SF Giants Dynasty 2005 -

[haze]

Version:  xbox mvp baseball 2005


Difficulty:  All-Star


Sliders:	 Default


Datafile:	Default


Rosters:	 Default  (that means no Randy Winn trade)


Progression: xbox Default


Other:	   StrikeZone ON / Hot Colds ON / Pitch Cursor FADE / Fielding MANUAL

Hey guys, bought this game a month ago and have been giving it a couple hours a night since. First thing i did was start this dynasty with default everything on all-star difficulty with default sliders. Im real dissapointed with MLB's Giants this year so this dynasty is sort of a 'wat could of been'. So Barry will be playing this year

So my strategy for this dynasty much like my reallife counterparts is Win a WS at all costs while we still have Barry. So I signed Jeremy Burnitz at 2mil @ 2 years. With a starting OF of Barry Alou and Burnitz my defense rating was near the bottom but Burnitz added plenty of bat in the lineup belting 29 homeruns in 2005. I use a 4-man rotation, play the first 3 games and sim the 4th. There was also a big trade with Boston. Brett Tomko and some prospects for Curt Schilling. Apparantly Curt had lost his appeal in Boston as I was pleasantly surprised when Boston accepted the trade. That being said, I pay Schilling 10mil a year and he is a FA coming off-season so he may just end up being a rental. I also traded for some good prospects. Felix Hernandez from the Mariners and Andy Bako from the Braves.

Right off the bat I realized my timing was way off. There were times early on where i was flailing at everything, curveballs 2 feet in the dirt, swinging way ahead of changeups, etc. Then i finally figured out hitters eye and now do much better, though i only draw 2-3 walks a game on a good day, and that is mostly IBB by Bonds. My pitching was fine from day 1.

So here is what my roster looks like now. The Giants are in the first round of the Playoffs right now so ill finish up this dynasty thread after they win the WS (hopefully

SP1 - Schmidt 18-12 3.05 era

SP2 - Schilling 22-12 2.85 era (cy young)

SP3 - Noah Lowry 11-6 3.75 era

SP4 - Kurk Reuter 15-1 2.56 era

Emergency Starter - Ryan Franklin

LRP - Pat Borchard

LRP - Felix Hernandez

MRP - Mark Valdez

MRP - Brian Villafuentes

SU - Jeff Nelson

CP - Armando Benitez

C - Matheny/Yorvitt platoon

1B - Snow - .332/25/52

2B - Feliz - .263/12/59

3B - Alfonzo - .291/13/62

SS - Vizquel - .289/12/52

LF - Bonds - .326/44/110 (MVP runner up)

CF - Alou - .297/32/92

RF - Burnitz - .290/28/83

My Giants won 93 games their first year and got in with the wildcard by a wide margin. The Padres almost won 100 games i couldnt believe that

[haze]

Playoff Update

First round opponent for the Gigantes were the NY Mets, the surprise team of the NL who clinched the NL east pretty easily. Going through the pitching matchups the Mets will not use Pedro until game 4 and with that all of Giants nation breathed a collected sigh of relief. That being said, Schmidt loses Game 1, but Giants bounce back to win the next 3 including the series clincher at SBC Park, Lowry vs Pedro. We won that game 5-3, and to my uptmost surprise I slapped Pedro around.

Heres how I've been using my pitchers throughout the year:

SP1 - Schmidt

The ace of the staff, Schmidt had a dissapointing year. He was only a few games over .500 and almost lead the team in losses. I attribute this to my lack of offense the first 3rd of the season, therefore Schmidt was always facing the ace of the staff and lost a lot of 1-0 games. After I finally figured out how to bat reasonably well, Schmidt had a fine 2nd half.

SP2 - Curt Schilling

Curt came to San Francisco in the blockbuster trade of the year with high hopes and expectations. Almost immediately he delivered for me. Schilling was 3rd or 4th in the cy young voting through most of the season but after the 2nd half offensive explosion by the Giants Schilling skyrocketed to #1 winning it easily. Led the league in wins and IP, and 3rd in SO. I think Schilling has the best Fastball in the league.

SP3 - Noah Lowry

Coming off a fign rookie campaign in 2004, Lowry was expected to do resonably well. Winning 11 games merely met expectations and I'm hoping he'll progress next year to start #2 status. His pitches needs improvment though, as his FB is 80 something and he has 2 other 70 something pitches.

SP4 - Rueter

A career year for Rueter. I somehow found a groove with Woody with his overrated Curveball. I would bust hitters inside with FB and then get them to chase the low and outside Curve all day long. Going 15-1 one has to wonder how much money he will command this offseason.

LRP - Felix Hernandez/Borchard

2 young prospects who I stuck in long relief so they could develop further with big league experience w/o letting them affect the outcome too much. Borchard came up through my farm system, and Felix I traded from the Mariners. Traded away a bench player and 2 pretty good prospects of my own to get Felix but obviously it was a good trade. Felix's FB hits 99mph

MRP - Villafuentes/Valdez

Villafuentes had a career year. Probably the most dependable reliever on the Giants' staff, he had an era a bit over 2.00. Villafuentes was probably in more setup situations than Jeff Nelson but in the Pitching depth chart he's listed as MRP. For anyone that has Villafuentes or have ever played with him.... he has a filthy slider. Batters chase his sliders all day. Valdez is another prospect that i fell in love with. A top 100prospect guy.

