Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I've been reading about how you can tell what card someone is on sometimes based on injuries. I have no idea how this is done and haven't been able to find it in another post. Can someone explain this to me? Thanks!

Sure. Pull up Enos Cabell for example. Lets say that he becomes injured in game 12 of the season. You scroll down the play by play and see that it was on a foulout. You check to see who was pitching against him at the time. Turns out it was Teddy Higuera. You see that Higuera is a LHP. Go to Enos Cabell's card and scroll through the possible card years to see what the injury result is on his cards. You find out he has an injury vs LHP with the following results for each card year:

1977 - popout
1979 - lo max
1980 - gb(2b)A
1982 - foulout
1984 - lo max

Since the result happened on a foulout you know you have his 1982 card.

You don't always get an exact year this way. For instance if his injury result vs a LHP was a line out it could be either his 1979 or 1984 cards. At least you would have been able to narrow down the possible card.

Another clue is if the injury is for 4 or more games you know that it happened in a year where he had less than 600 PA (hits + walks) because if he did have 600 PA his max injury result is 3 games.

Sometimes you can narrow down the card years by HBP or other rare occurances.

Thanks for your help! That helped a lot. I've been going through looking at guys throughout the league who are injured and trying to figure out which card they have. It's kind of fun!

One other question. I have Roger Clemens and he was injured for one game in the last game that he pitched for me. I don't see an injury listed on his card. How does this happen?

Pitchers are injured when 6-12 is rolled with the DH at bat. Again, check the L/R of the DH, then you can rule in or rule out various years. It's more complicated because of the frequency of split (HR 1-8, etc.) or X readings... the X readings can cause hits, flyouts, groundouts, or errors. Pitcher injuries seem to be much less frequent.

If you have weak hitters, a HR can be a clue.... and a pitcher injury against a weak (power W) hitter can be shown as a HR but the play be a single, since pitcher-card HRs are only singles for W hitters.

Confused? This is all a legacy of the board game.
Also, to be really snoopy, you have to look at ALL of the games, otherwise you'll miss 0, 1, or 2 games injuries that happen early in a series. A great way to avoid doing other forms of work. Enjoy!

A pitcher can only be injured on a "dice" roll of 6-6-6. So If Clemens was injured while facing a left handed batter, his injury can be located under the column #6 - #12. Thus, his possible injuries are either: Ground in out in 4 of the 5 years or a strike out in 1989. So sometimes the injury does not help much to reveal the year. I do not know the length of injury rules for pitchers - if there is one. Perhaps another vet can chime in on that and we can both learn something.

Clemens was facing a lefty when the injury occurred and it happened on a ground out. So, if I understand correctly that rules out his 1989 card and it's got to be one of the other four (all of his cards are pretty good so it doesn't really matter, it's just fun to try to figure it out!).

I've also found HR's to be helpful... check any low-power type hitter who has hit a HR in the simulated results... pull up the "L/R Simulated" player stats and see which handed pitcher the HR came against.

Example, on one of my teams, Ozzie Smith... so far in the season, he's hit 4 HR's for me... 1 vs. L's and 3 vs. R's. Looking at his five cards... 85-97-88-90-92... I can rule out 87 and 92 cards, because he would have NO WAY of hitting any HR's if his card were one of those two (No HR results on his batter's card... and "W" power against both sides, which means any pitcher-card HR's would turn into singles).

His 85 and 90 cards also preclude his hitting any HR's against R's... so, by virtue of the fact that Ozzie has a HR vs. R's in my league, it tells me his card is 1988! More good stuff. After half my season, Ozzie's "defied the odds" by getting 3 HR's vs. R's, where the only chance is a roll of 2-10, and then it's only HR 1-4 (out of 20!). Mathematically, he's waaaay ahead of himself!

The HR-reveal works a lot on middle-infielders, utility catchers, and so on... anybody with less than comprehensive HR production. Even helps with Al Oliver... on one of his cards, he hit no HR's, so any time he has one or more HR's in the simulated results, you've already narrowed down his possible cards (the no-HR year on his card is not that good vs. R's, compared to his othe years).

Hoped this info helped too.

You have to be careful using HRs as a reveal. It is possible for a guy to hit a triple and stretch it into an inside-the-park HR. I had a case where Luis Salazar hit a HR vs. a lefty. I figured this eliminated his 1981 card (W power and no HRs on the card). I was wrong. At the end of the season when TSN reveals the cards it was 1981.

I think the chances of an inside-the-park HR are pretty remote but it's still possible. So, I'd use the HR reveal as a strong indicator but not an absolute like the injury reveal.