GWJ OOTP League Thread

Bah....Vancouver foils my plans! I'll have to double check the schedule, but I'm fairly certain Portland lost every series with Vancouver. I also think that more often than not we were swept in a good majority of those series, too.

But yet, I won two of three against Seatlle. Bleargh.

Next season, Vancouver....next season.

CptDomano wrote:

Next season, Vancouver....next season.

I keep saying that and keep being disappointed. Maybe if we combined our powers for good...

Edit after looking at latest file: Stupid Vancouver. I get the remaining seven games with the two best teams in the league (Seattle and Buffalo). Vancouver plays 3 against Seattle but ends with 3 against San Fran. The odds are yet another early off-season in Denver.

Well with my season effectively over, I've started taking a closer look at contracts/finances for my team and I'm just a little confused on how all this plays out. From the looks of it, I only have two players with expiring contracts after the end of this season, so those are pretty straight forward. It looks like I'll be getting a few contracts expiring in 2015 but with various forms of arbitration. Does this mean I should be working to offer extensions for these players, or will everything take care of itself during the offseason?

When I look at the Salaries tab of the finances section, it *looks* like most everyone is ready to go for the next few years, but there are a few contracts that have a (A) next to the name, so I'm confused.

I'm basically pretty happy with my team the way it is after this season, so I'd like to just keep as much of the core team intact and I just want to make sure I won't do anything to screw it up.

You deal with arbitration eligible players during the offseason. The system will give you an estimate of what the player will most likely receive during their arbitration hearing. You have the option of going with that number or offering your own salary. Once arbitration day comes around you will find out how much you are actually paying them.

Must... defeat... Charlotte!

All else is secondary, Charlotte must be humbled!

pizzaddict wrote:

You deal with arbitration eligible players during the offseason. The system will give you an estimate of what the player will most likely receive during their arbitration hearing. You have the option of going with that number or offering your own salary. Once arbitration day comes around you will find out how much you are actually paying them.

It is often in your best interest to offer them a multi-year deal (if you want them around) with an average annual value less than what they'd make in arbitration. I had Riley and a few others under similar deals.

In other news, for the first time since 2012 it looks like Riley isn't going to finish first in strikeouts. He only trails the leader by nine, but he's pitched 30 fewer innings (injury). He's never been named pitcher of the year, despite leading the league in most major categories year after year. He leads in a lot of categories this year again, so hopefully this is his year.

Landshrk83 wrote:
pizzaddict wrote:

You deal with arbitration eligible players during the offseason. The system will give you an estimate of what the player will most likely receive during their arbitration hearing. You have the option of going with that number or offering your own salary. Once arbitration day comes around you will find out how much you are actually paying them.

It is often in your best interest to offer them a multi-year deal (if you want them around) with an average annual value less than what they'd make in arbitration. I had Riley and a few others under similar deals.

In other news, for the first time since 2012 it looks like Riley isn't going to finish first in strikeouts. He only trails the leader by nine, but he's pitched 30 fewer innings (injury). He's never been named pitcher of the year, despite leading the league in most major categories year after year. He leads in a lot of categories this year again, so hopefully this is his year.

You're right, I forgot to mention that another option is to just sign the guy to a full fledged contract. You have to be careful though, that can come back to bite you. In my solo league I had a guy who won rookie of the year. He was up for arbitration and instead of that I signed him to a 4 year deal for like 10-12 million per year. He has 1 more good year and then proceeds to suck. Now I'm stuck with this guys contract where if I had done arbitration it wouldn't have cost me as much in the long run.

Landshrk83 wrote:

In other news, for the first time since 2012 it looks like Riley isn't going to finish first in strikeouts. He only trails the leader by nine, but he's pitched 30 fewer innings (injury). He's never been named pitcher of the year, despite leading the league in most major categories year after year. He leads in a lot of categories this year again, so hopefully this is his year.

That Chris Morgan (SF) I was eyeballing him so hard this past offseason, hoping to make it my one blockbuster trade but ended up with Chris McDaniel from Dallas, who promptly spent the 2nd half of this season on the DL. I am a shrewd GM indeed.

Novocain wrote:
Landshrk83 wrote:

In other news, for the first time since 2012 it looks like Riley isn't going to finish first in strikeouts. He only trails the leader by nine, but he's pitched 30 fewer innings (injury). He's never been named pitcher of the year, despite leading the league in most major categories year after year. He leads in a lot of categories this year again, so hopefully this is his year.

