2012 recap

26 finished teams, with the 26th starting the Finals tomorrow. .529 pct, 7 champs, 3 100 win teams (and a 98) (only one of which won a Championship. And the most embarrassing performance on the Tour , where I didn't make the playoff even once.

Almost exclusively in Hitters parks, esp US Cell:

Most Valuable Player: well, that would have to be Addison Reed for me, who once save 50 games and saved 74% of his games throughout the set. All for .70. You have to live with a high ERA and WHIP and occasional meltdowns, but still, 74%.
This is really more of a comment on Strat closers online than praise of Reed, and Broxton did fine for me too. To spend a lot of money on a Stud reliever for him just to close is foolish.

Real Most Valuable Player: That would have to be Josh Willingham, who at 4.18 gave me a .900 OPS in 8000 ABs. You can't get more bang for your buck.

Best player: Brandon Moss. Hit 74 HRs on one team, 64,59,58 in three others over 1.000 ops for the set. Hard to get and is a 15game injury, but plays a lot of positions well, and just can flat out hit. Trout might be as good, but he's 3M more expensive.

Favorite top player: Early in the year, someone posted that Ruggiano's card was useless because it was too slanted against LHP and for most of the year, I could pick him up after the draft. For 7.48, he had a .931 OPS for me, up with all the 9 and 10M guys. I batted him leadoff against right and he hit fine.

SET Results: (1000 ABs required)

OPS over 1.000: Trout, Moss, Stanton
OPS over .900: Headley, Braun, Cabrera, Ruggiano, Beltre, Pujols, Willingham, Lucroy (mostly v L), G. Jones (mostly v R)
BA: Trout .343
OBP: Trout .404
SLG: Moss, Stanton, Trout
HR per 600 ABs: Stanton 54, Moss 51

SEASON Results (500 ABs)

OPS: Willingham 1.119, Moss 1.113, Stanton 1.086, Trout 1.067, Headley 1.032
BA: Moss .358
OBP: Trout .423
SLG: Moss .738
R: Trout 136, Moss 134, Hill 134, Trout 132
BI: Moss 168, Carter 150
D: Ruggiano 64
T: Reyes 12
SB: Reyes 53

SET Results, pitching: 500 IP

Starters:
WHIP: Peavy 1.26
ERA: Hammel 4.03
Wins: Harrell 177
Win Pct: Hammel .627, Westbrook 626

Relievers:
WHIP: Atchison 1.22, Kontos 1.28, Lopez 1.29
ERA: Atchison 3.78, Lopez 3.85, Kontos 3.96
Wins: Atchison 139
Win Pct: Gorzelanny .651, Atchison .618
Saves: Reed 376, Atchison 164

SEASON Results:

Starters:
W: Harrell 26
ERA Medlen 2.46, Peavy 2.92
WHIP Medlen 0.98, Peavy 1.05

Relievers:
S: Reed 50
ERA: Atchison 2.41, W. Lopez 2.43
WHIP: Atchison 0.96, Kontos 1.04

I loved all the hitters around 3 and 4 with real value, starting with Willingham, but G. Jones vR, Kubel, Chris Davis, Alvarez, Chavez, Schierholtz, all had immense value for me. Made it easier to afford some of the big guns, especially since sometimes they were big guns themselves.

Aaron Hill was my favorite 2012 card. Except for a relatively high DP count he was the complete package at a reasonable price.

Yeah, I loved Hill, too, should have mentioned him. 800 plus OPS and great fielding, at a reasonable price. What's not to like?

Peavy in hitters parks??

Anecdotally, I loved:

Brandon Morrow
Chris Tillman
Madison Bumgarner
Luis Avilan

Beltre
Encarnacion
Bernadina
Navarro
Laroche

I think Peavy must have been one of those occasionally touched by HAL, because he was great for me all year, in hitter's parks. He has BPs but they're low, and he just did well.

I'm using Encarnacion on a team I have right now, and what a monster he is.

My favorite bargain card of the year was Matt Dominguez at 4.67 mil. He hit over 30 homers (and 8-15 triples) for me on five different teams, while playing excellent defense at third. He was particularly awesome on this team:

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1107724

Never used Dominguez, but I'll have to try him. That's why I never post about bargains until this time of year; suddenly they get hard to find. I do read those posts, though!

Along those lines, I have two experimental teams going based on an idea of J-Pav's where I draft a team of bargains. No one (or platoon) over 5M, basically a 60M team. There are always top hitters left, you just don't know which ones. So you just replace where you can and you have 20M to work with. One's in its first week and one's starts Monday, but I think they're strong teams and they were fun to put together.