Power Pros Forum

The American League jumped out to a good lead early off of some home runs, getting a 6-0 lead after the 3rd inning. The score would stay where it was until Clontz came in to pitch in the 6th, giving up a solo home run to Reyes to end the shutout and make the game 6-1. The National League would make the game competitive, hitting 3 solo home runs in the 8th to make it 6-4, but the AL put it out of reach in the 9th with a 2 run home run by Carlos Guillen. Tremie would give up a home run in closing the game but still preserved an 8-5 win.

Venom players:
Clontz: 1 inning pitched, 1 hit, 1 run, 1 strikeout
Tremie: 1 inning pitched, 1 hit, 1 run, 0 strikeouts

American League: 8
National League: 5

Win: S.Shields
Loss: R.Johnson
HR: J.Reyes, Beltran, Pujols, Kent, Winn, A.Rodriguez, Konerko, C.Guillen

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I think it future years I'm not going to do the All-Star lineup posting. I mean, it takes longer than the game itself and it's a long and confusing process.

Almost as quickly as they received Castro and Thatcher, the Venom have traded them away.

Venom get:
2126 points

Diamondbacks get:
Castro
Thatcher

Gilles commented on the trade:
"We had little use for these players, they were just going to stay in the minors and take away some of our money, so this was a good move for us. I just wanted to deal them to the National League on the off chance they became good players, so they wouldn't hurt us much if at all. After deciding on the National League, we just went after who would pay the most, and the Diamondbacks expressed interest in doing just that. I'll likely get some improved practice equipment for the team now that we cut some salary and got money back."

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Which of the Power practice items should I go after now? I have available: Contact Bat, All-Round Bat, Spikes, Stamina Spikes, Glove, Velocity Ball, Offspeed Ball. Or should I get something else? I don't really see the use in things like the food and Powerin, I never use fitness practices at all.

Also, when I buy a Power practice item, I usually move everyone available to that practice to get the most use out of it. So if I buy one and you don't want your agent using it you will have to make a specific demand about it. I'm leaning towards the All-Round bat, but I might be convinced otherwise, I know the team seems to always have bad ERAs, but I don't know how much a few extra points here or there will help in the simulation. I know in games I play I have more trouble with the batters than the pitchers.

Either the Contact Bat or the Offspeed Ball. Contact and breaking balls are probably the most useful attributes.

And for the All-Star Game lineups, just posting the Venom players that made it would be fine.

Yeah, I like the idea of the whole lineup being good at contact hitting, but I still like the All-Around bat. It doesn't improve quite as fast as just contact, but it seems to improve contact by several letter grades before doing much to power. I suppose I could go after the contact bat for now so people can get on base, then later get a power bat if it's available to start hitting some home runs.

Improving breaking pitches is kind of tempting, but it doesn't seem to make a huge difference in simulations, with some exceptions, like Tremie, although it may just be a fluke amazing season after slightly improving his knuckleball, but if the knuckleball dominates half as much in simulations as it does in played games then improving it would only make sense. I see a lot of pitchers with numerous good breaking pitches struggle though, so I don't know.

Overall, I still like the idea of contact or all-round bat best. Although if I didn't have Aaron as a power-hitting prospect I'd probably pass over the contact bat easily in favor of getting some okay power in the lineup.


Edit: I think if I don't get any more input for this, I may just flip a coin to decide between contact and all-round bat.

I'd buy the all-around bat and stamina spikes. I normally put all my players in batting practice because contact goes up reall quickly while power goes up as well.

Got the Power All-Round bat in the end.

Put a bunch of players in batting practice to use it:
Brownlie
Stults
Trammell
Reynolds
Tortolero
Brewer
Butron
Rottino
Roma
Grindell
Stewart
Rivas
Deardorff

Glad to see Deardorff using it

End of July:

AL East:
1. Yankees, 72-35
2. Red Sox, 62-45, 10 games behind
3. Rays, 58-49, 14 games behind
4. Blue Jays, 50-57, 22 games behind
5. Orioles, 48-59, 24 games behind
5. Venom, 48-59, 24 games behind

The Venom have fallen in the month of July, tying for the worst in their division, they are also now among the bottom teams in the MLB standings, staying out of dead last is about all they can hope for in the remaining months of the season.

The Wings fell as well, at 50-57, they have very little chance at playoffs this season.

