Anyone else been running any league simulations? I have run several Federal League sims. Interesting what the CM does with lineups. I have the league set to not allow overusage. Those teams that are still missing starts and plate appearances at certain positions will still get overusage, usually coming from their better players. Depending on what they pick up during the last days of the offseason will determine whether they move up or down in how they usually finish. I only have base lineups for Austin and Washington. Interesting note: Washington continually finished last in the early sims until I talked to Ken and got lineups to insert. His platoon lineups he gave me increased his wins significantly. Would probably be the same for other teams. This at least gave me an idea of what numbers most players would put up and where the holes were for most of the teams.
Results clearly show which teams have the talent. How managers use that talent and whether they can get better results based on platoons will be the key to who makes the playoffs. The North and Central have clear cut top and bottom teams. The South could be a 4 team race.
North: Camden and P'burg seem to have the edge with Camden usually finishing first. Petty will occasionally make a run and edge one of them out for second. Montclair and Bethlehem always finish 4 and 5. Getting a reading on Montclair is really difficult because they still don't have enough starts or plate apearances for a season.
Central: No Surprise here. Surprise usually finishes each sim with the best overall record for the League and the CM isn't even using Ichiro as a fulltime player. Brooklyn nearly always finishes second and sometimes even makes a run at the wild card, but usually finishes just outside of the playoffs. Jersey and Humble round out the 3 and 4 spots with Santa Fe bringing up the rear. Interesting note for Santa Fe: The unlimited Marcus Thames nearly always finishes with 30+ homers and 100 rbi. Has reached as high as 60+ homers in one sim.
South: High Desert and Austin take turns finishing 1 and 2 about 80% of the time. Davenport and Washington take turns bouncing one of them out of those spots occasionally. All four teams have won the division at least once and all four have finished last at least once. On a few occasions, all four teams have finished with 90+ wins. This should be a fun division to watch. The wild card almost always comes from this division.
Trades, the waiver draft, and computer managers could make significant changes in the sim results. I will run several more sims once I get the league disks from Tom and see how things change.
Hey Gary, thanks for sharing. I've also run quite a few sims, with very similar results. I just wish that I could be more excited about probably having the best regular season record again. However, that hasn't carried me through the playoffs yet. Perhaps this will be the year!
I'll add that there isn't much drama expected in the Continental League this year. Harmony Grove should easily have the best record and win their division. Buda and SOS will probably fight to the end for the South pennant, with the runner-up easily taking the wild card spot. The CL Central could be a real dogfight though. Elysian Fields usually comes out on top, but will be weaker when they have to follow usage limits. Any of the other other teams in that division could potentially make a run, but ELY won't be easy to knock off. The only other CL team that often ends up with a winning record is WHI, but they are probably doomed to finish 2nd to HAR and short of the wild card. ERI, MAN, HUM, and SPR are all good candidates for 100+ losses.
