MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

[Raider131]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

I can't seem to get pitching down
in the 5 games i've played my era is roughly 11
and Matt Kemp went like 13-15 against me with 3HRs in a series
Joey Votto is 7-7 in 2 games against me with 2doubles, 2HR, triple

[abjsuperstar]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

im assuming ur playing no dh

yep im using dh

[Shield]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

Great game last night for Latos, CG 1er,5hits,7k's. Quick game won 2-1 vs SEA and Pineda. Throughout the entire 9th the alert kept flashing "Latos is tired" or somethin like that but going in he only threw 91 pitches, ended with 102. They were grounding out all night long so i knew he could finish it. But it was the Mariners.

[BlueNGold]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

It's been awhile since I updated my Jays franchise, but I've been lacking an internet connection for the past few weeks.

Anyways, I finished my first season. Didn't play all the games because I want to see my players progress since this is mostly a rebuild/up & coming team and not a contender. I did play about 60-something games, maybe more, but around mid-July or August (in-game time) I decided to just start simming the majority of games. While I was playing most of the games, I hovered around 10 games back of first and was firmly last in the AL East. Once I started simming, we went on a bit of a hot streak early on, but it amounted to nothing and the Jays finished out at 64-98 with a team ERA of 4.71.

My first draft wasn't too strong. The 2 guys of note I drafted were my 1st round pick, 21 year old SP Eugene Biden (C POT and Velocity, the rest are D's except Fielding, which is an F) and a later round possbile gem 20 year old LF Dustin Lowry (B POT, everything else is D except Power at an F).

Before the trade deadline I did quite a bit of shuffling to try and further my farm system and get rid of older guys that I didn't have much use for. I can't remember the deals exactly because I'm already at the start of the 2012 season, but I acquired a ton of young arms. Keep in mind I know just slightly above nothing about baseball, so I probably had a good mix of terrible trades go my way and the CPUs way. Anyways, these are the players I acquired:

SP (A POT) Carlos Martinez from STL -- apparently really good judging by how many teams jump in interest when I mention him in trades, lol
SP (B POT) Christian Friedrich from COL
SP (C POT) Tom Koehler from FLA
SP (B POT) Willy Peralta from MIL
SP (A POT) Cody Scarpetta from MIL
SP (B POT) Joe Gardner from CLE

RP (C POT) Matt Lindstrom from COL
RP (B POT) Francisco Samuel from STL
RP (C POT) Dan Merklinger from MIL

CP (C POT) Arquimedes Caminero from FLA

CF (A POT) Dexter Fowler from COL
CF (A POT) Colby Rasmus from STL

I recreated the Colby Rasmus trade the best I could but I had to include Denard Span (who I acquired much earlier in the season for Travis Snider - bit of a mistake because he went on to hit .300, 30 HRs and 100+ RBIs
. Guess he realized his potential, lol). Span was just starting to hit his stride with the Jays, putting up some of the better numbers in the majors, but I wanted Rasmus.

The big move I made though was shipping out Aaron Hill. He was having a monster year for me (finished the year with 32 HRs, 92 RBI and a .282 BA) and was even batting better than Jose Bautista (29 HRs, 86 RBI, .293 BA). But I knew my budget would likely decrease and with guys like Brandon Morrow, Kyle Drabek, Bautista, etc all needing to be re-signed, I figured Hill would be the one to part with, so I dealt him and Dustin McGowan to Colorado for Fowler, Lindstrom and Friedrich. Up to this point I'm slightly regretting getting Fowler, but he's still young and an A POT player, so I'm not in panic mode yet. Also, a really nice side note to the deal was that Colorado went on to win the World Series over Oakland, so I was able to give Hill and McGowan rings, which they wouldn't have gotten staying in Toronto.

In free agency, I let go of Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, Octavio Dotel, Jo-Jo Reyes, Shawn Camp, Jose Molina, Edwin Encarnacion and a few other below average players.

