A Gustav 30 in 30, #26: Mint Jams

[Gustav 6,406]

 

What? Taro again? This is article #26--haven't the past seasons been exciting for you? It's not that they haven't at all. It's just that giving things time has shown me which memories deserved to last. Also, I guess I may have done the VHL equivalent of peaking in high school. But we don't talk about that.

 

 

Imagine, if you will, an article where I talk about myself succeeding with STHS. Everything up to this point has indicated that I'm either unlucky, unskilled, or that Simon has a particular hatred for half-Italians living in the rust belt. You've already read my multiple articles dealing with my time as a GM, where I tell you all about how I created locker rooms I'm proud of and led them to consistently disappointing results. You've hopefully also read what I had to say about how truly awful my first player was for most of his career. The last we heard of Taro Tsujimoto, it was the end of S78 and he had finally established himself as the top forward in Davos. Also at the end of S78, Davos found themselves in a bit of a crummy juncture. I talked about this in my third Davos management article and go over the situation independently of Davos in my last one about the E, but as a GM at the time, I had the same issue everyone else had: clickers. My farm team was full of players who, if they made the big league roster, would not only not get to play much themselves but would strip time away from all my top players who wanted all the ice time in the world. So, I paid through the nose to do what no other GM in that offseason was able to accomplish in finding a trade partner for all of my low-earning prospects.

 

Suddenly, the situation in Davos had resolved itself, and the makeup of our pro and farm leagues looked much like it did pre-S75. Although we didn't have as many resources, we were one of the few truly old school-style systems in the league at the time, and my player was at the forefront of it going into his fifth season.

 

Taro responded by having a really weird year. Maybe it was because we were suddenly (literally) built different, but what should have been a defining moment turned into a career low in goals. He was still pretty good--a then-career high in assists gave him only a one-point drop-off in points from the previous season--but he wasn't the goal-scorer he was. With the first net positive rating of his career, though, he was finding his place on a team and learning to fit in as a leader.

 

S79 was also Taro's first trip to the playoffs after just missing Davos' first competitive window. It had taken half a career to get to that point, but he put the team on his back the second he got the chance. Seattle and Malmo took 18 and 19 games to play through every round, but Taro managed to be third in goals among all players, scoring over a goal per game and clocking in at the highest point rate out of anyone by far.

 

 

Until Lazlo Holmes led in blocked shots last season by virtue of simply *existing* on Prague, I didn't think I'd ever led a league in any category. Turns out I was wrong--Taro had 21 points in 10 games, which would have been on pace for 152 points over a regular season. S79 playoff Taro would have been a very sensible Kanou pick had things worked out.

 

Unfortunately, seeing 10 games played should tell you that the playoffs didn't go exactly the way we'd hoped. It does tell you that we won a playoff series, which was a rare occurrence in my GM tenure. Something else that the list should also hint to you, in that the same handful of teams appeared multiple times on the leaderboard but there was no one else from Davos, was that Taro would learn to work extremely well on his own.

 

It turned out that S79 would be the last time the league could ever consider itself normal. We were still on our old update scale, and as I talk about in my article about the meta, S80 was when things got truly insane. It was the first season of Vancouver's threepeat, and anything I thought was previously established about Taro settling into a primarily-assists role went out the window. Taro put up career highs in goals, assists, and, of course, points, while following one plus rating with another. The only number that dipped (by over 100) was hits for some reason, but who cares when you do so much better with everything else? The thing was, so did everyone else with it being the meta season. I finished up nowhere near the top of the points list and didn't think that S80 would mean much in the grand scheme of things. After all, the big news was in Vancouver and the even bigger news was the controversy that was stirring up. Taro put up a goal per game in the playoffs again, but this was only in one five-game series loss. Oh well.

 

So, imagine my surprise when I did my usual award voting and saw myself in the running for MVP, and imagine a little more how it may have felt to see the top post in that thread made by @fromtheinside and reading as follows:
 

Quote

Julian Nousiainen was involved in 42.85% of his teams total offense, the second highest total of the names off this list. 
The highest was Taro Tsujimoto who had 45.7%. The fact he was involved in nearly half his teams offensive production, while still being a center who has to worry about winning faceoffs on top of that. 
 
