bench the manager.

Clayton Kershaw's my favorite active pitcher, and has been for a few years now, but I've never gotten a great season out of him here (and I've used him a lot). That finally changed when I drafted his 2016 season for an OL that just finished. He led the league in seven pitching categories, including:

ERA -- 1.51 (2nd place had a 2.52 ERA)
WHIP -- 0.68 (2nd -- 1.06)
OAV -- .170 (2nd -- .225)

Dominance!

And all improvements over Kershaw's real life numbers!

Believe It or Don't!

I did an exhibition season to experiment with different players and lineups that I'd never used before, and '93 Ron Gant responded with 21 RBI in a 10 game exhibition, the best 10 game stretch I've seen since the salary updates...a 340 RBI pace!


Believe It or Don't!

In one of my leagues today, I started a 0% mop to give my staff a rest. He went the distance in a 22-3 loss. WIS naysayers: "That's so unrealistic!"

In real life baseball today, the New York Mets lost 25-4. It was the biggest loss in their team's history -- and their history of course includes Casey Stengel's 1962 Mets!

Believe It or Don't!

WASHINGTON — Jose Reyes pitched about as effectively as he has hit and fielded this year.

A historic 25-4 loss to the Nationals for the Mets on Tuesday night — the worst loss by run differential in their 57-year history — wrapped up on an appropriately ghoulish note at Nationals Park when Reyes, the longtime Met, took the mound for the bottom of the eighth inning and got knocked around for six runs, including two homers. The 35-year-old threw an astounding 48 pitches to get through his professional pitching debut, leaving with his career ERA of 54.00.

“When you’re on the mound, before you throw a pitch, it’s fun,” Reyes said. “But when you start to see people hit a homer and stuff, then you get more serious.”

The Mets used six pitchers to get through the first seven innings, and it was in the sixth inning, manager Mickey Callaway said, when he approached Reyes about pitching. With Noah Syndergaard returning from the disabled list to start Wednesday’s series finale, Callaway explained, he wanted to ensure he had enough relievers available. Hence the turn to Reyes, one of two remaining bench players (along with Devin Mesoraco) who hadn’t entered the game yet.

Rick Ankiel plans on a return to the mound in 2019...

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2789819-rick-ankiel-announces-hes-attempting-mlb-comeback-as-relief-pitcher-in-2019

Earlier today I had a starter in an Open League named Player of the Game ("Billy Crowell goes 8.0 innings for the win") despite:

1) entering the game with a 1-14 record and 9.61 ERA

and

2) giving up 20 hits in this game

Yes, he got the W, and gave up only 4 runs, but still. I can't recall any pitcher ever getting POG after being dinged for so many hits.

Believe It or Don't!

earlier today i made a black hole, believe it or don

click me and click me again

here's the rules

1) click in the pic
2) just try and stop it

Not sure exactly what that was bagchucker but it looked pretty cool.

Looked like the intro to Look Who's Talking

First time this has happened for me, and first time I’ve ever seen it outside of some crazy theme or against a fatigued mop-up pitcher.

Cecil Fielder smacks FIVE homers in a game: http://www.whatifsports.com/x.asp?r=614781&u=/slb/Boxscore.aspx?gid=31267638.ppid=1.ppbp=0.ptf=10

$100 cap theme league. Needing to rest my staff, I put the '74 Steve Kline in to start. He ended up throwing a complete game shut out and won 2-0. Only took him 99 pitches. Steve yielded 6 hits, and didn't fan or walk a batter. Granted the team we played had a sub .500 team (.425 winning percentage), but they started the '15 Greinke and had guys like '28 Gehrig, '95 Lofton, and '20 O'Neill to for Kline to work through.

One of the weirder extra inning wins I've chalked up here at the Château d'WhatIf:

-First batter on via error.

-Second batter HBP, runners on 1st and 2nd.

-Third batter HBP, bases loaded.

-Fourth batter HBP, game over.

The fourth batter, who did nothing else in the game, got the Homer Simpson POG award.

By the way, all the batters were hit in the leg/knee area. The pitcher was a real leghunter.

Believe It or Don't!

A couple days ago I posted in this thread about my pitcher, 1888 Ed Seward, breaking a seven-year old Open League record for most wins by a pitcher in one season. The previous record was 77, held by 1888 Silver King; my Seward went 78-12.

In the first round of the playoffs, Seward started games 1-3-5 for me.

And lost each one!

Believe It or Don't!

I did it boyz. All my Honus Wagners got a hit in a row.