knickH2O--what about this?

[seddrah]

As you know I'm playing as the 2000 Mariners, which is the furthest back I can go with the Seattle team and still get a complete roster of 14 hitters / 11 pitchers that are still on ASB05. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I did the homework for you using retrosheet.org and if you are so inclined to attempt to recreate a Yankees team in its entirety, you'd only be able to go as far back as 2002, but that was one hell of a roster!

here goes:

C. Posada
1B. Ja.Giambi
2B. Soriano
3B. Ventura
SS. Jeter
LF. R.White
CF. B.Williams
RF. Mondesi
DH. N.Johnson

Bench: Enrique Wilson, Chris Widger, Gerald Williams, Karim Garcia, Juan Rivera

1. Mussina
2. D.Wells
3. Clemens
4. El Duque
5. Petitte

Bullpen: Mendoza, Karsay, Jeff Weaver, Ted Lilly, S.Hitchcock, Mariano Rivera

There are some fun guys in there with Robin Ventura, Roger Clemens, Andy Petitte, etc. Also some serious bats with Jason Giambi, Alfonso Soriano, Derek Jeter,....

Maybe that team is actually too good. I don't know, but let me know if you take that on.

I'll keep you informed on the progress of my M's team. I'm pretty sure I can go triple crown with A-rod, if he stays healthy. I find it hilarious that A-rod's hits break down as follows: singles = 8; doubles = 10; triples = 10, homeruns = 19!

 

[seddrah]

That A-rod is nutty. Here is his stats 118 at-bats early into the season:

avg: .458
r: 46
2b: 11
3b: 11
hr: 23
rbi: 54
sb: 15

No one else on the team is playing anywhere near this level. I might have to start giving him some days off and use him as a pinch hitter or he's going to max out all of his stats with a month left to go in the season!

 

[knickH20]

Seddrah..... You have made me cry.....

I play past ASBs just to play as the old rosters but i guess now i can do it here
thanks alot im gunna fix my line up card now.

 

[seddrah]

cry in a good way? or are you sad that I've taken a break from my "old" team?

if the former, great.

if the latter, remember that I always have the love for the old team and the old players and will go back an finish that season7, but right now it is more fun to try something new.

I've played A LOT of games (over 1000. seriously) with that old roster and it is kind of refreshing to play with Seattle, circa 2000, for a change. A-rod is just amazingly good. and I'm enjoying being able to pitch some complete games w/ Freddy and Moyer. Remember--I'd only hit like 5 homeruns in something like 30 games w/ my entire "old" team!! homeruns are fun, and when you hit zero, it is rough.

anyway, don't despair. It is not like I'm switching games or anything. I'm just all about Rickey, Moyer, A-rod and the 2000 Mariners at the moment. Then I will compare how I did to how those 25 guys ACTUALLY did in the year 2000. Hint: A-rod will be better; Sele will be worse (he was an all-star that year and won 17 games IRL). on asb, Sele blows.

If you take on the 2002 Yanks. awesome. we can compare some numbers. If you stick with the old guys, awesome, too. I still enjoy reading how they are doing.

I specifically made sure a few of my old favorites have starting spots on other teams in my current season. For instance, Julio is Detroit's starting 1B; Galarraga is Kansas City's--and he is like 4th in the league in batting!. I think Toronto has Sparks and Jared Fernandez as one and two in the rotation. two knucklers in a rotation!?? they'll be tough to face. Benito is the top catcher in Cleveland. I put Mulholland back with his old team Minnesota and he is their 4th starter. Orosco and John Franco have reliever duties in Cleveland... McGriff is on Toronto with old ASB teammate Barry Larkin.

there you go.

 

[seddrah]

Looking over that 2002 Yanks roster, as good as they are, amazing even, there is not a lot of depth. You would be just a couple injuries away from having to start Enrique Wilson or Karim Garcia. Looks like a fun team. Couldn't help but notice that there is one player both the 2000 Mariners and the 2002 Yankees share: Chris Widger!

He's a backup 1B/C. and he even has a couple of homeruns already for me in a back up role.

That Yankee rotation is unstoppable, though. You'd probably be able to get quite a few complete games! Much better than the Garcia/Moyer/Sele/Meche/Abbott one I'm working with.

 

[knickH20]

I mean cry in A good way. yeah the team lacked much depth. wich explains why they left in the first round that year. Im gunna try and built that team when i havre the spare time.

 

[seddrah]

awesome!

I know for a fact all 25 of those 2002 Yanks exist on the game, but a few you might have to search for. You can always go to the trade screen and sort by name and go through each team till you find them. It would be well worth it.

I look forward to hearing how that goes.

