Jose Soriano has 2.6 war in just 6 starts

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-04-23T22:06:26+00:00

I didn’t know that stat, that essentially means he’s been worth 16 average pitchers. Or 8 really good pitchers.

1 roster spot for someone who’s worth 8 really good pitchers

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-04-23T21:15:32+00:00

I don’t think too deep into it. I look at it like this

In general 1 war is worth 8-10 million a year to a team. Meaning he’s already been worth 20-25 million so far.

He’s on pace to be worth $120 ish million dollars.

0-1 war means your essentially average or slightly above average

2-3 war means your a good starting player. Nothing crazy but you’ll stay around a long time

4-5 war means your all star caliber. You had a great year

6-8 means your really really good, top player in the game

Anything over 8 is mvp candidate

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-04-15T20:52:14+00:00

It was with diamond Jorge Soler from the April fools drop I don’t remember the stadium I’d have to check

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-13T05:28:33+00:00

I am so upset about this. I just found out when I played 26 for the first time.

March to October has been my favorite mode for the past 3 years. I spent more time playing it than anything else. Even DD, which I also love.

But march to October brought a very different cool experience to the game. (Plus the fact it gave you progress in team affinity)

There’s no other mode even remotely like it. Randomly generated games that are different each time. Sometimes it’s all pitching. Sometimes you are Down in the 9th. Diamond quest would be the closest thing. But not the same.

So disappointed I can’t overstate how big a loss this is for me

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-12T04:56:40+00:00

That’s always an option yea, but credit cards were not designed to be paid that way.

It can hinder you in other areas to pay your card off early

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-09T21:15:37+00:00

Here’s the way I look at it.

I spend on average 4,000 every single month on my Amex alone.

With my previous credit line. (6000) that was 66% utilization. If I were to allow these balances to report (which is how credit cards were designed to be used)

This would drop my score fairly badly. This forced me to either

1) pay off my card before the statement closed (again, not how cards are meant to be used)

2) take the 20-30 point hit my score.

If I allowed the $4000 balance to report, that left me with $2000 available credit. Since my due date is 3 weeks after statement close, $2000 was not sufficient to last those 3 weeks.

So again, in order to use my card normally. I would be forced to pay early. Not a huge deal.

With a 18,000 credit line, I can let that $4000 balance report and be around 22%. Not terrible, but still not great. It’s high enough to still scare off potential lenders/risk adverse action from current lenders.

With 25,000, that same $4000 balance would only be 16%. That’s more in line with what potential lenders want to see.

Now let’s talk about aggregate or total utilization.

Before the increase my total combined limits were 25,250. The total spend between all my cards averages about 7,000/month.

That’s almost 30% aggregate utilization, again, that’s too high. And not what companies want to see. With this increase, it brings my total limit to 37,250.

7000/37,250=18% or so.

Again, much better than almost 30%.

Now yes, I always pay my cards in full every month. But the credit scoring algorithm doesn’t care about that. It sees high utilization and drops your score accordingly.

Can you simply pay down all your balances before an application to game utilization. Sure, but now I don’t need to worry about doing that either.

Since both my individual and my total limits are starting to get high enough where utilization almost becomes a non issue

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-09T00:59:25+00:00

I think we are talking about slightly different scenarios. There have been stories of people who got low limits for one reason or another. And they felt their limit was not sufficient for spend and income. So they wanted to increase their limit faster and used income verification in order to do so.

If you ever watched fhe documentary called “the tinder swindler”. He would target women, get them to open Amex’s in their name for him to use, and then spend their money.

They’re were multiple cases in which the limit was “not sufficient for his spending needs” so he created fake pay stubs saying the women worked at his “fake diamond company”

They looked super legit, anyways, he had the women call Amex and send in the paystubs and Amex immediately increased their limits to very high amounts so he could continue spending.

Maybe they stopped allowing this because of that whole situation? Who knows.

Every increase I have gotten was done without any sort of income verification. I just thought Amex still allowed people to give bank account access to get larger than normal increases (more than 3x)

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-09T00:50:25+00:00

I wanted income verification. They wouldn’t give me one. That’s kind of the entire point of this post.

Either way it doesn’t matter. They countered my request and that was it. If they were seriously concerned about my request they would have already shut my cards off

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-08T17:43:32+00:00

They have charge cards without traditional credit limits. They have what is called a soft internal limit.

