Author Archive: Paul Sporer

In our last update, I reviewed the 2022 playoffs and discussed our World Series win! As we started the 2023 season, I identified starting pitching as the premium need and put up a poll of three starters for us to choose from: 2019 Jack Flaherty, 1987 Bret Saberhagen, and 2007 Ian Snell. I wasn’t terribly surprised by the fact that Flaherty steamrolled with 45% of the vote, but I made an executive decision to keep both him and the last place finisher of the poll, Snell. He only got 20% of the vote, but he was just so cheap at 650 Perfect Points that I felt he was worth holding.

WHERE WE STAND

As of this writing, it’s August 15th, 2023 and our Red Bulls are 65-54, sitting 4.5 games back of the Boston Kkroncs (not a typo) and holding the second Wild Card. It’s been an up and down season. We started 13-16 in April (with 2 games in March) and then ran up an 18-9 record in May, but we’re just 32-29 since with a .560 win percentage in June, .458 in July, and .643 thus far in August (9-5).

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04/16/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

MAIN TOPIC

• American League Breakouts Out of Nowhere (drafted somewhere around 300 or later)
  • Baltimore (9:00)
  • Boston (15:25)
  • New York (20:00)
  • Tampa Bay (25:35)
  • Toronto (30:30)
  • Cleveland (38:20)
  • Chicago (41:37)
  • Detroit (43:43)
  • Kansas City (47:25)
  • Minnesota (52:52)
  • Houston (57:02)
  • Los Angeles (58:50)
  • Oakland (1:02:16)
  • Seattle (1:05:50)
  • Texas (1:10:54)

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The transcript is below, thanks for coming out!

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04/14/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

CARTOON CHARACTER DRAFT

• Draft Board

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Last time out, we were in mid-August with a remarkably nice 69-46. We finished 27-20, ending atop the division, but as the third-best division winner. Let’s take a look back at the 2022 playoffs and how we are looking as we enter 2023 (which actually started at 9 AM Central this morning, so we’ll be mid-April by the end of this).

PLAYOFFS

The playoffs were a griiiind!

In the division series, we played the 97-65 New Tecumseth Hammers, who also won their division by 5 games. The two teams traded punches, but we came away with a 3-2 series victory (I didn’t get to screenshot all the individual game results, so I apologize for the lack of depth in describing the series. I’ll know better for the future). Onto the LCS, we were set to face the Morrisville Mallards who won the wildcard game after posting a 92-70 record and then also found themselves in a 5-game division series where they edged out the 99-63 West Saint Paul Predators.

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Earlier this week I introduced the Texas Red Bulls. I’m building and managing the team via OOTP’s Perfect Team mode. After an ugly 10-16 start in April, we’re 59-30!! I swear I didn’t just wait until I had 69 wins to write this update! It’s remarkably nice that it turned out that way, but it wasn’t intentional.

AN OVERVIEW

The team is 69-46 as of August 10th, in first place with a 3.5 game lead. We have a +114 run differential which is actually the 2nd-best in the league despite having the 3rd-best record. There’s a team at 76-38 with a +191 and another at 74-41 with a +109 mark (they are 6 games over their Pythag. record). The latest Power Rankings came out two game days earlier and we are third:

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04/09/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

THINGS WE HATE ABOUT SPORTS DRAFT

• Draft Board

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Chat transcript is below!

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04/07/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

NEWS

• Discussing the potential start of a season

SPORTS MOVIE DRAFT

• Draft Board

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Welcome to Out of the Park (OOTP) Perfect Team. You may be familiar with OOTP, perhaps even recently via Ben Clemens’ journey with his Milwaukee Brewers. I checked with Ben to make sure he wouldn’t feel like his toes were being stepped on if I started an OOTP series and he was beyond chill with it because he’s just that kind of guy.

Perfect Team is a card collecting online mode. You build and mold your team through throngs of virtual cards with ratings relating to the year in question whether it’s the 2020 iteration of everyone on a current roster or an early-1900s flashback and everything in between. When you start a team, you get six free packs and 1000 Perfect Points (the in-game currency you can use to buy more packs or players off the Auction House). About 20-30 minutes after you create your team, you’re placed into Entry Pool which is essentially a Spring Training of sorts where games are simulated against other human-run teams every 30 minutes 24/7 until the next Monday.

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