Vibing Among Sharks: Hawai’i Fridays Recap Season 15
By: Traci J
Season 15 was a wild and turbulent ride for Internet League Blaseball, but nobody told the Hawai’i Fridays. Despite multiple encounters with Debted players and more than one game under a blinking red light, the Fridays had zero Redacted players and suffered zero Consumer Attacks. This let them focus on what really matters: PARTYTIME.
Whichever Blaseball god makes the schedules finally went easy on the Fridays, giving them only 9 games each against the dominant Baltimore Crabs and Canada Moist Talkers, and only 6 against the Mild High leading New York Millennials. After facing teams with winning records 76 times last season, the Fridays only had 40 such games this season.
The Fridays threw such a big Party in Season 15 that this gift from the Gods got lost in the pile, as the team went 10-30 against those winning teams, and didn’t exactly dominate against losing teams either. After a surprisingly strong Earlseason, and with a helping hand from the Middling Breath Mints, the Fridays settled into the familiar and nostalgic role of 5th place in Mild Low.
Party Like It’s Season 9
Back-to-back seasons of making the Playoffs to start the Expansion Era turned the Fridays into wallflowers in Season 14, when they only had 3 players Party. In Season 15, they cut loose like old times, Partying 12 times in just nine Days, including four Parties each on Days 91 and 99.
Two pitchers, Evelton McBlase and Yosh Carpenter, Partied, shoring up the strong points of the Rotation. Carpenter in Particular reached five pitching stars, becoming the sixth player the Fridays have boosted to five stars in a primary stat, a list that includes Gabriel Griffith, the player Carpenter replaced via Feedback.
Beck Whitney Partied the hardest in their first season as a Friday, hitting the proverbial dab three times, including twice in one game. Valentine Games and Jacob Winner both default danced their way to two Parties each.
Rounding out the batter Parties were boosts for the team’s three worst batters: Sutton Dreamy, Baldwin Breadwinner, and Spears Taylor. These three players were all top ten in the League in total strikeouts for Season 15 (especially impressive given the Fridays’ nine player Lineup) and they all bat back-to-back in the order. These boosts are especially welcome for Taylor, who had a rough season following an allergic reaction last Season and produced one of the lowest batting averages in the League, at 0.036.
Visiting Superstars Feel the Vibes
The Season 14 Election granted the Fridays two of the flashiest non-Crab signings: Tacos/Spies/etc. legend Valentine Games and Flowers/Dale darling Beck Whitney. These superstar batters kindly checked the Vibes and contributed to Hawai‘i’s PARTYTIME run by producing some of their worst hitting numbers to date.
Valentine Games had a fantastic season by most Players’ standards, leading the Fridays lineup in nearly every statistical category, including hits and home runs. However, it was still a step down from their recent production, with Games reaching base and getting extra-base hits less frequently than any Season spent with the Tacos.
Beck Whitney had an even steeper drop off. Despite six batting stars, Whitney was only the fourth best batter on the team by most statistical measures, falling behind Games, Bates Bentley, and Christian Combs. Whitney reached career low marks in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. Hopefully a bevy of boosts and some more familiarity with the Fridays’ (lack of) system will let Whitney reach their full potential.
Fruitless Observations
The resurrection of Chorby Soul and former Friday York Silk had drastic effects throughout the League, and while the Fridays never had a player Redacted, several players became Observed.
The Fridays faced the Seattle Garages quite often this season, which meant a number of encounters with both Soul and Seattle Receiver Wyatt Mason X. Mason X caused Christian Combs to become Observed on Day 25. Later that series, Fridays batters Breadwinner, Dreamy, and Juice Collins all became Observed in a single game. The Fridays escaped that game with zero Redactions and two Wins, thanks to Sun 2.
During the Lateseason, the Fridays finally started playing the Crabs. York Silk hit a ball at Spears Taylor and Beck Whitney, but both Observed attributes wore off before either player got snatched.
Pumped Up Tricks
During Stadium Renovations, the Fridays resisted the temptation to build a Secret Base, instead focusing their efforts on Flood Pumps and a Grind Rail.
The Flood Pumps will keep Immateria surges during Flooding weather from increasing the Cookout’s Filthiness. If recent research into Level is accurate, this should also help prevent Consumer Attacks.
The Grind Rail provides runners on first a way to steal third directly— if they have enough style. Valentine Games flashed the freshest tricks of any Friday, landing an Upshell into a Bonerattler for a gnarly 4167 point combo, good for the 15th best combo in the League.
Crabday Night Lights
Ever since Baltimore recruited Nagomi McDaniel from Hawai‘i in the Season 3 Elections, the Crabs and the Fridays have been inextricably linked: a League crushing Goliath and a chill David too busy Partying to slay giants. The Fridays took three of the Ascending Crabs’ players in the Season 10 Elections, and the Crabs returned the favor in the Season 14 Elections, acquiring (or reacquiring) three of the greatest batters ever to play for Hawai‘i.
Yes, much like siblings, the Crabs and the Fridays are always borrowing from each other. With that in mind, let’s check in on how the Fridays’ sister team fared with their shiny new toys: Alyssa Harrell, Nagomi McDaniel, and York Silk. For brevity’s sake, let’s call those three players the Crabdays.
