GWJ OOTP League Thread

Definitely, not lobbying for it, just remarking how much I've come to enjoy loading up the new file when I come to work in the morning.

Well, good news! New file!

Vancouver is finally in the #2 place in the division. Seattle's three games ahead, and Denver's only 4 1/2 games back.

Good grief, injuries are just getting brutal. 5 starting players currently on the DL - could get downright ugly in New Orleans.

Signed the two catchers and a SP I drafted. So that's good. Don't care all that much about the others; will probably get one more. The rest of them are going on to wonderful careers in SL1. Sorry, Mr. Donnie Bolden, pick 548 doesn't get to ask for $2MM.

My primary closer is out for 3 weeks. Luckily I have two other closers on my staff. They both are getting pissy ("I came here to be a closer" BS), now they can show what they can do.

It sucks to be playing 9 games above .500 but 7 1/2 games out.

One of my ML catchers is actually hitting over .200! It's a miracle!

On a similar note: the season's not half over and one of my guys has hit double digit homeruns! (10) Fear the bat!

LA's division is brutal, I am 3rd in the division and 3rd in the power rankings.

New update.

OOTP wrote:

* The historical player import dialog (league transactions screen) can now import multiple historical players via a text file.
* Any non-affiliated league can now optionally feed into the amateur draft pool of another league (based on age-restriction settings).
* Added a scout task list for scouting players, which can be found and edited in the scout's profile screen. This allows you to mark several players to be scouted and the scout will work through the task list, filing reports automatically.

Seems like something we shouldn't worry about.

Novocain wrote:
Bill Bonney wrote:

I would love to get back into OOTP. I mainly play historical seasons, but would love to try an online league, if there is an opening.

I recommend taking over one of the teams in the Southern League since the Northern League is filled with a bunch of juggernaut teams like Baltimore and Vancouver.

I have no idea what I'm talking about.

tboon wrote:

New update.

OOTP wrote:

* The historical player import dialog (league transactions screen) can now import multiple historical players via a text file.
* Any non-affiliated league can now optionally feed into the amateur draft pool of another league (based on age-restriction settings).
* Added a scout task list for scouting players, which can be found and edited in the scout's profile screen. This allows you to mark several players to be scouted and the scout will work through the task list, filing reports automatically.

Seems like something we shouldn't worry about.

Not really, but there are probably some other useful bugfixes in there. No rush, just have it updated in time for Sunday's sim.

Neeeewww file!

Congrats to Boston's Francis Riley, who tied the all-time record for strikeouts with a 16K performance against Portland. He's got a FIP of 1.70, and is somehow just 7-5 this season, go figure.

Prederick wrote:

Neeeewww file!

Congrats to Boston's Francis Riley, who tied the all-time record for strikeouts with a 16K performance against Portland.

First off, you're welcome.

Second, I don't want to look at the new file

I see that ootp13 is half-price at the moment. Two questions for you fine folks: do I need a good knowledge of the sport to play? Are new players able to join the league?

I don't have an extremely in-depth knowledge of baseball either, but I'm giving the demo a shot at Pred's recommendation. I'll likley buy it tomorrow as sports management sims are good stuff.

crunchy wrote:

I see that ootp13 is half-price at the moment. Two questions for you fine folks: do I need a good knowledge of the sport to play? Are new players able to join the league?

I think some knowledge about the business end of baseball is needed, but not much. The game does a decent job of calling attention to the things you need to be looking at. And, if you want to go deeper, you can go as deep as you would like. I think we are pretty good here about answering questions, too.

We add new players whenever they indicate they are interested, we are far from having all human managers. Although generally we add them between seasons so a new player is not having to deal with the decisions made by an AI. Exceptions have been made of course.

Come on in, it's fun!

crunchy wrote:

I see that ootp13 is half-price at the moment. Two questions for you fine folks: do I need a good knowledge of the sport to play? Are new players able to join the league?

