Virtual Baseball Season/Franchise Updates

[Ted]

Nice Mike.

You have free agency off and only draft and trade is that correct?

[Mike_S]

Yes.  I turned off contracts/budgets due to some small bugs in the CPU-team logic.  The CPU-logic for drafting and progressing through the system, as well as trade offers and acceptance is solid.

In the first few seasons I really didn't pay attention to the draft since I didn't realize I would go so long in the franchise.  More recently I've been writing down all the draft picks, and really studying what I will need a few seasons down the road, and it's definitely helping the team.

[Mike_S]

Played a few more games this week, and started to slump.

Hosted Texas, who are first in the AL West.  Great pitching from 5th starter John Garland who gave up 3 runs early but no more and got through 8 innings.  3-3 through 8 innings and then my bullpen could not get ANYONE out in the 9th.  Seriously, not anyone.  A lot of hits and walks, a couple errors, and a Home Run, and we lost 9-3.

Hosted Seattle, who are second in the AL West.  Top starter Bobby Crouch just didn't have it and we got killed early.  Ended 10-3.

Following an off day, traveled to Seattle for 2 games.  In the first, we got pretty good pitching from Joe Kennedy but we couldn't hit.  Luckily, the Seattle pitcher was super-wild and walked a ton of guys.  In the 4th he walked the bases loaded and Bobby Brown (our power-hitting centerfielder who's under .200 for the season so far) launched a grand slam.  We ended up winning 6-4 despite getting only 4 hits for the game.

In the second game, our new rookie starter John Bell (just acquired from Florida) made his first start.  He only gave up single runs in the second, fifth, and 6th, a solid 6 inning outing, but we were still down 3-1 and ended up losing 6-3.

We then played at Oakland, who were at .500 for the year.  It felt like an important game, with Pete Whiteside (our most consistent starter) pitching.  They scratched out some runs on him early, but he kept us in it.  We threatened a few times but just couldn't tie it up.  Finally, down 4-2 in the 8th, our best hitter Larry Henderson delivered a big double and we tied it!  But we couldn't get him home, and Oakland scored against our bullpen in the last of the 9th for a 5-4 loss.

We're now at 14-15, 2.5 games back in the East and 2 games back of the WildCard.  With 19 games to play, we desperately need a few wins to get into real potential playoff position.  Our next two games are at Kansas City, who are last in their division.

[Mike_S]

Played two games at KC who are a very weak team.

In the first, John Garland (our 5th starter) gave us another strong outing.  We went up 3-0 and won 4-2.

In the second, our #1 starter Bobby Crouch pitched well and left with a 3-2 lead in the 8th.  Our bullpen couldn't do a thing, and KC won it 4-3 in the last of the ninth.  This felt really painful as they are just not a strong offensive team.

Then a single game at Anaheim who currently top the AL West.  We burst out to an early 5-0 lead, but Joe Kennedy couldn't hold it.  At 5-5 in the 4th I sensed disaster, but a great performance by recently-called-up-pitcher Matt Moore (4.1 IP, 0R) and some big hits late broke it open for a big 11-5 win.  If Kennedy has another poor start, we might try Moore in the rotation.

Now a critical 3-game series at Tampa, who are a great hitting team with a horrible bullpen.  They're behind us in the East.  Played the first game, with John Bell pitching (the prospect we just got from Florida) -- He had pitched well in his first start, but had some hard luck.  We hit like crazy and AGAIN burst out to a 5-0 lead.  Bell was pitching awesome, but let them back in the game in the 5th, walking 2 with 2 out and then throwing a HR to A-Rod.  With the score 5-4, the game became a roller-coaster with Tampa threatening but not scoring in the 6th, 7th, and 8th.  One time they loaded the bases with 1 out, and Jeremy Affeldt went 3-0 on the hitter, but he somehow some way wriggled out of it.  Meanwhile Barry Zito relieved for Tampa, and he walked a ton of hitters but was otherwise effective and kept it close.  We finally got 1 in the top of the 9th to make it 6-4.  With me finally feeling confident, star closer Colby Lewis showed he was human by giving up back-to-back jacks, the second being A-Rod's second of the game, to allow the Rays to tie it, 6-6.  Unfazed, we then rallied for 3 runs in the 10th to win a barnburner, 9-6. 