SU - Jeff Nelson

Not much to say here. I signed him out of FAgency for 2 mil a year for 2 years. A pretty good size salary for an old middle reliever but I figured I needed another righty reliever. He had a fine year and finished with an era around mid 2.00

CP - Benitez

Much like his real life self Benitez had an injury plagued subpar year. He spent about 40% of the year on the DL, and when he did play I never found a groove with him. He finished the year with a whopping ERA of 4.20 and lost a handful of games for me. His splitter as I later found out is VERY hittable.

[haze]

Still in the middle of Round 2 of the playoffs. The Giants go up against the vaunted Cardinals. Just looking at their lineup i know im gonna get killed. Speaking of lineups here was mine throughout most of the year. At first i struggled like hell but after the all star break, i finally got the timing down and did MUCH better.

C - Matheny/Torrealba platoon

Matheny bat against righties and Yorvit against lefties. Yorvit has his contact and power in the mid 70's against lefties so i figured it was a worthy platoon. BOTH SUCKED. Matheny finished the year barely over .200 and most of the year had 0HR until the last month i decided to just pull everything. He ended the year with 3 homeruns LMAO. I think im gonna trade back for A.J.

1B - JT Snow

Snow had a good season for me. He is a damn nice hitter and throughout the year i sprayed hard liners down the right field line. He's rated pretty good too, with power in the mid 80's and contact 90. He was on the IR for a month or so hence his numbers are a bit skewed.

2B - Pedro Feliz

Was looking for a breakout year from Feliz as he is rated in the mid 70's for Contact and Power. Instead he flopped to a .250 avg with a measley 12 HR's (which is how many Viquel hit this year too LOL ). Actually Feliz was batting .220 most of the year before he got hot the last 2 months. Boo him. I ended up platooning Ray Durham in more often.

3B - Alfonzo

Typical Alfonzo season. He won a Gold Glove and hit near 300 with a handful of dingers.

SS - Vizquel

Won a gold glove and truly played stellar defense. He has both the speed and arm icon, and has the glove icon but i dont think EA had space under him to put a 3rd icon in there, but he is a good fielder and i've personally made some incredible plays with him. On the plate he surprised me too. His hotzone is on the upper part of the strikezone so on many occasion i looked for a fastball up and mashed it to Mcovery Cove.

LF - Bonds

TYpical video game like numbers for Bonds (literally hehe). Was a top2 MVP candidate before an injury the last week of the regular season took him out of the race. Still was the runner up. He's up and running in the Playoffs now and both contact and power is 100.

CF - Alou

Thought I would have a lot of OF fielding problems with Alou and Burnitz playing that big ol Right-Center Field expanse of grass in SBC park, but they did alright. At the plate Alou did merely OKAY. Was hoping for more but cant really complain about 32HR's.

RF - Jeremy Burnitz

An offseason aquisition, Burnitz immediately put another potent lefty in my lineup. He did well but a friend of mine who has played a dynasty with Burnitz on it says his ratings go downhill FAST after the 2005 season. We will see.

Bench - Ray Durham, Marquiss Grissom, Steve Brassard, Andy Bako

I tried to go for a nice combination of speed, defensive substitution, and some homerun pop on my bench and personally i think this is the best bench in this dynasty season.

[Emil]

Looks good! Nice to see some Giants dynasties!

[haze]

thx emil. the MLB giants will bounce back next year, i can just feel it in me bones!!

[jogar84]

thx emil. the MLB giants will bounce back next year, i can just feel it in me bones!!

if they can get rid of those old players they will be fine.

[haze]

yea i have some tough decisions coming up. Do i resign Barry at his ridiculously high price? Rueter? i know he had a career year but he's asking around 7mil a year. Ouch thats a solid #2 pitcher salary.

As for the MLB giants, too many injuries, too many old guys, too slow. they had their shot back a couple years ago, but that game 6 meltdown :(

[Don]

maybe you should download the latest rosters to kick out those fake minor league players.

[Emil]

yea i have some tough decisions coming up. Do i resign Barry at his ridiculously high price? Rueter? i know he had a career year but he's asking around 7mil a year. Ouch thats a solid #2 pitcher salary.

As for the MLB giants, too many injuries, too many old guys, too slow. they had their shot back a couple years ago, but that game 6 meltdown

Don't resign Rueter. Trade him for some good pitching prospect or let him go. You got some great pitchers in your minor league system, call them up.

As for the MLB Giants, They got some great young guys coming up. Matt Cain, Merkin Valdez, Munter, Taschner, Lance Niekro, Jason Ellison, Fred Lewis, Todd Linden and so on. So the future looks bright. The would have won the West if Bonds had been in the lineup the whole year. And he will next year, along with Alou. And Benitez will hopefully have an injury-free year as well.

So I can't wait for next year!

