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Welcome to Super Mega Baseball 3 This will be a hybrid Let's Play where I serve as your GM and front office of a team you pick to own. You control the purse strings and every big decision will be run by this thread. The Super Mega Franchise, created and published by Metalhead games, started years ago with Super Mega Baseball, an unpolished gem of a game that featured a remarkably deep baseball simulator behind a fun, simple, arcady interface and cartoony graphics. The second game came out 2 years later and had all that with updated graphics and a massive suite of customization features, allowing users to fully build out teams and leagues to their hearts' content. I spent 250 hours in that game and probably half of that was spent with the team creator. The one thing Super Mega Baseball 2 was truly missing was an in depth franchise mode that would allow those players you painstakingly created to develop and retire while those teams you built evolved over time. Super Mega Baseball 3 came out to address that need and it does so admirably. Franchise mode has two major additions in free agency and player development, which in Super Mega fashion hides a complex and deep system behind a simple presentation. If you know nothing about baseball, don't panic! If you need a primer on the basic rules of baseball and Super Mega Baseball mechanics, you can start here. I also made this reddit post specific to game mechanics for new and returning players. My goal in this thread is to bring more fans into the game I love and this video game series I truly enjoy so if you are new to baseball then just settle in, enjoy, and feel free to ask any questions. You should also check out TheMcD's excellent LP of The Closer, a hilarious and brilliant LP of a hilarious and brilliant game. You should do this regardless of how you feel about baseball, and the linked update zero contains an excellent primer on the basics. He also writes in a much more concise and organized way than I do. I'm probably going to borrow from him a bunch while making this (with permission). Regardless I am not going to judge anyone for their level of knowledge of any game, and I will try to avoid using jargon but if I do please don't hesitate to ask what it means! You can't spend time around something without soaking in some of the language and sometimes I do it without thinking. Free Agency The above guides have a lot more in depth information on game systems, but here's the quick and dirty. This is a new system to this series that allows you to swap out players who aren't working out, upgrade positions to make a run or open up some developmental money when your team is clearly falling behind. When a free agent first hits the market they will demand exorbitant contracts that will drop over time to more reasonable rates. If they spend too long on the market without getting signed by any team they will eventually decide to retire. Free agents are signed through a salary cap system. The total amount is set when you begin a new franchise and you are not allowed to go over that amount. Leftover cap money can be used to increase the skills of your players through development opportunities (more on that below). Every team has 21 roster spots and all of them must have someone, even if they're just keeping the bench warm. During the offseason some of your players will decide to test free agency or retire and you will have to enter a 32 round negotiation process to refill your team roster. Similar to the regular season system, these free agents will start at a high price and gradually reduce what they're asking for with each successive round until they are signed by a team or the negotiations end. This is a very fun, tense, high stakes system. AI teams will reach for superstar players and pay out exorbitant contracts, and they will grab some incredibly valuable players as well right before you decide to pull the trigger. We will be playing with the standard league which normally is balanced around 140 million in cap space, but when you start a custom franchise (which you have to if you want to simulate games) I'm not sure if salaries are randomized. Regardless we should be right around 140 million in total cap room. Player Development Player development money is paid out every game and determined by leftover cap space divided by the number of games in the season, so in a 20 game season with 10 million in cap room, you would get $500,000 per game. These opportunities are used to boost player stats and can offer beneficial situational traits, but some also have the risk of conferring negative traits. Player stats will also fluctuate over the course of a season on their own, with older players tending to degrade and younger players improve over time. Player development is the balance to big free agency contracts. If you're around .500 at the season's midpoint and it doesn't look like you'll make the playoffs then the strategic moves may be to replace those big star contracts with scrubs and focus on building up your young prospects for the coming year. There is also some risk to focusing on development, as any player can demand a bigger contract at the end of the year (a tradeoff for us being able to release them at will), or they could just decide to hang up the cleats. It's rare for a player under 30 to retire but it does happen. You can also accidentally give players negative situational traits through development. We'll go over all that as it comes up. Development funds carry over from season to season. The LP The most important thing to note is I will not be playing any of the games myself, all games will either be simmed or recorded in AI vs AI and posted as video. My lack of skill will have no bearing on the team's performance, my only role here will be as a team manager. Pace will kind of be at my discretion, the early season may go by with a bunch of games per update just because nothing tends to happen, then there may be updates with multiple videos if there's a big rivalry series or we're playing for playoff seeding. We will always have a video for the season opener. We're going to play 48 game seasons, which will give us enough games to play series against our division and conference rivals without being so many to be a drag. This should translate to about 15 updates per season (maybe a few more with playoffs), fewer if we have a really bad season. I am open to increasing or decreasing this number. I haven't set a real ending goal for this. I'd like to win a championship but I don't think I'd end it immediately after (if) we get one. I guess basically this will continue until the thread dies or it isn't fun anymore. Videos will be posted with broadcast style commentary. I am completely new to commenting and am learning as I go, so I'll be posting a commentary free version as well if you just want to enjoy the game (note: this may not be the case for every game). Here's an example video I made for the Sandcastle between two of my custom teams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iua4J7P_TVo This was updated from the first few I made to show how my commentary approach has started to evolve as I've done these. The first few games I was trying for a "sports broadcast" approach that was frankly beyond my abilities to pull off. I decided to change it to something a little more authentic and genuine to me and I think it comes across much less stilted. In the LP itself this new approach begins in game 6, and I won't be offended if you start with that one. Also, you can customize teams and leagues in this game. The Rattlers were made in Super Mega Baseball 2 and ported to this game, while the Barn Stormers are my most recent creation. It's an incredibly powerful system and loads of fun; I have teams of players named after bbq dishes, beers, presidents, classic baseball movie characters, and entirely randomized teams or teams with a few customized players and the rest random. And yes, I have signed Ladybird Johnson as a free agent. While you can customize the appearance and names of team members I'm not really planning on setting up a waitlist for people to be added to the game, but if anyone has any specific requests I'm happy to listen and try to make it happen. Thread Participation You (the thread) will be acting as team owners, like Packers fans only less cheesy. All contract offers or terminations will be submitted for your approval. I will also be passing along scouting reports on free agents of interest and you can set an upward limit on what I money I can offer them. You hold the purse strings here, you sign the checks. I can offer my advice but if you decide you have to have that overpriced free agent pitcher then it's my job to create the cap space to sign them. On the other hand, if you decide you want to take that collective vacation to the Poconos and we need to maintain 10 or 20 million in cap space to afford it, then it's my job to field the best team I can within those constraints. Tanking a bad season to focus on player development is a valid strategy in this game. Your first decision is which team you decided to buy. Since an exhaustive look at each roster would be impractical, you are going to have to make this decision based on entirely subjective blurbs written by me! Voting is now closed! With 4 votes, the Freebooters were our near unanimous selection To see your options with a short summary of each team, please  CLICK HERE(edit: with voting now closed, this link will remain for anyone curious about the standard teams and conference structure in the game) Vote Tally Moonstars - 1 Freebooters - 4 Moose - 1 Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:30 on May 30, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 14:38
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Table of Contents Custom Teams Showcase Barn Stormers vs. Rattlers (no game audio) Pheonix vs. Jazz Banditos vs Irish Brigade (tried ditching the broadcast commentary style I've been going for on this one) Pre-season year 1 Baseball and Gameplay Primer League and Teams Summary Primer on Pitchers and Pitching Preseason look at the Freebooters Season 1 (any games that don't appear were simmed) Opening Day Click for Video! Game 2 Click for video! Games 3 and 4 Click for video (game 3) Click for video (game 4) Game 6 vs Nemesis Click for video! New watchers should start here. This is most representative of my commentary after struggling to figure it out through the first 4 and the game itself is outstanding. Game 8 Click for video! Game 9 (may have broken the game). Click for video! Game 12 vs Heaters and Free Agency update/vote Click for video! Games 13 and 14 against the Moose Click for video (game 13) Click for video (game 14) Game 15 at Blowfish Click for video! Game 16 at Blowfish Click for video! Game 17 vs Herbisaurs Click for video! Game 18 vs Herbisaurs Click for video! State of the team at midseason (screen shot post) Game 22 at Crocodons Click for video! The All Star List A player who is having an exceptional season can be nominated to have their card added to an all star list, which I may eventually do something special with. Year 1 Like all good all star votes this doesn't need to be entirely performance based, just go with your opinion and who you think is most popular. Also like all good all star votes there's no accountability so you can vote multiple times for multiple players, but all votes will be counted, so no saying "I want to change my vote." If you want to nullify it just vote twice for the other guy. Also because it's an all star vote when I say voting opens now, it isn't going to close for a while. Voting will remain open until game 40. Until then each update will end with a running tally of votes. This is going to be an absolute unfair clusterfuck of a system just like real all star voting. We'll be voting for just 3 categories in this first season. Eventually maybe someone can come up with clever names for the categories. Team MVP: Best Pitcher: Best Backup/Bench/Role Player: Here are some very flexible, basic rules for voting: To qualify for the third categroy the player can not have started more than a quarter of our total games, but again since this is opinion and honor system based I'm not going to be checking math on these. Obviously Oakley Stiffs wouldn't qualify for that category but would Quenna Quorm? Would a full time DH who never sees the field? Being a good commissioner I'm not going to clarify either of those questions so have at it and enjoy! You can vote as many times as you want but just one vote per category, per post. If you want to vote more than once it has to be a separate post. This is honor system and I think it makes sense since voting will be open for so long, but the rule is subject to change. What I'm hoping with this rule is that people won't save their votes since you can vote now, later, and in between. You can vote for the same player for multiple categories as long as they qualify for both categories. Hall of Fame The Hall of Fame is a list of players throughout the league who have put together amazing careers, making our all star list multiple times or just absolutely seeming to dominate us every time we play them. This list is not limited to our team, any retired player can be considered. The standard for this list will likely evolve over time. We may see some 1 or 2 year players make it in early but in later seasons look more for body of work. This will also be a place to maintain single season records. Unfortunately we can't keep career records until the update expanding stat tracking drops (hopefully in June). Nominating Players To nominate a player for the hall, you have to write a short speech about why they deserve to be in and what they've done for the history of our league. If they are approved this speech will be posted alongside their player card. There is also an exhibits section. You can write, draw, or otherwise create something that portrays a remarkable team or career moment even if the player(s) involved may not be hall of fame caliber. Have fun with it. Hall of Fame Plaques Hall of Fame exhibits Single Season Records: Hitters Batting Avg: Homeruns: RBI: Runs: Pitching ERA: Strikeouts: Wins: Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 14:38
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theenglishman posted:I'd suggest keeping the gameplay audio (at a low level) in future broadcasts, since it adds to the atmosphere. For sure. I was still figuring out capture settings when I made it so it's more posted to show a commentary and gameplay example (my other test video had game audio but horrendous sound quality because of mic settings) and some of the custom teams in the game. Thanks for the feedback and I'll do my best to incorporate it going forward, like I said it's a definite learning curve! Edit: DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I vote we play the Freebooters, because A) you said you don't know why they're bad, so let's see if we can figure it out, and B) that logo is gorgeous. It isn't just me apparently either, maybe they're cursed? Great logo though. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 16:43 on May 23, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 16:40