1.) Not really. I'm no baseball expert, and the game (and your fellow owners) will help you along. It certainly helps to be knowledgeable about sabremetrics, but there's nothing going on in this game that you can't learn with a few minutes on Wikipedia or FanGraphs.

2.) Yes.

Heh, like tboon said, hop on in, the water's fine!

Downloading the game now. I really hope this game re-kindles my love of the game, and hopefully I learn a thing or two. I plan to get some experience at the single-player game before my chance at the GWJ Big Leagues comes up.

Ok, finally picked up OOTP13. I'm interested in joining your league when you guys are ready to add another player. I've played a ton of solo OOTP11 but never tried any online leagues.

crunchy wrote:

Downloading the game now. I really hope this game re-kindles my love of the game, and hopefully I learn a thing or two. I plan to get some experience at the single-player game before my chance at the GWJ Big Leagues comes up. :)

I've always advised anyone new to the game to do just that. You can blow through several seasons in a few hours and begin to get a hang of roster moves, free agency, the draft, and more.

pizzaddict wrote:

Ok, finally picked up OOTP13. I'm interested in joining your league when you guys are ready to add another player. I've played a ton of solo OOTP11 but never tried any online leagues.

Drop me a line at Prederick at gmail dot com, and i'll give you all the particulars.

Also, everyone make SURE you've updated. Apparently there's a bug in the game that caused injuries on every HBP, which is a bad thing. The most current version is 13.7.29. Linkage here.

New file soonish.

I picked up the game as well. I've only bumbled around in it for a couple of hours, but I'll give it more time this week. I'll jump into the league whenever there's a spot and it's easy for Pred. No rush, so I don't mind waiting for an offseason.

Well, the "offseason-only" rule was really put in as more of a... well it was a lot more aspirational. Adding new owners is a snap, as long as everyone has the correct files. As far as i'm concerned, if you're okay with potentially being behind the ball in your first year and dealing with whatever moves the AI has made up until that point, i'm fine with anyone joining whenever.

Anyway, new file! 4-2 week in Vancouver but we just can't seem to close distance on Seattle. Did you know that New Orleans LF Danny Anderson is on pace for 193 RBIs this season? The all-time record is 144, mind you.

It's July 7th, and we're just about halfway through the season. How are things shaking out for your team? Better than you expected? Worse?

In Vancouver, the rumor is that one of the game's great sluggers may become a free agent next season. Ramon Gomez will turn 38 this year, and is currently on a massive $27.5M contract, that turns into a $28M team option next season. Despite last year's heroics, age seems to be catching up with Gomez at speed this year, he's on pace for just 32 HRs and less than 100 RBIs. Not bad numbers by any estimation, but worth $28M? Vancouver will have to make some tough decisions this off-season.

MVPs of the halfway mark? The easy answer in the NL is Baltimore's Nate Bradley but we're going to go against the grain and say Pittsburgh's Craig Peterson and Vancouver's Loren Gill will be in heavy consideration come the end of the season. Peterson is a precocious talent at 20 who should finish with 35+ HRs and around 100 RBIs this year, while Gill currently leads the NL in WAR, HRs, RBIs and Total Bases, and is second in wOBA and Isolated Power.

In the SL, the answer is easy, we already mentioned him. If he keeps up the pace, Danny Anderson will win the award at a canter. Unless Brian Burke can keep up his torrid hitting pace. Burke leads the SL in Batting Average, OBP, Slugging, OPS, wOBA, WAR and walks. And when we say "leads", we mean "is ahead by a significant distance". It'll be fun to see how that turns out.

Pitching? Francis Riley will win his first Pitcher of the Year award this season, absolutely no doubt. The man's only getting three and a half runs of support a game and he's still 8-5. In the SL it'll surely be between Tom Phillips (11-2, 1.85 ERA) and Thomas George (13-2, 0.92 WHIP, 142 K's).

All-star teams will be announced after the next sim, so see who on your team has done well enough to play in the Midsummer Classic!