Player stats:

Stanley: 5.05 ERA, 5-9 record, 114 strikeouts
Snead: 4.54 ERA, 8-6 record, 86 strikeouts, 1 save
Reid: 5.64 ERA, 5-5 record, 90 strikeouts
Tremie: 1.78 ERA, 7-0 record, 62 strikeouts
Hampson: 3.18 ERA, 6-7 record, 91 strikeouts
Weibl: 5.81 ERA, 5-7 record, 61 strikeouts

Clontz: 3.02 ERA, 4-3 record, 43 strikeouts, 1 save
Ishizuka: 4.88 ERA, 0-4 record, 35 strikeouts, 1 save
Asencio: 3.98 ERA, 3-3 record, 57 strikeouts
Reyes: 8.64 ERA, 0-0 record, 4 strikeouts
Marte: 4.92 ERA, 0-2 record, 32 strikeouts
Meredith: 6.72 ERA, 1-1 record, 64 strikeouts, 3 saves
McNichol: 6.94 ERA, 5-10 record, 67 strikeouts

Benoit: 5.55 ERA, 0-3 record, 25 strikeouts, 18/18 saves


Stewart: .329 avg, 12 HR, 58 RBI, 15 SB
Grindell: .263 avg, 4 HR, 53 RBI, 12 SB
Butron: .247 avg, 9 HR, 62 RBI, 7 SB
Roma: .246 avg, 6 HR, 49 RBI, 3 SB
Trammell: .297 avg, 8 HR, 39 RBI, 5 SB
Stults: .238 avg, 10 HR, 48 RBI, 6 SB
Reynolds: .244 avg, 3 HR, 42 RBI, 5 SB
Rivas: .274 avg, 2 HR, 35 RBI, 3 SB
Ormond: .280 avg, 5 HR, 42 RBI, 1 SB

McMillon: .275 avg, 0 HR, 5 RBI, 1 SB
Deardorff: .111 avg, 0 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB
Rottino: .338 avg, 0 HR, 8 RBI, 0 SB

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The team has continued in the same general fashion as it started. The only real bright spot in their batting lineup has been Shannon Stewart, a pretty cheap free agency signing. Tremie hasn't been quite as good a starter as he was a reliever, but he's still successful, maybe his success as a starter will improve after he finds his comfort zone. Despite being a reliever most of the year, Tremie has strikeout numbers to compete with some of the other starters, and still has yet to get a loss this season.

.111!!! Deardorff, guess what? You suck!

August 3rd:

Texas Rangers (44-65) at Nashville Venom (48-61)

The Venom lost a tough game against the Rangers. Their starting pitcher, Tonio Snead, allowed a couple runs in the first inning and the Venom batters couldn't string anything together in the whole game, as they were shut out by the Rangers pitching.

Rangers: 3
Venom: 0

Win: Padilla (4-7)
Save: Fuentes (17)
Loss: Snead (8-7)

Venom Box Score:

Stewart: 2-4, K
Grindell: 0-4
Butron: 0-4, K
Roma: 3-4, 2B
Trammell: 1-4, K
Stults: 0-4
Reynolds: 0-3, K
Rivas: 1-3, K
Ormond: 0-3

Snead: 6 innings pitched, 6 hits, 2 runs, 0 strikeouts, loss
Asencio: 3 innings pitched, 3 hits, 1 run, 3 strikeouts

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Now I'm curious as to why Jack Merluzzi is so obsessed with the fact that Michael Young "Already has 2 walk-off hits so far this season". He mentioned it every time Young was up at the plate and it obviously never had any relevance. Why are you talking about how many walk-off hits someone has this season in the first inning of an away game?

Hey, glad to see this making a return.

I think I will be doing this a bit more than I have been for the past several months, but not really as much as I would like to.

I think this will be the lowest priority of at least 3 things I have going right now.

When I went into Power Pros I checked out my arrange teams and realized I had 18 teams done for that video game team project and it really seems stupid to abandon it from there, so I'm back at work on that again. I don't know if I'll be able to find enough games with different characters to do all the 12 teams I still need, but in the worst case scenario, I can either buy new games or watch videos of games I don't have to get team ideas.

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In any case, it seems after a long break from Power Pros, my hitting hasn't really gotten much better or worse, my team just lacks good hitters I think.

Now that I think about it, I think even with low priority I may be able to get more updates done than I would have expected, just because the games are much faster and the post-game box scores are much easier to copy compared to MLB '13, which will remain regularly updated despite lack of interest because I have a plan for the team's future and I'm almost completed all possible collections.

August 14th:

Nashville Venom (51-67) at Minnesota Twins (57-61)

The Venom lost what turned out to be a close game against the Twins. They didn't get the pitching they needed in a game where their offense produced well above their average. They scored 4 runs in the 9th to make it close but wound up losing on a blown call at first base.

