Neat Stuff, Post-Sim Thread: 2026, Season 20

[MikeB]

A few pesky DtD injuries and unusual bad fielding is a poor indication of my new manager/bench coach approach to spring training. Or my own by benching guys a bit too much in preseason but so far I have avoided any lengthy injury (and there really needs to be a knock-on wood smilie!)

Found one!

[Dinosaurs]

Neat news out of Fargo: 4-3 start to the season is a positive, splitting a 4 game opening series in Duluth and then taking two out of three, including the home opener for Fargo, against Toyama.

Staff ace Ernesto Molina, who missed the majority of last season with an injury, has been lights out in his two starts going 1-0 in 14 IP with 18 Ks, 2 BBs, and no homeruns. Left-fielder Matt Carter has led the offense with a .857 OPS and two homeruns in the opening week of the season.

On the not so neat side for Fargo: Young star CF Pat Watson had to start the season on the DL with a fractured hand that he suffered in spring training when he had been hit by a pitch. The knock against Watson has always been his health and this isn't a great start to the season. Thankfully the injury should have him out only another 3 weeks, but in total he's already set to miss the first month of the season.

Also on the not so neat side has been the performance of one of the free agents Fargo had signed this offseason, 1B Ryutaro Okada who struck out 7 times in his first 8 at-bats of this season.

[Ghosts]

Neat 5-1 sim for the Bears over Neo-Tokyo and Reno. Pitching has been great (2.19 ERA) but hitting has been pretty bad (.211/.284/.346). Just noticed that we don't run into Aurora until June, but have 11 matchups with them from June 1-25th.

[kiersteadmo]

Horrid sim for Duluth , pitching and hitting failing us.

[Denny]

Well, a reasonably good sim for the Codgers record-wise, but a terrible one for the long term, as we lose our two biggest cleanup hitters as well as newly-signed Matt Benham, who we had counted on to be a mainstay of our pitching staff, for multiple months. I had toyed with the idea of dealing some of our cusp-of-the-majors prospects before the season, but now I'm glad I didn't, as we appear to need them sooner rather than later.

With the injury setting the way it is, this season is really going to be a test of depth for everyone.

[Wind Dancers]

Still a bit of a bumpy start for Hartford, though too be fair we have run into teams playing some good ball in Kentucky and SA.

Hitting is starting to come along and the pen has been excellent. Masaharu Konishi seems to have been put in the rotation a bit prematurely and will have some time in the pen with Shiskikura returning to a starters role. Alfredo Zambrano is pitching well in his rookie season after the offseason trade that brought him over from West Virginia.

Hopefully, we can turn things up with New Orleans and Scotland on the horizon.

[Coqui]

LOL. I'm watching the replay of the Canton vs. Fargo game from 4/13/2026, and in the first 4 innings the Dinos have 11 hits. . . but only 2 runs thanks to runners thrown out on the bases. I think it's 4 outfield kills, or maybe it's 5.

[Ghosts]

Well, a reasonably good sim for the Codgers record-wise, but a terrible one for the long term, as we lose our two biggest cleanup hitters as well as newly-signed Matt Benham, who we had counted on to be a mainstay of our pitching staff, for multiple months.

I saw that Benham injury and it had me thinking... I was eagerly watching how the experiment of making him a SP would go with his 2 pitches but good stamina. Curious if you had him on a pitch count? In any case, I wonder if using him as a SP player a role in the injury as he hasn't had any starts since college aside from 2 in A-ball in 2015.

A lot of times I think of these guys like robots, but I wonder if the code has evolved to result in something like this. In real life, I wouldn't be surprised if let's say a lifelong reliever got converted to a SP in his 30's and then got hurt. In OOTP, I've seen it done with tons of guys even mid-season with no resulting impact or need to "stretch guys out".

[Zephyrs]

My pitching needs to settle down. We aren't going to have a bunch of Golden Arm candidates but we should be better than this. Also, someone forgot to tell Ramon Leach that he is getting old. I am enjoying his .780 SLG%.

[Duane]

My pitching needs to settle down. We aren't going to have a bunch of Golden Arm candidates but we should be better than this. Also, someone forgot to tell Ramon Leach that he is getting old. I am enjoying his .780 SLG%.

Do as the Cubs - replace the pitching coach you can be the rebel who does it mid-season.

[Denny]

Well, a reasonably good sim for the Codgers record-wise, but a terrible one for the long term, as we lose our two biggest cleanup hitters as well as newly-signed Matt Benham, who we had counted on to be a mainstay of our pitching staff, for multiple months.

I saw that Benham injury and it had me thinking... I was eagerly watching how the experiment of making him a SP would go with his 2 pitches but good stamina. Curious if you had him on a pitch count? In any case, I wonder if using him as a SP player a role in the injury as he hasn't had any starts since college aside from 2 in A-ball in 2015.

A lot of times I think of these guys like robots, but I wonder if the code has evolved to result in something like this. In real life, I wouldn't be surprised if let's say a lifelong reliever got converted to a SP in his 30's and then got hurt. In OOTP, I've seen it done with tons of guys even mid-season with no resulting impact or need to "stretch guys out".

Yes, the "high-end-reliever-to-starter" trick is one we try fairly often in PS, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In this case Benham was on a pitch count--I had him at 80 at the time of the injury. I had started him out lower in spring training and then increased it bit by bit, hoping to get him up to a max of 100 or so.

In real life I would be unsurprised by a thirtysomething reliever getting hurt in the same situation, just like you, but OOTP is weird about that stuff. My guess would be that he is just another victim of our increased injury settings (in combination with Benham himself being more injury-prone) and that it is probably unrelated to the SP conversion, but I don't know for sure. The one other possibility I wondered about is that he had experienced a number of day-to-day injuries shortly before his torn labrum....could coming back too quickly from those have increased the likelihood of more serious injury? Again hard to say.

[Duane]

In real life I would be unsurprised by a thirtysomething reliever getting hurt in the same situation, just like you, but OOTP is weird about that stuff. My guess would be that he is just another victim of our increased injury settings (in combination with Benham himself being more injury-prone) and that it is probably unrelated to the SP conversion, but I don't know for sure. The one other possibility I wondered about is that he had experienced a number of day-to-day injuries shortly before his torn labrum....could coming back too quickly from those have increased the likelihood of more serious injury? Again hard to say.

To answer this question - in the world within my head, YES, but we are not there, it's dark and foggy .... stop yelling at me .... no, please don't ahhhh how did you find me.

[Duane]

A Ball starts this sim ... set your rosters

[Denny]

To answer this question - in the world within my head, YES, but we are not there, it's dark and foggy .... stop yelling at me .... no, please don't ahhhh how did you find me.

Bill, is that you?

[Duane]

To answer this question - in the world within my head, YES, but we are not there, it's dark and foggy .... stop yelling at me .... no, please don't ahhhh how did you find me.

Bill, is that you?

'Bill' will always be alive in my head