What happened to Nelson Cruz?

[Mean Dean]

I see it this way. Most online leagues that you'll see have a usage limit -- you can't use the player for more than a certain percentage of his real-life playing time, be it 100% or 110% or what have you. However, this is impossible in TSN. The TSN game has to be designed so that the league won't become a mess if an owner makes his draft list and then never logs into his team again -- because people, in fact, do that. For that reason, you can't have players being released off rosters midseason.

Thus, since you can't have usage limits, the only way to keep the game at all realistic is to only include players whose cards represent what they could plausibly do if they played every day. And that, as far as I know, is the criteria by which these decisions are made. Nelson Cruz -- whom I do like as a player, BTW -- is very likely not going to hit .330 with 35 HR over a season. If Albert Pujols was limited to 100 AB in a season for whatever reason and did what Cruz did, he would probably get a card, because a card that hits .330 with 35 HR is very plausible for Pujols.

Rafael Furcal isn't really all that close to a 1000 OPS player, so I dunno if I agree with that decision, but he certainly is an established excellent major league player, in any event.

[childsmwc]

I think if you are familiar with the card set you will see that 150 PA's appears to be the cutoff for this season, for any of the exceptional cards. Also I agree that Furcal's card is not realistic based on his historical numbers, however, unlike the N. Cruz type cards Furcal comes with a huge injury risk, which helps mitigate his value in the online game.

Beyond that TSN has never had a problem inlcuding the low PA's guys that suck since they help fill out the $1 million and below ranks.

For me personally I am one of those players that realizes that this is an online fantasy game, but still don't want the Nelson Cruz's of the world being the top offensive players in the game. So I think excluding these cards has always been the right call, since as Dean pointed out there are no PA limitations for usage.

Bbrool

[Ninersphan]

I'll agree to disagree then, It's a FANTASY simulation, the fact that we only have 12 teams per league made of mostly all star rosters makes it fantasy not reality. So what differnece does it make who is on the leader board for various stats. Just price the cards accordingly. Pricing is the control. Price Cruz's card like Pujol's and let us have the option. We routinly see Relief pitchers throw 150+ innings in this game and they don't in real life, so what's the difference.

Include all the cards please.

[joethejet]

Sorry NP, I think I agree with BB on this one. I don't think I'd like to see a guy like Cruz to be the highest priced guy in the set.

I would, however, like to see some objective rules published and followed so that it's logical and not just "Nah, he's too good to be included."

Jet
www.angelfire.com/games5/joethejet

[LMBombers]

I agree with Bbrool on this.

[Ninersphan]

As I said we'll agree to disagree. My biggest problem is it's seeming arbitraryness. Furcal should not be included if Santiago wasn't IMHO. Look at Santiago's card (oops sorry you can't :wink: )

Here it is:

HITTERS .....AB SO BB HIT OB TB HR BP CL DP

Santiago,R+ 124 20 20 48 33.8 4.3 7 0 1
............................22 19.2 49.2 30.6 1 1 0 1

with an Injury rating of 3.

You tellin' me[b:82847c3193] that's[/b:82847c3193] gonna upset the balance of play in comparison to the 300 ab's the Furcal is gonna get, with [b:82847c3193]HIS[/b:82847c3193] card. [b:82847c3193]PUH-Lease[/b:82847c3193].

Either make a hard fast rule or include everybody, It's the picking and chosing who gets excluded that's so damned annoying.

[childsmwc]

Ninersphan,

Here are your objective rules for including cards in 2008:

If a player has more than 150 PA's he is included in the TSN set

If a player has more than 100 PA's and would have a TSN salary of less than $5 million he is included in the TSN set

If a player has less than 100 PA's and would have a TSN salary under $2 million he is included in the TSN set

You may disagree with those thresholds or the rationale behind them, but if you review the set you will find that those are the parameters in effect for inclusion for the 2008 game.

Bbrool

[Ninersphan]

[quote:5e54adcb44="Bbrool"]Ninersphan,

[b:5e54adcb44]Here are your objective rules for including cards in 2008:[/b:5e54adcb44]

If a player has more than 150 PA's he is included in the TSN set

If a player has more than 100 PA's and would have a TSN salary of less than $5 million he is included in the TSN set

If a player has less than 100 PA's and would have a TSN salary under $2 million he is included in the TSN set

You may disagree with those thresholds or the rationale behind them, but if you review the set you will find that those are the parameters in effect for inclusion for the 2008 game.

