LGT OOTP Update: Bounced in the Divisional Series

Another season is in the books for our all-Indians Out of the Park Perfect Team. We put together another fine season, but weren’t able to bring home to hardware this time.

Like I mentioned: some of the teams are just absurdly stacked, and as the divisions get sorted out in the early season there will be some behemoths in the lower ranks. This league in particular suffered from such mismatches. The team that wen on to win the World Series earned 123 victories on the season, and its opponent had 116 and scored 1,026 runs on the season. Such is life when you have 2002 Barry Bonds batting right before 1921 Babe Ruth, and 2001 Todd Helton batting 8th.

We have no such luxuries because, unfortunately, I’m not about to sink my paycheck into this game. The good news is that we’re still getting promoted to Silver League!

How did the players fare this season, and who is now on the roster?

Here are our position players, in order of WAR

And likewise, the pitching staff

You’ll notice a shiny new Corey Kluber. Specifically, that is 2014 Corey Kluber, and he seems to be a delightful card. I picked it up for about 1,500 points less than it typically sells for, and that deal was too good to pass up.

This gives us the fun and weird chance to use Carlos Carrasco as a fireman/relief ace, with some long relief mixed in. I’m happy with how things shook out. Since we have few good relief options, being able to give the ball to two or three guys for many, many innings is a good way to mitigate that disadvantage.

One thing that concerns me is the likely hit to Carrasco’s stats that are coming as a result of his real-life struggles. I’m expecting a -3 to his overall, but hopefully that won’t blunt his pen performance too much.

As for the hitters, new additions include Jim Thome and Joe Sewell, from 1997 and 1921, respectively. Sewell is awesome. He’s being trained at every infield position and should be well above average defensively at each.

Vic Power continues to over-achieve, and as long as that’s the case I don’t see any reason to dump him. The same goes for our Tito Francona card. I know that neither of these are likely to be with us for the long haul, but since we’re going to be in Silver League next season bronze cards should be perfectly acceptable most of the time.

As for Thome, I’m willing to give him another season to see how things go. My concerns about the card striking out too much to be very effective looks like it’s bearing out. It deserves another season before I pass final judgment on it. And besides, I spent less than 1,000 points on it and can probably recoup what I paid for it if it comes to that.

What comes next?

We’re sitting on a cool 12,427 Perfect Points. Most of the players that would improve the team in a meaningful way are still too expensive to grab. I’m also hesitant to roll the dice and use it on packs. While we might find an amazing card that we can sell for tens of thousands of PP, it’s more likely we end up with a bunch of iron cards and regret.

For the hell of it though, let’s rip one open right now and see what we get.

Oh dear.