If we are talking about the player most valuable to their team, my vote is Taro Tsujimoto.

 

That was unexpected, to say the least. It was a really weird ballot, to be fair. S80 saw eight whole nominations, with two nominees from each of three teams making up six of those. From experience, I can say that the BoG doesn't tend to like voting for players that aren't unquestionably the MVP of their team, so having two on one team was already a disadvantage for most. In terms of most outstanding, the other player on the ballot who was getting attention was @OrbitingDeath 's Duncan Idaho, who had me beat by a mile. He'd recorded four fewer points, but had scored eight more goals and more than doubled up on my hit total. By the same argument that was put forward for me to win, though, he trailed--Moscow was a better team than Davos, and Idaho's share of his team's points was lower. 

 

I don't like to influence awards when I'm in the running for them (which is a lesson that I think BoG could do well to learn sometimes). I decided that my best course of action would be to say nothing in that thread and vote for Idaho when the form opened. That way, I'd have nothing to do with the discussion and could feel like I really earned it if I ended up winning. So, that's what I did. As it turns out, I could have voted for myself and been the only winner of the award in S80, but instead, it ended in a tie. That's not something I'll complain about at all--I think the outcome was actually pretty fair, all things considered, and I'd probably also have felt weird if I made a point to bias voting away from myself and lost by one. I wrote this article after the fact, still, because the use of point shares as the main argument was very new and I didn't know how to feel about it.

 

Anyway, I'd just won my first individual award ever, and it was the biggest one the VHL has to offer! It was time to turn to S81.

 

I'd be lying if I said that S81 was one I approached with optimism. I'd considered stepping down as a GM both that offseason and the one before, and took the team through the offseason without doing anything at all for the first time in quite a long time. Davos did have a few good players at that point, and some were from pretty recent draft classes, making us playoff contenders. That said, the meta was in full swing at this point, and we were not a meta team. Taro had arguably his third weird season in a row, again putting up a career high in goals (and hitting 50 for the first time) while taking a dip in points. The physical game that had dipped a bit in S80 surged back strongly in S81, though, and I broke 300 hits. Finishing below 100 points in a meta season, though, was never something that would be noticed by anyone, and my 98 points then meant essentially nothing despite respectable placement on the goals leaderboard. Davos squeaked into the playoffs again and lost in 4 games, with Taro again turning up the scoring a little bit but just not impressing enough.

 

After S81, I'd had enough. The E was on its way, as was the need for a rebuild thanks to my predisposition to trade all my future resources for aging players. I didn't feel motivated to deal with these things on my own and just felt that the GM would be in a better place with someone who cared about them. So, I was out as a GM and handed over the team to @Alex, who's been GM ever since. If I remember correctly, he did give me the option to stick around for my last season, but I let him do whatever he wanted to get value out of Taro with a rebuild on its way. I don't remember if I had anywhere I didn't want to play for at the time, but I do remember I was fine with playing for Seattle. The deal went through, and I became completely disassociated with the Davos franchise for the first time in a couple years.

 

S82 saw Taro in a different uniform for the first time ever, and I'm sure that seeing his name associated with anyone other than Davos was a shock to a few casual members here and there throughout that season. This was the last season of the meta before hybrid attributes rolled in, and it was also Taro's last shot at anything meaningful. Aside from the award win in S80, it was looking like he'd end up as an installment of my not-yet-conceived Hall of Not Bad series.