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xwMs-XDqk Here's a video that includes game audio with commentary (I was figuring out settings when I made the first one and didn't set OBS to capture headphone audio). The music is a little overpowering at the beginning but I like these levels overall since they turned down crowd noise. Let me know what you think, as always I'm very new to this and happy to incorporate feedback. I know I trip over words and names a lot. This game moves way faster than real baseball and it's a challenge to keep up sometimes. Unfortunately this is probably as good as the quality will get. I'm doing this on a 7 year old potato of a desk top and given the way things are, I think I'm going to have to put off upgrading the graphics card or processor. I'm actually a little impressed the game runs as well as it does when capturing video. Edit: One of the issues I'm noticing consistently is a tendency to say the last name on my mind, so there's a line in the video where I say "glover stevens taps out to the catcher" followed almost immediately by "glover stevens gets a single up the middle". Pace of play and my own naturally disorganized thought process is getting the better of me in those instances, I'm hoping it will improve with practice. All that said I'm really enjoying making these. Edit edit: I have to say, I think the Jazz are one of my favorite logos I've ever made. Not my favorite roster (they're actually a bit overpowered) but my favorite uniforms and logo combination. I think I'm going to keep doing these custom team exhibitions and maybe post video of making a team from scratch as side content. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:15 on May 23, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 18:38
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A Primer to Pitches in Baseball And how it relates to the Super Mega League In order to understand how to identify quality pitchers, you have to understand both how pitches work in real life and how this is represented in the game. In real life every pitcher has about 2-5 pitches they are able to throw at a professional level. Even in cases where the pitcher has 4 or 5 pitches (usually starters), they will generally throw 2 of them about 80% of the time as primary pitches. This is because everyone has a different level of comfort with throwing different pitches, and this is often based on the body mechanics of the pitcher's throwing motion and how long they've been throwing a specific pitch. This is also based on their ability to disguise their grip, arm angle, and body motion while throwing so the batter can't identify what's coming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUbAAurrnwU That's former Ranger's pitcher Yu Darvish, overlayed throwing 6 pitches. There is next to no difference between his deliveries yet they were all different speeds, locations, and/or pitches. The ability of a pitcher to disguise his delivery and deceive hitters during the windup is considered as if not more important than his ability to throw really hard or with a lot of movement.  Windup and arm angle are also two important components of a pitch. The windup is the arm and body motion of the pitcher prior to delivering the pitch, while the arm angle refers to the angle of the pitcher's arm when the ball is released. A release of 45 degrees or higher is generalized as overhand, while below that is considered sidearm. There are other classes within that (including submarine, when the pitcher throws below the plane of the shoulder) but that's good enough for our purposes. Super Mega Baseball has an overhand, 3/4 (45 degrees above the shoulder line), sidearm, and submarine delivery. These not only look different to a batter but will have different movement patters, with sidearm deliveries generally offering more horizontal movement and overhand with greater vertical movement. Why this matters to you as an owner In addition to mixing up handedness it's a good idea to have a mix of arm angles in the bullpen. This gives hitters a "different look" which can mess up their mental expectations of what pitch is coming. Batter anticipation is modelled in the game and having a bullpen that offers a significantly different look to hitters is good strategy in single and multiplayer. Stats and Pitch Selection In game pitches are selected off of a wheel. The game offers 9 options, though in reality there are dozens of pitches and each has its own variations. Instead of pitch quality being based on the pitcher's comfort level throwing it, all pitchers have 3 stats: Velocity, Junk, and Accuracy. These stats govern the pitcher's ability to throw the pitches at their disposal. Velocity is a measure of how hard the pitcher throws. Velocity over 70 is what I would consider good, and over 85 would be elite. Velocity correlates most strongly with the fastball family of pitches (4F, 2S, CF, FK) as well as the changeup (Ch). It can also influence the quality of a thrown slider, as that's the highest velocity breaking pitch. Junk determines how much a pitch will move, or break, along its path to the catcher. This can determine the length of the break but also influences direction: low junk pitchers' curveballs will break streat down, while high junk will break down and horizontal. Junk correlates with the breaking pitches (SL, CB, SB, Ch), and there is some overlap with the fastball pitches as it will impact the tailing fastballs (CF, 2S) and the forkball (FK). Pitchers with low junk stat also have a stronger possibility of throwing "hanging" pitches, or breaking pitches that remain straight. Accuracy is a measure of how well the pitcher can control their pitches. It impacts all pitches and applied generally is a major factor in how many walks the pitcher gives up. It also influences wild pitches, dropped pitches, and passed balls (the latter two are also heavily influenced by the junk stat). In Super Mega Baseball 2 this stat could be ignored and low accuracy was at times an advantage, now it's vitally important to a pitcher's ability to control the strike zone. There are 9 pitches total, and every pitcher has at least one of the 3 major fastballs (4F, 2S, and CF). Starters almost always have at least 4 pitches while relievers can have anywhere from 2-4.  4F stands for 4 seam fastball, a reference to how the ball is held (the fingers touching the seams of the ball 4 times). It is the hardest pitch and is sometimes referred to as a "rising fastball" because it drops less than the batter's brain anticipates, creating the illusion of it breaking upwards. The fastest I've ever seen this one go in the game is 103 mph, in real life I believe the record is 105. I read an article once that stated the fastest a structure like the human arm could theoretically throw a baseball is about 115-120 mph. There's a sweet spot in terms of build, where to a point the more muscle you add on actually slows the pitch by getting in the way of the whip-like arm motion necessary. I dabble in kinesiology as part of my career, it's a lot of fun.  2S or 2 seam fastball is a fastball that breaks away from the pitcher's dominant hand, in exchange for some velocity. It's generally about 5 mph slower than a 4F by the same pitcher, but the break can make it tough to square up on. CF is a cut fastball, similar to a 2S but breaking towards the dominant hand. Made baseball famous by closer Mariano Riviera, the first player to ever be unanimously elected to the hall of fame, it results in a lot of broken bats in a same handed matchup because the ball breaks into the thinnest part of the bat. It has also broken fingers.  FK is a forkball. A similar (and more well known) pitch is the splitter in that they're both fastballs that drop before hitting the strike zone. These are very effective in getting ground balls though throwing a lot of them is murder on a pitcher's elbow.  The changeup (CH) has a similar delivery to a fastball but a different grip and release that gives it some lateral movement and slows it significantly. This is a popular strikeout pitch because hitters have a hard time adjusting to the change in velocity, but if a hitter is looking for it the slow speed makes it an easy target so it's best used sparingly. A devastating 2 strike pitch.  CB, or Curveball, is a slower pitch with a ton of vertical movement. There are a lot of variations on it but the game keeps it vanilla, low junk pitchers throw a curve that drops straight down (not quite a 12-6 curve which has more drop, but same idea) while high junk pitchers throw curveballs that have huge downward movement that also breaks away from the dominant hand.  SL, or slider, is a pitch with a sharp diagonal movement away from the pitcher's dominant side. It does not break as much as a curve but it is thrown harder and the break occurs closer to the plate, making this a somewhat more risky but very popular strikeout pitch. In game I've found pitchers with good velocity and middling junk through pretty good sliders and it definitely uses both stats, although high junk pitchers tend to be more effective with it. https://www.wikihow.com/Throw-a-Screwball SB stands for screwball, and it is the last pitch modeled in the game. A screwball is a breaking pitch that you don't see very often that breaks laterally to the pitcher's dominant side, making it a dangerous pitch against opposite handed batters (who usually hold the advantage in a matchup). So with that you should be as caught up as you need to be. As always don't hesitate to ask any questions, I probably won't know the answer but I'll at least pretend to! Source for above images. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 01:27 on May 25, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 22:14
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ilmucche posted:Be the moose. resign munstar and become unstoppable Love the Moose. In 2 I thought they were hands down the best constructed team top to bottom, a good enough bullpen with great starting pitching and the ability to score runs in bunches. I actually have yet to touch them in 3 because I've focused on the Sand Cats and Beewolves and am holding off on trying out different teams until this vote is over, so I don't know what they've lost. In any season mode and especially franchise I've found it's a good idea to have a C or C+ rated bullpen guy like Farmhand to soak up innings when you're down big or have a big lead, saving your useful arms for when they're needed. They're also super cheap so you can focus that money elsewhere. However the AI is going to be making my in game substitutions until Metalhead decides to add the ability to sub pitchers in AI vs AI, and they might not have the same philosophy as me. Edit: Sorry about the double post. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 22:39 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 22:21
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Voting is open until 7 pm EST today! This should let any stragglers in to get a say before we get started, and give me a chance to enjoy the day with my family before getting started. First update should be up tonight and the first game should be up and posted tomorrow provided there aren't any issues at work. The Freebooters currently have the lead with 3 votes and barring a late rush will probably be our team. As I said I know very little about this squad other than that the simmer seems especially unkind to them, as I don't ever recall seeing them win a division in the 300 hours I've spent between this game and Super Mega Baseball 2. They play in the Beast division which include the aforementioned Moose and the Hot Corners, both of which are very tough teams in my experience. Hot Corners are new to this game with outstanding offense and good to very good pitching. Though their defensive rating is low I haven't noticed this as a weakness in game and every time I've played them it's been a close, exciting, and intense matchup. As the Freebooters we should be able to look forward to some outstanding pitching duels with both these teams. The Herbisaurs and Wild Pigs round out the division and I don't want to overlook either of them. This is my first real attempt at an AI vs AI matchup so while I've never had much trouble against those teams while playing I'm curious to see how they line up with all else being equal. Herbisaurs usually put Henry Hampster at leadoff who looks traumatized but is very tough and very fast. The Wild Pigs are a team that doesn't get on base much but hits for power and can create havock on the basepaths with their speed. I'm hoping our pitching will be enough to stifle them. I don't know if it particularly matters to anyone but the Freebooters are in a DH conference (meaning they put a player whose sole purpose is to hit in the lineup instead of the pitcher). I like the DH but the in game pitcher substitution logic still seems to be balanced around having a pitcher in the lineup and I've found the AI leaves the starter in too long when I'm playing. Oddly I haven't seen this issue as pronounced in the AI vs AI games I've watched so hopefully it won't crop up for us. Some hate the DH so I thought it worth mentioning, personally I like it and was thrilled it made it to this game but it will definitely make things harder on our defense and pitching. One final note on lineups and game bugs. Currently the AI will use its own lineup card when you sim or watch games. The developers accepted my report on this about a week ago so I'm hoping it will be fixed in the near future, but there are some critical bugs on Switch they definitely need to attend to first. For now I'm letting the coach set lineups. Edit: To theenglishman, unfortunately the Eephus didn't make it in the game. In Super Mega Baseball 1 if you forgot to select a pitch you would throw what the game called a meatball which was a slow 4 seamer, that's the closest thing to an Eephus they've ever had. It's probably the most requested additional pitch in addition to the knuckleball. The developers haven't added any pitches since the 1st game and at this point I don't expect them to unfortunately. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 16:05 on May 25, 2020 |
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May 25, 2020 16:00
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Voting is now closed! The Freebooters take it in as big a landslide as I've every seen 4 votes create. I've finally taken a look at the roster and it's kind of a mess, I think I get why they are so bad now. Definitely excited to take a crack at this group. We'll take a pre-season look at the roster, lineups, and budget hopefully tonight then opening day should be tomorrow afternoon! See you then!
