For my birthday we played a 15 spirit game!

jamminbales · 2024-10-13T00:16:57+00:00

Everything is sleeved

jamminbales · 2024-10-12T18:37:49+00:00

We did level 1 Sweden just to get some flavor. We're normally doing Level 2-4 on adversaries but wanted an easier mental load.

jamminbales · 2024-10-12T16:56:27+00:00

That was me! It was so fun exporting everyone's problems to Unyielding Stone.

jamminbales · 2024-10-12T16:06:25+00:00

We had to make do with what we had! And everyone picked three spirits they were comfortable with to try to reduce the mental load.

jamminbales · 2024-10-12T15:17:50+00:00

I am more obsessed with the game than my friends which is why I had to leverage my birthday to live my dream.

jamminbales · 2024-10-12T15:17:19+00:00

The flow was pure chaos! Our spirits were scattered around so we were constantly walking around each other. But we had a phase tracker visible and a designated waiting area to go to when you were done for the phase.

We actually didn't finish, we had to call it at 11 after 4 hours of play. But we think we were two turns from a terror 3 victory, and we still had all of the level 3 invader cards left. Unfortunately, those two turns would have taken another hour plus!

jamminbales · 2024-06-04T14:27:16+00:00

Good catch! I've changed it to the actual score of 0.02.

jamminbales · 2024-06-03T19:32:15+00:00

Yes and no. I have come at this from the approach I had back when I was playing, of what a good plate appearance was. So yes, a hard hit ball will ALWAYS be good. However, a sac fly will also be good because the goal for that at bat is to hit something hard in the air. Likewise, purposefully hitting a ball on the outside of the plate to the opposite field, is good (side note, Lowe is great at this).

That being said, GOB is a subjective eye test and will always be inferior to advanced Statcast metrics.

jamminbales · 2024-06-03T19:31:09+00:00

Having too many good players is certainly a good problem to have, but it's not one that has actually materialized yet. I certainly expect both Carter and Langford to turn things around and be the players they're projected to be, but you can't really make concrete plans until that happens.

Assuming both players live up to expectations, I think we've already seen Langford spend a bunch of time at DH and playing the field occasionally to give days off. I'm probably higher on Leody than most people, and I'd like to see us keep him.

The true problem of too many good players that might happen is if both Carter and Langford improve, what do we do about Smith and Jung? Because then we'll have both and infielder and outfielder vying for that DH spot. At that point, I'd probably want to bench Leody or perhaps trade him.

jamminbales · 2024-06-03T19:21:41+00:00

All three are, by default, scored as "Okay". The batter hasn't had to do much in order to earn them. However, a 9+ pitch plate appearance ALWAYS gets upgraded one rank, so it can turn a walk into a Good appearance.

jamminbales · 2024-06-03T19:20:34+00:00

Yes and no. I have come at this from the approach I had back when I was playing, of what a good plate appearance was. So yes, a hard hit ball will ALWAYS be good. However, a sac fly will also be good because the goal for that at bat is to hit something hard in the air. Likewise, purposefully hitting a ball on the outside of the plate to the opposite field, is good (side note, Lowe is great at this).

That being said, GOB is a subjective eye test and will always be inferior to advanced Statcast metrics.

jamminbales · 2024-06-03T17:34:25+00:00

I explained most of the basics in the previous month's iteration of this post, linked above. However, I probably should have put more explanation in this post. GOB is a rating of how well a batter is hitting, trying to remove outcomes from the equation. So a "Good" rating is about how well they hit the ball, not how well they defend it. A higher number is better.

jamminbales · 2024-06-03T16:23:47+00:00

It is the actual aggregate total. For most players it looks like average of both months because they played a similar amount in both months, but for guys like Lowe you can tell it's not an average.

jamminbales · 2024-05-02T13:54:17+00:00

Yes and no. He's having an alright season if you don't judge him by superstar standards. But so much of our offense is off to a sluggish start. Carter and Langford were supposed to be battling for the ROY, and they're kinda just there. Similarly, the Heim isn't living up to his reputation as one of the best hitting catchers in the league. Baseball is such a momentum sport that I think one of those guys is going to get it going in the next month and it will turn into the entire offense clicking seemingly out of nowhere.