If you have enough spare time, you may want to do what I did--which was to put back together some of the other AL teams. Maybe throw Randy Johnson, Griffey, Cameron, A-rod, and Tino back on Seattle? It will make it more fun when you go against them. It will feel like it is 1999 again!

Give Texas back Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, Sierra, Kenny Rogers, Pudge Rodriguez, and John Rocker (just for kicks).

Making all of those trades is kind of a pain in the ass though. It takes a long time, and sometimes, after making a trade, the receiving team wants to throw the guy in the minors! I had the toughest time getting Omar Vizquel to stay on Cleveland's major league roster. Every time I traded him to Cleve. they put him in AA or AAA. Finally I grabbed Furcal from ATL, traded him to Cleveland. they kept Furcal on the mlb roster, so I then traded Omar straight up for Furcal and FINALLY they kept him. I imagine this is more trouble than most people would go to, but I was trying to recreate one of those great mid 90's Indians teams with Lofton, Brian Giles, Thome, Sandy and Robbie Alomar, etc and they NEEDED Little O at short.

This season with the 2000 M's and the reformed Boston, Yankee, Oakland, Minnesota, Texas, Anaheim, and Cleveland rosters should be pretty damn fun! Since I had robbed the Yanks of a lot of their talent (Giambi to Oak, A-rod to Seattle, Matsui to join Ichiro and a bunch of other Japanese players in KC,etc.) I had to throw a couple good bats the Yankees way. They now have an outfield of Bernie Williams, Gary Sheffield, and Barry Bonds. Griffey is DHing. I know how the Yankees love those old players, so it seemed to fit. Plus it is fun to face Bonds and Griffey. Griffey Sr. played in NY, and Bonds' dad played in NY for the Giants--so it loosely works.

Hope you find time to put those 2002 Yanks together and give me some updates. We'll see who can hit more homeruns--me with A-rod, you with Giambi? see who can have the better W-L record, too. I think I'm 23-7 or something.

 

[seddrah]

I revisited the ASB game and the 2002 Yankees and there are two substitutions that should be made to make the team more accurate.

1) John Vander Wall should be on your bench instead of Karim Garcia. Vanderwall collected 219 at-bats as a Yankee in 2002, while Garcia had only 5. Plus Vander Wall is a more versatile player, so you'd be better off. I know he is on the game.

2) Take Mike Stanton over Sterling Hitchcock in the bullpen. Stanton is a Yankee true and true, and he threw 78 innings to Hitchcock's 39 in 2002. Now I didn't verify that Stanton is on the game, but I see no reason why he wouldn't be. I suppose if you can't find him that Hitchcock would still be a reaonable choice....

Here is the correct, updated 2002 YANKEE roster:

C. Posada
1B. Ja.Giambi
2B. Soriano
3B. Ventura
SS. Jeter
LF. R.White
CF. B.Williams
RF. Mondesi
DH. N.Johnson

Bench: Enrique Wilson, Chris Widger, Gerald Williams, JOHN VANDER WALL, Juan Rivera

1. Mussina
2. D.Wells
3. Clemens
4. El Duque
5. Petitte

Bullpen: Ramiro Mendoza, Steve Karsay, Jeff Weaver, Ted Lilly, MIKE STANTON, Mariano Rivera.

Good luck.

 

[seddrah]

Speaking of old Yankees teams, I had put together one on my game to play against my 2000 M's and just last night I had to finally face them. I ended up trading Bonds back to his original Pirates team and gave the Yanks Raul Mondesi and Rondell White in his place to make the team more accurate.

I played the complete three game series yesterday, and you will be pleased to know that the Yanks destroyed Seattle in game one: 12-1; won the 2nd game on a Bernie Williams' 9th inning hr (2nd of the game) 6-5, but finally bowed down to Moyer in game three with Seattle winning 5-1.

As good as A-rod is, the games are still very close with my team. I'm not just walking out and winning games 10-0 every day. Most games I will narrowly win. But the Yanks were just too much for me yesterday. Arthur Rhodes got lit up in game one giving up 6 er in one inning!

That Yankee rotation of Mussina/Wells/Leiter/Big Unit/Pettite is insanely tough to face. I lost 2 of 3 and didn't even have to face Randy Johnson!

 

[knickH20]

LOL EXELLENT *Mr Burns style*
Well The Yankees always give me trouble when Im someone else
As the Tornadoes they are my ARCH NEMISIS
That is ause they ALWAYS clobber me and if i win... its ussually via a dramitic home run (Fred McGriff or Damion Rolls)

LOL great time great times. Im deff gunna load back that roster and try and rememeber TRUE starting pitching. minus Randy Johnson
Good thing you didnt face the big unit. cuz when i had the Tornadoes face him he threw a friggen perfect game on me....truly the darkest day in tornado history.

