Well, that's one season in the books. I'll produce some statistics for you soon and we can get into the details, but the long and short of it, is that we were just really, really bad. You can
check out the site or click on us in the standings to see the team page.
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Continental League Standings
W L PCT GB
Tuskegee Airmen 102 60 .630 -
Baltimore Gothams 96 66 .593 6.0
Kansas City Beagles 88 74 .543 14.0
Brooklyn Brownstones 78 84 .481 24.0
Philadelphia Quakers 78 84 .481 24.0
Portland Firecrackers 77 85 .475 25.0
Peoria Distillers 68 94 .420 34.0
California Whiskeyjacks 54 108 .333 48.0
Republic League Standings
W L PCT GB
Yellowstone Rangers 96 67 .589 -
Hartford Harpooners 95 68 .583 1.0
Colorado Rancheros 94 68 .580 1.5
Rio Grande Roadrunners 82 80 .506 13.5
Chicago Brothers 81 81 .500 14.5
New York Heroes 81 81 .500 14.5
Boston Settlers 66 96 .407 29.5
Detroit Wolverines 61 101 .377 34.5
Things in the league are weird right now. FOOL's talent numbers were always off, so the talent was off the charts. I went to fix that with the most recent iteration of players and it's the reason I simmed into the future, because I wanted a normal base of talented players.
Well so now you have this aging set of veterans who are WAY better than the talent beneath them. I lowered the aging modifier too, so they're lasting longer than they would otherwise, but only into their early 40s or so. In any case, the talent dropoffs are huge and so, the otherwise good players get rated as 1-2.5 star players often when they're a lot better than that, were it a normal league.
It'll all be fixed in the 5-7 years, but we're not there yet. In any case, the other teams are hording oldsters in an attempt to win and it's sorta funny (and strange) to watch.
As a result, the end of the season came and I had a pretty hard (easy?) decision to make. Go for it and try to contend early or sell off all of our useful pieces and try to contend for a title in a few years, playing with prospects in the meantime.
I chose the later solution, something I've never done in fast-sim.
Here are the stats of our money players:
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Benn Ferrell (.257/16 HR/63 RBI)
Shun Hirata (.258/38 HR/ 109 RBI)
Joey Johnson (5-21, 187 strikeouts in 229 2/3 innings, 3.96 ERA)
Roberto Artega (5-22, 6.22 ERA, 122 strikeouts in 195 innings and 155 walks.)
Hiro Inoue (.262/34 HR/95 RBI)
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Despite the decent numbers from our big hitters, we were pretty much awful at everything. 8th in most major offensive categories in offense and pitching, except we were 2nd in the CL in stolen bases and 5th in bullpen ERA, 3rd in hits allowed, 4th in Opp. avg and 1st in BABIP.
But oh well.
So I traded anyone of value after the off-season came.
Payroll is now at $5.1 million, I cut a level of minors and now there are just Double-A and Single-A and I don't anticipate trying to sign anyone else this off-season, instead just rolling with the guys we have.
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CLCS: Baltimore def. Tuskegee 4 games to 0
RLCS: Yellowstone def. Hartford 4 games to 1
FOOL Classic: Yellowstone def. Baltimore 5 games to 2
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YELLOWSTONE becomes the first expansion to win a title in their first year. Whoa. I do love that the advent of another western-based team gives Colorado a rival and that rival kept Colorado out of the playoffs, by forcing them into a regular season tie with HARTFORD for the wild card in the RL, which Hartford won.
In the old days, that would've stoked the fires of the Hartford-Colorado rivalry to epic proportions.
In any case, we're not going to be good for the next few years. Make no mistake. But if my prospect development skills are worth anything, we'll be a contending team by Year 5 of the experiment in California.
I've never run a club with a salary under $20 million or so and this will be an experience for me, because the losing is hard for me to watch. But the talent on this squad is unquestionable and so, it's going to come down to how success we can be at development and how much the rest of the league catches up.