That Chris Morgan (SF) I was eyeballing him so hard this past offseason, hoping to make it my one blockbuster trade but ended up with Chris McDaniel from Dallas, who promptly spent the 2nd half of this season on the DL. I am a shrewd GM indeed.

Morgan looks like a great pitcher, young too. I suspect San Francisco would be asking a king's ransom for him with him being under arbitration control another few years. I thought he looked similar to my Adrian Rivera (rookie), but on comparison Morgan is light years ahead, although Rivera is 3 years younger.

As far as signing long term deals, yeah, it can come back to bite you. I had a similar situation with Keith McAndeoir (one of the better pitchers in the league early on), and now I'm stuck paying him $18 mil a year for the next few years for a mid-rotation guy. However, if you can keep them an extra year or two and pay an average annual value less than the arbitration estimates, it usually seems low risk to me, unless mega bucks are involved.

Ugh, just got a look at last night's update. So many of my good players ending up injured in the end of the season.

Ya we both took a hit last night. My 2nd and 3rd best bats are out. I was hoping we might meet in the SL final but I think we might be bound for another first round clash of the titans.

New file!

The team I thought I had the best chance against in the playoffs was Dallas.
The team I seemed to have the most trouble with was Atlanta.
The team that I didn't even think about facing was Charlotte.

Fred Rhodes had about a .5 ERA through Sept/Oct. Hopefully he craps the bed this round, like he did for me last playoffs. I wish Huffman hadn't thrown 125 pitches in a meaningless last game of the season for me. I had the rotation set up for him to go a day earlier, but the AI had Carruth skip the line. Oh well!

Well, my team showed some signs of life the last 2 weeks of the season winning 8 of 13. The good news, my young bats played well and give me some hope for next season. The bad news is that little hot streak at the end cost me the #1 pick in the draft, congratulations Richmond.

Good luck in the playoffs everyone.

Damn you, Charlotte! Damn you to heeeeeellllllll!!!!!!

Also, didn't help that for the last stretch of the season here, I was missing my closer, my 3rd baseman, Shawcross (my star outfielder), and two of my reliable starting pitchers. My other closer ended up injured for the final week as well, leaving me with a closer who wasn't really suited to the MLB yet but I needed a sub. Ouch!

Awesome. I'm ready to join in. So which teams are still AI controlled?

Did I not hit "SUBMIT" when I wrote the end-of-season post last night? Did I imagine it? I mean, I was drinking, but I didn't think I was THAT drunk.

I'm sorry guys.

So the playoff matchups are:

Vancouver v. Seattle
Buffalo v. Boston
Atlanta v. Dallas
San Diego v. Charlotte

This wasn't a record-setting year in any interesting categories, although I guess Francis Riley's 0.82 WHIP and Brian Burke's 154 walks is something.

So, schedule-wise, we're not gonna sim Sunday. The playoffs will start Monday, and we will sim two games a day, every day. There will be a day-long break between each series so users can adjust their rosters.

If we should reach a point where all human users have been eliminated from the playoffs, I will sim us right to the end so we can roll on to next season.

AI playoff teams:
Buffalo
Dallas
Charlotte

Other AI teams (from memory so possibly not perfect)
Detroit
Philadelphia
SF
Miami
Richmond
Memphis
LV
Houston

It might be a good idea to update to OP with all the teams and who the human GMs are. I barely remember who is running what.

tboon wrote:

It might be a good idea to update to OP with all the teams and who the human GMs are. I barely remember who is running what.

Yeah, I second this.

Novocain wrote:
tboon wrote:

It might be a good idea to update to OP with all the teams and who the human GMs are. I barely remember who is running what.

Yeah, I second this.

I do run into this, because the only place where you can see this information in-game is when you first "log in" to the league each day, so I tend to forget too!

Is there anyone else that thinks re-shuffling the districts at some point may be a good idea? I think it's probably more fair to have the same number of human and AI teams per division. I think 4 of the 5 NL east teams are player controlled, while other divisions have a lot different breakdowns.

Edit: Sorry, its 2 AI teams in the NL East.

Farscry wrote:
Novocain wrote:
tboon wrote:

It might be a good idea to update to OP with all the teams and who the human GMs are. I barely remember who is running what.

Yeah, I second this.

I do run into this, because the only place where you can see this information in-game is when you first "log in" to the league each day, so I tend to forget too! :)

Done and done. The OP has been update with current ownership information. If I have anything wrong, let me know, but that should be up to date.

billt721 wrote:

Awesome. I'm ready to join in. So which teams are still AI controlled?

