I started this in early-September last year and it seemed to be useful so it’s time to bring back the Daily SP Chart!

The chart will include their performance over the last five starts, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness, and then my start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues. These are general recommendations, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. This is for standard 5×5 roto leagues. The thresholds for H2H starts are generally lower, especially in points leagues so I thought there would be more value focusing on roto.

Let’s go secure some titles!

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If you follow me on Twitter, you’re aware of why last week’s article reviewing 2027 and updating on 2028 never got posted. Let’s take a quick look back at the ’27 season before diving deep into ’28.

2027 REVIEW

After an ugly 74-88 in 2026, we were demoted from Iron back to Stone and we took advantage of moving down a level with a robust 96-66 record. Unfortunately, it was only good for a 2nd place finish behind a 102-60 ballclub. In fact, the 96 wins would’ve only won one of the six divisions and not only did it fall a game short of the wildcard in my conference, but it would’ve been three games shy in the other conference, too!

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If you’ve been reading my Texas Red Bulls OOTP series, then you’re familiar with the Perfect Team mode. Every Thursday they release new content cards available in their packs and this week they let me curate the set! Kris Jardine is the content manager for Perfect Team so I sent him an insanely extensive list of players I’d be interested in and he pared it down to these 12.

Here are the 12 players and some insight into why I chose them:

Jose Ramirez 2016 – His breakout has been really fun to follow, and this season was the taste of it with a .312/.363/.462 line, 11 HR, 22 SB, and infield/outfield eligibility having played 3B and LF. This generated a really solid silver card that will be popular in tournaments and be a staple for teams in Rookie and Stone leagues. Strong contact, gap power, and ability to avoid strikeouts should play very well.

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In the hours after the last update, the team started to turn things around. There was a 10-2 run over a 12-game stretch, but the surge was short lived. We finished 74-88, 5th in the division and actually got demoted back to Stone Level. We had a positive run differential in that update when we were 43-53, but it evaporated as we scored 749 and allowed 780.

2026 REVIEW

The offense wasn’t too bad with the bulk of the lineup toting a wRC+ north of 100, with Joe Sewell (126) leading the club in a part-time role (352 PA). Three of the four players who logged at least 600 PA were above average: Jackie Jensen (110 in 622 PA), Jerry Mumphrey (106 in 616) and Ray Durham (109 in 611). Derrek Lee just missed with a 93 wRC+, but he led the team with 686 PA.

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I knew I was a little behind on giving a Red Bulls update, but I didn’t realize the last one was April 17th! My sincere apologies for that. Anyway, let’s just get right into it, there’s a lot to cover.

2023-2024

In the last update, it was mid-August and we were 65-54, just 4.5 games back of the division leader and holding the second wildcard. We went 13-30 and from that point on in a total meltdown to finish 78-84!!! It was rough. This was the first year moving from Rookie to Stone level so it’s a tougher pool, but that’s still so brutal to have that kind of finish.

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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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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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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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