Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Ive never played the Stratomatic board game so I have no idea what Im doing but could anyone help with a few questions?

I am just starting a new 2008 season at Great American Ballpark and am wondering how much difference in runs or hits in a season depends on if you fielders are 2, 3 or 4"S by each position...there must be some sort of formula to determine how much difference it makes at lets say my ballpark listed above...HELP!!!

there are people who know the exact calculations....

but if you go to http://strato.berce.us/ and the extras section there is some information that will help you.

Also the newbie advice thread is always a big help: http://forums.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=9842

Lastly Dean has a great article on defense vs offense you should read: http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/DeanTSC

Start here:

www.strato.berce.us

Go to "Extras" on the left, and open "Fielding Rating Comparison".

There's also a lot of discussion about this on the boards. You just have to browse the threads to find what you are looking for.

For instance, some of this was addressed in a thread called "Good SSs for 2008" near the bottom of page two of this forum.

Read as many threads as you can - this is how all new players learn the game in the beginning. SOM Online appears simple, but it is not easy.

GL!

:D

Hey man,

Please ignore this if it's too basic, but it sounds like you don't know the Strato game at all, so I'll write a couple of basics down.

The defense rating (1-5) is a range indicator. 1s are the best in the game, they get to almost every ball near them, cutting off grounders in the hole and turning gappers into singles. 5s are a disaster (think ball bouncing off Canseco's head for a home run). 2s are good, 3s not very good, 4s bad.

Just as in real baseball, the range of certain positions is critical, while others you can get away with mediocre defense. A 3 or 4 at ss, 2b, or cf is a very bad idea, because those players see more balls hit to them every game. Always aim for 1s and 2s at these positions if you can, unless you're getting insane offense from the guy. On the other hand, corner infield and outfield positions tend to have really good hitters that are slugs in the field. Having one or two of these guys is not bad at all.

The ballpark has nothing to do with range factors. Your ballpark effects are factored in a different way on the cards. All cards may have # symbols in front of HOMERUN or flyball results. When you see a #, you ignore the word next to it and refer to your ballpark home run rating. So if you have a ballpark HR rating of 1-10 when you get a # result, you have a 50% chance of that being a homer (10/20). If your HR rating is 1, it's a 5% chance (1/20). The ballpark single rating works the same way, but with the > symbol.

If you'd like to include a link to your team roster, I'd be happy to tell you how your D looks.