 

As it turned out, S82 would be nothing short of magical for Taro's legacy. I've noticed over time that Seattle has always been a little bit weird when it comes to individual player stats--sometimes, we'll go looking for an MVP or even just a team scoring leader and we'll have trouble coming up with players from the Bears, even when they're good. That's not true all the time, of course, but it was true for most Bears players in S82. Except for none other than Taro, who recorded new career highs in goals (53) and points (139) and put up numbers that were even impressive for the meta era. Seattle made the playoffs, as usual, with Taro as the unquestioned face of the team that season. Just how unquestioned was a thing of history, by the way. Taro would finish S82 with 52 more points than the next-highest total on the Bears, a mark that was still by far the record as of @DMaximus ' last installment of the Unofficial VHL Regular Season Awards. That, and the same offensive share argument as before, popped up in BoG in award voting, and even though I handled it on my end the same way as I did in S80, I didn't write any article disputing the award win this time because I agreed with it. 

 

The playoffs were Taro's last chance ast success, but with the meta still in effect and Taro now playing in the NA conference, the conference champion was all but decided. Seattle did manage to make it to the conference championship series, but got knocked out by Vancouver on their way to another championship. Taro again put together a top-tier playoff performance, but one player can't do it all and his career faded off into nothing.

 

The next season, Taro was voted in to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Looking back on it, he was pretty clearly the best player of S75, a draft class that will forever define league history. With two MVP wins, too, he certainly had the award cabinet to match the vote, as confusing as those wins may be given a complete lack of other awards. 

 

 

The response to my induction was pretty well deserved.

 

I don't know if I'll ever have as much fun with a player as I did with Taro, and I find it hard to believe that I'll come up with any other player who I get to make as much the face of a franchise or as well-known leaguewide. I was Davos for a time. I was one of the players who succeeded without a full meta build, and I was one of the players who got attention consistently in league media without needing to be on a meta team first. I heard lots of good things about Taro when I was building him, and I like to think that he made an impact on the league outside of the sims. Maybe the day will come when I match the Taro Tsujimoto experience, and if it ever does, I'm sure I'll love it.

 

 

 

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience:

 

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?

#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?

#4: The House That I Built

#5: Can We Fix It?

#6: American Beauty

#7: The Kids Are Alright

#8: Dogs In A Pile

#9: I Just Wanna Grill For God's Sake

#10: This Old House

#11: Go Directly to Jail

#12: If You Can Dodge a Color, You Can Dodge a Ball

#13: How I Messed Up Davos

#14: Ello Gov'nor

#15: Weewoo

#16: Jolly Kranchers

#17: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 2

#18: I've Been Everywhere, Man

#19: The Sun Also Rises

#20: Ripple In Still Water

#21: How I Messed Up Davos, Part 3

#22: I Hate the Meta

#23: I Hate the Mods

#24: I Hate Bureaucracy

#25: I Hate the VHLE

[Alex 3,199]

11 minutes ago, Gustav said:

 

After S81, I'd had enough. The E was on its way, as was the need for a rebuild thanks to my predisposition to trade all my future resources for aging players. I didn't feel motivated to deal with these things on my own and just felt that the GM would be in a better place with someone who cared about them. So, I was out as a GM and handed over the team to @Alex, who's been GM ever since. If I remember correctly, he did give me the option to stick around for my last season, but I let him do whatever he wanted to get value out of Taro with a rebuild on its way. I don't remember if I had anywhere I didn't want to play for at the time, but I do remember I was fine with playing for Seattle. The deal went through, and I became completely disassociated with the Davos franchise for the first time in a couple years.

How else do you establish dominance then by having your first trade ever being the former GM?

[LucyXpher 1,409]

I just wanted to say that I really enjoy reading your articles. That's all 

 

[Gustav 6,406]

6 minutes ago, Alex said:

How else do you establish dominance then by having your first trade ever being the former GM?

 

Honestly Vandelay was the first player where that didn't at least kind of happen. At least the other time was me bringing Garcia to Davos--I was sort of unofficial AGM in Malmo for a bit and ADV left that offseason--so I guess it's even.

 

4 minutes ago, LucyXpher said:

I just wanted to say that I really enjoy reading your articles. That's all 

 

It's really appreciated! I think the league needs good content and I like making it. Hearing nice things about it is just a bonus but I'll always take that too.