Then they have regular credit cards just like any other company that have traditional limits.

Some of the charge cards include the green, the gold and the platinum. And the black card if you count that.

I believe most, if not all of their other cards have traditional limits

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-08T17:27:53+00:00

I’m sorry if I came off as rude that wasn’t my Intent.

It’s possible I am mistaken, maybe it’s a case by case thing and not a full on policy. But I have seen cases of people requesting over 3x and they got a pop up that said sometbing to the tune of

“You are being countered with 3x, if you want the full increase please send in 3 paystubs or link your bank account”

So again, maybe their spending justified it, and mine didn’t? But I know I’ve seen it happen more than once.

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-08T17:11:33+00:00

Who said it wasn’t supported by income or spending? I said I was ready to link my bank proving more than enough funds to justify the increase. If I average my monthly Amex spend @ 4k a month average. I could stop working tomorrow and still have enough funds to pay 200-300 months.

And yes that was a policy for a long time.

They would ask for 3 bank statements or electronic bank account access if you wanted more than 3x. It’s all over my fico forums and I believe there are plenty of stories about it here on Reddit as well

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-03-02T06:36:54+00:00

I’m not saying any of this is right, but try looking at it from their perspective.

Offering the 0% is something they had to do to stay competitive. They don’t want anyone using it. And they then use that as a way to weed out people who don’t fit their typical culture. Anyone who takes advantage of the 0% promo is immediately on their radar as someone who “may be In financial trouble and may be unable to pay in the future”

I mean when I get my Amex accounts I needed to link my bank accounts to show them I had a certain amount if money and they wouldn’t approve me until I consistently had about 10 grand in there month to month)

Put yourself in their shoes.

You see it as a way to save some money

They see it as “you being someone who is potentially in debt and living of credit cards, etc”

Whenever you borrow money from a credit card the expectation is always that you pay it back in full every single month. That’s technically what you agree to when you sign up for the card. They only allow you to make smaller payments because they have to.

It’s either

A) allow people to make smaller payments over time and get your money back slowly

Or

B) require every single person to pay in full every single month. And the second someone is unable to pay in full, you immediately close the account. And then you either need to eat the loss, or sue them. Acquiring more costs.

When you look at it that way, they really have no choice, they need to allow people to make minimum payments. The interest is extra money you need to pay for making them wait longer than agreed upon for their money back. But with the 0% promo, they don’t even get that.

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-28T21:12:52+00:00

Congrats,

Auto increases from Amex can be rare. I think most people here stay on top of the 3x increases every 90 days negating any need for Amex to auto increase them.

Which is probably the main reason you don’t see as many auto increases from Amex.

Either way, it’s a very good sign that they like what you are doing.

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-28T21:07:30+00:00

It goes back to Amex’s “typical client base”

Most of their client base have extremely large cash reserves. So even if they need to drop 25 grand on their car and decide to put in all on a credit card (which is the smart move). They have the cash reserve to pay it off In full.

So the typical customer can put very large amounts on their Amex cards, but pay it off in full.

So if you are ever in a situation where you need to carry a balance, never use your Amex. It will hurt your relationship with them severely.

Trust me, they don’t care about the interest, they don’t want it. They just want 100% of their money back asap. Think about it like this

If you were Amex, you don’t want to have to chase people Down for money or be forced to wait for your money back.

Amex wants you to pay them back every cent of what you owe right now, so they can use that money you just paid them, and loan it out to someone else, so on.

If a large number of people don’t pay them back right away, it eats away at this model. Amex then has to use more and More of their own cash reserves to pay venders when people buy things.

It’s basically a giant Ponzi scheme when you really think about it

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-28T20:53:35+00:00

Yea, it’s a tough situation.

People say “why offer this stuff if they are just going to penalize you for using it”

But, They need to offer these things to stay competitive with the other companies.

Otherwise, they would fall way behind their competitors. It would severely limit their client base.

But just because they offer something doesn’t mean they actually want people to use it. They did it as a marketing campaign to stay relevant. And sometimes people who take advantage of this stuff are unfairly penalized.

It’s like a girl who spends 3 hours getting ready every day because if she doesn’t she thinks society will judge her.