We're now 17-16, but we're 4 GB in the East as Toronto is red-hot.  We're 2 GB in the Wild Card race.  15 games remaining in 2012.  Without question this has been our best team in the franchise so far, it's just unclear if we have the consistency to reach the playoffs.  Our bullpen has been a bit shaky of late, but at least our bats seem to be heating up again.

[Mike_S]

2 great games with horrible results last night to finish out the Tampa series.

In the first: Marty Slattery (our under-performing 1B) homered in the first.  Pete Whiteside, our most consistent starter, pitched incredibly, 7 innings of shutout ball.  But we couldn't hit at all against their top starter, and in the 8th they finally broke through against our bullpen to tie it 1-1.  They finally scored again in the 12th to win the pitchers duel 2-1.  We were amazingly held to 3 hits through the 12 innings, and didn't really deserve to win; it still hurt to waste that great pitching performance though.

In the second: 5th starter Jon Garland gave up some runs early, but settled down.  Our hitting returned and it was 3-3 through 5.  We had a ton of guys on base in the next few innings, but couldn't cash one in, including an "out at the plate" for a 3rd out where Slattery was just too slow scoring from first on a double.  Scott Stewart came in for the 8th inning; historically he has been great for us as a one-or-two-batter lefty specialist, but he's been having a bad season in 2012.  He was horrible, walking 2 of the 3 guys he faced.  We held them to 1 run, but trailed 4-3 going to the 9th.  With 2 out and none on, Gary Cox (our great rookie LF who has a good shot at rookie of the year) went 0-2, but fought back to 3-2 and delivered a single.  Our catcher drew a walk, so it was now first-and-second with 2 outs.  5th OF Chris Brantley hit next, and he hit a shot that looked like a HR or at least off-the-wall...until the Tampa RF came streaking over a made a jumping-catch-at-the-wall to save the game for the Rays.  A very very painful 4-3 defeat.

We are now down to 17-18 overall, still in second place but 5 games back in the East to streaking Toronto.  We're 3.5 GB in the Wildcard race behind Chicago, and our next two games are at Chicago.  We really really need to come up with two wins to bolster our playoff hopes with only 13 games remaining in the season.

[Mike_S]

Frustration continued at Chicago last night.  They have a phenomenal power-hitting lineup, whose only real weakness is that it's lefty-dominated.

First game: They killed Bobby Crouch.  We hit a lot to keep it interesting, but they took it 8-6.

Second game: Joe Kennedy (a lefty) pitched his best game of the season by far.  They only got one run, which scored on a Rafael Furcal error in the 5th.  We got 8 hits, but they were mostly singles and couldn't put a rally together and lost a heartbreaker, 1-0.

Then we played weakling KC at home, and took out our frustrations on them with an easy 7-2 win, breaking a 4-game losing streak.

It's at the point where every game feels just about must-win now.  We're tied for second in the East with Baltimore at 18-20, 4 GB of Toronto with just 10 games left.  We're 5.5 back in the Wild Card, with lots of teams in the mix, so that seems unlikely.

[Ted]

Man what a nail biting season!

[Mike_S]

A few wins and a few more losses this week, nothing too notable.  We're now 6 GB with 6 to play.  2-7 over our last 9 has really done us in. :-(

[Mike_S]

OK, 2012 is in the books.

We finished tied for second with Baltimore (our best finish so far), but our record was an uninspiring 21-27.  We just did not have any pitching consistency, particularly down the stretch, and we fell out of the race quickly and painfully.  We are still yet to be in a pennant race for an entire season.

Cleveland took the AL pennant, their fourth in the 10-year franchise.  Atlanta took the Series, back-to-back champs, the first time that's happened.