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May 25, 2020 23:47
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 A quick look at settings. I find 48 - 64 games to be a good number for an intermediate season. Multiples of 4 allows each pitcher to get an equal number of starts, and this should let us get a couple seasons in without them seeming too fast. I really thought hard about the number of playoff games per series but went with 3 for a few reasons. We are going to be watching most of them and there are 3 series per playoff, plus we'll be watching other teams in their series at least in elimination games (that is a feature in this game). While I normally prefer best of 5 series doing that would create almost as many videos as the regular season. With 8 teams it seemed prudent to go with the smaller number, plus it could create some exciting, quick matchups. 8 playoff teams allows for 2 division winners per conference and 2 wild card winners. This means there will be 3 post-season series. Less than half of the teams will ultimately get in, which creates exciting races during the season. Some people are all about the division but I really like having wild card teams.  And here we are, the hub where the free booting is going to happen. To the right is the league schedule and it will also show updates on player development events (random events that influence your players' stats), salary demand changes from free agents we're following, and whether other teams sign those free agents (and who they release in the process).  Here's our economy screen, it's pretty much self explanatory. We start with no player development funds and earn payouts per game based on how much cap space we have going into the game (as the Freebooters, we have 7.6 million to start). Essentially every team makes $140 million a season and whatever doesn't go towards player salary is made available for development. Player development funds carry over season to season but can't be put towards signing players.  Speaking of, here's what we have available at the moment. Relief pitcher Grace Loopinovich can learn how to hide pine tar on her body to throw harder and more accurately (a lot of these reference real life incidents), and center fielder Stockton Brickhouse can attend jazzercise classes to get a bit faster and throw a bit better. It'll be a little while until we'll realistically be able to afford these, but fortunately they hang around for a while. There's a chance of them disappearing if you don't use them after a certain number of games, at which point each game they stick around the chance will increase. You can also see that teaching pitcher's how to cheat has a chance of conferring the negative trait "bb prone". A bb (base on ball) is shorthand for a walk. Pitcher's with this trait will have more walks in simulated games and in games will suffer an accuracy penalty in 3 ball counts.  Here's our first 17 games. The question marks are just referring to there being no starters set more than 4 games out (which changes based on how many starting pitchers or sp/rp's you have on staff). When there's more than 1 game against the same team in a row that's referred to as a series. The game prioritizes division games, then conference games, then finally cross-conference similar to how the NFL typically builds a schedule, so we'll have plenty of series against teams in our division, one or two against teams in the other division within our conference, and a bunch of isolated games against the other conference.  Here are the division standings. At the moment they're obviously tied because no games have been played.  By flicking over on the stick, I can switch to wild card standings view. This gives a picture both of what teams would be in the playoffs if the season were over as well as how far behind the other teams are. In the event of a tied record the team with higher run differential (runs scored minus runs given up) wins. .jpg) Here's a look at the roster of the Freebooters. We'll do a bit more of a deep dive in a moment and I'll show it sorted by position. Quick first impressions are excellent outfield starters and depth, ok starting pitching, great bullpen, absolute mess in the infield. We are also very weak at catcher and on the left side of the infield, and very limited defensively. Before we look at free agents lets take a quick look at the default lineups.  This is the DH lineup that we'd be playing with if we were playing and not simming/watching. It isn't even close to what I'd consider optimal for this team and Badhop Brown should absolutely be DH'ing with Pomp Duchee at 3B (third). Brown's defense is abysmal and even with Duchee at a secondary position he's a better defender. Unless players have the Utility trait they suffer a penalty to their defense stat when played at a secondary position. They can also be played at a completely unfamiliar position in which case they'll suffer a significant defensive penalty, I think over half the stat.  Just for thoroughness' sake here's the team's default lineup with no DH. There's an interesting bug I ran into in cross conference play that I'll address when we get to it, if it hasn't been fixed by then. The bad news is that if I change these lineups it won't mean anything for the time being, the AI sets its own lineups going into games. The good news is that this is apparently a bug and should be fixed soonish. The other bit of good news is that the AI is actually fairly robust when setting lineups and will take things like the opposing pitcher, conference, player injury/fatigue, and I think even ballpark into account when it creates those lineups. Sometimes it can outsmart itself but generally it does about as well as most coaches. With the players playing on their own I honestly don't mind if the AI coaches as well. The one concern I have is that its bullpen management in DH leagues is not very good (for some reason it's fine in non-DH leagues though).  Here's our roster sorted by position. One thing I would note is that overall grade doesn't always tell the whole story, there are some B's on this list I'm not really crazy about and a couple C's I think will be performers for us. Let's start with Catcher, as there's a reason that's at the top. Jermaine Raines is a serviceable starter at the moment but Rocky Backstop is living true to his name with terrible defensive stats, I would like to move on from him as soon as free agent prices come down. Fortunately we do have some options there including one already on the roster! Edit: Rereading this in the light of day I realize I never explained why backup catcher is so important. Catching is an extremely physically demanding task, and most catchers require significant time off. The game models this by having catcher health degrade over time, usually to the tune of one bar every 3 or 4 games. What this means is whoever we have at backup is going to end up starting at least 10% and probably closer to 20% of our games, making backup catcher the most important bench position on any team in game and in real life. Edit Over Also of significant immediate concern is Second Base. Both our starters at that position are really backup quality and because they're both right handed they can't really even be platooned. On that note our entire roster is very right hand dominant, top to bottom. There's only 2 left handed hitters and a switch hitter in the lineup and 2 lefty pitchers. Fortunately both of those lefty bats are excellent offensive options in Sturdy Woodman and Patience Evergreen, but our switch hitter in Kache Basket is at best a developing talent. So I would say I have four lineup priorities right now. In order: 1. At least upgrade at backup catcher, but if the opportunity is there to find a better starter then we ought to look into it as well. 2. Get more left handed bats! Almost the entire back end of our lineup is right handed and they'll get mowed down by a right handed starter. 3. Find an everyday starter at 2B, 3B, or both. This may happen through roster competition or we may have to look at the free agent lists. I do think we can address point 2 by replacing at least 1 of the starters at these positions through free agency though. For now let's see who performs. 4. Defense is a huge issue on this team, which is in itself a huge issue with a team built around pitching. We are going to give up a lot of baserunners to errors or just to lack of defensive range in the outfield. Offensively our outfield is excellent, but it may be worth either moving on from one of them or moving them to DH (if we can afford to) and bringing in a fast center or left fielder with good defense. Again let's see how they perform for now, but I'm expecting bad defense to cost us.  Pitching I think our starting rotation is worse in practice than on paper. Angel Verde is an excellent ace pitcher but Winnie Noelle, though he has great stats, suffers from a very limited pitch selection. That amazing junk stat is really going to waste with just that slider to pick from. Unfortunately you can't teach pitchers new pitches or change their roles (he would be outstanding as a spot starter/long reliever like Ratherwell), and I don't anticipate he's going to be worth a $9 million contract. Lana Rhymes conversely has poor stats but a much better arsenal on a much more team friendly deal. Her numbers likely won't be quite as good as his but in terms of dollars per win I would expect her to be a much better value. Kent Ratherwell is an interesting option as fourth starter/long reliever. Ok stats, very good control, but most importantly amazing pitch selection. He's also our only lefty and is on a super team friendly deal. Only concern here is that SP/RP's can't throw as many pitches before getting tired. All in all we're spending around $25 million on our rotation and I think we could restructure it after the season to spend that money more effectively. I think Noelle is fool's gold but if we really want to hold onto him I could focus player development on his accuracy and velocity if those opportunities arise. I just look at that junk stat with that pitch selection on a starter and see wasted overall grade which translates directly to wasted money.  Bullpen That card is of the man, the myth, the steamboat. Steamboat Wisselle has been around forever and he's still one of the best in the game. He throws hard, he throws with movement, and he can control a strike zone like few others. Between him and S ranked closer Kay Frequin I feel good handing this game over to the bullpen in a must win situation. Grace Loopinovich and Ryder McPride should be on notice, I think we need to be looking at filling one or both roster spots with a left handed B or B+ arm and a C or C+ rated inning eater, or even a fourth dedicated starter. Right now I see 15 million in cap space and, again, we could be spending that money better. Day after edit: One thing I didn't note and should have was that while our starting rotation costs around 25 million, our bullpen is breaking the bank at $35.5 million. I think we can definitely bring this down by midseason without sacrificing too much quality in order to free up some space to pursue position players. Overall our pitching situation is better than our lineup by a bit but it's also much more expensive per player. My pitching priorities are as follows: 1. Find left handed talent, same as the lineup. Kay Frequin and Kent Ratherwell are our only left handed pitchers and we need to get more diverse if we're going to compete against left handed lineups. 2. Find a suitable replacement for Winnie Noelle who offers higher value. This would ultimately be to your discretion though, as you all sign the checks. It will be a while before free agents at that level become affordable anyway so we should get a good look at how he performs. 3. Look at replacing Loopinovich or McPride with a cheaper or higher value option.  Here's a look at the available position player free agents. Anyone with a gold star is someone I'm interested in following for now. Axton Khan would be great but SS and OF (outfield) are the two positions we're already strongest at. I also added Russel Davilla to the list, but for now left handed bats at positions of need are slim pickins. Hopefully once the market becomes more active it will pick up. 2 interesting targets at catcher here: Stephen Appleseed is the real deal and everything you look for in a franchise starting catcher. The only issue is that he's going to cost significantly more than Raines, but I think if we're still competitive when his asking price comes down around 8 or 9 million we may want to take the plunge. At just 28 he's got a few years of his prime before we even start seeing stat regression. At backup I'm also keeping a bit of a leery eye on Placido Roy. He isn't much of a defensive upgrade over Backstop but his offensive stats are good enough that he could be a great DH when not subbing for Raines. However I have another idea at backup catcher.  Kenna Quorm. On the card she's listed at right field, but we already have tons of outfield depth and she plays catcher as a secondary position and has outstanding defensive stats with backup appropriate offense, bad but not offensive. Team friendly deal at just $3.7 million as well. Even as a secondary position her defense wouldn't be a step back from Raines and her arm is actually better. Since the game is making our lineups for now it'll probably automatically play Backstop at backup, but if we release him and sign someone else I believe it would use her at backup. Once they fix the lineup issue that'll be a moot point anyway. Worth a thought if nothing else. Note on game mechanics: You may notice these guys are all way more expensive than our players. When a player first enters free agency they almost always ask for absurdly high salaries. After each game there's a chance their asking price will go down. This is based on season length, so the price goes down significantly faster in a short season while an MLB length 162 game season can see 40 or 50 games before it's worth actually signing free agents. In my experience free agents become worth considering right after the season is 1/3 of the way through. They're still generally pricier than the average for your position but it's sometimes worth pulling the trigger anyway. This is also around when the AI starts signing and releasing players. When you sign a player you have to release someone on your roster, and you can't release players without signing someone else. Pitchers and position players are not interchangeable in this system. You get 13 position players and 8 pitchers, though there is no limit on what positions or pitcher types. If you want to field a team of catchers and closers that is possible in the game's engine. It'd be terrible but you can do it. ...Don't get any ideas.  Zap Castanado is awesome and I love everything about him. That said we probably aren't going to get a chance to sign him, AI teams will typically overspend on A and S ranked pitchers, and I doubt we could nab him for less than 14 million (even then I'm not confident he would get that low). I just want to see where he ends up. Crew Hughes and Ed Reed, on the other hand, will probably still be around and affordable if we want to expand or upgrade at starting pitching. Rufus Houndstooth is also an intriguing left handed starter with control issues, but he's young and less likely to test free agency so he may be worth picking up as a developmental project. Plus that name! Nib Bermal may be ugly and have a stupid name but he's one of the best free agent relievers currently on the market and would be an outstanding left handed arm to add, I'm just not sure we can afford another talent at that level. Depending on whether we're competitive at midseason it may be worth downgrading from Steamboat Wisselle. At 40 years old the Steamboat isn't likely to stay past this year. I starred Antonnio Ramsey because he's just a stud, but we're more than set at the position for the next few years and there are other fish in the sea. Note on game mechanics: Age is a major factoring in determining if a player will decide to leave at the end of the year. All contracts are year to year with the team able to terminate at any time and the player able to leave and test free agency at the end of each year. Older players are significantly more likely to leave or retire (older players will also suffer more regression events game to game while younger players are waited towards progression events). THAT SAID young players can and will retire or leave. There are significant risk/reward mechanics to player development, not least of which is the prospect of, well, your prospect deciding to test free agency after you spent the last 2 seasons building them from a C+ into an A overall player. On average you should have 5-6 years with a player below 30 before they decide to test free agency, but some of them will decide to leave and some will suffer scandals and leave in shame. This is why you want to be very careful in which players you choose to develop and how you develop them. Raising overall in ways that don't contribute to how you use them can come back to bite you at the end of the season when you suddenly have to pay them double but they aren't any more productive.  So that's it for now. Mostly just game mechanics and some things to keep in mind while we watch this team start its season. I anticipate that we're going to see a lot of roster turnover this season and the sooner we start thinking about what that should look like, the better off we'll be. I'm treating our current cap hit of 132.4 as a soft budget for now, especially since it'll be a while before we'll be able to think of actually making moves and currently I can't even make any moves to free cap space. However, remember this is your money I'm planning on spending and you have to decide if maybe winning a championship is worth it year to year. Day after edit: One thing when you first start a franchise is that you won't really be able to do much for the first third of the first season. I think this is intentional to make team choice a more important decision. It works pretty well, to me that initial bunch of games serves as a great test and evaluation period and I've had some unlikely heroes rise up as well as some players who didn't quite perform but showed me enough to want to keep them around (and some I thought were studs who just never got going, this is going on in my current standard franchise). That said for the time being there won't be a ton of thread interaction other than discussing relative player performance, identifying starters and possible developmental targets, and who we want to move on from. It will pick up but this evaluation period also has a lot of value in a new game. The first season is the only year the game mechanics enforce this, every season after this will have a bunch of free agents left over from the brilliant offseason negotiation system in addition to some newly released players and rookies. With all that out of the way, hope you're all excited for opening day tomorrow! Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 14:27 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 03:19
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVs3uh02SjA No Commentary Version  We got a nice thrashing to open the season here, a 10-5 pounding that wasn't even that close (2 of our runs were tacked on with 2 outs in the 9th inning) and a rough start for Winnie Noelle who got the start over Angel Verde (AI coach decision), giving up 9 runs and being pulled after just 3.2 innings. Our defense wasn't great in this one and that run "given up" by Wisselle in the 4th was downright embarrassing, but most of those Sawteeth runs were walks and homers that our players really couldn't do much about. This was just a terrible start for Noelle.  The pitching numbers are ugly. Noelle goes 3.2 innings giving up 9 runs which puts her ERA (earned run average) somewhere around 27? Wisselle was alright in relief of her and would have gotten us out of the inning if Walker Runs didn't call for that pop up, that was just a mess of a play all around. (Gameplay note: I'm not going to call that a bug. Miscommunications happen especially on bad defenses)  I grabbed a shot of Jermaine Raines consoling Noelle after the second home run given up.  Offensive numbers weren't terrible although they weren't great. Just 5 hits in the game and most of our at bats weren't good or productive, it didn't seem like pitch count was ever really a concern for them and our guys didn't do a great job working counts and being patient. Being aggressive at the plate is well and good but you have to put good swings on the ball and for the most part we were lost out there. However 3 Home Runs on the day is a nice stat and a bit of positive to start the season with. If we can get more baserunners to go with that power hitting then maybe we can get a run going. I do think Angel Verde is going to pitch better tomorrow so as long as the bats show up I think we can win the game and at least split this opening series.  Here are the players of the game for opening day. The game chooses the top 3 performers regardless of team, and today we didn't crack the list. The Positive I did love what Guns Jackman showed today, going 1/3 at the plate with a home run and a walk (and scoring off that walk as well). Pomp Duchee and Oakley Stiffs also flashed power at the plate with solo home runs, and the base clearing RBI double at the end by Patience Evergreen was clutch. We were very efficient at the plate and only left one runner on base (though we also only had 3). Unfortunately we put up a ton of zeroes. When we hit Fabulo it tended to go far, but we didn't hit him very much. As for the pitching, the bullpen did what it was supposed to do. Wisselle and Loopinovich went 4.1 innings between them giving up just 1 run. Loopinovich especially impressed me giving up just 1 hit in 2.1 innings of work. I mentioned her and Ryder McPride being on the hot seat, and she's definitely made a strong opening statement for why she deserves to stay with this team today. All that said, the game of baseball is always unpredictable day to day. We have our true ace on the mound tomorrow in Angel Verde and we should be looking for a solid bounce back performance. I'll be posting the next 3 games as full videos with commentary, the commentary free versions are something I'm doing for big games only because it takes a bunch of extra time and in this heat wave I'm a little concerned my computer will melt while processing them. This will give us a look at each starter in action, then we'll sim a couple games and see how we're doing once free agency starts to pick up. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 02:26 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 02:17
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Discussion doesn't have to be focused on our season, if you want to talk about your own franchises or games or even your own ideas about baseball then go for it. I love the game and frankly right now more posts gets us to the next page (this one's getting a bit crowded) and I want this to be fun for everyone. The game definitely models errors a lot more in 3 than it has in the last 2 games, to the point that there are complaints about the frequency of dropped throws and pitches. Personally I don't mind it, baseball is a game that you can do everything perfect and line out or you can fall all over your own rear end on a swinging third strike fastball and end up on first when the catcher can't handle it. You can throw the perfect sequence of pitches and the batter just goes down and golfs it over the wall. It's an unpredictable, awesome game and one thing I'm hoping with this LP is for more people to both see that side of the sport and how well this video game captures it. For the most part quality (or lack thereof) shows itself over a full season but in a small enough sample size just about anything can happen. Still sucks when it happens to you though, that's pretty rough. Who was playing? Edit for clarity: I don't mind this serving as a discussion thread on the game as long as the let's play doesn't get lost. If there is an existing thread in games I don't want to step on their toes but I think pretty much all Super Mega Baseball and general baseball discussion is relevant to this thread, within reason. Another edit: Finally got around to changing my username. I hated that old thing, set it when I was young and edgy back in college. Figured Lowtax could use an expensive latte. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 15:27 on May 27, 2020 |
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May 27, 2020 13:44
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Thordain posted:Very excited to see this, I'm most of the way through my first franchise season with the Jacks, but I keep running into a bug with checked swings that pushes me away. Glad to have you aboard! Ultimately I'd still have to go by Red Rock or El Viejo as my favorite stadiums. The revamped Red Rock especially with the full glass dome. Now that I'm watching them play I have to say I really like the Freebooters as an offense but they are so slow and inconsistent on defense. I can see this being an incredibly frustrating team to play as online or singleplayer. They're just one of those teams that's balanced on paper but their stats are extremely not optimal, to put it nicely. All that said they can be a lot of fun to watch, even in the blowout loss those solo jacks were exciting and they made it a little interesting at the end there. ilmucche posted:Error rate has definitely gone up, it's normally not too bad but swinging passed ball 3rd strike -> dropped throw to first -> grand slam is a tough pill to swallow. Was playing the moose against the buzzards. Perry Quaker has always been a bit rough at 1st. Tough pill to swallow is a good way to put it but it's also a good attitude to have. The baseball gods will get you back (especially for the Moose). On the issue of crazy variance, I remember reading a study done years ago that indicated the baseball season is something like 20 games too short to guarantee (as much as you can) that the best teams hold the best records. Wish I remember where I'd read it.
