Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I was wondering if anyone knew what is needed for a player to get a card. Innings pitched? ABs? I noticed there were guys from last year with 40 abs that got cards, but players like Ellsbury and Murphy who had over 100 abs didnt get cards. Anyone know?

I think it becomes a bit subjective with guys who have a limited number of at-bats or innings pitched but performed very well. Much like with defense, I think the SOM scouts are skeptical of young talent. Since card values are awarded independent of playing time, they don't want to give someone like Jacoby Ellsbury a $6M-$8M card because he hit .353 and had totals in runs and RBIs that would be around 100 each if expanded over a full season. They don't mind giving out $.5M cards to scrubby guys with limited experience, it's just the highly successful the sometimes aren't so lucky. Guys like Cody Ransom, Ryan Shealy, and Chris Dickerson may fall prey to that in next year's card set.

First of all you should rephrase the question, as
"What determines which Strat cards are allowed in the TSN online version of the game?" because if you play the board game, EVERY player that played in the season is represented by a card. Now you have to order the extra players card set, to get the guys that only got a small cup of coffee, but Strat makes cards for everyone.

Otherwise it's like Aerodave explained. the "cutoffs" have been noted to be around 25ip's for pitchers and about 100 PA's for batters( not counting Catchers), but if the cards are determined to have greatly scewed results (ala Ellsbury from this past season) TSN will exclude them.

Why TSN didn't give a card to Elsbury (Murphy, Ross as well) is beyond me, when they gave one to Wes Helms the previous year. Just adjust the price tag accordingly. Helms was $10 in the 06 set so I don't see the point in why they left out the 3 players mentioned. Below average players can be stars as it is with the online game, so realism isn't the reason.