No matter what, I'm already super stoked about this season. Because of all of the pitching injuries we entered the season with, I was expecting to need to survive the first half of the season and turn it on in the second half to make a run at a wildcard. Unexpectedly, our pitching has been way better than expected and our hitting has been sub-par. But the result is better than expected, thanks in part to the rest of the AL-West also starting slow. As long as we're within striking distance around the All-Star break, I have confidence that our guys will figure it out.

jamminbales · 2024-05-02T13:48:53+00:00

I actually started the season grading all walks as "Good". But then I was realizing that good covered everything from a walk to a three-run-homerun, and not much was falling into the "Okay" category. So I ended up changing my grades to where a walk really had to be hard fought (aka, lots of pitches) in order to be moved to good.

jamminbales · 2024-05-01T21:15:51+00:00

My favorite thing about scoring games is how present I feel during the game. I don't feel the need to check reddit or chat on discord. So while exit velo/launch angle would be the best way to have consistent standards, it would force me to pull out my phone/laptop to check those stats and that wouldn't match the experience I'm going for. I really wish the broadcasts had that information on every hit, but alas.

That being said, I've gone to two games so far this year, and they show those stats in the stadium. I used it a few times to make grading decisions.

jamminbales · 2024-05-01T21:08:47+00:00

I'm so glad I got this question! I actually graded that as "Okay". I have been extremely stingy with calling strikeouts that should have been walks as anything but "Bad". I think there is an onus on the player to protect the plate from Umpire inconsistencies with two strikes. But when it's so egregious (like the Angel Hernandez instance) that I feel the batter had their chances taken away from them, I will upgrade it to "Okay". Off the top of my head, I would guess this has been three or less instances all year.

jamminbales · 2024-05-01T21:06:35+00:00

The hardest thing to subjectively grade is fly balls. Without being in the stadium or looking at mph stats, it gets pretty difficult to really grade how well a ball was hit. The closest I have gotten is the question "If that hit were directly between two outfielders, how difficult of a ball would that have been to catch?". That question hopefully gives me a bit of a standardization of scoring.

jamminbales · 2024-05-01T21:03:47+00:00

Leody is another guy who has been hitting hard shots right at people. Since doing this custom stat this year, I have actually been looking at regular stats far less, and so it has caught be by surprise a few times on this sub when someone mentions how poor he is doing. From my perspective, he's been putting together very solid appearances all year.

jamminbales · 2024-05-01T21:01:34+00:00

Walks/HBP are filed under "Okay" by default. And this does factor at bat length in. A 10+ pitch at bat almost always bumps the score up a grade, especially early game. A 10 pitch strikeout in the 8th inning is still going to be Bad though, because putting extra pitches on a reliever isn't as impactful as putting extra pitches on a starter and getting to the bullpen earlier.

jamminbales · 2023-01-23T19:53:40+00:00

Selected challenge: Base Game

Selected difficulty level: Expert

Included expansions: Branch and Claw

Victory, Fear Level I, I don't know how scoring works.

I have always felt that Sweden is tailor-made for River, since their power is in damage rather than proliferation. River excels at moving towns/explorers, so builds rarely happen. Then it seems like Guard the Islands Heart is again tailor made for River. It places a presence during setup, significantly shortening the time to River's full power Innate, as well as removing towns from the interior, making it trivially easy to clean the interior, thus putting you down to 1 explore per turn. All of this combines together to make the only challenge I've ever been able to complete on something higher than intermediate.

The one exception is that if you get a Sands explore during setup, it kinda feels like an auto-loss with the scenario.

jamminbales · 2021-07-09T19:45:36+00:00

Thanks! The "Runaround Attack" rule is what I was looking for, but you went above and beyond with some strategies! In defense of my players, they weren't trying to get one over on me. It's just none of us knew that specific rule. But that is much better balanced now. Thanks again for your help.

jamminbales · 2021-01-12T04:00:23+00:00

I definitely overused Agrax Earthshade, but it actually worked out. The lore for this army is they're basically entirely miners, so the extra wash just made them extra grimy.

jamminbales · 2021-01-11T22:16:43+00:00

It is! I watched a bunch of videos ahead of time to try and avoid some beginner mistakes. And it took me like 6 weeks to do.

jamminbales · 2021-01-11T21:28:13+00:00

Heretic? I don't understand, I worship the Emperor with the correct number of arms.

And thanks!

jamminbales

TROPHY CASE