The Crabs went from a Free Will to the best regular-season team in Blaseball in Season 15, racking up 71 Wins and the top seed in the Mild League. They were powered by the League’s best defense and a top 5 offense led by the five-or-more star Crabdays, huddled together near the top of the order.
They started the season off scary, as York Silk’s Debt caused many opposing defenders to be marked as Observed, with a chance of being Redacted in Coffee Weather. On Day 43, a world-weary NaN, pitching for the Lovers and temporarily Echoing Debt, turned the eyes of the Observers back on Baltimore. NaN, a former Friday as well, singled out the Crabdays and Beaned each of them once, harming no other Crabs. Luckily, the effect wore off before any of the three were Redacted.
With undeniable Star power and a championship legacy, the Crabs were quicker than most to draw a blinking red dot. As the three batters with the highest stars on the team, all of the Crabdays were tasty targets for Consumers.
Nagomi McDaniel was the first to be chomped on Day 70, and the hits only kept on coming. During Fridays’ first series in the Crabitat—the first time Harrell met Baldwin Breadwinner on the field since the two were Exchanged in the Season 14 Elections—Harrell was Attacked by Consumers.
Day 91 marked the first time York Silk played in the Cookout since being Incinerated. The Fridays celebrated in style with four parties in a single game. Joy turned to horror on Day 92, as Friday Fans and players alike saw their hometown hero devoured by Consumers in another gruesome Attack. It was a terrible sight for everyone but Yosh Carpenter, who Partied in the very next Inning.
The vicious Attacks came to a head in Game 3 of the Crabs’ Division Series matchup with the Kansas City Breath Mints. Consumers Attacked Harrell, revealing to the League at large what happens when Consumers try to take from a player with no Soul left to give: Harrell became Redacted, and disappeared from the Crabs’ Lineup.
Nagomi McDaniel, already running on empty after drawing the ire of Consumers in games 1 and 2, was the next to go. Near the end of the seventh Inning, Nagomi was chomped for the final time, and became Redacted.
The Crabs beat the Breath Mints in that series but were too depleted to move past the Moist Talkers in the Mild League Championship Series. Baltimore starts Season 16 with zero Crabdays after those same Talkers plundered York. Our Dork is still only a few chomps away from joining Nagomi and Harrell, wherever they aren’t.
The Crabday legacy lives on in the hearts of the old guard: Fridays players Sutton Dreamy, Montgomery Bullock, and Valentine Games were all Crabs when Blaseball first returned in Season 1.
Good Wills Hunted
Coming off of six straight wimdy Wills, including some which made the team worse, the Fridays were desperate for an Election with no surprises. For the first time since the introduction of Wills, the Elections had immaculate vibes. The most popular Wills went through, not a single player was stolen, and the Fridays got some nice Blessings to boot.
With their first Will, the Fridays used Move to switch Juice Collins from batter to pitcher. It is not a crime (as far as you know) to throw the ball as well as Juice does: at 4.5 Stars, Juice is now the second-highest rated player in the rotation. The #PitcherOfJuice also cleanses the Lineup by letting Hawaii’s better batters bat more often.
With their second Will, the Fridays gave Baldwin Breadwinner an Alternate Trust. Breadwinner took a minor hit to defense and baserunning, but gained two whole stars in batting and the new Modification Parasite, which is useless on a batter. Breadwinner was the team’s worst batter in Season 14, but is now only a Party or two away from becoming as strong as Alyssa Harrell, the former teammate and now-Redacted batter that Breadwinner replaced in the Lineup.
The Fridays continued their run of planned luck by going in hard on the Batting Practice Blessing, boosting every batter’s batting by 0.1 to 0.2 stars. This comes stacked on top of the global boost to batting granted by the Bats Decree. Added together, this is a huge turnaround for what was the league’s third-worst offense by Runs scored.
Finally, Jacob Winner acquired Affinity for Crows via the Bird Brain Blessing, which the Fridays only had 1% of the votes in. Turns out some surprises can be good!
Vibing Onward
The turbulent waters of the Mild Low have calmed ever so slightly, leaving the Fridays a chance to swim upstream like the humble Salmon. The Moist Talkers are still quite strong on the batting side, especially with their new H2O blood, but they lost ace pitcher PolkaDot Patterson to a trade with the Flickering Sixpack Dogwalker. The Yellowstone Magic and Crabs have had their Lineups decimated by Redacted players, and the Crabs’ rock-solid Rotation was picked clean by a pair of Equivalent Exchanges.
The Fridays now possess one of the strongest Lineups on paper: only two bad batters in an eight-player Lineup, buoyed by seven-star dreadnoughts Valentine Games and Beck Whitney. Their pitching isn’t consistent yet, but is still one of the stronger Rotations in the Mild League, especially if McBlase and Carpenter take the next step, and Juice Collins lives up to the potential they showed in the Coffee Cup.
If this roster can stay safe, and stay together, the Fridays may not Party at all in Season 16. And if everything goes just right, they aren’t too far off from discovering a brand new type of Party—a parade.
