At the 1/4 mark, my 12 teams are 257-223.  4 in 1st, 6 in 2nd, and 2 in 3rd.  So far, it has been a good run.  I am just waiting for the wheels to fall off.

I have 3 teams at 24-16.  The 08-09 Rays (2nd place), the 75-76 Dodgers (2nd place) and the 93-94 Giants (1st place).

The worst team so far has been the 67-68 Tigers at 15-25.  I am hoping they can turn it around and make it a race.  11 games out of first and 6 out of a wild card spot and lots of games left to be played.  The pitching has been the real downfall for that team.  I don't think Denny McClain is going to get anywhere near his 31 real life wins.

Thought I would chime in on my closers so far since that seems to be the hot topic here.  For the most part, i seem to be having more luck than most in this department.  Hope I didn't just jinx myself...

22-23 Reds - '22 Dolf Luque - 0-0 10 SV 2.70 ERA - Has been great for a team that is 23-17. 
35-36 Tigers - '35 Joe Sullivan - 0-0 8 SV 2.38 ERA - Lone bright spot in an otherwise underwhelming bullpen
56-57 White Sox - '57 Gerry Staley - 0-2 8 SV 10.22 ERA - 3 blown saves inflate the ERA, but he's on a short leash
59-60 Yanks - '59 Jim Coates - 1-1 9 SV 2.40 ERA - 3rd guy to man the job this year and has been by far the best
67-68 Tigers - '68 Don McMahon - 0-1 6 SV 5.68 ERA - hasn't had a lot of chances on my worst team.  Setup guys have been pitching better and may get a look
70-71 Giants - '70 Don McMahon - 0-2 6 SV 12.60 ERA - entire bullpen has been terrible
75-76 Dodgers - '76 Charlie Hough - 1-1 6 SV 3.12 ERA - gave up 3 earned in his only bad outing of the year.  zeroes the rest of the way
83-84 Blue Jays - '84 Roy Lee Jackson - 0-0 11 SV 3.60 ERA - no complaints yet
90-91 A's - '90 Dennis Eckersley - 0-0 11 SV 0.00 ERA .139 OAV  0.48 WHIP - every bit as good as advertised.  Now if the starters can just get him the ball...
93-94 Giants - '93 Rod Beck - 0-0 15 SV 3.68 ERA - a little homer prone, but has been getting the job done and isn't going anywhere
02-03 Angels - '02 Troy Percival - 0-0 11 SV 2.53 ERA - Great job so far
08-09 Rays - 08 Grant Balfour - 0-1 12 SV 0.73 ERA - another guy doing great for me

94-95 Atlanta Braves bullpen is now a unfathomable 8 for 22 in save opportunities... that's a 36.4% conversion percentage... there is no damn way those bullpen pitchers were that bad.

Bullpens do seem to be incredibly important to the relative success of my various teams. My two best teams, the 56-57 Dodgers and 84-85 Yankees are 16-for-18 and 15-for-18, respectively, in Saves/Save Opportunities.

My worst bullpen is the 2006-07 Angels at 7-for-12 in saves. Of course, the low number of save opportunities also reflects the overall sad state of that team and the fact that it rarely has a lead to try to hold!

So we are just a bit more that 1/3 of the way thru.  We have played 56 games as I post this.  I have 5 teams going

1955-56 Dodgers 32-24
1996-97 Yankees 30-26
2008-09 Phillies    28-28
1962-63 Dodgers  26-30
1989-90 A's              26-30

62-63 Dodgers have a team ERA of 5.34.  The worst though is the A's!  '89 Rickey Henderson is hitting .215, OBP .332, McGwire ,147 with 11 HR, Tony Phillips hitting .144

I feel bad for not posting more often in here.  Being in all twenty leagues, it would be fun to compare all kinds of numbers but it just takes so much time.  I'm hoping that WIS will get that spreadsheet idea on-line sooner rather than later so we can view all of the numbers from all of the players across all twenty leagues.  That should give us QUITE a bit more to talk about...