 

[seddrah]

Now you will win games w/ Alfonso Soriano triples or Jason Giambi 500 ft homers instead!

Just be glad you don't have asshole Olerud at 1B. the guy can't hit, despite having an A- contact rating. All he does is hit lazy fly balls into the outfield. It is probably my fault, but I just can find a way for him to crush line drives regularly. His hit zone is big, it just gives bad results. At least he is a gold glover....

 

[knickH20]

LOL yep thats been Rickey Henderson up until he broke out for a while in my old guy file.

That is also what I fear that I will dominate the competition with my massive power and talent while using the yanks.

which why i may sudgest lowering their ratings to give the cpu an edge. like lower their ratings by one grade so Giambi has B power instead of A. it may not make too much of a difffrence but meh it may make those 11-0 blowouts into 6-0 blowouts so were moving forward....

 

[seddrah]

The other thing you can do is load up all the AL rivals with big time talent. Give Boston Pedro, Beckett, and Schilling. When you are playing against other superstars the games will be close. Take all of the talent out of the NL and put them in the division rivals. Give Toronto back Delgado. if you do some serious trading remember that when you set up the league, you will want to have ASSIGNED BIG BUDGET for the salary cap option, otherwise teams will keep saying they can't accept a trade due to salary constraints. I truly believe that great pitching will shut down even your Yankee lineup. Put Mark Prior, Wade Miller, Roy Oswalt, Kerry Wood, Brad Penny, Dontrelle Willis, Maddux, Brad Lidge, etc. all in the AL and you will have games that are close even with the monster Yankee team.

That is basically what I did. I personally just don't like to mess w/ player ratings. I like to leave them as is, but lowering the power by a point might not be a bad compromise.

My Mariners 2000 squad isn't nearly as good (aside from A-rod) as the Yankee team, so I'm not faced with the dilemma of destroying the competition too easily. some of the guys like Carlos Guillen, Al Martin, and Dan Wilson are all hitting around .250 or less!

If I continue on with the M's after this season, then I will use the 2001 Mariners who no longer have A-rod, so I'd probably have Boone knocking out 50+ homeruns instead.

I say you just leave the ratings as is, spend a few hours robbing the NL of all the superstars and building some other great franchise in the AL and AL East in particular. Then just see what happens. If you destroy teams, so be it. We can compare numbers on how dominating we are. You can see if Soriano or Giambi will prove as powerful a duo as A-rod and Edgar on my game. And if you get a key guy hurt like Posada or Jeter then your team is already much weaker when you start Enrique Wilson and Chris Widger! You can intentionally dive into walls to get guys hurt when playing defense......

And wait, aren't you playing on an easier level then LEGEND anyway? or am I confusing you with someone else. If you aren't already on LEGEND, then this would be the perfect time to step up the difficulty level.

OR I have one more idea for you!!: you want to play as a complete 2002 Yankees team right--using only guys that were on the team? well it wouldn't be cheating to cut one of your superstars, say Alfonso Soriano, and replace him on the team with Karim Garcia (and start Enrique Wilson at 2B). Do you get my drift? There are 15 hitters on ASB from the 2002 yankees, and you only need 14 hitters to fill up a roster. Maybe leave one of the big bats off--I suggested Soriano because he plays on a different team now anyway and when he was on the 2002 yankees, he wasn't nearly the superstar that he is currently--he was just getting started at that point.

You could do the same thing with pitching if you wanted to--add Stanton, but keep Sterling Hitchcock also and cut a different superstar instead--say Roger Clemens. You could give Roger to the rival Red Sox, since he burned the Yanks IRL anyway.

isn't that a grand idea?

When I put together my 2000 M's I wasn't faced with choice of hitters to take--because there were ONLY 14 hitters on ASB from that team so I had to take them all. I did have choice with pitching however--There were 12 pitchers (and I only needed 11). I opted to leave off Joel Piniero, because he didn't play that much for the 2000 M's, and he is also is much better now on the game then he actually was in 2000, so that'd be cheating a bit.

 

[knickH20]

I accually like that idea better than the other...

I can rob stars and stack the sox.
And not even paulie knoblouck and scott can even it out....

Thats what ill do today.
but while using the 2001 roster.

 

[seddrah]

which idea do you like better? I can't tell from your post.

my opinion would be to go with the 2001 Yanks roster as it exists on the game (no O'Neil, Knobs, etc.). I'm playing w/out Bone w/ my M's. We'll just pretend he is out injured for the year and his replacement is Al Martin!