Venom: 5
Twins: 7

Win: S.Baker (8-8)
Loss: Hampson (6-8)
HR: D.Young (10), Trammell (10)

Venom Box Score:

Stewart: 3-5, 2B, RBI, 2 R
Grindell: 3-5, 2 RBI
Butron: 2-5, RBI
Roma: 0-4, K
Trammell: 1-3, HR, RBI, R, BB
Stults: 2-4
Reynolds: 0-4, R
Rivas: 1-3, BB
Ormond: 0-4, R

Hampson: 5 innings pitched, 12 hits, 6 runs, 0 strikeouts, loss
Asencio: 2 innings pitched, 2 hits, 1 run, 1 strikeout
Meredith: 1 inning pitched, 1 hit, 0 runs, 0 strikeouts

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For some reason, when Trammell hit the home run, Merluzzi thought he was the first one in the American League to get to 10 home runs. He wasn't even the first guy on his team to get 10 home runs, or the first player in that game to hit his tenth home run.

End of August:

AL East:
1. Yankees, 86-48
2. Red Sox, 78-56, 8 games behind
3. Rays, 72-62, 14 games behind
4. Blue Jays, 64-70, 22 games behind
5. Venom, 58-76, 28 games behind
6. Orioles, 56-78, 30 games behind

The Venom have moved up in the standings! Slightly... They're now two games ahead of the last place Orioles. The Venom only need 6 wins in September to improve their record from last year, but their goal was set at avoiding 90 losses, which will be difficult for them at this point, as they would have to win half of their remaining games to do so.

The Wings, at 62-72, are 9 games behind in their division, so they can still technically come back, but they'll have to catch quite a hot streak and be lucky as well.

Player stats:

Stanley: 4.49 ERA, 6-10 record, 146 strikeouts
Snead: 4.71 ERA, 9-9 record, 102 strikeouts, 1 save
Reid: 4.86 ERA, 6-5 record, 116 strikeouts
Tremie: 2.29 ERA, 8-0 record, 83 strikeouts
Hampson: 4.12 ERA, 6-9 record, 99 strikeouts
Weibl: 5.56 ERA, 7-10 record, 82 strikeouts

Clontz: 4.33 ERA, 4-5 record, 47 strikeouts, 1 save
Ishizuka: 5.12 ERA, 1-7 record, 49 strikeouts, 1 save
Asencio: 3.59 ERA, 6-3 record, 76 strikeouts
Reyes: 10.7 ERA, 0-1 record, 7 strikeouts
Marte: 5.51 ERA, 0-2 record, 34 strikeouts
Meredith: 6.34 ERA, 1-3 record, 76 strikeouts, 3 saves
McNichol: 6.94 ERA, 5-10 record, 67 strikeouts

Benoit: 5.17 ERA, 0-3 record, 30 strikeouts, 22/22 saves


Stewart: .329 avg, 17 HR, 71 RBI, 16 SB
Grindell: .251 avg, 6 HR, 65 RBI, 14 SB
Butron: .244 avg, 11 HR, 69 RBI, 7 SB
Roma: .256 avg, 6 HR, 60 RBI, 5 SB
Trammell: .282 avg, 11 HR, 46 RBI, 6 SB
Stults: .243 avg, 18 HR, 66 RBI, 7 SB
Reynolds: .247 avg, 6 HR, 62 RBI, 10 SB
Rivas: .245 avg, 4 HR, 37 RBI, 6 SB
Ormond: .252 avg, 5 HR, 46 RBI, 2 SB

McMillon: .273 avg, 0 HR, 14 RBI, 1 SB
Deardorff: .169 avg, 1 HR, 10 RBI, 1 SB
Rottino: .378 avg, 0 HR, 11 RBI, 2 SB

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If Tremie can remain undefeated after September, he may be in a discussion for the team's most valuable player, otherwise people will likely agree that Stewart is a deserving candidate.

Though the fact that their leadoff hitter can lead the team in RBIs calls into question the competence of the middle of their lineup.

September 4th:

Nashville Venom (59-78) at Baltimore Orioles (57-80)

The Venom seem to like keeping their scoring down to just one inning for the most part. In this game it was a 3 run 7th that got their offense, as Stults drove in a couple runs with a big hit and got injured sliding into third safely. Benoit came in with the 3 run lead and gave up a hit that was about an inch away from being the tying home run, but instead he was able to strand that runner at second.

Venom: 3
Orioles: 2

Win: Weibl (8-10)
Save: Benoit (23)
Loss: D.Cabrera (8-13)

Venom Box Score:

Stewart: 2-4
Grindell: 0-4
Butron: 1-4
Roma: 1-4, R, K
Trammell: 1-4, 2B, R
Stults: 1-3, 3B, 2 RBI
Brownlie: 0-1, R
Reynolds: 1-4, RBI
Rivas: 0-3
Ormond: 0-3

Weibl: 7 innings pitched, 8 hits, 1 run, 0 strikeouts, win
Clontz: 1 inning pitched, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 strikeouts, hold
Benoit: 1 inning pitched, 2 hits, 1 run, 0 strikeouts, save

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One thing I really don't like about this game is the completely unrealistic strikeout numbers when pitching against the CPU, I mean, 0 strikeouts in a whole game? That's a little absurd.