Biggest Surprises When You Learned the Year?

[Outta Leftfield]

Now that we know, when the season's over, what years the players actually had, what have been your biggests surprises?--that is, players performing way over what you'd expect from the actual season, or way under. Again, I'm thinking of surprises after the year was over--when you saw the year next to the player's name for the first time. My examples include:

Excellent performance in a bad year:

Don Sutton: 21-10, 3.57 ERA, 1.29 WHIP in 1983 (his 4.08 ERA season)
Bob McClure: 10-6, 6 SVs, 141 IP, 3.19 ERA, 1.29 WHIP in 1984 (his 4.38 ERA, 1.47 WHIP season).

Bad performance in a good year:
Don Sutton: 12-12, 5.46 ERA, 1.34 WHIP in 1980 (his 2.20 ERA, .99 WHIP year).
Jim Rice: .256, 14 HR, 63 RBI with .697 OPS over 600+ PA in 1982 (his .309, 24 HR, .863 OPS season.)

There are, of course, others. It's interesting to see Sutton overperforming his worst year one season--and winning 21 and drastically underperforming an awesome season another year.

[KingLouie]

Great bump-worthy question!

Biggest surprise so far:

I picked up Frank Pastore, a 75-cent starter/reliever about a third of the way through the season. He was so good in relief, I made him a starter and he did not disappoint. His numbers for me:

Wins: 12
Losses: 3
Saves: 5
ERA: 2.91
WHIP 1.05

His card was 1981, where his real numbers were:

Wins: 4
Losses 9
Saves: 0
ERA: 4.02
WHIP 1.21

I've drafted him a couple of times since, and he's always been just plain awful. Oh well. I'm just grateful for the one inexplicibly great year he gave me. :P

[cplake]

Sweet Lou Whitaker.......

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=57879

:roll:

[bjs73]

In our Beer and Peanuts League #1 I was convinced that I had a good Tim Burke card based on some trends I was seeing. I kept him all year so that I could see for myself. Turns out I was right. It was his '89 card. Second best season with 1.06 WHIP. How that translates into his stat line at Tiger that year is beyond me:

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=58479[/url]

He should have been better than that for sure.

Then the other side of the coin is John Tudor. I had convinced myself he was on a good year based on the trends I was tracking. Won the championship too with him leading the way. Turns out at the end of the season it was his worst card with a crazy good stat line to go with it while playing at the Astrodome. LOL

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=52279[/url]

Stats are a crazy thing. You can have runs on both sides of the bell curve even for an entire season. Usually you have even distributions though and that is what the game makers at Strat-O are aiming to provide.

However, that which is improbable does not make it impossible. And so we end up with the season craziness that we see in this thread from time to time.

Also, because every single card in the deck is a mystery, the countless scenarios available throughout the season is awesome. Sometimes the leagues get a run of hitting position player monster cards with hitting parks galore and good pitching cards look like dogs. Then there are other leagues when run scoring is low due to poor hitting cards and modest stadiums and the low performers in the pitching department step it up a notch.

[UGLYJERRY]

Jose Deleon 21-10 on his '85 card.
http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=52999

[Outta Leftfield]

[quote:970070a6cd]Also, because every single card in the deck is a mystery, the countless scenarios available throughout the season is awesome. Sometimes the leagues get a run of hitting position player monster cards with hitting parks galore and good pitching cards look like dogs. [/quote:970070a6cd]

The Beer & Prezels League #1 was definitely a hitters league with great pitchers getting hammered right and left. I finally felt I had to drop Blyleven, Stieb and D. Martinez even though I thought there were platoon indicators suggesting good years. Somebody else reluctantly dropped Clemens, who was also getting hammered. (Rocket and Martinez later redeemed themselves with other owners.) Anyway, this hitting dominated environment convinced me that McClure--10-6, 6 SVs, 141 IP, 3.19 ERA, 1.29 WHIP--just had to be a good year, so I was simply flabbergasted to see his card was 4.38 ERA, 1.47 WHIP. How he dodged bullets through 141 innings while better pitchers were getting hammered all around him, I will never know. :shock:

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays, everyone! :D :D

[DarthRuvo]

molitor-87

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=206

[yak1407]

Bob James, his 85 year
SIM PAR 4 0 1 1 6.2 7 5 4 6 6.76 1.65
SIM YOU 14 2 3 1 24.2 26 17 6 20 6.20 1.30
SIM BOY 3 0 1 0 5.1 7 4 0 5 6.74 1.31
TOTAL 21 2 5 2 36.2 40 26 10 31 6.38 1.36

[1crazycanuk]

Um...my season is over and it doesn't say which cards I have. :?

[Ducky]

If my memory is correct :? it takes a full week after the last game of the regular season before you get to see what year card your players had.

Mike