Looking to the offseason:

Our pitching is in a messy state and needs some rebuilding.  Our top starter Bobby Crouch was inconsistent.  The rest of our rotation was OK, but not great.  The bright spot was John Garland, who was an awesome 5th starter, but he's not an Ace.  Meanwhile our bullpen is really aging; Scott Stewart was horrible after many years of being great against lefties, and Jeremy Affeldt is wild and not the answer either.  Colby Lewis and Scot Shields were very strong as Closer and Set-Up man, but they're both aging, hopefully they still have another year or two of good performances.

Our lineup is in a slightly better state.  Larry Henderson is a proven All-Star at 3B, he hit 12 HR, and is still in his mid-20s.  Gary Cox is our LF and he won Rookie of the Year, hitting over .330.  Our CF Bobby Brown hit 11 HR and is good in the field, he's also in his mid-20s.  Cristian Guzman, though old, is still pretty good at short, and Carl Crawford is solid in all phases in RF.  We could really use another good RH bat to bolster 1B/DH, and a young 2B who can field to replace stop-gap Rafael Furcal.

Our farm system is not too strong right now.  We used a lot of draft picks on pitching the last two seasons, who are making their way up the system but not really ready yet.  And it has left our number of lineup-ready players pretty thin.

Bottom line, it's REALLY hard to improve your team quickly without taking big risks.

Will try to play the offseason in the next few nights, then on to 2013!

[Mike_S]

OK, I have worked on the offseason tasks about 6 late-night hours this week, and we're ready to start 2013.

The big (and very sad) news: After 10 seasons, we had to move Carl Crawford, leaving us only 1 "original" player, Cristian Guzman.  The trade accept/deny logic for the other teams is super-tough, and they generally wouldn't take any of the players I wanted to get rid of (which is, of course, how it should be).  In an effort to bolster our pitching, after attempting about 300 possible trade combinations to multiple teams, I resigned myself to having to give up something of value and that was Crawford (since we have some semblance of outfield depth).  We also had to give up solid fifth-starter John Garland to get a young 2B.

Here are his career stats:

            At Bats   Average   HR   RBI   SB
2012   189   .275    5   22   6
2011   165   .327    11   36   9
2010   173   .249    3   15   1
2009   197   .299    6   21   16
2008   200   .275    6   22   9
2007   191   .251    5   24   7
2006   196   .352    7   19   15
2005   127   .276    1   9   10
2004   185   .303    2   17   11
2003   174   .333    1   12   6

Despite his more-than-solid all-around numbers, the biggest thing I think we'll miss is his ability to cover ground in RF.

OK, so here's how things shape up for 2013.

Pitching Rotation: Tons of potential.  Bobby Crouch, Pete Whiteside, and John Bell return.  Crouch was a top-pick who was 6-2 in his rookie year of 2010, but has been up-and-down since.  Pete Whiteside had an ERA over 4 last season, but was extremely consistent and almost always kept us in the game.  Bell was a late-season pick-up from Florida who looked great most of the time in limited action.  We picked up Randy Sanders, a young lefty who had a good season with Milwaukee, as well as John Brogna a 21-year-old with fantastic potential from the Mets.  Overall the rotation is super-young, with nobody over 27 years old.

Bullpen: Scot Shields and Colby Lewis return as set-up and closer, they've been solid for many seasons.  Pat Rodriguez returns, who was a good pre-set-up man last season, and we picked up Kyle Lohse to help in that department.  Matt Moore was a rookie last year who was pretty good, he'll cover long-relief and spot starts.  The big weakness appears to be LH relief, as all we have is Jeremy Affeldt (who was wild last season), and a low-regarded rookie, Scott Hickey.  It's definitely a deeper bullpen than last season, but there are some questions of aging  with Shields and to some extent Lewis, as well as the ability to get out a LH hitter in a key spot.

