SIM COMPLETE - 1986 - Regular Season 1

[mahoney2]

This is the same game that threw Joe Soca out the last game of spring training for 5 innings where he got rocked for 9 runs. He's 37 years old! Give him a break.

[Jake]

2-4 start. Bleh.

Just a heads up, I have some decent BLB talent on waivers. Lee Myers and Rich Parnell in the OF, and Henry Deer, Juan Boloderes, Ghaniy, and Fernando Asencio at SP could all contribute in 86.

[Delandis]

1-5 sim...ughhh. Looks like EVERYONE forgot how to pitch this year. I hope these are just opening season jitters.

[Clay]

So, I figure I'll make one grand statement on the Harcourt thing and then try to settle into the "it is what it is" mode and get over it....

****!!! 11 months for a bad finger? A finger he hurts on a fielder's choice? Can't he cut it off Ronnie Lott style and get back in there!??!?! What a pisser!! I'll miss the .300... I'll miss the 30 HRs... I'll miss the 100 RBIs... but I have enough bats on my team to make that up... at least a piece of it.... but $27.0 for 1 at bat!!! Almost 30% of my payroll for one AB! Even worse... now I have no idea what to do with him going forward. Can't extend him till I know he's not going to take a crap in the ratings.... Won't extend him at the price he's asking (which went up by $3.0 per after the injury)... ****!!!

Christian Martinez played out of his frickin' mind this sim in relief of Harcourt, but committing to him all season is not a great option. But, the only other one, would be bumping Maeda up a year and bringing him forward now. I don't want to do that. Now with Martinez starting, I also lose the fact that he was a great utility option and have to bring up 1 (or 2) player(s) to take the back-up roles.

****!!! ****!!!

Ok.... better....

So.... yeah... 6-0 SIM... bittersweet.

3-0 vs Batavia with our frontline pitchers throwing gems. Kang was good... Arrendondo and Magness were great.

3-0 @ Baltimore in three slugfests... our end of the rotation is not good and our 'pen wasn't much better. Luckily, our bats stayed hot.

Dale O'Hegarty and Christian Martinez were studs this week. Team hit .309/.378/.493 as a unit. We'll take that 100 times out of 100.

Backend of the 'Pen was solid. Carlton goes 3 innings, 5Ks, 0BB and 1-0 on the week with 2 saves.

Things get much tougher this week with 3 at home vs Carolina and 3 @ Davenport to start a 12 game road trip.

To borrow from Bill Simmons... a 6-0 sim wreaks of "The Ewing Theory", but I think it's smoke a mirrors.

[Whale]

First off, glad I didn't trade for Harcourt...didn't realize he was a little girl.

Next, I'm also frustrated at the use of bullpens in this game. I have a guy who gets rocked in his 3 appearances, and is sporting a nice little 13.50 ERA, and "The Zombie" doesn't get used for a single batter during the entire week. Is that a byproduct of the game sucking? Bad pitching coach? Grady Little is my manager? What?!

[Guest]

Pretty impressed with a 5-1 start, and extremely impressed that I got 5 very good starts out of 6. Lang took a shit again, but got some really good stuff out of Tajo, O'Connors, and Goodwin. Carrillo didn't do too shabby either in his BLB debut. Simmonds pulled a "WTF?", but I'm sure that 54.50 ERA will come down at some point.

As for the bats, they took little time to get rolling. Nazaire was hitting like a man possessed, Hampton had 3 homers, Haydon leads the BLB in RBI, and Buzzell is Buzzell. No homers or RBI for EG yet, but I'm sure that'll change.

The one bad thing about my lineup is that I have noone to replace O'Fay at leadoff. What a POS.

[Clay]

First off, glad I didn't trade for Harcourt...didn't realize he was a little girl.

That's the thing that pisses me off. Two day-to-day injuries in his entire career and then... boom... a year lost.

I'm actually glad I didn't trade him because, as strange as it sounds, I would have felt guilty right now if I moved him and another team lost him on his first AB.

Oh well... it is what it is...

[Jim]

****!!! 11 months for a bad finger? A finger he hurts on a fielder's choice?

This is why I've wanted us to have a scale for all the injuries. The scale would indicate the injury and how long they're out. Then the injured time would be edited on a case-by-case basis in game since IMO the game has no idea how long to make someone injured for. Since that could get tedious I would say only injuries longer than X period of time (maybe 6 months) are evaluated & edited.

A perfect example...a few seasons ago a guy had a broken knee. If I remember right he was out for 5-6 months. I looked up MLB players with that injury and I think it was usually 4-6 weeks. That's a pretty big difference. Same thing with the finger. I would think that's a day-to-day injury. At the worst maybe 2 weeks. 11 months is crazy.

[Clay]

How short is the Right Field porch in Baltimore????

I was looking through game logs...

<TABLE class=lpo style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=slgb vAlign=top width=240>Batting: LHB C. Martínez</TD><TD class=slg>0-0: Ball
1-0: SOLO HOME RUN (Flyball, 9LD), Distance : 282 ft</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

282 feet? No wonder Latham put up those numbers for the Bulldogs!

[Clay]

This is why I've wanted us to have a scale for all the injuries. The scale would indicate the injury and how long they're out. Then the injured time would be edited on a case-by-case basis in game since IMO the game has no idea how long to make someone injured for. Since that could get tedious I would say only injuries longer than X period of time (maybe 6 months) are evaluated & edited.

A perfect example...a few seasons ago a guy had a broken knee. If I remember right he was out for 5-6 months. I looked up MLB players with that injury and I think it was usually 4-6 weeks. That's a pretty big difference. Same thing with the finger. I would think that's a day-to-day injury. At the worst maybe 2 weeks. 11 months is crazy.

Can we call it the "Wilton Harcourt Rule"? Kinda like the "Larry Bird Rights" in the NBA.

[Lintyfresh85]

Which were?

[Guest]

I think it's like...if a player has Bird years than the team they play for can offer them more years/money than any other team.

[Jim]

I had actually never heard of that before. For anyone interested: http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q25

[Clay]

Yeah, I think was in High School when the whole Bird Rights thing went down in the NBA. As a Pistons fan in the 80's, the idea of Boston being able to go over the cap to keep Larry Legend was not thought highly of here.

[Pat]

Washington Bats - 4-2
2-1 @ LAM, 2-1 vs. WC - Not a bad way to start the season. Virginia started 6-0, Morgantown 4-2, but I don't expect either of them to be really competitive this season. Wilmington starting 1-5 is very, very encouraging.

The Good
-#2-#5 starters: Team was 4-0 in their four starts. Pleasantly surprised by rookie SP Joe Zazueto's BLB debut. 6.1 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 5 BB, 5 K in a 6-5 W over Windy City. If he can get those walks down, he might workout.
-Homeruns: My team has never had a powerful lineup. Joe Sierra and Keita Uchiyama both went deep this week, and FA-acquisition Chaim Lamberts went deep twice. The best HR was a by 2nd year man Miguel Angel Padilla. With a sore back, and two outs in the bottom of the 9th, Padilla hit a 2-run walkoff against Windy City closer Timothy Rohan.

The Bad
-#1 starter: Romano Gonzalez pitches 15 innings and strikesout 13 while only walking two...but he also gave up 10 ER and is responsible for both games I lost.
-Defensive specialist: SS Jack Dynes is one of the leagues best defensive infielders. Last year he hit .282 and got a large arbitration number. A 2/13 week is not what I want to see.

The Ugly
-Largest FA Signing: Nick Latham got $6.5 million guaranteed, with a ton of incentives. He hit 2/17 from the cleanup spot.