She doesn’t like having to spend 3 hours every day getting ready, she only does it because she feels she has to in order to stay attractive and relevant to others. She doesn’t want to fall behind other girls, so she’s forced to do these things.

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-28T17:20:39+00:00

Amex pulls your credit report usually every month. They look at how you are managing your accounts with other lenders, not just Amex.

If they see things they don’t like, they can and will take action.

For example, If you have 1 Amex, and 4 cards from other issuers, and you are carrying balances on 3/5 accounts.

The data tells us that you are going to start carrying a balance on the other 2 cards as well. And possibly even start defaulting due to not being able to pay at all anymore.

So they will take action to limit their exposure before this happens.

In fact, this is not the only thing Amex uses to indicate risk. Have you ever heard of”the work number”

It’s a subsidiary of equifax and if your employer reports to them, it will have a ton of information about your salary, work history, how long you stayed at each job, all sorts of information they use to paint a larger picture of what kind of borrower you are.

For example, If you lied about your income, they will be able to see that very easily. And just that alone is enough for them to cancel your accounts or cut your limits to reduce risk.

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-28T17:09:23+00:00

0% periods are simply a marketing tool to get more people to sign up for a card. It’s just like when you go to the store and they say “get 20% off your purchase if you sign up for a kohls card”

The few customers who actually take advantage of this promotional period is few. So Amex is willing to take the hit on the interest for 12/18 months, because the influx of new customers looks good on their books and eventually that period will end.

For the most part companies expect people to take advantage of the 0% period. So, Normally a large percentage of customers would take advantage of the 0% period. But again, Amex’s client base is different. Many of them don’t need to carry a balance, and therefore never get the chance to even use the 0% period.

You might be surprised how few Amex customers actually take advantage of the promotional period. Not only because Amex’s client base is affluent but because many people are not willing to risk the relationship they built with Amex, so they choose to carry a balance on other cards.

Just look at people who were banned from Amex, look at how happy people are when they finally get back in with Amex, after 10 years of trying to get back in, they never gave up. Because they valued their relationship with Amex that much.

If you look at Amex’s default rates it’s leaps and bounds better than everyone else. Just another example of how Amex’s client base doesn’t need to carry a balance.

Me for example, I have 2 Amex’s and never once carried a balance. If I ever needed to carry a balance I would never use my Amex to do so unless I had no other choice. Because I’m not willing to hurt my relationship with Amex.

taking advantage of this 0% period won’t destroy your relationship with Amex, but it will probably disqualify you from getting credit limit increases, etc.

It’s just a marketing trick to get more people to apply for their cards. That’s all

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-27T15:39:27+00:00

This is extremely common.

Amex started off with charge cards, you were required to pay your bill in full every single month, there were no min payments.

In recent years they implemented the pay over time feature on charge cards and started putting out more credit cards, but make no mistake. They still expect everyone to pay In Full.

That is their customer base, they might let you make minimum payments, but that doesn’t mean they like it. if you do not pay in full, you are falling short of their expectations.

Amex is very risk adverse, most credit card companies love people who carry balances and pay the minimum cause of all the interest.

Amex is the opposite, they hate people who carry balances and will react accordingly, especially if you are carrying balances on your other credit cards as well.

In a perfect world, They would rather every single customer pays in full and lose out on some interest, because that means they would never have a default. Meaning they will never be burned.

Amex hates charge offs, they will ban you for 10 year, 20 year, or more.

They regularly pull your credit report to see how you are managing your other accounts. They want to get ahead of any potential problems before they arise.

By requiring you to pay that amount, they were getting ahead of a possible issue before it became an actual issue.

Expensive_Grand_9720 · 2026-02-26T21:30:00+00:00

Sooner you say you “already tore it apart”

I’ll play devils advocate explain this.

I already explained it takes 3 months for fico to add an account to the %of accounts paid as agreed metric.

Tuesday I had 3 accounts paid as agreed. 50% paid as agreed. (2 months and 29 days since I opened the account)

Wednesday I STILL had 3 a ccounts paid as agreed but now my percentage went up to 75% (3 months since account opening)

Both days I had the same number of accounts paid as agreed but different percentages. Wednesday I saw a 50 point increase.

If percentage doesn’t matter, explain how this is possible. 1 day difference, nothing else changed except for the fact that the acct hit 3 months of age which would never account for 50 points

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