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May 27, 2020 22:12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDyOmKPK1kc Angel Verde was electric today and the roster wasted his 7 inning, 2 run, 6 strikeout performance with a late bullpen meltdown and just a refusal to score when they had multiple outstanding opportunities. The bullpen was supposed to be the strength of this team but after yesterday's overuse they're clearly getting tired. Loopinovich was again pretty good but Wisselle, who I really thought was better than this, gives up some unlucky hits then just seemed to lose his stride. Ryder McPride really underwhelmed in his debut. I hope you can hear how deflated that late home run made me. It'd be great if we could get Kay Frequin a late lead to show her stuff, so far she's just been a $13 million bench warmer in the bullpen. That bench had better be a sauna at that price. The Good: Angel Verde was outstanding, he flashed that ace stuff I was hoping for and with our bullpen that really should have been enough today. I know, I just got done talking about how anything can happen in baseball, well today I got to relearn that lesson. That said, we only get 1 start every 4 games from an ace like that and to waste it like we did hurt. Also I was sure Verde was a girl before the game. That surprise early in the video was genuine. Thinking about it Angel is a boy's name so I'm not sure why I was so convinced. The Bad: I really think that bullpen meltdown was a direct result of overuse yesterday but the coach should have avoided going right back to the two arms that already covered multiple innings the day before. Ryder McPride wasn't good today but he also came into a bad situation and it felt a little like he was set up to fail. We also left way too many scoring opportunities on the table. Multiple times 2 runners with nobody out and nobody gets across the plate. That always comes back to bite you and it certainly did today, even just an extra 2 runs could have given us a shot at the end. I don't want this team's identity to become too little, too late. The Ugly: What the hell Steamboat. We go 0-6 on player of the game mentions which I don't know that I've ever seen a team do  And we take sole possession of last place for that ugly little cherry on top.  Loopinovich unfortunately got the loss, I think there was a fielding error in there because I don't remember her having an earned run today. Tomorrow we'll get to see the back end of our starting rotation with Lana Rhymes taking the start against the Bartholomew Draculo and the Blowfish. Draculo is an outstanding #3 with solid velocity and control, and the Blowfish are one of the best all around teams in the game. Lana Rhymes has good movement on her pitches as well as a good pitch selection for her skillset, I think for a C+ overall she's a tremendous value but our work is definitely cut out for us.  Here's the development screen, the only new opportunity is a juicing program for Oakley Stiffs. We should be able to afford that or Jazzercise by the end of this 4 game stretch. Quick look at the standings. Obviously it's silly to give up on the season 2 games in but we really couldn't have gotten off to a worse start. That said, the baseball gods take away and they'll give it back. See you tomorrow for our 1 game stand against the Blowfish! Edit: Game audio is way too loud, sorry about that. I ran some quick tests on those settings and it was good so not sure what happened but it'll be quieter tomorrow. I have my levels figured out with audacity but still fiddling with OBS's capture settings. Also messed around with the game audio settings to try to get a little more environmental noise but apparently overdid it. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 04:10 on May 28, 2020 |
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May 28, 2020 03:56
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A double-feature today! Not quite a double-header because we played different teams. I'm going to try posting the games as separate posts from the write ups from now on so you don't have to stare at the summary as you're trying to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od1cwUw0XQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CvAv-YPEtA Screenshot update incoming.
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May 28, 2020 20:31
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We drop both games of the double feature to start the season 0-4, retaining sole possession of last place not only in our division but our conference. The Good Slim freakin pickings right now. We finally got to see Kay Frequin (only because our bullpen is so gassed they can barely stand up at this point) and she is dynamite late in games, so on the off chance we do hand her a close lead I actually feel fairly confident she'll get the save. Also some of our hitters are over .300? The Bad Draculo is pretty good but at this point we're going up against third and fourth starters and our offense looks as lost as it did against the Sawteeth aces. Worse even. The Buzzards aren't even a good pitching team and we couldn't buy a run in a diarrhea store against them. This team has been awful with runners in scoring position (a baserunner on second or third). We've probably had 5 or 6 opportunities so far this season with multiple runners on and nobody out and have gotten 2 runs out of them? Sure you give respect to the pitcher for getting out of trouble but at some point that's an issue with the hitters not executing. The worst issue though is that our starters can't get out of the fifth inning and our bullpen is turning to taffy having to throw so many pitches. We just cannot keep games close through the eighth inning. That's not even getting into the defense. Jackman went to grab a cutoff in that second game, realized the fielder was throwing out the runner (and would have gotten them), and tries to duck out of the way but instead the ball bounces off him. This isn't the first time defensive miscues have cost us outs or runs and extended innings. The Ugly Not only are we 0-4 to start the season, but this game picks 3 of the top performing players each game to honor. This is done without regard to which team won. 4 games means 12 mentions for top players, we have 1. That's as ugly as it gets. I should expand the hall of fame to include a hall of shame at this point.  A shot of the division standings. Fortunately nobody is undefeated so we're only 3 games back for now and even closer to a wild card spot. If we can turn this around a bit and get some good starts from Winnie Noelle and Angel Verde we do have a shot of staying relevant to the wild card race. There are still 44 games to play after all.  Click for big version! Here are our stats for the season so far. Surprisingly the AI took my advice to use Kenna Quorn as the backup catcher. We actually do have some offensive performers but they just don't seem to be getting those hits when they count. I'm kind of back and forth on Loopinovich and McPride, neither has been particularly great to this point and honestly I have no objection to firing both of them.  Speaking of, I'm kind of interested in Aldo Blonchi. Given how few innings our starters seem to be giving us it seems like it'd be a good move to pick up a long reliever to work exclusively from the bullpen. The pitch selection and stats aren't great but at this point the stamina would be worth it. We may have to overspend though, other teams love to snap up SP/RP's.  A list of the free agent position players. Prices are slowly and steadily coming down and we should be able to start making moves in another 6-10 games. Let me know if there's anyone I should be tracking or if you want to know more about anyone.  New development opportunities! Winnie Noelle can go to the spa to build junk at the expense of a little velocity, not at all worth it given her arsenal is almost all fastballs. Badhop Brown could work on throwing harder from third which may not be a bad idea if we plan on holding on to him, personally I'm seeing that as a position that needs addressing through free agency though. Kache Basket can also start a vegan diet to work on her outfield defense. I'd feel bad putting her through that but if we plan on keeping her it'd be nice to have someone with actual range out there. We do have enough money to start targeting these now, so we'll be opening a vote/debate on this and some other stuff before the next update.  Now that we've been through the rotation once I'm going to follow a video update pattern of watching 1 game chosen by the thread and simming the rest of each 4 game cycle through the rotation. I would also like to continue to show series like the upcoming 2 game set at the Wild Pigs. So take a look at games 5-7 and let me know which starter you'd like to see. Assuming Rhymes gets out of today healthy she should be playing game 7 against the Beewolves. Here's a quick breakdown of each upcoming start. Game 5: Winnie Noelle vs The Wide Loads: Noelle had a terrible opening day against the Sawteeth. I won't say I told you so because I didn't anticipate she would struggle that badly but she lacks a good 2 strike pitch to go with that junk stat. The Wide Loads aren't a great team offensively but they have a ton of power which may be dangerous against a fastball pitcher. She's hoping to bounce back in this game and get her (and our) first win. Game 6: Angel Verde vs. the Nemesis: Angel was brilliant in our second game against the Sawteeth with 7 innings of 2 run ball. The Nemesis are a different beast though with an outstanding lineup. Verde is going to have his work cut out in stifling these bats and giving our offense a chance to win it. On the other hand if we can't score runs on this staff we deserve to lose. Game 7: Lana Rhymes vs the Beewolves: The Beewolves are not a great team but have some really good players like SS Handley Dexterez, an S overall (the highest grade in the game) who can play any position on the field other than catcher and hit from both sides of the plate. We probably won't get to see their ace pitcher Hurley Bender and that's a good thing, he's one of the 2 or 3 best in the game. Lana Rhymes flashed those junk pitches early aginst the Blowfish but her pitch count ballooned and she had to be pulled in the fourth inning so I'm really hoping she can be a little more efficient in this one. Fran Gipani (scheduled starter for the Beewolves) can be very tough but she's hittable. We will watch one of those games followed by both of the 2 game series against the Wild Pigs, which should involve Kent Ratherwell and Winnie Noelle. Vote1. Pick one of the above starts to watch. It will be posted in addition to both games of our series against the Wild Pigs 2. Pick one player development opportunity to pursue. Skip is also an option if you want to save up. 3. Not a vote so much as a debate, but who are our bottom 3 performers we should be looking at replacing immediately once free agency opens up? Everyone is fair game here. Addendum 4. I recently learned of a workaround to the lineup issue that would allow me to set the lineup for at least the games we watch. Should I continue to let the AI set the lineup and starting pitcher or should I take advantage of this? Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 21:12 on May 28, 2020 |
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May 28, 2020 20:39
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I'm going to try something new with the videos. Initially I was going for a broadcast style but a lot of it felt and sounded (to me) forced. As someone who loves radio baseball I was doing my best to recreate that style but I'm not sure the results were really what I was hoping for. I did a custom team showcase in a much more informal, traditional let's play style that I personally found a lot more fun and free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iua4J7P_TVo Let me know your thoughts, if you'd prefer this type of commentary going forward or if I'm trying to fix something that's not broken. ilmucche posted:1. Pick one of the above starts to watch. It will be posted in addition to both games of our series against the Wild Pigs Lafayette Park is pretty gorgeous but it will be nice to get out a bit, maybe the change of scenery will help our team figure things out. I hate to say it but moving the Steamboat may be the best option to let go regardless of how we're doing if our starters keep getting pulled before the 5th. Our bullpen is rated very well but it isn't built to cover 3-5 innings per game, and I think if we can't find starters who can pitch longer we may want to look at either replacing Frequin or Steamboat with an SP/RP who can help them out a bit. We may even want to consider rolling with 3 of our current starters and bringing on an extra reliever. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 20:26
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I guess there are a couple lineup moves I could make, Badhop Brown has no business touching the field and I'd rather have Pomp Duchee at third. Guns Jackman should eventually move to second where his defensive shortcomings won't be as obvious (although I don't see anyone better suited to covering short right now unfortunately). Overall though I can't really complain about the AI lineups and it's a pretty solid and adaptive system. For those curious, the workaround is just starting the game and setting lineup/starter as though you're going to play then exiting out before the first pitch is thrown. You can then watch or sim the game with your lineup in place. It's a bit clunky and only works for simming one game at a time but until Metalhead updates it's all we have. On the note of players on notice, I know it's tough to get through full videos (working on my commentary and I'm going to abandon the broadcast style for something more informal going forward) but if you could get through the commentary then I have to say Patience Evergreen may be struggling but that RBI double in game one was clutch and she also has 2 walks in 4 games. Most importantly it seems like she's one of the few players who puts together quality at bats and forces the pitcher to throw tons of pitches. She's got the foundation to be a really good player and is one of our better defensive outfielders right now. Obviously if she continues to struggle I'll add left fielder to the free agent search but I'd encourage a bit more patience with Patience for now. Edit: I'm going to close the vote in order to keep things moving along. We're going to watch game 6 to see Angel Verde take on the Nemesis at home then the next two updates will be games 8 and 9 at the wild pigs. Good news is we may be able to start signing free agents after this series! I think the cheapness of the development opportunity would have worked for Badhop to help out our terrible defense at third whether we planned on keeping him or not, but with one lukewarm recommendation and 2 votes for skip I'm going to skip development for now. We'll see what's available after game 6. We will also continue to allow the AI to set lineups and pitching rotation. I apologise if you didn't get a chance to vote this time but it's a long season and there will be plenty of opportunities. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 19:14 on May 30, 2020 |
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May 30, 2020 19:01
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Apologies for the double post but it's update time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HhMcPdZ0YM Definitely watch this video, this game was everything I love about baseball and I hope the commentary did it justice. The actual game starts at 3:30 if you want to skip simming and stat checking. I also changed my approach to commentary in this one. Before I was going for more of a broadcast style and while I liked the idea the results seem stilted and forced, which I'm sure you could hear. I felt like I was inadvertently forcing myself to play a character instead of just sharing a really fun, really good game. Please let me know what you think! Screenshot update will be posted once I've emotionally recovered enough from the game to work on it. It may actually come after the Wild Pigs series as a summary unless I see some new development or free agent opportunities.
