My Tacoma team in 7Mantle7 just won its division with 102 wins. Nothing unusual about that, right?

But two things really stood out to me:

1. Despite winning 102 games, not one player won an award. Not a single all-star, not a POTW, not a single nomination, not so much as a Gold Glove. Nothing.

2. Having clinched the division with about 24 games left, and resting all of my players with call-ups, I noticed that I had 13 different pitchers who had saved games at the ML level. I decided to see how many I could get to save games for me. I ended up with 17 pitchers with ML saves; by contrast, my ML team blew 18 saves total. Pretty cool stat.

To me, these two stats might combine to be the best example of a complete team effort as I have seen in HBD. Hopefully it amounts to some playoff success...

By the way, in case anybody is wondering...at the time I clinched, the 13 pitchers with saves consisted of the following:

All 8 RP in the bullpen
2 SP who had been used in tandem roles and occasional bullpen use
2 pitchers on the DL
1 pitcher in AAA who had a save at the ML level before being sent down

After clinching, and trying to get as many pitchers with saves as possible while playing out the season and resting guys for playoffs, I shuffled my three remaining SP into the closer's role to try to get them a save each (they did), and one callup got a save. That's how we got to 17. And not one pitcher got to double digits in saves.

That's pretty interesting. Maybe next year you can get everyone who pitches for you to save a game, I bet you weren't far from it this season.

I think three callups missed out on saving a game.

I believe it's a fine thing to be consistent and above average, especially in the long run.

I consider baseball kind of zero-sum. It's all about three outs. When you get three outs, you leave the field and have to start over next inning.

Therefore, on offense, you want to avoid outs, and on defense, get to three as fast as possible. As long as you have players who are above average at doing those things, you increase your chances to either score or prevent runs. You can be boring as hell and win games.

Playoffs are different, you go up against more consistently productive players, your opponent's best pitchers. That's when you have to out-skill them with of course some of the breaks going your way. But when you are good at handling your three outs, you increase your chances.

Yeah, there are a lot of really good playoff teams, no question. I'm hoping my team, which is built for really "no easy outs" and an ability to run quality pitchers out to the mound in any situation, will be good enough for a decent run.

This team just won the NLCS. Without even a single individual award all season. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen in HBD, even going back to my first run like 15 years ago.

Posted by damag on 2/20/2021 4:21:00 PM (view original):
I believe it's a fine thing to be consistent and above average, especially in the long run.

I consider baseball kind of zero-sum. It's all about three outs. When you get three outs, you leave the field and have to start over next inning.

Therefore, on offense, you want to avoid outs, and on defense, get to three as fast as possible. As long as you have players who are above average at doing those things, you increase your chances to either score or prevent runs. You can be boring as hell and win games.

Playoffs are different, you go up against more consistently productive players, your opponent's best pitchers. That's when you have to out-skill them with of course some of the breaks going your way. But when you are good at handling your three outs, you increase your chances.

It’s interesting to see you say that. I can see it in your play style.

for me I consider outs to be a currency. No different then cash or prospects. So if I pay an out to get run or if I can get two outs but it costs me a run (double play with bases loaded and a run scores) I consider it worth it.

regardless of what happens you are paying your 27 outs a game (or 24 if you are lucky) it’s all about what you get for those outs.

The team just won the WS in six games:

- without a single player on the awards page;
- without a single pitcher with 15 wins, and only three pitchers in double-digit wins;
- without a single pitcher with double-digit saves, and 17 pitchers with at least one save.

Congrats. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Not to be too glib about it, but I feel like I've long observed one thing about all WiS games I've played: Instead of stars-and-scrubs, when you lift the entire talent level of a team across the board, especially relative to the opposition, that's when you really start seeing players performing to max efficiency or even outperforming their ratings a little.

Posted by ParlanceGuy on 3/4/2021 8:15:00 PM (view original):
The team just won the WS in six games:

- without a single player on the awards page;
- without a single pitcher with 15 wins, and only three pitchers in double-digit wins;
- without a single pitcher with double-digit saves, and 17 pitchers with at least one save.

It’s strange how, in some ways, the sim is very different from real life.

in my experience:

- a pitcher with more saves probably didn’t pitch as many innings as they could have (I can’t remember the last pitcher I have had with 20+ saves)
- I’ve seen teams with pitchers that tandem to get a pitcher 27-30 wins in a season, again, I feel like you are shorting them on innings when you are doing this.
- I can’t remember the last time I had a player with 40 homeruns, 200 hits and just this past season for the first time in forever I had a player drive in over 110 runs. Simply because if their health drops below 100 they sit on the bench, especially if we are going to make the playoffs. I don’t care if they are in the MVP running, could hit the triple crown or are having career stats. I’m trying to maximize performance.

Posted by hockey1984 on 3/5/2021 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ParlanceGuy on 3/4/2021 8:15:00 PM (view original):
The team just won the WS in six games:

- without a single player on the awards page;
- without a single pitcher with 15 wins, and only three pitchers in double-digit wins;
- without a single pitcher with double-digit saves, and 17 pitchers with at least one save.

It’s strange how, in some ways, the sim is very different from real life.

in my experience:

- a pitcher with more saves probably didn’t pitch as many innings as they could have (I can’t remember the last pitcher I have had with 20+ saves)
- I’ve seen teams with pitchers that tandem to get a pitcher 27-30 wins in a season, again, I feel like you are shorting them on innings when you are doing this.
- I can’t remember the last time I had a player with 40 homeruns, 200 hits and just this past season for the first time in forever I had a player drive in over 110 runs. Simply because if their health drops below 100 they sit on the bench, especially if we are going to make the playoffs. I don’t care if they are in the MVP running, could hit the triple crown or are having career stats. I’m trying to maximize performance.

This was pretty much my philosophy with this season. I don't give a flying fig that we weren't on the awards page. We won 116 games, including the 14 that mattered.