Purist

[blue turtle]

For the online game, I play the best players I can get "till they drop." Escobar is underpriced, I try to get him. If the game was set up based on real-life usage, the prices would be a lot different and I'd adopt a different strategy.

Playing head to head, I far more prefer real life usage, but you still get players used oddly.

[ajk047]

I don't play online strat anymore,but i do play in netplay/head-to-head leagues and they may have usage limits,but it still gets "misused" alot.A guy with say 250 ab's on the season hits .250 avg.;6 hrs in 175 ab's vs. LH,then in his other 75 ab's hits .415 avg.;10 hrs vs. RH (gets a 7R or 8R)-you better believe 98%,if not 100% of his ab's in the netplay league will be vs. RH!Drives me nuts actually,I don't like it at all,because a platoon outfield of backups will outproduce most above average regulars from real life.but untill strat comes up with usage for ab's vs. RH & LH,you have to join 'em,cause you most of the time u can't beat 'em!

[chess2899]

Do whatever you like, just have fun.

:D

[cajan]

first...its a simulation game which will always be close to real but will never be able to capture the real game with all its nuances. That said, I play for fun but I try to win. But when it comes to a player to me the card is always the deal maker or breaker. How are the hits laid out? Are there any columns which are all outs? How many clean hits...is he clutch or not? Everyone plays differently and until SOM comes up with a way to limit usage based on AB's, BF'd or games or innings, ya might was well use the card to make decisions. That will mean that some part time players get full time starts. And real life baseball strategy doesn't necessarily carry over to SOM.

[kimkrichbaum2]

I honor everyone to play the game as they like. But I am a total non-Purist! I love taking any system, and finding a way to tweak it, to make things come out differently than they did in real life, or they would have, had the managers been just managing business as usual. And actually, that's what I think the great coaches and managers of all time have done, they have found a way to change the ground rules, do a platoon, which had never been done before, use the bullpen in a way that had never been done before. In other sports like football and basketball the examples are even more obvious.

What the game about for me, is not an exact simulation of baseball. But a game to allow us to being out our great managerial creativity. Which is not to say that my reason to play is any more important than anybody else's. But since there is a lot of talk about the game being pure, I just wanted to give the other perspective.

[bomp helium]

I think of these teams as the "season after" 2006...if Alex Escobar (one of my faves long before this thread) managed to do so well in an abbreviated season, why not turn him loose?...last season (2005 MLB/2006 SOM) I did the same thing with Ronny Cedeno...and so did his major league manager...in 2006 MLB/2007 SOM Cedeno became a full time player...

So it happens all the time in MLB...a player does well in a short stint and becomes a starter the next season...it's perfectly reasonable and logical, and I have absolutely no problem with it...

by "purist" logic, one would be "forced" to start Pedro Feliz every day just because he got lots of ABs in the previous MLB season...I feel no obligation to do that...

Playing time in SOM should be based on production, just as in MLB...the goal, as in MLB, is to put the best team on the field you can as win as many games as possible...

purists wanting to recreate the previous season are living in the past...a good way to be a lousy GM...

[TomSiebert]

You're paying over $4MM for Escobar to hit. Even at that figure and with all those injuries, he's a Big Bargain. Draft him and play him!

tws

[davydrums]

Escobar is going to hit and He's going to get hurt.This just about forces you to carry a sub that is going to play a fourth or so of the games,especially in the last 21 where you can't pick some one up.This is a real risk if you do make the playoffs,will he be hurt?This is not baseball,it is a strat-egy game based on real life stats.I don't spend Hundreds of dollars to not have fun.Do what makes you happy.