Hitting: Our three best offensive players return.  Larry Henderson was an All-Star calibre 3B, Gary Cox was the Rookie of the Year in LF, and Bobby Brown our CF hit 11 homers despite slumping much of the season and having an injury.  We picked up a high-potential prospect Tony Lieberthal from Anaheim to play 2B, and Cristian Guzman returns at short for an 11th season.  C should be decent between Bill Montgomery (who we've had for 4 seasons) and our 22-year-old top draft pick.  Our potential weaknesses seem to be DH (Joe Thurston, good singles hitter who I couldn't trade for more power), 1B (Marty Slattery, good field, limited hit), and RF (a mix of aging JD Drew, overachieving-but-limited-youngster Chris Brantley, and two decent prospects from AAA).  Rafael Furcal is still around and should be able to help out here and there too.



Is anybody else actually playing seasons this year ?   Or continuing from past versions ?

[Ted]

Good luck in 13!

I'm going to start a new franchise from scratch with 2k11, but just don't have the time right now.

[Slumberland]

Is anybody else actually playing seasons this year ?   Or continuing from past versions ?

I'm in mid-August of my Mets season on the PSP version of The Show '10 (last year's), leading the wild card race by a measly half game but a ways to go. I'm committed to getting through the season without simming, then maybe an off-season and a little bit of the next season and I'll see whether I want to upgrade to the new edition.  As a big Ike Davis fan, I wish I had him in my season, but it's impossible to add created players in the PSP version once you get going.

On the PS3 (The Show '11), I've got a fantasy Pirates season going, 29 games per season, so you basically just play every team once. Quite fun, 11-9 and in a six-way tie for the wild card spot with nine games to go.

[Mike_S]

Had a ridiculous experience last night.

Opened the 2013 season with a 3-game set against Tampa.  They are a great power-hitting team that has 3 awesome LH hitters batting 2-3-4, plus 2 decent RH hitters lower in the lineup (one of which is an aging A-Rod).  Their bullpen is their biggest weakness.

Game 1: Bobby Crouch got crushed, giving up 2 HRs in the first inning.  We were down 5-0 after a half-inning, and lost 7-4.  It was never close.

Game 2: Randy Sanders, our new LHP battled for four innings and it was 1-1, but he gave up 2 HRs in the 5th and it was quickly another blowout.  We scored a few late to make it more respectable, but still lost 8-5.

Game 3: In dire need of a win, John Brogna got his first Boston start.  Brogna is the 22-year-old, 2nd-year RHP with a ton of potential obtained from the Mets for Carl Crawford.

Brogna threw four innings of no-hit ball to start the game.  In the 5th, the Rays hit a ball up the middle.  I hit the "dive" button for our 2B, who stopped the ball, but the delay from the dive allowed the runner to beat it out for their first hit of the game, an infield single.  Brogna then proceeded to not allow another hit the remainder of the game, finishing with a 1-hit shutout in a 3-0 victory.  And almost all of their outs were soft grounders in the infield.

To put this in perspective:

- I think I have legitimately played thousands of games of High Heat baseball and never remember pitching better than a 3 or 4-hit game (against a legitimate difficulty level, anyway).  I have never been no-hit either, though I think I have been 1-hit or 2-hit maybe 2 or 3 times total.

- The Rays had just CRUSHED us for 15 runs in 2 games against our "top 2" starters, including 6 homers.  They proceeded to get 1 single over an entire game.  And Brogna didn't exactly match up great against the Rays, since their top hitters all are LH hitters.

- I am about 80% sure I could have gotten to the ball without diving; and if I had, I definitely would have been able to throw out the runner for sure.

- Most of Brogna's "current" ratings are way below his "potential" ratings due to his young age and lack of experience. 

Brogna's only slight negative was 4 walks.  We also made 1 error.  But with so many grounders, we were able to turn 3 DPs.  Only 1 runner got further than first over the whole game.

Needless to say, it was the best pitching performance I have ever seen in High Heat by far.  It was an amazing gaming experience, and gives me a lot of hope both for this season and the future.

[Ted]

It is really fun when a game you have played so much of gives you such a new and unique experience.

[Slumberland]

Cool stuff.  Mike, I forget, how many games are your seasons comprised of?