I re-signed Jose Bautista (5 yrs/44.93 M/8.1 M per yr), Brandon Morrow (5 yrs/20.68 M/4.1 per yr), Colby Rasmus (4 yrs/15.96 M/3.9 per yr), Dexter Fowler (2 yrs/5.92 M/2.9 per yr), Kyle Drabek (2 yrs/5.8 M/2.9 per yr), Yunel Escobar (3 yrs/7.55 M/2.5 per yr), J.P. Arencibia (4 yrs/6.49 M/1.6 per yr), Brett Cecil (1 yr/2 M), and Carlos Villanueva (3 yrs/6.29 M/2.0 per yr).

I signed CP Fernando Rodney, which was a solid move IMO because he seems very similar to Francisco, but at half his price. Aside from that I didn't do too much in FA but it wasn't for a lack of trying. The big winners of FA were (surprise!) the Red Sox, signing Adam Wainwright to a 5 year, 58 M deal. Now their starting rotation includes Wainwright, Buchholz, Beckett and Jair Jurrjens (they stole him from ATL). They would have had Jon Lester to complete a rotation that would probably be better than the Phillies, but in the biggest move of my offseason, I acquired Lester for prospect Anthony Gose.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't a fair deal, but **** it. I made sure it wasn't a glitch because I tried offering Gose for other teams' top arms and basically every time it was a no-go, so I guess Boston really seen something in Gose. It sucked parting with a nice prospect like that, but I already have a bit of a busy outfield at the MLB level and I was in desperate need of pitching help, in large part because of Ricky Romero's terrible 2011 season where he had a 9-16 record and was really inconsistent, and also because my starting rotation in general just wasn't that strong. The 3-4-5 spots were moving around quite a bit and I never really got much stability there.

My current lineup going into the 2012 season (feel free to let me know how to improve it since I'm still learning how to create good lineups):

LF Dexter Fowler
2B Brett Lawrie
3B Jose Bautista
1B Adam Lind
CF Colby Rasmus
SS Yunel Escobar
DH Eric Thames
RF Rajai Davis
C J.P. Arencibia

Bench
C Michael McKenry (acquired in rule 5 draft, probably shouldn't have though)
3B Mark Teahen
2B Mike McCoy
CF Darin Mastroianni

SP Jon Lester
SP Brandon Morrow
SP Ricky Romero
SP Carlos Villaneuva
SP Kyle Drabek

LRP Brett Cecil
LRP Marc Rzepcynski
MRP David Purcey
MRP Ryota Igarashi
MRP Josh Roenicke
SU Matt Lindstrom
CP Fernando Rodney

I'm not expecting that much success, but I'm looking forward to developing my young players and hopefully improving over last season.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm really enjoying this franchise. It's been a long time since I've been able to just sit and enjoy a franchise mode without worrying about other nonsense and it feels really nice to be able to do that. This particular franchise mode has it's flaws (mostly trade AI related), but I've been able to look past it and just have fun.

[coolguy124]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

since ur post was long im not gonna quote it bluengold

looks good sounds like ur having fun

my only concern is the 2 lefty bats back to back

id probably move lind 3rd and bautista 4th

but what do i know.....

[BlueNGold]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

since ur post was long im not gonna quote it bluengold

looks good sounds like ur having fun

my only concern is the 2 lefty bats back to back

id probably move lind 3rd and bautista 4th

but what do i know.....

Thanks for the tip. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to baseball.

My only question is, isn't the #3 spot supposed to be your best overall hitter or would there really be that much of a difference between me batting Bautista 3rd or 4th?

[mackie5622]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

I would put Bautista batting 3rd..the best hitter in the lineup is 3rd,and the best power hitter goes 4th...I really like ur team, I was considering doing one with the jays since they are my favorite team...

[coolguy124]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

Thanks for the tip. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to baseball.

My only question is, isn't the #3 spot supposed to be your best overall hitter or would there really be that much of a difference between me batting Bautista 3rd or 4th?

the 3 hitter is generally somebody that has power and hit for average
so he can get rbi shots
the 4 hitter is generally your most powerful hitter but ur 4 hitter its ok to be hitting .250 if hes hitting 35 hrs a year but bautista doesnt have that good contact in the game but his power is all the way full

[BlueNGold]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

the 3 hitter is generally somebody that has power and hit for average
so he can get rbi shots
the 4 hitter is generally your most powerful hitter but ur 4 hitter its ok to be hitting .250 if hes hitting 35 hrs a year but bautista doesnt have that good contact in the game but his power is all the way full

I gave him a bit of a bump in contact ratings (not too much though), since in real life I think he's still batting above .300.

