I'm progressing in Out of the Park 26 as the Montreal Expos. It's now the end of 1983, and I'm reminded of Penn State football. Their recently-fired coach, James Franklin, noted that he was fired in part due to higher expectations that his prior successes had created. And this game models that quite well. In the first few seasons, my goals were simple - "Don't suck completely", "Improve our woeful third base position", "Improve the farm system", and similar. Now, it's more like, "Make the playoffs every year, win the World Series at least twice a decade, and take our already second-best-attendance in the league to stratospheric levels". Unlike James Franklin, I did win one championship, so I still have time to win another one, but like for Penn State, it's not going to be easy.
That's because Ohio State - I mean, the Philadelphia Phillies - is in our same division. They just wrapped up their second three-peat World Series in eight years, making them the most dominant team since the late-'40s/early '50s Yankees. And they aren't just skating by, they had an "off year" and went 110-52 this season, finishing 20 games ahead of the second-place Cubs and Expos. That was after 118-44 the year before, a winning percentage bested by only the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates, and the all-time winningest season.
So, how do you beat a team like that? I did it in 1980 when seemingly every player had a career year at once - tremendous amounts of good fortune. The past two years, I've pivoted towards building a young, but highly talented, team that hopefully will peak in the mid-80s just as the current crop of Phillies stars is declining. But with their tremendous success, the Phillies also have the option to sign pretty much any star free agent who might come on the market.
It might not work; while I have many talented young batters, including the 1983 AL and NL Rookies of the Year, I only have one really good starting pitcher, and no elite prospects. A lot of decent options - hence why I could trade a pitcher to Detroit for their Rookie of the Year outfielder - but the Phillies have five guys who could be aces on an average team. And much like the real-life Pittsburgh Steelers, because we keep winning games, we never get the great prospects who are top draft picks - Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and so forth.
Sooner or later, ownership will get tired of being good-but-not-outstanding, and will decide they need new management, even if the way that it's structured means that any management team would have a very difficult time breaking through.
Oh well. It's still satisfying seeing a second or third-year player achieve a breakout season. Or following the league-level storylines - Cal Ripken Jr. setting the new single-season home run record with 64, and Joe Morgan besting Babe Ruth's all-time walks record. They say this McGwire kid might hit even more than 64 home runs some day, but we don't really care about that. We have no chance of drafting him. Most likely he'll wind up with some backwater team like the New York Mets or the St. Louis Cardinals. We'll just be happy if he winds up somewhere in the American League.