[Lual]

nice start

g/l in the playoffs

:)

[cubsdominance]

Good luck in the playoffs!

[haze]

thug4life, i dont have xbox live. even if i did, its not like i would know the real minor leaguers any better than fake ones. i just follow the mlb

emil2569, we'll see what ill do with reuter. but your suggestion has been dully noted, as I am a "People's" Owner and i go with whats popular that day. Ill probably make a lot of GM decisions based a lot on what u fellas have to say here. No way im paying Reuter 7mil a year anyways, thats how much Schimdt makes

I used to live in the bay area so listening to the games from work on KNBR or watchign the local games they had on TV it was pretty easy to follow the Giants. Now that Im on the East Coast its more difficult to follow my giants on a daily basis. I think its been years since ive seen a televised Giants game. tsk tsk.. a starving Giants fan here. one of these days ill pony up for a satelite or something

lual thanks

THE GUY WITH THE DODGER AVY

get out.

hehe jk buddy im not a dodger hater. except in september.

[haze]

hey guys just a quick update on my dynasty.

i beat the mets rather easily, and swept the cardinals the giants have been riding the backs of schilling and schmidt and so far they've performed as neither has lost a game they've started.

we now start the world series with the Twins and I am already down 2-0. Benitez failed to save the last game with a 3 run lead in the 9th, which was a major letdown. I just cant seem to pitch with Benitez. His ratings are still high but i think he's slowing down. Next few games will be at SBC Park so im hoping the homefield advantage will help pick up the pace. but not many teams have come back to win the world series down 2-0.

[haze]

[align=center]The 2005 Season is Over[/align]

The Giants were swept in the World Series by the Twins, 4-0. Because i had swept the Cardinals in the NLCS all the pitchers got a few days of rest and so i was able to use Schmidt and Schilling, my two S-C-H ace pitchers for plenty of innings. Unfortunately while the starting pitching was good, my otherwise decent bullpen blew so many world series games for me.

Benitez blew a 3run lead in game 2, and after the game landed on the DL. Villafuentes my most reliable reliever during the regular season had a horrid postseason with an era around 5.00. I made the wrong move in putting him in the closer spot as he was unable to handle the pressure.

Moises Alou had an incredible postseason batting over .400 and collecting a bunch of RBI's, including 5 in game 4 of the WS. Go Alou! ur clutch baby!

Now that the season is over we head into the long offseason before season 2 starts. I wasnt able to win the WS, but managment apparantly thought i had a good season and they gave me a 1million budget increase. I am happy with that as the Giants are still top5 in total salary. I will update after the offseason is over and as we head into Spring Training for 2006 season. Here are some areas of the team i want to improve during the offseason:

Reg. Sea Ratings :

Pitching - 11th

Batting - 1st

Fielding - 21st

Speed - 26th

Overall "smallball" - I dont think I manufactured enough runs, instead relying on the longball too much. The Giants just dont have enough power 1-9 to rely on a gameplan like this. Not to mention we are almsot last in both fielding and speed so ill need to improve that as well.

Power on the corners - Snow had a fine season, but he is 38 and definately on the decline. So is Alfonzo and he had a supar power season as well, so i am looking to improve the power on my corner bases.

2nd base - Feliz played out of position at 2nd base most of the season and had quite a few throwing errors not to mention a horrid range factor. Im hoping if i cant get a power 1st baseman i can move feliz back to 1st and get an upgrade at 2nd. I miss Jeff Kent even though he's a racist hick

Bullpen - When I started the season i thought my bullpen would be my strength but turned out, the bullpen was the Giants pitfall during the playoffs. I just cant fill out half the pullpen with rookies as now matter how good their good pitches are rated, rookies are rookies and i got slammed picthing with them. Heres to hoping Felix Hernandez improves during the offseason.

[Don]

most dynasty forums put a report after each single season or post/season game.

[UberKarros]

Everyone knows "manufacturing runs" just wastes outs. Unless you have an extremely fast team that can't hit well and a starting rotation that is so completely dominant that they never give up more than 2 runs a start. And looking at your roster, that is not what you have. Just add some home run bats next time, maybe take out a veteran pitcher or Omar Vizquel. Or trade Barry Bonds for some powerful pitching and try your small ball strategy. Schilling...eh...I would try along the lines of Johan Santana.

[haze]

hey thug, thx for stoppin by. im trying to follow the basic format of a dynasty thread as ive read through a few here and 'copied' some of the layout ideas. as for the rest, i think we're all unique ppl so im sure my own style will blend into this dynasty thread soon enough. im just not used to forums quite yet so im still learning etiquette, etc

uber, even with default settings i was able to steal bases relatively well (realistically of course). As for Vizquel no way in hell I am dropping him. He's cheap and this year he batted near .300 with 11+ HR and 70+ RBI's, along with Gold Glove defense and around 20 steals. Not many Shortstops can do this that I know of.

Bonds of course is not going anywhere. I cant believe you just told a Giants fan to trade Bonds.

I am just about to start my first draft. For some strange reason there are a bunch of Catchers on the board.

[Viceman2004]

What pick do you have?