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May 30, 2020 20:38
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Pitching is a lot harder in this one than is was in 2 because of the way they reprogrammed the batter's eye and pattern recognition. The biggest difference is that in Super Mega Baseball 2 you are basically conditioned to throw strikes exclusively, I think I had like 3 walks in the entire time I played that game. 3 creates much more realistic stat lines by punishing you for staying exclusively in the strike zone or for using the same sequence on each batter., which a lot of people seem to complain about but I really like. It's generally much tougher at any ego because of this but it makes those playoff outings where your second or third pitcher gives you 6 innings of 2 or fewer runs that much more exciting and intense. theenglishman posted:I've been working on my own franchise, but one thing I can't quite understand mechanically is how the bullpen works. I don't seem to be able to get relief pitchers and closers to "warm up" (this seems to be done automatically) but how does the game compensate for a pitcher running into a bad start and needing to be pulled? The compensation is in the size of the roster and pitching staff. We've seen it with the Freebooters so far in those first 4 games where nobody but Angel Verde got through more than 5 innings. That just isn't sustainable with just 3 relievers and a closer over more than 1 or 2 cycles through the rotation, they get exhausted and start pitching sloppy after just a few games. Real teams can manage this by having multiple long relief options or even putting position players on the mound in blowouts to preserve their valuable bullpen arms. In this game there is no such cushion so if your starters keep getting shelled early you basically have to restructure your pitching staff to compensate. In our case I think that may involve moving on from the closer position entirely to add a relief pitcher who can give us a bit more mileage. The nice thing about 3 that 2 didn't do is that we now have the freedom to build the pitching staff however we want, but the overall numbers are still limited. Edit: To clarify Super Mega Baseball rosters are 21 players, Major League rosters are 25 players until September when they expand to 40. The extra 4 make a big difference Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jun 1, 2020 |
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Jun 1, 2020 00:33
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIN-xK6Aj_A Game starts at 5:00! Game 1 of a 2 game set against the Wild Pigs, we need to take these division games if we want to start making up ground towards a wild card spot. This was a great game and goes down to the last out. I'll be posting the rubber game tomorrow but I'd like to mention some interesting free agent moves we may be able to make soon or even right now if we don't mind reaching a bit. I do go over some of them in the video but here they are in more detail:   order of pitcher skills is velocity/junk/accuracy Ed Reid is a great starting pitcher and while 9 million may be a bit of a reach I do think other teams are going to snap him up if he drops much lower. 4 pitches, good movement and control, strangely a ton of power at the plate as well. He also has a forkball which is my favorite pitch in the game. With so many of our starters getting pulled early in games I think he could replace Kent Ratherwell to give us a little more length in that position. Normally I wouldn't advocate throwing away an SP/RP but Ratherwell isn't being used out of the bullpen and if we're just going to use him as a starter we may as well get someone who can throw more pitches. We could also replace Wisselle or Frequin and see if the game will move Ratherwell to the bullpen on its own. This would save us some money if it worked (I do have an AI vs AI test save if you want me to check it out). Edit: We could also take Winnie Noelle's first start at face value and replace her with Reid for the same price, but I'd like to give her another chance and in theory she's a slightly better pitcher. We could replace Lana Rhymes with Reid to make this starting rotation truly top-notch but that would be super expensive, almost 6 million more against the cap.   order of pitcher skills is velocity/junk/accuracy Nib Bermal (just look at that name) is a really good but expensive relief pitcher who may be our answer to Wisselle's struggles or Frequin's non-use. 4 pitches, left handed, specialist, I think he would punch way above his overall grade but he's also a bit overpriced right now. We could afford to reach and we would actually save money if we replaced Kay Frequin with him although that would keep us at 1 left handed arm (at least it would be one that saw some use). This is another player who will probably be signed in the nearish future, likely within the next 4 games.   Emery Doyle would be a money saving innings eater out of the bullpen. Another lefty with good velocity and junk as well as 4 pitches, I think he's a great value pick who would also hit above his overall grade (at least when watching games, he may not fare as well in the simulator). If we wait a couple games we may get him for under 4 million but the AI loves lefties with 4 pitches so he may be gone soonish too. I think he would slot into Ryder McPride's spot nicely. In fact if we replace McPride and Frequin with Bermal and Doyle right now we would save money and I think have a tougher, longer bullpen. Edit: Ugly mf'er too.   order of skills is power/contact/speed/fielding/arm Last player I want to consider right now is Cale Santana. He isn't a great bat but we need a short stop with range and glove skills and he has both of those in spades. I would like to replace Walker Runs with Santana ASAP and move Jackman to 2B where his defensive shortcomings will be less apparent. He is 39 though so I'd release him if we don't end up in the wild card race. Definitely a one year rental. For now I think our outfield is still pretty good but the lack of range and throw power in center concerns me, especially in deep parks like today. Fast teams are going to continue to run all over us if we can't get someone out there who can book it to the ball and cannon it in. Edit: To make comparing current salaries a bit easier here's our roster: If I get 2 or more posters giving me the go ahead on any of these 4 moves I will make them before tomorrow's game, otherwise I will wait. Any no's will count against those 2 votes needed to go ahead. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 02:53
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ilmucche posted:I agree with this. Also factoring in is the clear moment's pause and "oh boy" when you realise he's been put in the game. You don't even like him! There are cheaper innings eater options out there who hopefully won't come with 10+ ERA. There's just something wrong with the Steamboat right now, he's supposed to be a dominant reliever in this game and we don't have time for him to get himself right if he's going to keep blowing late leads. I can think of two games so far he's given away entirely and probably a few more he's had a hand in us losing late. It's kinda shocking because I really thought going into this that Wissele was going to be a major piece of any playoff run we were going to make, with his stuff he should be one of the best mid-inning relievers in the league. I can't even blame his collapse on overuse because it began in game 2. So I'm going to take this as permission to release Wissele and sign Ed Reid today. There's currently just 1 go ahead on Doyle for McPride so I'll hold off on that move for now. We'll wait on Nib Bermal to see if the price comes down more and I'll keep my eye on the other free agents. In fact following the next game I think I'll do a deep dive on free agency, maybe you will all see someone I'm ignoring right now. I am also anticipating the AI will start using Ratherwell as a reliever once we have 4 starters and I think he'll be much better in that role. Edit: ilmucche posted:The wild pigs are always a frustrating team I've found. With power teams like nemesis and the sirloins you know that anything that gets hit is probably getting hit hard, but normally without too much speed to back it up. Sirloins have some, but nemesis are pretty slow. The wild pigs when I play them seem to go for power swings (for those who don't play the game you can time your swing for more power with reduced contact if you time it right, you can see the batters front foot lift a little when they're trying one) because their contact stat is so high. Combine that with somewhat okay power and normally decent speed and I've found I get beat up a lot when playing them. Getting beat up happens a lot in my games but even more so against the pigs. Definitely everything you said and the park has a lot to do with it too. I struggle in parks with a deep center field because most of my power hits go to straightaway center. The flipside of that is when your center fielder has low to middling speed it's so hard to cover such a huge area especially with how finicky fielding can be in this game. tomanton posted:In my custom franchise it was easy to see the problems that needed ironing out in a random-gen team, here it seems like you're playing Jenga with what might be a championship contender so who knows. It would be nice to find a way to get the game to use Ratherswell, stamina seems at a premium in this new system (I suspect the game not starting him means SP/RP stamina is less than an SP on two games' rest unless they're also hurt). When I got this game I thought I would be doing a custom franchise, I even had one planned with the Banditos but getting into the game the Standard teams are just so interesting. They're all theoretically balanced but I also notice Metalhead added these traps to some of them that create really interesting questions to unlock their full potential. The Freebooters have been way more fun than I expected. They're a pitching team but it's hard to be successful pitching when your defense is so bad, but the worst, slowest defenders are also some of the most productive bats. How do you mix and match what you have to stop bleeding runs on errors and exhausted pitching while still keeping a competitive lineup? Also the team may be built around pitching but as we've seen there are some huge question marks on this staff and in its current form it just isn't optimal over multiple games. I think the Ed Reed for Steamboat Wissele alone is going to be a huge weight off. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jun 2, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 14:56
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My desktop is about 7 years old this summer and chugs a bit with some of the larger stadiums, especially when it pans down the right or left field line. I've been fiddling with the graphics settings to try and minimize that but sometimes it pops up. If my job doesn't end up laying me off for next year I'm planning on doing some upgrades to the GPU and power supply. Sorry about that. Edit: Goddamn how did I miss that? I'll check the source video, maybe it happened when youtube encoded. Thanks for the heads up. My compy's old but it isn't that bad Edit edit: Yeah it's in the source video too, must have been the capture software. Super sorry about that guys, at least the audio's intact and it's just for that inning it looks like. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jun 3, 2020 |
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Jun 2, 2020 23:48
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Guys I think we broke the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqgFfqIwzVs Apparently the game had a tough time handling us releasing Steamboat Wissele, as it refused to accept he was gone and decided to use Ed Reed in relief of Winnie Noelle. Spoiler warning we lost bad. He gave up 5 runs in a couple innings. For those that don't own the game, it applies a stat penalty through lowered mojo when you use pitchers outside their assigned roles. Ed Reed is a dedicated starter so using him in relief makes him "tense" which makes him suck a bit more than he should. Unfortunately this also means that he's likely to at least be tense for his first start, which I'm going to use that roster trick to make sure happens. I believe this is because he was signed in place of a reliever and the game didn't make the distinction in roles. Unfortunately there's no way to actually set rotation right now so I may have to do it manually until we're back in rhythm. Because of this I've decided to move Ed Reed's first start to two games from now, in Lana Rhymes place. I'm a little worried about the game deciding to use him again in relief but I think it will turn to someone else who's a bit more rested. Also hopefully that one game will be enough for him to recover from losing half his stamina but he'll definitely be at least tense from that terrible bullpen performance. I'm not upset about losing but like I said in the video it really sucks that this was our first look at him. We were going to lose that game anyway, Wes Yogurt was just unhittable. We do need to start thinking about making lineup changes now. I'm going to post a screenshot update hopefully tonight to go over some of our free agent options and the new development opportunities then once this rotation bug issue is sorted we'll start signing some players. 2-7 in a 48 game season isn't quite the end of the line but it's getting late early for the Freebooters in year 1. Edit: Figured out how to fix the issue. Tomorrow's game will have some roster finagling then hopefully we'll be back on track. Game needs a way to set rotations outside of games though. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jun 3, 2020 |
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Jun 3, 2020 20:42
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ilmucche posted:I'll watch the video tomorrow but I've noticed that depending on how the lineup is arranged the computer will start RPs and use SPs from the bullpen. I think it pulls from the first 4 pitcher slots for starters regardless of position. In the playoffs I noticed that the computer roster read I've never seen that but it's definitely possible, but it isn't just where they get listed (Reed is currently listed with the SP's but he isn't scheduled to start). What I'm seeing is there's a 4 man rotation and anyone not in it is considered part of the bullpen regardless of their role. Ratherwell was already set in the rotation and Reed didn't automatically take his spot. I did some testing with a backup league and this happens every time you replace an RP with an SP. The way to fix it is to set the new starter and play the game (or exit before the first pitch is thrown and sim/watch which is what we're going to do). The thing is that whoever you replace then goes into the bullpen rather than bumping everyone down a few spots, so we're going to have SP's relieving until we hit Ratherwell's start, and the unfortunate part is he just started a game so there are 2 to go before we get to him. Definitely puts our bullpen in a rough spot for now. Not sure if I want to power through the next two starts and just straight swap them, I think the simmer will be kinder to us than watching will in that case and even if he is used as a reliever his mojo may be closer to normal when we get to his start. I did report the issue via steam so hopefully they'll take it but I think there's a lot of other stuff they're working on right now. I'll try some other stuff but I think we're stuck till Ratherwell's start for now so I don't think we'll be voting on which games to watch for a bit. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 3, 2020 23:34
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Game 12 update! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqPt7ZwlAxE Game starts at 2:50! Ed Reed situation is fixed! Unfortunately it may have cost us 2 more losses. With Reed finally assuming his role as a starter (more an opener in this one due to low stamina) the Freebooters are hoping to finally get this offense rolling against Air Lovestone of the Heaters! Now that our pitching staff is set to rights can we finally pull one out? Screenshot update and free agent post will be up tonight or tomorrow! ilmucche posted:That's a comprehensive win for the pigs, ouch. Tough to judge the batting in general when the team gets 3 hit like that. Ewww, well at least you had the wildcard. Who was pitching?