I'm currently 263-307...3 of my 10 teams are really bad (67/68 Giants, 09/10 Braves, and 58/58 whitesox) who are a combined 56 games below .500. 

My teams are currently:

3 in first place
0 in second place
3 in third
4 in last place

the 3 above mentioned last place teams are all but dead at this point.  The other could easily turn things around.  2 of the 3rd place teams are in striking distance of 1st in tightly packed divisions.

Seems like there are tight races in all the leagues i'm in, so its going to get interesting for playoffs and/or advancement to round 2 of the tourney.

The one thing I'm curious about (and it's a morbid curiosity because most of my teams have imploded) is what kind of win percentage it's going to take to get into the 2nd round on one of the 12 free floating bids. Maybe at the 81 game mark people in different leagues could list every team in their league over 500 who isn't leading their division and we can get a rough idea of what it'll take?

I think that's a great idea redsox.  Obviously we can all see if we are leading our division, the wild card, or have the best record in our league without being in the playoffs.  Those other 12 spots are going to be tough to know where you stand, although I doubt everybody will do it.  61 games in, this is where my teams stand:

22-23 Reds - 32-29 - 3rd place in our division, 6 games out, 4 games out of the WC
35-36 Tigers - 31-30 - 3rd place, 6 games out, 3 out of the WC
56-57 White Sox - 32-29 - 3rd place, 4 games out, 3 out of the WC
59-60 Yankees - 33-28, 1st place, 1 game lead
67-68 Tigers - 24-37, 3rd place, 12 out, 8 out of the WC
70-71 Giants - 25-36, 3rd place, 7 out in our division, 11 out of WC
75-76 Dodgers - 35-26, 2nd place, 4 out, WC leader by 1 game
83-84 Blue Jays - 35-26, 1st place, 5 game lead
90-91 A's - 28-33, 3rd place, 9 games out, 5 out of the WC
93-94 Giants - 40-21, 1st place, 7 game lead
02-03 Angels - 33-28, 2nd place, 8 games out, 2 out of WC
08-09 Rays - 33-28, 3rd place, 9 games out, 7 out of WC - Best record without being in playoffs

Approaching the half-way point of the season, these are my Free Agents that I've noticed the most - whether for good or for bad:


Round 01 - the 1890-1891 Colts:  1890 Elton Chamberlain is 20 for 23 in Save Opportunities, with a 3-0 record.  His three victories are in the games where he had his 3 Blown Saves.

Round 04 - the 1920-1921 Yankees:   1921 Red Faber has 11 victories - one more than the other 3 Starters in my rotation - COMBINED.  He also has the only WHIP under 1.55 and the only ERA under 5.00

Round 05 - the 1927/1928 Athletics:   1928 Dazzy Vance is 14-2 in 19 Games Started.

Round 07 - the 1935-1936 Pirates:   1936 Lefty Grove is 9-1.  My three hitters - Averill, Ott and Foxx all have an OPS over .910.

Round 08 - the 1942-1943 Reds:   Amazingly, 1943 Johnny Niggeling has 14 saves out of 16 chances - all with a 1.91 WHIP and a 4.91 ERA.

Round 08 - the 1945-1946 Yankees:  This is my team with the best performing Free Agents.  1945 Roger Wolff is 13-3 with a 1.14 WHIP.  Earl Caldwell is 16 for 17 in Save Opportunities with a 1.10 WHIP and only a 1.03 ERA.  1946 Johnny Mize is batting .359 with a .424 OBP and a .677 SLG for an OPS of 1.102.

Round 09 - the 1951-1952 Indians:  My team with the worst performing Free Agents.  1951 Eddit Joost - all $7M+ of him, all by himself, is batting .203 with a .306 OBP and a whopping .274 SLG.  1952 Willie Ramsdell - my "Closer", has only saved 5 out of 10 opportunities with a resounding 6.29 ERA and giving up 21 walks to only having 9 strikeouts.

Round 15 - the 1982-1983 Orioles:  1983 Jim Rice continues to blow chunks - 231 Batting Average with a .280 OBP and a .358 SLG.

