MLB 12: The Show

[Goober]

I stopped playing RTTS after I got annoyed with the stupid advancement goals. They are way to arbitrary IMVHO

If I am tearing it up in AAA, but, I didn't work on my arm strength (as a 1B) I shouldn't be demoted or held up.

Yeah it seems like the game wants to turn you into a power hitter, no matter what. I want to make a slap hitting defensive minded centerfielder, in the Carlos Gomez mold. There's never goals for stealing bases or anything like that, which is where I put all of my training points.

I would like to make a franchise, but the computer logic kind of ruins it for me. I don't want to control all 30 teams. The fun part for me is the rebuild process over multiple seasons (obviously I'd sim a lot of games) but it doesn't seem like the game favors that playing style at all.

[RyanLeaf16]

My first season with the Cubs went pretty badly. Lots of losses, but that was to be expected. LaHair had a big season but other than everyone else pretty much sucked. Including Castro. I moved Dempster and Soto to Texas for some pitching and a 19 year old catching prospect. Byrd was dealt to Cleveland for lefty ptching prospect Giovano Soto, and I moved Garza to Detroit for Jacob Turner and Daniel Fields IIRC.

I eventually just benched Soriano to get Jackson and Rizzo called up and get them playing time. Soriano retired after the end of the season.

Really didn't do much of anything in free agency. Started 1-0 in season 2. Lost 9 straight games and spoent the next month and a half clawing back to .500. I think it's June 1st right now and I'm like 26-26. LaHair and Rizzo are beasting. Rizzo leads the NL in homeruns and LaHair is 2nd in batting average.

My lineup looks like this generally.

Campana
Castro
Rizzo
LaHair
Ian Stewart
Brett Jackson
Valbuena
Castillo
(Pitcher)

Rotation
Samardzija
Jake Westbrook
Jacob Turner
Trey McNutt
Chris Volstad

Rafael Dolis is my closer after I let Marmol go in free agency.

Nice return on the Garza deal. It looks like you have a solid lineup that should score some runs. What were the issues early on in season two? Run production or poor pitching?

[FirstTimer]

Nice return on the Garza deal. It looks like you have a solid lineup that should score some runs. What were the issues early on in season two? Run production or poor pitching?

Pitching. My starters were awful early on. Especially Turner and McNutt. They have leveled out a bit. Also my bullpen was bad. I released Jame Russel and John Gaub(both had ERA's over 6). I'm re tooling hte bullpen now. I just signed Andrew Miller off the free agency market. Maybe make him into a bullpen arm or possibly a starter. Not sure. Gonna tinker with him down in AA and AAA and see what happens.

I have a lot of talent playing really well down in the minors right now that will have a tough time breaking through. Guys like Szczur, Soler, Golden, are playing well at AAA and AA. But there might not be room for them when the time comes. Might have to move some guys.

[RyanLeaf16]

Pitching. My starters were awful early on. Especially Turner and McNutt. They have leveled out a bit. Also my bullpen was bad. I released Jame Russel and John Gaub(both had ERA's over 6). I'm re tooling hte bullpen now. I just signed Andrew Miller off the free agency market. Maybe make him into a bullpen arm or possibly a starter. Not sure. Gonna tinker with him down in AA and AAA and see what happens.

I have a lot of talent playing really well down in the minors right now that will have a tough time breaking through. Guys like Szczur, Soler, Golden, are playing well at AAA and AA. But there might not be room for them when the time comes. Might have to move some guys.

I always seem to get that one game out of every 7-10 where my starters just have a meltdown on the mound or my defense has an error and it all falls apart. It is actually very frustrating - so I feel your pain.

[RyanLeaf16]

Just played the Angels out in Anaheim and Desmond Jennings had a monster day! He had been struggling so I moved him down to 9th in the order and he went 4-4, 1B, 2B, 2 HR, 3 R, 6 RBI in a 11-2 victory.

[RyanLeaf16]

Felipe, FUCKING, Paulino! Mystified my hitters (really just me) with some serious heat and a exploding slider. Thankfully, we scored in the third after Reid Brignac drove in Sean Rodriguez to give us a 1-0 lead.

Matt Moore pitched 7.1 scoreless, and beutiful, innings - allowing just three hits, no runs and six strikeouts. Then, Yem Prades ruined the fucking day. He hits a double down the left field line and then Mike Moustakas went deep putting the Royals up 2-1. Salvador Perez added a solo shot in the 9th to give the Royals a 3-1 lead.