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Jun 4, 2020 19:40
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Free Agency Deep Dive and state of the team after the first quarter of the season. So at this point we're 2-10. The bats are unbelievably cold, the pitching is ok as long as there aren't runners on base, and our slow, shoddy defense has cost us way too many runs. I don't want to say I told you so because a bunch of our issues I honestly didn't foresee (particularly that rotation bug), but I definitely did say this team is really terrible in the description back when we were picking them. All that said I don't think we're yet at the point of giving up on this season. We have 36 games to play and are still just 5 games down, which we could make up with a good run if we can get the right players in place for it. It's pretty clear right now that our lineup needs a serious shake up to get going and that's where I'd like to focus our efforts. Some of the free agents are still pretty pricey so we won't be making all our moves immediately but I would like an upward limit on what I can offer them as the price continues to drop. Actual terms of the voting will be at the end of the post. The other thing is we have a bunch of developmental money and should probably spend a bit. Any stat or trait gains are permanent so keep that in mind.  Here's our current roster with our current contracts.  Current economy, including cap space and development funds per game.  Click for big version! Here are our team stats through the first quarter of the season. Some notes: Pitching Take Ed Reed's stats with a grain of salt. All of those runs were either given up while he was misused as a reliever or when he was exhausted from being misused. Expect that ERA to come down into the 4's based on his opening performance. Winnie Noelle's stats have been significantly better since that opening day meltdown, but I don't think she'll ever play to her overall rating. Angel Verde has been by far our best and most consistent starting pitcher, but has given up a ton of hits so far. Eventually that average against is either going to come down or the ERA will start creeping up. The bullpen should be able to give us more consistency with Ratherswell now set up there, but I really just feel like Frequin just hasn't been what you would hope for with an S overall grade and 13.1 million. I'd rather have a B+ or A- overall reliever to actually get us into the 8th and 9th inning. It's telling that Frequin has yet to see a save opportunity in 5 appearences. Lineup Rocky Backstop has seen all of one at bat and has yet to see the field, basically a $2.5 million paperweight holding down his end of the bench. If we decide to tank the rest of the season he could still be valuable as a cheap backup but honestly Kenna Quorm is barely more expensive and almost the same age. Both are solid developmental prospects with Backstop being a far worse catcher with a far better bat. Not an immediate concern but we ought to decide which one we want going forward. Sub-Mendoza line players: Patience Evergreen, Walker Runs, Pomp Duchee, and Jermaine Raines have all been below the Mendoza line pretty much from the start (batting average under .200). Of them Evergreen and Runs have probably been the best in terms of timely hits and producing quality at bats. Duchee has shown some power at the plate but he's also been extremely streaky and when he gets out he doesn't seem to force the pitcher to throw a lot. Jermaine Raines just hasn't been at all effective at the plate but we don't have any other viable starting catchers on this roster. Gunns Jackman has been a producer offensively but he's also a liability at short stop. I would still like to find a defensive short stop and move Jackman to second. Landon Fare hasn't had a hit yet (in just 6 AB's to be fair). He's also just 22, super cheap, and one of our best infield defenders right now so I'd hate to release him but he isn't likely to be a major contributor this season. Defense Our big 3 in the outfield (Brickhouse, Stiffs, and Woodman) have all produced at the plate but the lack of speed in Center has been killing us. It may be worth bringing on a defensive CF and moving one of them to DH, and as much as I hate to say it Evergreen may be the one to release in order to make it happen. As I said we should look for a defensive short stop. First and Third have also been pretty unstable for us though defensively they really haven't been terrible. Duchee has actually struggled more than Badhop over this small sample size. Free Agent Position Players   Here are some players I find intriguing. If you happen to see any in that list I don't mention here please say something. We'll go by position in order of greatest need (obviously my opinion). Short Stop  Axton Khan may not be the Mongol we deserve, but he could be what we need at short. Superior to Jackman in just about every way, we actually could afford to move Walker Runs for Khan and move Jackman to second, but it would cost just about all our available cap space and we would have to downgrade elsewhere if we wanted to make any more moves. If we went Khan for Jackman straight up we would have right around 5 million left over. Also gives us a switch hitter which we need in this group.  We've already talked about Cale, he's just much cheaper now. Cale for Runs straight up would give us a superior defensive short stop, superior offense at second base, and cost less than 1 million in cap space. I know he's old but I think he could still have value as a rental if we want to try for a wild card spot. Catcher  Karson is the best (and most expensive) available starting catcher at the moment. Since Catcher has been our least productive position it may be worth it to spend heavily here even if he's likely to miss every fourth game or so for rest. 12 million is really steep, but this is a complete player at a position that is traditionally weak on offense.  Stephen Appleseed is a really underrated player by the game, sure he's slow but he's a dynamite starting catcher and a much better value than Karson Koch. May be worth waiting a game or two to see if the price comes down but we could definitely pick him up and have enough left over for another move or two.  I wouldn't sign him now but Placido Roy may be an option to replace Rocky Backstop and Kenna Quorm at backup catcher moving forward. One to keep an eye on for now. Second Base  Pheonix Cantu is the highest graded player on the board. Great power, good contact and speed, good fielding, and a switch hitter to boot. I wouldn't play him at short every day because of the limited arm but otherwise he's an absolute superstar. Also extremely expensive for obvious reasons.  Nick Pickles could provide us an everyday option at second base for Landon Fare to develop behind. My concerns, other than the cost, are that he has no secondary position and that great arm is almost wasted at second.  Sterling Underwood is definitely overpriced but is nearly as good offensively as Cantu. Even at second though that arm concerns me. Third Base  If we want to get an everyday starter at third I think Polebean is our best option and moving her for Duchee would only cost about 3 million against the cap. She's an excellent all around player with very good power and solid defense. Normally I would advocate waiting to see if the price drops a bit but we need to make a move if we want to turn the current situation around. Also plays shortstop.  Russel Davila is another potential option for an everyday starter, cheaper than Polebean but still overpriced. It's kind of a toss up between them as to which is better, Polebean offers speed but Davila's a switch hitter and is a million bucks cheaper. First Base  Jaden Anderson is cheap, young, left handed, and offers solid defensive stats. That arm is unfortunately wasted at first though. Once he falls below 5 million this may be a good move.  Great name. If the arm and fielding stats were reversed this would be the ideal first baseman in this game but unfortunately they aren't and he's going to be a liability in the field. If the price drops a lot lower he may be worth picking up as a DH though. Outfield  Antonio Dillon is an interesting player. He provides enough offense to not be a liability at the plate while that great speed and decent defense offers much needed range out there. Also would have the best arm in our outfield. I do love the left handed bat as well.  Hubbub Espinosa is a left handed bat with great speed and can play right or left field. A bit overpriced for the overall stats but I think we ought to keep an eye on him.  Buddy Pacheco is a great offensive player with limited defense. If his price falls to around 10 million I think he's worth a straight up trade for one of our big 3 outfielders but would be redundant if added to our current roster. So that should pretty much do it for position players available. They're still expensive enough that we can only make a couple moves and normally I would advocate waiting a bit longer but we need to make some changes to turn this season around if we're going to have a shot at the playoffs. Pitching  We are actually pretty set here and most of the immediate moves may in fact be to downgrade so we can make moves to improve the offense. Neverthless here are some of the most interesting options, both to downgrade or upgrade. As always if you see someone I didn't mention please speak up. Starting Pitching  Rufus is extremely interesting as a developmental prospect and could compete now. Left handed, just 22 years old with 4 good pitches and a positive trait. Would be a direct upgrade over Lana Rhymes or we could trade him for Reed if we think recent events have ruined him for good.  If we decide to sell we should go get Young and see if we can develop him into a competitive pitcher. Terrible velocity and junk stats but elite control, 5 great pitches, left handed, and still relatively young at 27. I think we could get him for around 2 million a year but he'd need some luck with random events and focused development on our part to end up being any good for next season. Relief Pitchers  Lol  Zeke for Frequin straight up would cost us some ERA, but Sardines could pitch in every situation and it would free up a lot of cash to use for offensive upgrades. It would cost one of our precious bullpen lefties though.  I mean, Zuri Savage. Zuri is super cheap for the stats and may develop into a decent reliever but unless we want to make big moves on offense I wouldn't necessarily make a move to get her now. I do think she's one of our first moves if we decide to give up on this season though.  Bringing up the rear here a couple games cheaper than when last we saw him, Emery Doyle remains one of the best values on the board and would provide an additional left handed arm in a bullpen that needs it, especially if we decide to move Kay Frequin. Moving Doyle for Frequin directly would balance our bullpen between right and left handers and free up 9.1 million in cap space.  Finally here's our upcoming schedule. I'm thinking I will show all of the next 6 games as they are all series in the division. 4 of them are at home so I'm hopeful we can regain a couple games if we can get our lineup right.  Current development opportunities. We have plenty of money right now and could go after one or two of these now. We could also save up for the time being until this team is more of a finished product. Development funds carry over season to season and all stat/trait gains are permanent. Thread Vote and Debate Time 1. What moves should we make right now and why? 2. Pick up to 3 free agents you don't think we can afford just yet and give me an upward limit on how much I can offer them as the price comes down. 3. Which, if any, development opportunities should I take? Edit: Double copied from the text file. My bad. How embarrassing Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 21:54
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tomanton posted:
I was thinking about Sardines for Frequin originally to avoid too big a dropoff in quality but at this point I would rather have Doyle and the money. We'd get a cheap lefty and Doyle has a ton of future potential with that 4 pitch arsenal, plus I think he'll pitch well above his weight class. I do love Rufus Houndstooth for Lana Rhymes, Houndstooth would definitely help solidify our rotation and the Doyle move would help absorb some of the cost. The control issues and price are all that worry me about him, but I'll hold off until Rhymes next start in two games to see if he comes down into the 7's. That 4 million net would leave us around 12.5 million in cap space, enough to reach on one of those star players including Pheonix Cantu if we were willing to release Gunns Jackman (which, for the record, I'd be against). I really like Stephen Appleseed to replace Jermaine Raines who has been awful and doesn't have a great arm (have we thrown out a single runner yet?). I also think Russel Davila or Kelly Polebean are great options to replace Badhop Brown at third with a slight edge to Davila for being a switch-hitter (but Polebean would bring much needed speed to this lineup). If we make the Rojas and Santana moves we need to upgrade offensively in other areas because they are not likely to produce at the plate (especially Rojas, Santana's stats are pretty even with Walker Runs). By some quick calculations we could just barely pull all those moves off now but there would be almost no cap space left for development or further moves, so this would be an all or nothing gamble. We may want to do some of this in stages to bring the price down more but just remember at this point every loss digs us that much deeper. illmucche posted:I think the game hates evergreen, she's had some terrible statlines in my franchise mode as well. At 35 and $6.7m I think she's got to go, regardless of playoff push or rebuild mode. Baskette has middling stats, middling age and middling cost, is a switch hitter and has LHP boosts so can take over from her. It can be a few more dollars in another position if you replace her with a bargain bin player to free up cash. I would also like to replace Baskette, walk off heroics notwithstanding. The game seems to be using her as a defensive replacement but she isn't fast enough and her arm isn't good enough to be a significant upgrade over anyone currently out there and her bat isn't very good either. That said from a role playing perspective I worry about the message we'd be sending the team and the fans by firing our only player with a great offensive moment. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jun 5, 2020 |
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Jun 5, 2020 15:22
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ilmucche posted:
I kind of want to see where this goes. Mind posting about your postseason moose run? Edit: Just noticed Horse Cock Johnson, gave me a chuckle. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Jun 5, 2020 |
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Jun 5, 2020 16:02