[Triller 1,659]

I still worry that my first player will be my best and if I would be able to maintain a high enough level of excitement overall for the league if that ended up being true through my next couple of players.  Leonard didn't even have much of a standout career.  I wanted to make a playmaker and winning the Beketov in S91 as a forward made me feel like I had accomplished that goal even though Leonard didn't even land on the All-VHL Second Team that season likely due to being seen as riding the coat tails of the mighty Molly the Cat.

 

I commend you for finding your roots in the league regardless of how your other players performed and giving yourself a bigger reason to stick around regardless of your ability to build only sub par players.  I don't believe it but that's what I've heard! 

 

I will always want my players to perform well in a team setting first and foremost but it is hard not to want the personal accolades to carry your player to the HoF motherland since that is really the biggest factor in it happening regardless of whether your team could have had success without you.  I may be putting too much pressure on the next player I create but I think I need to pick a more realistic goal that pales in comparison to creating a HoFer and just continue to grow my roots.

 

Always appreciate your views on the league and the history you've made being a part of it!

[Gustav 6,406]

2 hours ago, Triller said:

I still worry that my first player will be my best and if I would be able to maintain a high enough level of excitement overall for the league if that ended up being true through my next couple of players.  Leonard didn't even have much of a standout career.  I wanted to make a playmaker and winning the Beketov in S91 as a forward made me feel like I had accomplished that goal even though Leonard didn't even land on the All-VHL Second Team that season likely due to being seen as riding the coat tails of the mighty Molly the Cat.

 

I commend you for finding your roots in the league regardless of how your other players performed and giving yourself a bigger reason to stick around regardless of your ability to build only sub par players.  I don't believe it but that's what I've heard! 

 

I will always want my players to perform well in a team setting first and foremost but it is hard not to want the personal accolades to carry your player to the HoF motherland since that is really the biggest factor in it happening regardless of whether your team could have had success without you.  I may be putting too much pressure on the next player I create but I think I need to pick a more realistic goal that pales in comparison to creating a HoFer and just continue to grow my roots.

 

Always appreciate your views on the league and the history you've made being a part of it!

My best advice is to recognize just how stupid it would be to get upset by the numbers on some spreadsheet on the portal. Player success is great and it should always be something you work for, but I also remember how I’d watch Garcia struggle to put up 40 points as a vet and I’d still hear about how other teams were trying to trade for me—and that my GM wasn’t going for it. 
 

You can still make your player notable by building the legacy of the name next to the player name, and that’s something that has nothing to do with TPE or points or awards. Honestly, when I say that Taro was my favorite player to build, a lot of what I mean is that the time I was building him was also the time I was doing all that other stuff I’ve talked about recently. It’s definitely up to you what success means, but I don’t think it’s worth wondering whether you have it if you still enjoy what you’re doing. 

[Triller 1,659]

1 hour ago, Gustav said:

My best advice is to recognize just how stupid it would be to get upset by the numbers on some spreadsheet on the portal. Player success is great and it should always be something you work for, but I also remember how I’d watch Garcia struggle to put up 40 points as a vet and I’d still hear about how other teams were trying to trade for me—and that my GM wasn’t going for it. 
 

You can still make your player notable by building the legacy of the name next to the player name, and that’s something that has nothing to do with TPE or points or awards. Honestly, when I say that Taro was my favorite player to build, a lot of what I mean is that the time I was building him was also the time I was doing all that other stuff I’ve talked about recently. It’s definitely up to you what success means, but I don’t think it’s worth wondering whether you have it if you still enjoy what you’re doing. 

100%. I joined because it is a creative outlet.  I like doing graphics and I like hockey and this sparks that creativity and gives me a good starting point.  I likely won't be remembered because of the players I make, it will probably be the graphics lol

[LucyXpher 1,409]

30 minutes ago, Triller said:

100%. I joined because it is a creative outlet.  I like doing graphics and I like hockey and this sparks that creativity and gives me a good starting point.  I likely won't be remembered because of the players I make, it will probably be the graphics lol

I didn’t join because of the creative outlet, but it’s definitely been a huge part of why I’ve kept going— that and the awesome people