Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

The basic philosophy of creating a Strat card is this:

1. Use the player's opponents' average results as a center point for all data.
2. Make adjustments on the player's card to bring those averages down or up to how the player performed against his opponents.

Example: If the average pitcher Bonds faces gives up homeruns 5% of the time and Bonds hits homeruns 10% of the time, his card will roll a homerun 15% of the time to create the final targeted 10% Bonds homeruns over many rolls.

This is why some very effective pitchers have no hit possibilities (except for X-Card results) on their cards. Billy Wagner against lefties this year is an example. He has to have a completely clean card so that his very low opponents' average can come out correctly over many rolls (because 50% of the rolls will be on his opponents' cards, not his).

With all of this said, Jonathan Papelbon's card for next year, if he maintains his current pace, will be phenomenal. Obviously, BJ Ryan's will be unbelievable also. At this point, Papelbon's would look something like this:

[b:76350270d7]vs. Righties[/b:76350270d7]

[b:76350270d7]Column 4
[/b:76350270d7]2-out
3-PitcherX
4-3B-X
5-out
6-out
7-2B-X
8-out
9-SS-X
10-SS-X
11-RF-X
12-out

[b:76350270d7]Column 5[/b:76350270d7]
[/b]2-1B-X
3-LF-X
4-out
5-out
6-out
7-out
8-out
9-out
10-Catcher-X
11-out
12-1B-X

[b:76350270d7]Column 6
[/b:76350270d7]2-out
3-out
4-out
5-out
6-out
7-out
8-out
9-out
10-out
11-out
12-out


[b:76350270d7]vs. Lefties[/b:76350270d7]

[b:76350270d7]Column 4[/b:76350270d7]
2-out
3-PitcherX
4-3B-X
5-out
6-out
7-2B-X
8-out
9-SS-X
10-SS-X
11-RF-X
12-out

[b:76350270d7]Column 5[/b:76350270d7]
2-1B-X
3-LF-X
4-out
5-out
6-out
7-out
8-out
9-out
10-CatcherX
11-out
12-1B-X

[b:76350270d7]Column 6[/b:76350270d7]
2-[b:76350270d7]Single[/b:76350270d7]
3-[b:76350270d7]Double[/b:76350270d7]
4-out
5-out
6-[b:76350270d7]Single[/b:76350270d7]
7-out
8-out
9-out
<10-out
<11-[b:76350270d7]Single[/b:76350270d7]
12-out

You're right. I corrected the things you mentioned. I actually gave one less X-Card possibility than normal for C and 2B. Woops!
More than anything, I wanted to give a picture of how amazing Papelbon (and Ryan) have been so far. Ryan actually has given up less baserunners than Papelbon.
As far as Reyes goes...it's not super-complicated to come up with an approximation for anyone using the philosophy I outlined. No projection will come out exactly perfectly because Strat makes some minor adjustments it doesn't completely explain, but you can get a general idea like above. All I know is this: Reyes will have a LOT of triple chances against right-handed pitching. All 12 of his triples have been when he's hitting lefty.