Good and bad in New Orleans - we score a ton of runs . . . but we also give up a ton of runs. I just don't know what to do with this pitching staff . . . Also, I think we need a new Strength and Conditioning coach - injuries keep piling up. Overall not a bad season so far, but I have a sinking feeling that we might be about to fade a bit.

I'm excited for all the potential new human GMs.

My Craig Peterson is totally awesome. His strikeout number is a bit high and have always played 2nd fiddle to Tony Wagner and Allen Osborne on the team, but he had a really fantastic spring and I'm looking forward to seeing him becoming a bona fide star even before he can legally buy a beer in the store.

My SP AntoOio Palhas is quietly putting up some All-Star numbers too.

Now only if I could these pikers to win as a team...
Edit: Just checked the newest update. 7 game winning streak. 'Atta boys. Back in the wild card hunt.

Denver has a winning record. In July. Been a long time since that has happened, maybe the first time ever.

The team's pitching has been extremely effective, at the top or close to the top in all positive categories.
The team's hitting has been, maybe not disappointing (you don't expect a dead dog to dance, right?), but certainly underwhelming. However, the team has great team speed so it can make the most of what hits there are. Small ball, indeed.

The big thing is that the team has been mostly healthy (*knock wood*). If we can stay healthy, we might have a shot at wildcard #2. But the main thing this season is to play winning ball.

Coming up on the halfway point of the season, I can say that Portland still needs a little work. Picking up some decent players in the draft this year means that the team may see some improvement this year, but I think we've already cashed it in and we're looking to rebuild a little bit in the offseason. I just need to figure out what to rebuild first

Just putting this out here, if we can stay in contention, Pittsburgh will most likely be looking for immediate pitching upgrade. Both SP and RP. Trading deadline always sneaks up on me so I want to start thinking about it earlier. Let me know if you are in rebuilding mode, or have a star or two in their contract year, etc.

Novocain wrote:

Let me know if you are in rebuilding mode, or have a star or two in their contract year, etc.

Yeah, I've been eying my own team to try to see what I could give up in a trade. Unfortunately I think I'd be looking for SP/RP as well. What I really need to do is just sit and stare at stats for a good day and figure out exactly where my weaknesses are.

I'll keep Pittsburgh in mind though

Internet troubles, but new file ya'll!

Prederick wrote:

Internet troubles, but new file ya'll!

WOOOO! Portland gets up to 19th in the Power Rankings!

Things are looking up this season, people!

New file! We're post All-Star game ya'll!

New applicants to the league, i'll try to get to you ASAP. Also, there may be a slight change to this week's sim schedule.

LA is looking for some middle relief, a closer and a 3rd-5th SP. I will take on salary as well.

Wow. I just did a count... if you can, check in, but with two new potential owners in the offing, here's the current list of GMs I have...

Los Angeles
Portland
Atlanta
Vancouver
Richmond
New Orleans
Denver
Pittsburgh
Brooklyn
Baltimore

10 teams. That's actually pretty robust for a small little community like ours. So i'd like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who's joined the league, for sticking with it from OOTP 12 to OOTP 13, for putting up with me as a Commish, for not getting bored, and for being a hell of a lot of fun.

SO. I said there might be some news, and here it is. Nothing ground-shaking, just something for the next two weeks.

First, unless everyone is okay with a Friday-afternoon sim (like, by 2 PM EST), there will be no Friday sim. We will skip Friday this week.

Something similar goes for next week, when the only time I think i'll have to sim will be early in the afternoon (like, by 1 PM or so). If everybody can't make that time, we'll skip it and come back Sunday like regular.

Kay? Great. So, if most of our 11 owners (Bill Bonney, Cpt Domano, Farscry, Gunner, Knightsabre, Nightmare, Novocain, Slumberland, garion333) could just check in and lemme know if the proposed sim schedule is okay, that'd be grand. Happy weekend everybody!