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Robert Deadford posted:I'm also playing this game, learning it as I go having never played a baseball game before. It's fun! And it's fun because all sorts of odd things happen. Welcome and great to have you! No judgement here, I've had the series for years and never broke out of the 50's in ego (did get into the 70's for pitching in 2 but pitching is far and above my favorite gameplay mechanic). The important thing to me is that you're enjoying the game and hopefully the LP as well! To be honest my view has always been if anyone judges me for the difficulty I play a singleplayer game on that says more about them than me, you know? I did post some tutorials in the OP including a guide I wrote over on reddit, it covers most of the game mechanics if you want to check that out for some pointers as you get started. The comments also cover a lot of information that I missed in the guide itself. Additionally don't hesitate to ask questions about anything you don't understand or need clarified here, or just post about your own seasons and experiences. The only thing I'd consider a hard and fast rule in this thread is no belittling anyone else. Guide is here if you're curious. Hope it helps you out! Current Consensus on Free Agent Moves Everyone seems to agree on the Doyle for Frequin trade. This will free up 9.1 million in cap space. Fire Patience Evergreen to sign Carson Rojas. This is a move I didn't see and will free up around 1 million additionally. Carson Rojas is a great defensive option but I'm a little concerned about those low offensive stats. Still, it'd be hard for him to hit worse than Evergreen. Rufus Houndstooth for Lana Rhymes will cost us about 4.7 million against the cap, hopefully less if he comes down in the next two games but it won't be much. He would be a direct upgrade and I believe this move would give us a rotation approaching elite. The only remaining move may eventually be to swap out Winnie Noelle for Zap Branigan or one of the other A rated starters if their prices ever drop below 10 million. If we can ever pull that off I think we'd have a claim at one of the best rotations in the league. Sign Cale Santana for Walker Runs. This move seems less controversial this time around with all the infield defensive struggles. The move would cost us less than a million against the cap and give us a major defensive boost, allowing Guns Jackman to play at second base. At this point we would still be around 13 million in cap space. Stephen Appleseed for Jermaine Raines would cost us just under 5 million of that. It would be a significant, direct upgrade at starting catcher and leave Kenna Quorm at backup. Backstop would still be on the roster as a pinch-hitting option (I wish the AI coach would use him, 1 AB in 12 games is kind of pathetic). Kelly Polebean for Walker Runs would cost another 4 million. Having thought about it I think Russel Davila is the better value move here and gives us a left handed bat that we desperately need, but we really can't go wrong with either one. This would leave us 4 million when all is said and done. One move I would consider changing there is signing Hubub Espinoza in left instead of Carson Rojas. This would cost about 3.8 million and use up almost all of our remaining cap, but he's far better offensively and just as fast. He doesn't have the glove talent or defensive versatility of Rojas though and I'm kinda leaning towards Rojas given their respective costs. Espinosa is definitely the all or nothing move. I'll leave discussion open until tomorrow then go forward with whatever the consensus is. Expect a double header update tomorrow that will include all of the above moves unless a new debate opens. Honestly even though we're making it in desperation I really like this plan, the only issue it doesn't address is first but there aren't really any good answers there anyway for the moment. If Duchee continues to struggle we should see some good options open up around midseason as teams start to fall behind and reduce payroll. On a role playing note I would like to hold on to Kache Baskette for now. As I mentioned in a prior post firing her would send a terrible message to the fans and the clubhouse. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jun 5, 2020 |
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Jun 5, 2020 20:25
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ilmucche posted:
Whatever you feel like putting together, and this goes for anyone who wants to share about their own seasons. I really enjoy talking about the game and reading about how others play it, it may even give us some ideas for this franchise. To your other question I've honestly wanted to sim/watch a franchise as soon as I heard it was going to be an option, when the game was first announced in March (right after my work closed down actually). When I got the game I got super into my standard Sand Cats franchise and wound up winning a championship behind a 6 strikeout performance by Beebee Takabasei first, but I did end up doing some test leagues for this concept to try to figure out what was and wasn't possible, weirdly I won the championship first season with my Pheonix custom franchise and my Beewolves test run looks like it may end up in the wild card spot, so this performance by the Freebooters probably isn't typical if you want to give it a try. This is my first time doing it game by game and series by series like this but I really think our current results are due to the Freebooter's just kind of being terrible. I do think simming/watching likes this requires a very different skillset. You have to know how to time free agent moves to save the most money without losing the player, you have to be able to spot those diamond C and C+ players and like you said you have to not just be thinking about how you would play with them but how they'll actually perform. Playing short seasons like this adds the wrinkle of the above point that baseball is a game where anything can happen over a small enough sample (see our start with the Freebooters). Most importantly it requires the player to accept that they have absolutely no control over the outcome of the game beyond putting players on the field and the patience to let those players play to their stats. Being comfortable focusing on what you control and accepting what you can't is something that a lot of people have a hard time with, it's taken me about a decade of professional experience in some very wild settings to even reach the point I'm at now with it. This specific format of watching and simming games in small bunches probably works best as a let's play and I doubt I'd have the patience to do it on my own. As a let's play it becomes kind of a shared story with each game a new chapter and each player a character. I can't wait to see what these new guys will do, if we'll be able to turn this horrendous start around, or if we can't who do we end up keeping? To me a format like this where the games play themselves out hits the essence of rooting for sports, being mad at players who don't perform or thrilled when the defensive backup smacks a walk off homer to straightaway center field. The important thing is you're mad or excited for the players themselves instead of someone with a controller, whether or not they exist is irrelevant because to us they do. I'm rambling. I like the game, I like the sound of my voice. Actually I don't like the sound of my voice, I just like typing. I'd also like to add on a more personal note that doing something like this LP is very uncharacteristic, I'm not an outgoing person and the biggest challenge of setting this up was putting myself out there to be judged. In that sense it's almost been therapeutic in helping me get over myself, if that makes sense. There's still a ton to figure out and I'm still working on my commentary, screenshot organization, and even just basic franchise mechanics but it's been great and you guys have really helped make it great. One final thing I definitely want to say is thank you to everyone participating, watching, or reading along. I told myself when I started this that I'd keep it going as long as one person was interested in seeing the next game and continuing to get replies even through the bugs and the rough start to commentary and my own mistakes has been humbling as all hell. I appreciate all of you for helping me find my voice through these early updates. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jun 6, 2020 |
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Jun 6, 2020 04:20
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Had a bit of a technical issue and a bit of a me being bad at math issue with this last update. Technical issue is going to result in a few missing pitches in the bottom of the fifth inning against the Moose and it's because I ran out of disk space on my external drive while recording. The math issue is I was looking at Walker Runs salary when talking about replacing badhop at third. If we replace Badhop we won't have the money left to move Lana Rhymes for Rufus Houndstooth. Because of that I decided to wait on both moves until the end of the Moose series then I'll present the costs of both and we can go from there. I don't think either of them will be signed but fortunately if they are we have other options. Expect both videos against the Moose later today, the first one will have a bit of a transition though. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jun 6, 2020 |
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Jun 6, 2020 18:05
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBNxu8AT2ds The aforementioned technical issue happened in this one in the fifth inning. The other issue was that our AI coach didn't use the new players quite as we envisioned. Game starts at 11:00 (first ten minutes was free agency moves). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyx6BABVpjY Watch this video. Game starts at 5:30. So I took matters into my own hands and set the lineup myself. Until we have an easier lineup for the AI to manage I think I may do this for now, the infield makes way more sense with Jackman at second and Santana covering short, and I'd like to give Rojas at least one outfield start. Choice Time So I messed up our calculations by working off the wrong player's salary before. Right now we have about 12.7 million with 2 positions still to fill, all of our free agent targets are still in play.  Current roster and salaries We still need to upgrade offensively and there are 2 options we've already discussed at third to do it. Both have come down a little since we last looked at them.   Kelly Polebean and Russel Davila are still both really good options. Polebean is good offensively with very good speed and defense, while Davila has comparable offensive stats with worse (but still serviceable) speed and defense. I would like to get Davila at this point. Polebean is an excellent ballplayer but is yet another right handed hitter and costs almost 2 million more. Davila is a switch hitter with very good offensive stats, I think he could be a mainstay in this lineup even with mediocre speed.   Here are the players we could move for this. Douchey has the advantage of taking more money off the books and he has not hit as well as Brown so far (in fact he's well below the Mendoza line so far and hasn't shown much improvement). Brown is a backup level player and we would be moving him to backup. Moving Douchee would also free up the DH spot so we could utilize these defensive players more in the outfield.   The other move we wanted to make was Houndstooth for Rhymes, which I don't think we can do in a Badhop for Polebean deal. So here are our choices: 1. Davila for Brown then get Houndstooth: Leaves 3.6 million total cap space remaining. 2. Davila for Douchee then get Houndstooth: Would leave over 8 million in total cap space 3. Polebean for Brown then Houndstooth: 1.9 million left over. 4. Polebean for Douchee then Houndstooth: 6.5 million as our final cap space. Hoping to get at least game one of our series against the Blowfish posted tomorrow but I'm not sure I'll have the time, so voting/discussion will be open at least until then.
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Jun 6, 2020 22:01
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kag3man3 posted:I just wanted to say that I am loving this LP. In a time where sports are gone for time being, it is adding something for me to look forward to while I am either working or relaxing. Appreciate that and feel free to post about your first impressions and games!
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Jun 6, 2020 22:04
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tomanton posted:THE STORY SO FAR: I love everything about this. Get what you mean when the team is clicking, sometimes it's better to go with a squad you know synergizes well even if you have to miss out on a top tier talent. Doubly so when you have to control them. What I really love about the franchise mode in this game is it's such a simple system that creates so much more depth. Anyway nice post. Robert Deadford posted:That was a hell of a game! The longball is in fashion this season. I've also noticed that catchers have started dropping excessive numbers of pitches and a patch did drop recently. Thanks man. Appleseed has definitely not gotten off to an auspicious start, he may have been pressing to try to live up to his contract. I'm going to bench him for a couple games to see if that helps clear his mind. Gameplay explanation for that is being rattled is a penalty to all stats and since defense was already kind of mediocre, when Appleseed got the mojo drops from his disastrous AB's it took his defense stats into the 20's or 30's. He didn't actually drop that many pitches but the ones he did lose were at very inopportune times. Sitting him for Quorm should help reset his stats and give us the chance to see Rojas in the outfield. I hope nobody minds if I start setting the lineup myself, I really didn't like the one the AI was trotting out there and we could see the difference in game 2 I think on both sides of the ball. Jackman seems much more comfortable at second where he doesn't have to cover as big a gap and Cale Santana has been a stud in his first 2 games. To the last point, having thought about it since we don't have a true leadoff hitter I think Polebean will fill that role nicely and the extra 1.5 million is worth it for that alone. She is one of the best athletes on the board and I think we'll need that against the Blowfish, plus it would give us an outstanding infield defense. The only reason I don't like the move is it would leave us with just 2 left handed bats in the lineup. Long term that may hurt us against right handed pitching. I'll keep my eye out for potential switch or left handed DH candidates for now. In other news I think I'm going to take a day off from updating to play some black flag and leave the debate open a bit longer and I'd like to pose an additional, LP related question. With the season now a quarter of the way through and our lineup mostly set, it's time to start the all star voting! Like all good all star votes this doesn't need to be entirely performance based, just go with your opinion and who you think is most popular. Also like all good all star votes there's no accountability so you can vote multiple times for multiple players, but all votes will be counted, so no saying "I want to change my vote." If you want to nullify it just vote twice for the other guy. Also because it's an all star vote when I say voting opens now, it isn't going to close for a while. Voting will remain open until game 40. Until then each update will end with a running tally of votes. This is going to be an absolute unfair clusterfuck of a system just like real all star voting. We'll be voting for just 3 categories in this first season. Eventually maybe someone can come up with clever names for the categories. Team MVP: Best Pitcher: Best Backup/Bench/Role Player: Here are some very flexible, basic rules for voting: To qualify for the third categroy the player can not have started more than a quarter of our total games, but again since this is opinion and honor system based I'm not going to be checking math on these. Obviously Oakley Stiffs wouldn't qualify for that category but would Quenna Quorm? Would a full time DH who never sees the field? Being a good commissioner I'm not going to clarify either of those questions so have at it and enjoy! You can vote as many times as you want but just one vote per category, per post. If you want to vote more than once it has to be a separate post. This is honor system and I think it makes sense since voting will be open for so long, but the rule is subject to change. What I'm hoping with this rule is that people won't save their votes since you can vote now, later, and in between. You can vote for the same player for multiple categories as long as they qualify for both categories. I will accept all votes except those who obviously don't qualify for a category, like Gunns Jackman as best pitcher. The third category can be a bit nebulous and honestly I'm fine with that.
