star break, only to turn things around with a 11-2 second half, dropping his ERA nearly two runs per 9 innings pitched lower. And it was on another fine start from the veteran right-hander that the Brewers clinched their third straight MGL pennant. Green allowed just 1 run on 3 hits in his 8 innings pitched. Detroit did score twice off Cory Degano in the 9th to make the game look closer than it really was, but in the end the Brewers held on. Val Guzman (.284/.373/.435) led the way offensively, going 3 for 4, scoring twice and driving in a run, hitting his 28th double of the season in the 6th inning and then following that up with his 12th home run the very next inning.

Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Aces saw the Portland Wild Things score 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th for a walk-off win which sealed the Aces fate as an also-ran in 1978.

The Shoeless Joe League Pennant Race:





Over in the SJL, meanwhile, the five-team pennant race got a bit tighter.
El Paso, holds on to a 3 game lead after being shutout by Chicago Fire starter Lupe Chicas, who threw a 4-hitter.
The Columbus Whalers have been playing the best of the contending SJL teams and they got another win behind their 2-time Pitcher of the Year Jim Norris, narrowly defeating the Phildelphia Mud Hens, pulling into a tie with Philly in second place.
Boston suffers their third straight loss to drop to 4 games off the pace while our old friend Harry Lyerly gets the win as San Antonio defeats Washington and stays in the race, 5 games back.

[Andrej72]

I am curious how your season folds out. How old is Steve Green? How many years he spent in Denver?

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by Andrej72

I am curious how your season folds out. How old is Steve Green? How many years he spent in Denver?

Green is 32 and he was our first round draft pick in the 1968 amateur draft (8th overall). He pitched two games late in the 1970 season and has been a part of the staff ever since. He has been a solid middle of the rotation arm for the Brewers over the years with a 103-64 career record and a 3.51 ERA. Next season is the last year of his contract and the team has an option to buy him out and let him walk, which looked like it might happen earlier this season. It appears that he has earned at least one more season in Brewer purple now though.

[BirdWatcher]

One day after the Denver Brewers clinched another MGL pennant, the team announced that 30-year old star starting pitcher Sekien Hamasaki had reached agreement with the team on a 6-year extension of his contract. It is rumored that the talented and durable right-hander, with the wipeout slider, would be earning somewhere north of $200,000 per year on average over the length of the contract, though the team apparently does have an option to buy-out the sixth year.

[BirdWatcher]

The Denver Brewers:



Brett Taranto may have helped his MVP candidacy with this one, as he belted two home runs to get to 20 for the season and went 3 for 5 to lift his league leading batting average back to .342. Erik Sloan (9-4, 4.28) worked 6 innings, giving up 2 runs on 7 hits. Ben Flynn pitched the final 3 innings for his 6th save. Josh Schaeffer, another MVP candidate, went 3 for 4, scoring twice and driving in a run.

The Shoeless Joe League Pennant Race:





Of the five contenders in the SJL, only two got wins yesterday: Philadelphia, who got a huge win over reigning SJL champs Columbus, and the Boston Berserkers.
The El Paso Dawgs picked a bad time for their bats to go cold as they get shutout a second straight game by the 11th place Chicago Fire.
With the loss El Paso sees their lead shrink to 2 games over Philadelphia while Boston and Columbus are tied at 3 games back. San Antonio stays 5 games back and is running out of time to make a move.