თემა: I.1

Dammit. Coin Flips probably just got an easy win.

I was in the middle of changing my tactics and lineup when i got locked out for the game calculation. It looks like my tactics changes went through, but my lineup didn't. So I'm playing on normal energy with mostly reserves that didn't go to camp.

whoops.

The Coin Flips got another easy win against my team yesterday because I forgot to put my starters back in after the last camp.

Done it myself more than once. Fortunately didn't make a difference in the long run.

Yeah... i mean honestly, i didn't expect to win game 1 with 80% of my team (and many of my starters) still in camp, but i managed to eek out a win there... so i guess i can't be too upset with the 1-1 start to the season.

I appreciate the free wins, but I don't think it'll matter much since I'm not really a threat for first yet, and handball has playoffs as well.

Free OT is always good.

I am liking my young goalies. They are both quite low in Chemistry but by the end of the year that will be corrected.

Rough loss in a tight game against [handball_team=15918] today. I don't remember the last time I managed to hold a team to 24 goals and lost anyways.

My goalies are probably wondering "wtf." So far this season I'm barely over 0.500, yet my 2 goalies are on top of the save percentage leaderboards for the league.

I knew I'd live by my defense this season (while my young guys are still maturing), but I had no idea that I'd die by my offensive so often.

growing pains...

Threw Lamont Russell up on the market if anyone's interested in a good young offensive winger.

Auction ends wednesday, mid day.

(He currently has the 4th highest OR of US-born 16 year olds)

I picked up a beauty of a player today. There are a few 20-21 players available right now for a great price if anyone wants to spend 8 to 20 million. Well worth it.

I've been watching the market pretty closely for the past week or two, and I haven't really seen many awesome values. The main thing that I've noticed is that the market seems to be pretty sparsely populated these days. There doesn't really seem to be much of anything available... at least not as much as I feel I used to see.

Maybe what I'm looking for has just changed with time and I just have overly high expectations on how I spend my money these days. I don't know... but I'm finding it rather hard to find players that I can justify spending the money on. Most of the guys that would improve my team NOW are either substantially older, have lower CL, or are hardly any better than the guys I'm playing and the 17, 18, and 19 year olds that I'm gonna be rolling into my regular starting lineup within the next season or two. Most of the guys that would be worth a longer term investment (high AvQ guys) seem to fetch more than I'm willing to commit to them (to be fair... this is also because I don't really NEED or have room for any more "developmental" type guys until the current prospects take on full time starting roles).

So as much as it's driving me crazy losing away games by slim margins this season because my team isn't QUITE where I want it yet... I don't really see many reasonable solutions coming from the market. So I think I just have to grit my teeth and stay on course knowing that my squad'll get there soon enough (probably by the end of next season).

Regarding the guy you bought (Mariano Fabrizio ):
His market cost / OR is pretty decent because he's a 3/6 CL 21 year old. You can almost always get reasonable deals for guys who have rock bottom CL progressions (17 year olds with 4/6 or as in your case 21 year olds with 3/6). I actually used to target 4/6 CL 17 year olds on the market for that very reason back in the days when they had good enough OR to be viable starters.

You can probably also find decent deals on RFAs these days too if CL is not a concern for you. There's an absolute BEVY of >1400 OR 2/6 and 3/6 CL RFAs rolling out every week. I'd speculate that you could probably find some good deals here because: 1) the team isn't paying attention / forgets to match your offer, or 2) because they're not really that interested in inking a 336 day contract for a guy who, in all likelihood, isn't even a cornerstone of their franchise anymore.

I'm actually fully expecting (well, moreso hoping) that Lloyd Russ will get a decent enough RFA bid at the end of this season that I can justify letting him go.

Man... I think I just realized why I've been bleeding money these past couple of weeks.

6 of my last 9 league games have been away.

That's almost an entire week where I had zero $ in ticket sale income. That's a pretty big hit to the old income statement when you make ~$8m in ticket sales at every league home game (not to mention the tiny effect of souvenier sales).

In retrospect though, I'm actually pretty pleased that I managed to make it through that nightmare stretch with 7 wins.

FYI: Over the coming weeks, I'm going to be bleeding players onto the market (many of which are U.S.-born).

For anyone interested in the following players, I figured I'd list the anticipated auction end times / dates so that you can plan. With the exception of Antoine Strauss 's auction, all auctions will end on saturday afternoons (hopefully this is reasonably convenient). All players will have an initial asking price of $10,000 and be listed 6-7 days prior to their auction end times.

Wednesday 07-05-2017 12:24 pm EST (This Wednesday)
GOALIE
Antoine Strauss
19 y/o, 1223 OR, 82 AvQ, 4/6 CL, 8 EXP

Saturday 07-08-2017 1:00 pm EST
U OFF BACK
Joseph Vaughn
19 y/o, 1209 OR, 81 AvQ, 5/6 CL, 11 EXP

Saturday 07-08-2017 1:30 pm EST
R DEF BACK
Gene Trimble
19 y/o, 1249 OR, 80 AvQ, 5/6 CL 15 EXP

Saturday 07-22-2017 12:30 pm EST
U DEF WING
Sebestyén Palóc
23 y/o, 1585 OR, 86 AvQ, 4/6 CL 25 EXP

Saturday 07-22-2017 1:00 pm EST
DEF PIVOT
Armando Pryor
21 y/o, 1390 OR, 74 AvQ, 4/6 CL 21 EXP

Saturday 07-22-2017 1:30 pm EST
R DEF BACK
Benjamin Lewis
21 y/o, 1427 OR, 76 AvQ, 4/6 CL 16 EXP

I don't imagine that I'll make any changes to this schedule or the players listed here, but if I do, I'll shoot you all a quick update letting you know.

Cheers mates.