The Biggest Loser in ATG9 is…

I didn’t want to guess wrong on the ends, so I went with the middle (Veterans 10s across). I made the playoffs here, but did not on the 200x side (also a neutral park).

My take in hindsight would be to go full hitters park, like Mocha did. Of the eight playoff teams (4 here and 4 in 200x), six teams were in hitters parks, mine was neutral (99 losses) and hendrix08 lost 105 playing in Oakland, the lone pitchers park.

I have no explanation for that, other than maybe either extreme was actually okay.

I doubt I'm the only one who had this idea. But originally I thought going with platoons and using them against their weakness would be the best idea offensively (ie, hit Gates Brown against lefties). Only HAL was stubborn in pulling them for pinch hitters against their strengths (ie, Brown vs righties), no matter how I checked the hitters preferences. And even ten such at-bats could be disastrous in a league where you did not want hits, so I abandoned that idea pretty quickly.

I went with Polo Grounds '41 thinking that my terrible pitchers would be affected by the HR ratings, but none of my cheap hitters would be. I did have a worse record and ERA at home, but apparently not worse enough as I finished in the middle of the pack.

Two points I did celebrate were being able to milk a league leading 208 errors out of my team (though only 48 errors by my 4e88 starting shortstop, Ken Reitz!).

And I was happy that I found three everyday players that hit a combined .189/.235/.263. They were the real leaders in the clubhouse! If only I couldn't found a few more duds like them, especially for the pitching staff.

This league was a lot of fun... albeit I was embarrassed in the finals by going 7-0. My strategy was a mixture of the worst hitters, fielding, and pitching I could find, and some platoons playing the wrong way, playing in an extreme hitters park. I worked fairly well, until the finals...

J-Pav...thanks again for setting this up. BTW, my team is still showing up as active...

I’ll let Strat know. I reckon HAL is still trying to figure out just what the heck is going on still…

Also, Adams is 5-0 in the 200x version, and like here, Strat advised they’re going to let it play all the way out.

Not that anyone cares, but I did ask Strat if they could arrange for hendrix08 to play MochaDog in a seven game series (200x vs. ATG9) by swapping out a team. Unfortunately, it’s not doable, but they got a kick out of the idea!

They even considered making the Upside Down a programmed format, so anyone could start another league like ours at any time. Again, unfortunately, it’s not technically feasible and requires too much manually adjusted programming to circumvent HAL. It is a lot to ask and I very much appreciated what they did for us this time around.

If there’s interest later this year, I may ask them to run it again at Christmas. With the enthusiasm we had in both sets this year, I bet they would do it, however, I won’t ask them to do it any more often than that.

The ATG side would probably even support a 24 team league, which could be even more fun…

I'd be interested. So, if you do it, please ping me if you remember.

Will do!

Also interested in 24 team concept. Unclerowser.

Copy that.