Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

Can someone please fill me in on how this works. Do they use a players best card from the 80's? Can you pick which year you want a player from?

Each player has one of five years. The year is selected by TSN before the season starts and you don't don't know it. You have to try to narrow it down to know if you should just adjust the line up or drop an under performing player. The more expensive the player the more 'good year' they have is a general rule, but there are cheaper guys who can do just as well. It may take a league or two to get a handle on the game, but it is the greatest game going.

They these threads:

http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=68047

http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=64879

http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=63500

http://forums-beta.sportingnews.com/viewtopic.php?t=62671

YF

in the other Strat games, your managing is mostly done by the time the season starts. Here, you need to constatntly monitor your team and check injuries (and other information) in order to figure out who you have. It is more like real managing. Dale Murphy is not necesarilly going to have a good year even if you are paying him 7 million, but there is an 80% chance that he will.

The biggest mistake people make is to drop people after 3-9 games. You need to give the players some time to statistically get a good idea for which of the 5 cards you have. (actually, the biggest mistake you can make is not reading the message board and not learning that you can tell which player you have and then dropping someone in their best year because he had 5 bad starts).

Most people who try this think it is much more fun than the other Start games.

You'll have to stay on top of things in this game, and be astute at identifying player cards through analysis of numbers, splits and the like. Know what an "injury reveal" is (HAVE to know that one). Be prepared to stick with players who, though not on their best cards, are still better than the big gamble (players like Clemens, Raines, Henke [usually] Winfield, RHenderson, JClark, WClark, Blyleven [the HR year can be a little tough, though).

Players I've had good luck with: CMartinez (vs. lefties), ALopez (Senor Smoke), JRobinson (good vs. righties), Herr, JMorris, Greenwell (No D, though).

Never EVER cut Will Clark (people do, and I can't figure out why).