Round 18 - the 2001-2002 Giants:   Between the two of them, 2002 Odalis Perez and 2002 Derek Lowe are a combined 18-5.  The rest of the Giants staff sucks seaweed.

Round 20 - the 2007-2008 Mets:  2008 C.C. Sabathia is 2-10.

Round 20 - the 2009-2010 Rangers:  2009 Albert Pujols and 2009 Joe Mauer both have an OPS over 1.000

Halfway in the season I'm 956-988  with 5 1st, 8 2nd, 4 3rd, and 7 4th

12 teams out of 24 have chances for 1st or WC

I wish WIS would have been able to get that spreadsheet up and running by now - it would have been nice to check out all twenty leagues together.

As far as the best record for teams NOT making the playoffs, I checked out the 13 leagues that I am in. 1 League has a 46 win team that would not be in the playoffs. 1 League has a 45 win team that would not be in. The breakdown is as follows:

46 wins - 1 league
45 wins - 1 league
44 wins - 2 leagues
43 wins - 5 leagues
42 wins - 4 leagues

So, projecting that forward, it appears that 88 wins for the season would pretty much guarantee one of the non-playoff team spots in round 2. Similarly, 86 wins would probably get a team into the next round. 85 wins or less probably won't cut it.

Before the 82nd Game was played, I was able to go through all 20 leagues and check out the stats.  It's not much but it's something.  Here are the tournament leaders in a few of the major categories:


TEAM LEADERS:

WINS:
1886-1887 Detroit Wolverines (BEV148) and the 1930-1931 New York Giants (THEJUICE6) - 55 Victories

LARGEST LEAD:
1886-1887 Detroit Wolverines (BEV148) and the 2009-2010 St. Louis Cardinals (AUGGIEWARD) - 15 Games

HOME RECORD:
1908-1909 Detroit Tigers (DEWELCH71) - 29-11 and the 1963-1964 Cincinnati Reds (TUCKER T'S) - 30-13

RUNS SCORED:
1922-1923 St. Louis Browns (CHISOCK) - 712 Runs

HOME RUNS:
1960-1961 New York Yankees (BUDDHAGAMER) - 153

STOLEN BASES:
1886-1887 New York Giants (MLLAMA54) - 296

OPS:
1929-1930 New York Yankees (RSWIFT30) - .955

STRIKEOUTS (Pitching):
2001-2002 Arizona Diamondbacks (CHISOCK) - 784

WHIP:
1963-1964 Los Angeles Dodgers (ROBIN4) - 1.13

ERA:
1915-1916 Philadelphia Phillies (NOCOMM999) - 2.74

FIELDING PCT:
2000-2001 San Francisco Giants (ZEPHYR1949) / 2002-2003 Anaheim Angels (BYEAGS25) / 2008-2009 St. Louis Cardinals (NOCOMM999) - .994 Pct.


INDIVIDUAL LEADERS:

HOME RUNS:
1998 Mark McGwire (REDSOX666666) - 43 Bombs

RBI'S:
1928 Babe Ruth (TRIDENTRIC) - 117

STOLEN BASES:
1985 Vince Coleman (BUDDHAGAMER) - 77

BATTING AVERAGE:
1920 Tris Speaker (COACHGREAT1) - .440

OPS:
2002 Barry Bonds (BYEAGS25) - 1.424

PITCHING WINS:
1886 Lady Baldwin (BEV148) - 21

BEST W/L RECORD:
1908 Ed Walsh (DEWELCH71) - 19-3 / 1913 Chief Bender (CHISOCK) - 14-0 / 1966 Bob Gibson (DEWELCH71) - 18-2

SAVES:
1993 Rod Beck (BYEAGS25) - 31

STRIKEOUTS:
1965 Sandy Koufax (GEORGEDEER) - 189

WHIP:
2000 Pedro Martinez (ID_203) - 0.92

ERA:
1907 Mordecai Brown (BUDDHAGAMER) - 1.12