We went down 1, 2, 3 in the ninth and lose a critical game in the WC race. On the bright side, Sean Rodriguez had a successful return from several months on the DL. He went 2-3 with a run.

[Lanteri]

Did a fantasy draft, got a pretty solid team...

Rotation

Kershaw
Strasburg
Miley
Marcum
Leake

Bullpen

Ogando
Takahashi
Dotel
Balfour
Byrdak
Betancourt
Hanrahan

Lineup

2B - Rickie Weeks
C - Joe Mauer
3B - Miguel Cabrera
1B - Paul Konerko
CF - Adam Jones
RF - Jason Heyward
DH - Corey Hart
SS - J.J. Hardy
LF - Desmond Jennings

Bench

Yorvit Torrealba
Ty Wigginton
Skip Schumaker
Emilio Bonifacio.

[RyanLeaf16]

For those that don't know, I play 1 game per week. It can be any game with any pitcher - no rhyme or reason to my selections. I may just want to play one team over another or use a pitcher more than another. Anyway, I simmed the rest of the week which included games against the A's and we took 2 of 3 from Oakland. At the beginning of the following week, I was offered a trade from the Astros. The proposed CPU deal from Houston is below:

Tampa receives:

p - brandon lyon (32 yo, c pot, 2.925 value pts)
c - chris snyder (31 yo, c pot, 4.68 value pts)

total pts = 7.61 pts

Houston receives:

p - enny romero (21 yo, b pot, 6 value pts)
of - mikie mahtook (22 yo, b pot, 4.8 value pts)
of - grant long (21 yo, b pot, 4.8 value pts)

total pts = 15.60 pts

The offer sucked. Neither Lyon or Snyder are under team control after this season, they are aging and they just are not better than anything we currently have on the roster. Therefore, the trade was declined.

The next game I will be playing is on the road against Toronto. James Shields will be taking the mound for us. Right now, we are in a 3 team race for the WC spot. Boston leads the WC race right now. However, we are tied with Texas just 1 GB of Boston heading into the final month of the season. We'll get our opportunity to overtake them as we play them 6 times in September.

[RyanLeaf16]

Did a fantasy draft, got a pretty solid team...

Rotation

Kershaw
Strasburg
Miley
Marcum
Leake

Bullpen

Ogando
Takahashi
Dotel
Balfour
Byrdak
Betancourt
Hanrahan

Lineup

2B - Rickie Weeks
C - Joe Mauer
3B - Miguel Cabrera
1B - Paul Konerko
CF - Adam Jones
RF - Jason Heyward
DH - Corey Hart
SS - J.J. Hardy
LF - Desmond Jennings

Bench

Yorvit Torrealba
Ty Wigginton
Skip Schumaker
Emilio Bonifacio.

I would say that is more than a solid team.

[Lanteri]

Opening up the season against the Tigers. They appear to have gone fairly pitching heavy. Not particularly a fearsome lineup.

R.A. Dickey
Ian Kennedy
Neftali Feliz
Roy Oswalt
Barry Zito

Tyler Clippard
Jason Frasor
Brandon League
Jose Arredondo
Javier Lopez
Alex Wilson
John Axford (closer)

2B - Henry Rodriguez
CF - Austin Jackson
SS - Troy Tulowitzki
DH - Tyler Colvin
C - Wilson Ramos
LF - Logan Morrison
RF - Lastings Milledge
1B - Travis Hafner
3B - Brandon Inge

[Bomberooski]

Currently completely addicted to this game

[Lanteri]

I would say that is more than a solid team.

Yeah I had the benefit of having the 30th pick. Had a lot of solid back-to-back pick opportunities. The team is fairly old for the most part, especially the bullpen, but it's solid. It's ranked #5 per the team selection screen heading into the opening series with Detroit.

[RyanLeaf16]

Just lost to the Blue Jays 5-4. James Shields only allowed 3 earned runs, but, we had some errors that fucked us over.

[Bomberooski]

I've been having some real solid games in my Franchise lately. I'm playing on the PS3 and Vita. I seem to hit a LOT better on PS3 but am coming around on the Vita.

One game away from the All Star break in my first season. (Created the entire team including one created pitcher. I only play the games that he starts and play the defense until he gives up a hit and other wise play only offense)

[RyanLeaf16]

Just lost another game. This time to Texas (who we trail in the WC race) 6-4. Luke Scott and Carlos Pena went deep for us and we did hold a 4-2 lead, then, of course, the fielding miscues reared their ugly head and, what would have been an inning ending grounder turned into a string of hits and eventual runs that cost us the game.