2018 November Updates
David Hochstein dons another Masters “Green Jacket”
The ninth edition of the DMO Masters Tournament is still wrapping up, but David Hochstein has clinched the title, his second in the tourney’s history. For those of you who don’t already know, the Masters Tournament is a year-long, 4-round cumulative scoring tournament with 72 of the top IS owners competing, with each round having different rules, including both the classic and SSG variations.
Round 4 was a single-season league set in the Deadball Era but with all players available. The tough part was that each owner could only have one player from a franchise on a team. For example, if you drafted a version of Roberto Clemente, you could not have any other Pirates on your team. That made it quite challenging, especially the upgrades! Add in playing-time limits (PTL) on for both overall and splits, and you have a real toughie.
Going into round 4, Scott Matranga (smatranga) held the overall lead with Hochstein 4 points back. Scott’s team had a fatal flaw, as it turned out – a 22-34 record in one-run games. Despite going 87-75 and having one of the league’s best run differentials, however, Scott’s team missed the playoffs, dooming his chances to win the tournament and opening the door for Hochstein. David built his team around a stellar rotation led by a couple of studs who played nearly a century apart, Eddie Cicotte ’17 (28-14, 2.94) and Matt Harvey ’13 (13-7, 2.37). Cicotte led the league in wins while Harvey was among the league leaders in ERA. Hochstein’s offense wasn’t much to write home about, but he leveraged speed with guys who didn’t make errors … a big plus in the Deadball times!
You can check out David’s final roster here:
One of the more intriguing strategies was that of Greg David (gdavid). Despite the league having PTL limits on, Greg started with a team of low-usage studs who quickly turned to pumpkins. He saved $50 million – nearly half the salary cap – to do upgrades to replace the pumpkins. Greg’s “Spoiler Alert” jumped out to an incredible start – starting the season with an incredible 33-3 mark, including a 20-game win streak. The team would continue playing .800 ball for much of the first half of the season while building a 20-game lead – in the first half of the season! Could he hold on once all the money and PA/IP ran out?
As that happened, Greg was left with a team of pumpkins down the stretch, and it got ugly. That .800 pace flipped to .200, while Jack Rudack’s (jaxxr) Jax Mastadons came charging on as the 20-game lead dwindled. But Greg was able to hang on – barely – finishing 91-71 to win the division by just 1 game.
Kudos, Mr. David, and congrats, Mr. Hochstein!
If you want to check out the final standings and link to rosters, you can find them here:
Craig Natale does it again!
The GRAND OPEN TOURNAMENT XII also wrapped up recently, and Craig Natale (natalysis) won again – it’s Craig’s third Grand Open title, an incredible accomplishment!
The final round of the Open used standard league rules. Craig built his team around line-drive hitters with high averages and put them in a big park that limited home runs. Eddie Collins, Roberto Clemente, and Bill Terry led the way – can you name how many batting titles those guys won in real life? Teddy Higuera was the ace on the hill, going 20-5 with a 2.45 ERA. Craig edged out the “Beware of the Blob” team of Russ Mason (SlowCooker) by one game in the regular season, then took the World Series from Russ in 5 games.
If you want to check out the final standings and link to rosters, you can find them here:
And you can review Craig’s championship roster here:
New Salaries Are Here!
We did the regular Classic player salary update over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, so it’s a new world again. In the last re-pricing, defense became a bargain for perhaps the first time in years, but that’s over now. The new bargains? Hard to say, if initial reactions are any indication.
Got an idea for an upgrade or change?
As we mentioned in the previous newsletter, we are working on a bunch of changes and upgrades for Diamond Mind Online, but now it’s time to start thinking about what’s next. Do you have ideas you’d like to see us implement or changes you think we should make? Well, there’s a thread on the General message board entitled “Sim Santa Wish List 2018”. Add your ideas there (and/or comment on the ideas listed), and we’ll consider them for future upgrades.
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