Bbrool[/quote:5e54adcb44]

Have these "rules' changed from year to year? Because I know for a fact of a card with over 200 ab's that was EXCLUDED in the 2004 set. ( And yes I'm still bitter :wink: )

The only other thing we need now is the magic salary formula and we can figure out who's in and who's out.

Plate Appearnces is probably a poor way to select cutoff, because it favors leadoff hitters and guys who hit at the top of the order. That's how Furcal get's enough pa's to qulaify even though his card is substanilly over 5mil and he missed way more game than Santiago.

For what it's worth I still say include em all, well except Taylor Teagarden, but I'd sure love to see that bad boy. :wink:

[Mean Dean]

The difference is that, in terms of their actual ability as baseball players, Furcal is a star and Santiago is a utility infielder. That's the difference.

And I really think it is best stated just like that... which is subjective rather than objective... but trying to come up with objective standards would likely confuse rather than clarify that very simple point.

If the card you're alluding to that was excluded earlier was '04 Carlos Baerga, same thing. He was an over-the-hill fatty whose career, as it turned out, would be over two years later after putting up OPSes of 638 and 653. If he had played a full season in '04, there is no way in hell he would have hit anything like .343.

Obviously there's a line-drawing issue here -- Ryan Ludwick might not repeat what he did in '08 either -- but the line is drawn based on playing time accumulated (more playing time means a better sample size to determine what this player's level of ability in the given season truly was), and on established quality of play. Again, I think it makes more sense to do that subjectively rather than objectively.

[Ninersphan]

[quote:88bdcb91f8="DeanTSC"] [b:88bdcb91f8]The difference is that, in terms of their actual ability as baseball players, Furcal is a star and Santiago is a utility infielder. That's the difference.[/b:88bdcb91f8]
And I really think it is best stated just like that... which is subjective rather than objective... but trying to come up with objective standards would likely confuse rather than clarify that very simple point.[/quote:88bdcb91f8]

And I say SO WHAT? Santiago had a great year last year, and now, because of an arbitrary cut off, a fan of that team now can't use this player. Guys have great years and spikes all the time and never do it again ( Brady Anderson OF BAL, Rick Wilson C CUBS etc.)


[quote:88bdcb91f8="DeanTSC"]
If the card you're alluding to that was excluded earlier was '04 Carlos Baerga, same thing. He was an over-the-hill fatty whose career, as it turned out, would be over two years later after putting up OPSes of 638 and 653. If he had played a full season in '04, there is no way in hell he would have hit anything like .343. [/quote:88bdcb91f8]

Kudos to you for rembering who it was, but this proves my point about it being arbitrary, so If he got 50 more pa's would he be allowed then? At what point do they just say , "okay I guees he had a great year" and give him a card? Who cares if he was "an over the hill fatty", he wasn't injured that year and hit the crap out of the ball. He was also a former 2 time Al-Star. Maybe Arizona should have played him a little more, isn't that kind of the point to this whole game in the first place? to see how we'd do given the players to manage? By excluding players options are being taken away, and I hate losing options.


[quote:88bdcb91f8="DeanTSC"]
Obviously there's a line-drawing issue here -- Ryan Ludwick might not repeat what he did in '08 either -- but the line is drawn based on playing time accumulated (more playing time means a better sample size to determine what this player's level of ability in the given season truly was), and on established quality of play. Again, I think it makes more sense to do that subjectively rather than objectively. [/quote:88bdcb91f8]

This will be my last post, I've enjoyed the debate, but it's clear I'm in the minority and that I can't convince any of you on the other side any more than any of you can convince me.

I'll will take one more stab at it though. :wink:

Most of the disagreements all stems from some sort of realism argument, that "so and so wouldn't get those kind of stats if he played in real life over a whole year". My whole argument against that is simply this, TSN Strat isn't a realistic game, you want that kind of realism get the CD ROM and replay the season. So long as the format remains 12 teams of essentially mostly All-Star players, playing in circumstances that would allow 12 Coors fields so we can find out which team will get to 250 HR's first, what difference does it make how good someone card is vis-a-vis a player's number of plate appearences and/or what they've done in the past? I'm sorry but the realism argument with the parameters we play under just doesn't hold up.
And you watch, 8-10 weeks from now, someone [b:88bdcb91f8]will[/b:88bdcb91f8] post on the board how "unrealistic" it was that a manager got M Rivera to pitch over 150 innings, and everyone will say, "that's just the game", "it's not real". Allowing Cruz, Santiago and all the rest a card is the same thing in my eyes. But as I said I'm apparently in the minority, so I'll go quietly now.

Again thanks for the spirited debate.