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Jun 7, 2020 14:53
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c1QHrZBbdU The squad is now set, we went out and spent big to try to reforge this team into a winner. We have 5.6 million in cap space remaining and that's money we'll be holding onto for development barring the potential for a major move. Can we get a win streak going off our big win against the Moose? Unfortunately we were never able to get our right hand dominant lineup any more diversity, in fact I think we dropped one lefty. That was the only thing I felt like we really missed on. I hope what we did will be enough to get us a shot at the wild card. Probably the most challenging thing about a run like this is identifying skillsets that will perform well in AI vs AI games. I know what kinds of pitchers and hitters I like to use and a lot of the players I've targeted have been along those lines, low accuracy with good junk and/or velocity and multiple good pitches. I'm finding that accuracy is a much more important skill for the AI than the player. I do think that even if we don't end up competing in season one we're learning a lot of lessons about how to build a winner. Edit: Damnit, hit post instead of preview. Video will be uploaded and processed shortly. Edit edit: Uploaded and processed now. I'll leave this here as a testament to my buffoonery Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 17:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tckManSXFbw Ed Reed in his first real start as a Freebooter, at last! This was a pretty fun game overall and one you should probably watch. With the Blowfish series done we can look forward to one more in division series against the Herbisaurs then a string of tough games starting on the road against the Buzzards. We'll go back to watching 1 game of each cycle through the rotation after the Herbisaurs series, I just wanted to do these all in a row because they were a crucial series of, well, series and we had just rebuilt our lineup and pitching staff. Overall the new players have looked really good other than Appleseed and Doyle who continue to struggle and these last 4 games have all been pretty exciting. I am thinking about putting Brown at DH and playing Brickhouse in Center against the Herbisaurs to get a little more offensive firepower. All that said we need to sweep the Herbisaurs and build some momentum to get back in the playoff conversation. These next few games are going to be crucial. Current All Star Votes: MVP: Kache Basket (2) Pitcher: Jovita Pulo (write in - 1) Best Bench Player: Badhop Brown (1) Also implementing a new All Star rule. The winner in each category at the end of the season cannot be released in the offseason and, if they leave for free agency, I have to make a serious effort to re-sign them. Serious effort is defined as offering at least 1.5 times their current salary. Edit: Guess who I ran into in my Sand Cats franchise! Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Jun 9, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 19:53
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We finally got a big win in our last road game against the Blowfish but we need to put together a streak if we want to get back in the playoff hunt. Can we keep the momentum going at home against the Herbisaurs with Winnie Noelle on the mound? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlkR68f8aw Watch this game. Seriously, this was one of the best games of the series so far and probably held the highest stakes. We've played better since rebuilding the roster but so far it's basically been a .500 effort and we need to sweep the herbisaurs to start getting back into it. The season is going to be halfway done in just 8 games and we desperately need to make up ground.  We will still be seeing game 18 (likely tomorrow) after which there's a stretch of individual games. Pick two of the upcoming games you'd like to watch and the rest will be simulated. We'll also take another look at free agency and player development around the midway point, plus I'll start showing the rosters of teams currently leading the division and wild card.
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Jun 9, 2020 21:17
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1wtkqUupWk Freebooters are looking for their first series sweep, a win puts us at 4-2 since shaking up the lineup and rotation while a loss would make us a .500 team. The Herbisaurs are also a division leader so this game is vital if we want to start gaining ground. It's as close to must win as any game 18 can be. ilmucche posted:Does anyone play online? I'm down for some games here or there if people are interested. Mostly on the weekends I reckon as I'm in a bad euro timezone. Personally I haven't done any online play but I'd be down. Eastern US time zone though so it may be tough to sync up. kag3man3 posted:Does this have cross system online play? Only pennant race is cross platform for now (developers have mentioned working on that), and that's randomly matched until they come out with custom pennant sometime this summer. What system is everyone on? Currently looking like we'll be watching games 22 against the Crocodons and 24 against the Nemesis. I was kind of hoping to see the Sand Cats since it'll be easier to remember the names of those players but Crocodons are always a tough matchup and the Nemesis game was where we started turning the season around. I'm going to be putting together a screenshot update on the state of the team before we see those though, now that we got through that huge 6 game set and are approaching the season halfway point. Edit: Nothing to see here, definitely didn't post before the video was processed again. Cuveball Sliders fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 20:17
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tomanton posted:Kache Baskette is out here tearing it up. There really does seem to be a sweet spot for competent B-grade batters where a pitcher won't fear them but they have enough behind their power swing to do some real damage. This would be the third game Kache Baskette has been primarily responsible for winning (out of 6 wins). The 3 run jack in the first accounts for our final lead and the home run she robbed at the wall would've either tied the game or had them down by 1, don't recall if they had baserunners. That lady's doing it all this season on both sides of the ball. Also leading the team in HR's after starting the season as a utility outfielder? That's insane. I agree with what you said (also why pitchers always seem to get hits) and I think she has awesome traits that help a ton. Jackman actually has our best overall offensive stats (although after that game he's down one in the HR column) but it seems like Baskette's hits always come when we need them, with runners on or late in the game. The relief situation was an issue with SMB 2 as well when it first released and they ironed it out so I'm hopeful the bullpen substitution will be fixed sooner than later. Like I said for some weird reason it works great for non-DH teams but with DH teams it's just a mess. I don't know anywhere near enough about programming to venture a guess as to why. ilmucche posted:I'm good for head to head with the super mega teams. It's a chance to show off my sunnyvale trailer park team. Still hoping we can copy customisations over, as I'm not a huge fan of the blowfish.. If you mean copy a custom team onto a standard one I don't think that's possible. You can customize standard players and customize aesthetics (logo, uniforms, home field) but you can't change their stats without making it a custom copy of a standard team. I was actually thinking of changing the Freebooter's uniform design a little going into next season though.
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Jun 12, 2020 13:57
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State of the Team Midseason of year 1.  If you truly are what your record says you are, we are the worst team in the league. In real baseball when a team starts 2-10 they can overcome that down the stretch of a 165 game season and it isn't all that uncommon for good teams to get off to a slow start, especially teams built around power hitting. In a 48 game season like ours that's a much tougher proposition. Even if we keep winning at the rate we recently have been, we won't reach .500 (even wins and losses) until around game 40. Obviously at this point there's very little margin for error.  That said, lots of things to be hopeful about here. Here's the Wild Card picture:  There are 4 playoff spots in our conference which means even if we don't win the division we have 2 shots at a wild card spot. Over the past 6 games we've improved from 5 games behind to 3.5 games, a really nice jump in such a short span. Sweeping the Herbisaurs was especially huge because they are currently leading the division and knocking them down makes the entire race much closer. It also looks like the Moose have lost a bunch of games since we shelled them in game 14 and we have a real chance to overtake them and maybe even the Pigs in these next 4 games. Also check out the Epic Division in the Mega Conference. Wide Loads are dominating.  I had that stretch of 6 games circled going into the season and then after that terrible start they took on even more significance, I'm very proud of the way this team performed under that kind of pressure. Our starters were great, our batters were opportunistic, and in every phase of the game we played well enough to win. Most importantly in spite of Emery Doyle's best effort we didn't give away any games. I think this team does have a real shot of sneaking into the playoffs and once we're there anything can happen.  (Click for big version!) Team performance has improved dramatically. We went from 4 hitters below the Mendoza line (which I still need to put together an info post about) to 1 in Stephen Appleseed, who has not been the value pick I thought he could be. Kelly Polebean has led the team in OBP validating the decision to bring her on as a lead off hitter while Guns Jackman has been a stud since his move to second base, with his batting average improving from .279 to .343. Mojo drops from his defensive miscues at short were seriously holding him back at the plate. Kache Baskette has been leading the MVP vote and it's entirely warranted. She has 10 hits and 5 of them are home runs! She may not have the average of a Jackman but it seems like every one of those 10 hits has been when we most needed it. She's also flashed defensively such as when she robbed a go ahead 2 run homer at the wall against the Herbisaurs, easily the play of the game and it kept Doyle's 8th inning meltdown a mere footnote to an otherwise great game. Most impressively, backups just don't lead their teams in home runs. Put another way, she has half the AB's of most of the other starters yet leads them all in the long ball.  She's in the top 10 in the league off just 10 hits! Baskette is putting together a truly special year.  Another thing I wanted to share is Kelly Polebean has been great and absolutely worth the additional million. I still think Davila was an amazing value pick that early in the season but Polebean was an overall better player and has been outstanding. I'll admit I was wrong on this one, I thought we were reaching and overpaying for a good but not great player and she would be a one year rental but now I'm thinking she'll be worth holding onto for a while. She could hit at the top of this order for a long time to come. Without any other good leadoff options she fulfills a major need on this team and the combination of speed and ability to get on base is turning her into a run producing machine. She's also tied for league lead in times caught stealing, so there's that. In terms of pitching for the most part ERA has dropped, Ed Reed was actually as good as we were hoping in his first real start after the debacle that was his hiring. Rufus Houndstooth did that Freebooter thing where he threw a ton of pitches but for the most part was able to escape trouble, while both Angel Verde and Winnie Noelle now have statement wins on their records. Noelle especially has been outstanding since that opening game disaster. Another player I'm happy to admit I was wrong about. The bullpen has honestly stayed about the same, but that in itself is notable considering how much less we're paying for it. While the overall quality of the pitchers has probably declined, having a long relief option in addition to upgrading our starters has taken a ton of pressure off. Grace Loopinovich has probably been our most consistent pitcher overall but Ratherswell has been much better in relief than he was as a starter. Obviously you would hope for more from Doyle but he's cheap and I'm not sure there's anyone worth releasing him for right now.  Speaking of here's the current free agent list for pitchers. I starred a few more interesting players but at the moment all the upgrades are out of our price range. We could reach but it would cost all our development funds. A few interesting new faces though.   And here are the position players. Derrick Burton may be a good choice for a future starting catcher and can be a great DH right now, but again we wouldn't have much left over for development. Unfortunately I think we're stuck with Appleseed for now behind the plate, so hopefully he can get himself right. Badhop Brown for Burton may be a good move, it'd cost 2.1 million if we did it right now. Otherwise we don't really have many needs, we just need the talent we have to keep executing like they have been.  Here are the player cards. Just wanted to share because I love how the game does this. If you'd like to see anyone customized some let me know. I'm still waiting for our bench to kind of distinguish itself. Since moving Pomp Duchee we don't have a great option for everyday DH. Rocky Backstop and Badhop Brown have split the role but neither have really taken hold of it. Kenna Quorn has been really good as our backup catcher and I'm a little tempted to sit Appleseed for a couple games again.  Current development opportunities, we can afford anything on the list. Beefcake powder is really good but Ed Reed isn't a velocity pitcher (unless we want to make him one). Red Meat Diet isn't the worst thing for an outfielder but I don't like the risk of giving one of our best hitters a bad hitting trait. Ligament repair could make Angel Verde that much deadlier but I don't know if he'll still be around next season (which isn't necessarily an argument against given how important wins are right now). Video room is really good but also really expensive. I think I would go with video room for Sturdy Woodman or ligament repair for Angel Verde. Of course saving the money is also an option.  Speaking of money we're doing ok, maybe a bit lower than we should be. We had to overspend on those free agents and it wound up paying off and carrying us back into the division race, but it's also going to prevent us from making many more moves now. We do still have 5.4 million to play with and there are a few options to use the rest of that on. Keep in mind that if we decide to be sellers and unload salary we can make a ton of developmental funds very quickly, so I honestly wouldn't worry too much about that. More importantly when you're in win now mode the biggest bang for your buck is in free agency, development can be limited and a little too risk/reward to pay off in the short term.  We have a run of random games in front of us and will be watching Angel Verde at the Crocodons and (most likely) Ed Reed against the Nemesis. We haven't see the Crocs yet, they're a team with excellent starting pitching and every time I've played them have been tough defensively and at the plate. The one thing to hope for against this team is to break through to the bullpen. After those games we have a really tough road trip of at least 6 games starting at the Sirloins then a two game rematch against the Sawteeth who swept us to open the season, then a two game series against the Boss division leading Sand Cats. This is a huge test for this team and we need to keep gaining ground through it, a tough road trip can kill your momentum and any sort of losing streak would bury us. And that's the current state of the Freebooters. We're still in last place but overall much more competitive than we were just a week ago. There's a little money left over for free agent maneuvers or development. Our players have been playing far better since rebuilding the roster but we're going into one of the toughest parts of the season and the margin for error is razor thin.
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Jun 12, 2020 23:04
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