The only reason I don't like having Lind bat 3rd is because he can go through some hard cold spells and if I recall there's a big difference between his contact vs LHP and RHPs, but Bautista doesn't have as big of a gap.

I would put Bautista batting 3rd..the best hitter in the lineup is 3rd,and the best power hitter goes 4th...I really like ur team, I was considering doing one with the jays since they are my favorite team...

Thanks.

It's definitely fun using the Jays since they have a lot of young talent and flexibility. Plus they have a lot of power in their lineup so without making a lot of moves or any at all, you can have some fun playing with them.

The only thing is the Rogers Centre isn't the prettiest park in the game and it's too bad you can't build new parks in future seasons, but it's not that big of a deal either.

[Cohi]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

Still in spring training with my Atlanta Braves, but very very very frusterated. After winning 5 in a row and scoring no less then 4 runs a game I'm in a 5 game losing streak and cant score over 2 or 3 runs now. 3 is if I'm really lucky. I keep striking out too much and can't come up with a key hit. It's usually if I hit it hit very hard but right at somebody or I'm robbed by a web gem.


Edit, make that 6 game losing streak, just lost 5-4 10 innings to the yankees. I just strike out way too much and can't get that clutch hit that I need. Had a runner on 3rd for the game tying run what do I do? Strike out on a pitch in the dirt AGAIN

[BenGerman]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

I've been having troubles with PSN, so when I was finally able to get back on, I loaded up some updated roster and started a Fantasy Draft.

Top 10 Picks

1. CC Sabathia
2. Asdrubal Cabrera
3. Yovani Gallardo
4. Aramis Ramirez
5. Mike Trout
6. Michael Pineda
7. Johnny Venters
8. Carlos Santana
9. Dustin Ackley
10. Jeff Karstons

Players of Note

Justin Verlander- Top overall pick to the New York Yankees

Vance Worley- A 15th rounder that started so well in the minors that I called him up in place of a 28th rounder in Livan Hernandez.

David Ross- Backup Catcher

Curtis Granderson- Last pick in the first round, followed by Ryan Madson who has been lights out for the Pirates.

Kosuke Fukudome- A 19th rounder who has started every game for me 41 games through the season.

Thoughts

I'm standing at a decent 20-21 right now. My team ERA is 3.79, the lowest of any Fantasy Franchise I've done. CC Sabathia has an ERA of 1.49, Walden has 4 blown saves (ouch), and Aramis Ramirez leads the team with 8 HR's. One game back of the Pirates for 1st place.

[abjsuperstar]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

had 7 no hitting innings on my franchise with vince worley

[TheBdhKid]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

Just started a franchise with the Texas rangers I simmed the first season so here are the moves i made in the off season. I play one game every other series. Noteable retirements:Arthur Rhodes
Signed:Nate McLouth. Im starting the regular season now.

[BlueNGold]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

Something I forgot to mention about my Jays franchise.....

There were two games I played against the Red Sox the previous season where both times I went deep into the game with a no-hitter. I think the first game pitching with Edwin Jackson (had to acquire him for the Rasmus deal, but Rasmus was injured at the time so I had to use Jackson for awhile) I went about 6 innings deep. The other game using Brandon Morrow I think I went 7 innings.

Want to guess how both no-hitters were broken up? A ****ing Jacoby Ellsbury bunt. So now every time I play the Red Sox and he's up to bat, I throw at his head.

[jvalverde88]

Re: MLB 11 The Show "Franchise/Season" Progress Thread

Something I forgot to mention about my Jays franchise.....

There were two games I played against the Red Sox the previous season where both times I went deep into the game with a no-hitter. I think the first game pitching with Edwin Jackson (had to acquire him for the Rasmus deal, but Rasmus was injured at the time so I had to use Jackson for awhile) I went about 6 innings deep. The other game using Brandon Morrow I think I went 7 innings.

Want to guess how both no-hitters were broken up? A ****ing Jacoby Ellsbury bunt. So now every time I play the Red Sox and he's up to bat, I throw at his head.

You should've done it in those two games. I've been meaning to post a update on my Franchise but I've been too lazy.