The AI controlled teams are:

Northern League:
Detroit
Philadelphia
Buffalo
San Francisco

Southern League:
Charlotte
Memphis
Miami
Richmond
Dallas
Houston
Las Vegas

If you'd like to join, i'd push for you to take a Southern League team, so we can get more human users in that league.

I'd also warn you (like i'm gonna warn everyone) that we are going to keep up with OOTP, which means we will be upgrading to OOTP 14. We may not do it on release day, but by the real-life All-Star break, I am going to purchase OOTP 14 and will look to move the league to the new title. Just a heads-up.

Landshrk83 wrote:

Is there anyone else that thinks re-shuffling the districts at some point may be a good idea? I think it's probably more fair to have the same number of human and AI teams per division. I think 4 of the 5 NL east teams are player controlled, while other divisions have a lot different breakdowns.

Edit: Sorry, its 2 AI teams in the NL East.

I'm not ready to do that quite yet, as much fun as it is competing against one another. But that's me personally, if everyone's down with the idea, I am, as ever, flexible.

Prederick wrote:

I'd also warn you (like i'm gonna warn everyone) that we are going to keep up with OOTP, which means we will be upgrading to OOTP 14. We may not do it on release day, but by the real-life All-Star break, I am going to purchase OOTP 14 and will look to move the league to the new title. Just a heads-up.

Shucks, I think we just missed the $5 pre-order discount by 3 days.
Also, thanks for updating the team owner list, Pred.

Prederick wrote:

I'd also warn you (like i'm gonna warn everyone) that we are going to keep up with OOTP, which means we will be upgrading to OOTP 14. We may not do it on release day, but by the real-life All-Star break, I am going to purchase OOTP 14 and will look to move the league to the new title. Just a heads-up.

I've gotten a ton of enjoyment out of the league and - along with it - OOTP13. I'm happy to continue supporting the game, and if we have any league members who (anonymously if they prefer) do have tight budgets and aren't comfortable with dropping the money on the new version, I'd be happy to contribute to a league fund to help cover the expense of upgrading.

It might sound silly, but I've had budgetarily tight years that made any luxury/entertainment expense something to think hard about, so I don't want to see us lose a league member to a tough year.

Farscry wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I'd also warn you (like i'm gonna warn everyone) that we are going to keep up with OOTP, which means we will be upgrading to OOTP 14. We may not do it on release day, but by the real-life All-Star break, I am going to purchase OOTP 14 and will look to move the league to the new title. Just a heads-up.

I've gotten a ton of enjoyment out of the league and - along with it - OOTP13. I'm happy to continue supporting the game, and if we have any league members who (anonymously if they prefer) do have tight budgets and aren't comfortable with dropping the money on the new version, I'd be happy to contribute to a league fund to help cover the expense of upgrading.

It might sound silly, but I've had budgetarily tight years that made any luxury/entertainment expense something to think hard about, so I don't want to see us lose a league member to a tough year. :)

I can help too if necessary. Just PM me when we are going to make the upgrade and we'll get it all sorted out. I really like playing in this league and with you guys; like Farscry, I don't want to lose anybody.

Also and semi-related, good to see another human coming into the league: welcome billt721! Please go easy on Denver!

I'm cool either way. I think the way the league is setup now is fine but if everyone wanted to reorganize things it wouldn't bother me.

Prederick wrote:
Landshrk83 wrote:

Is there anyone else that thinks re-shuffling the districts at some point may be a good idea? I think it's probably more fair to have the same number of human and AI teams per division. I think 4 of the 5 NL east teams are player controlled, while other divisions have a lot different breakdowns.

Edit: Sorry, its 2 AI teams in the NL East.

I'm not ready to do that quite yet, as much fun as it is competing against one another. But that's me personally, if everyone's down with the idea, I am, as ever, flexible.

[/quote]

I'm enjoying it, it does make for fierce competitions in some divisions.

I was also thinking...we seem to be picking up a person or two per season; is it within the realm of possibility to start an all human league with the current talent pool?

I like the league size even if some of it is AI. Otherwise it would just be playing the same teams over and over again. When the league expanded, it went from feeling a little claustrophobic, in my opinion, to about right. I would prefer an all-human league but I prefer a league the current size to that even. The AI is certainly serviceable (see Charlotte and Dallas, although can also see Richmond for a contrast); if the AI were worse I might feel different.

Just my $0.02.