Just finished first season

[Jimbo123]

I just finished my first season. What a blast! I didn't make the playoffs, finishing a game out of first in my division. When the season started, my team took off and I was in first place the majority of the season. Around game 120 or so my team went into a nose dive, losing 13 in a row and 16 out of 18. Then they started coming on strong towards the end of the season. It all came down to the last series of the season. I had to sweep the three game series to make the playoffs. Unfortunately, my team only took two out of three and my season came to end. But what an exciting finish.

My record was only 82-80, but some of my players performed at a high caliber. Ryan Dempster went 20-12. Joakim Soria got 51 saves and won the they Cy Young Award and Rolaids Fireman Award. (I assume he won because he was in first at the end of the regular season.) And my team had two Gold Glove winners, Dempster and Kotchman.

One lesson that I learned from participating in this league was to be careful when drafting hitters, so your team isn't too slanted to one side. The other lesson I learned, which goes hand in hand with carefully drafting players, is to not make roster moves during the season. The financial penalty will eventually hurt you.

I used to play the board game many years ago and really enjoyed it. Participating in this league has rekindled my interest in Strat-O-Matic and, for that matter in baseball as well. I now catch myself carefully looking over the transactions section in the sports page to see who is going where and trying to analyze the various teams' strengths and weaknesses.

Hats off to TSN for creating a fun and challenging game. Well, I've got to go. The results of my waivers claims for my second season are starting in about two minutes.

Jimbo

[LMBombers]

Welcome Jimbo, sounds like your hooked! Your story sounds much like mine a few years ago. I've never not had at least one team active since. Just curious...How did you find out about this online game? I found it a few years ago when I read the book Strat-o-Matic Fanatic, the story of Hal Richman and how he invented SOM and got it going strong. In the book they mention that today there is an online game at TSN.

[voovits]

The next step is giving one of the mystery card games a try.

[Jimbo123]

I don't exactly remember how I found out about the game. I think a read about it a while back. Most recently, I was looking at the Strat-O-Matic web site and surfing the net regarding Strat. I think that's where I came across TSN games and I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.

As far as the mystery card game goes, I think I'd like to give it a try. I grew on baseball in the 70's and 80's, so I'm a little more familiar with the players from those years.

[bernieh]

Jimbo, I'm glad that you enjoyed your first season!

For what it's worth, I'm sure most of the veterans here would've been [i:6f9330f747]thrilled[/i:6f9330f747] if their first team had a record of "only" 82-80.

Good luck with your next team(s)!

[toronto50]

Welcome Jimbo. My first team won 96 games and lost first round of playoffs. Ive made the playoffs bout half the time, once to the finals, no championships.

I am a bit of junkie after joining just last year. I really enjoy trying to make the right formula to win- pitching team, obp team, speed team, great defence. Ive had the most success with homerun hitting teams with good pitching and 2 good stoppers.

Try to remeber that you face rhp 60 to 70% of the games, so hit well against rhp. Stolen bases are overrated..don't give outs away!!! Good luck dude.

[keyzick]

Great post, good to see newbies not only joining, but posting as well.

I, for one, STILL can't get enough since forming my first team in 2002. :)

[merkelblunder]

Jimbo,

I guess I'm a rookie as well. I started playing Strat baseball (the board game) around 1974. Me, my neighbor, and cousin would play 10 hours a day 7 days a week in my pop-up trailer. This went on for years, and every new season one of us would come up with a new game. We played so much and we knew the players cards so well we did not even need to look at their cards. Then I experimented with Strat basketball (a great game), football (a good game ), and hockey (sucked). Over the years I had lost interest (no one to play with) and moved on.
Untill around 8 years ago (or so) I found Srat-O on the Sporting News page. I experimented for two seasons with the ATG1. I made the playoff one season and was eliminated in the first round and that was the end of Strat on line.
So, again, I find myself as a balding , old , fatman getting back into Strat on line. I currently have three teams going and I'm not doing so well in any of them. I'm still trying to figure out the strategies to be competitive. Any way I'm back, I'm addicted and have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe someday our paths will cross in the playoffs.

Good luck the rest of the way !

BTW I still have my 1974,75,78,79 baseball board games.

[Play By The Rules]

Welcome aboard Jimbo!

[tcochran]

I just finished my first year with Strat, too -- pretty well addicted, like others in this discussion thread. I played APBA baseball as a kid (a LONG time ago), but then lost interest over the years. Even stopped following baseball much, except for those rare seasons when the Tigers would play consistently well.

Anyhow, I stumbled upon Strat online this Spring and thought it might be a good way to rekindle my interest in the sport and rebuild my knowledge of the players. And it has done just that -- I can't wait for the Sporting News baseball annual to come out next week!

Oh, and my Strat results? I did okay. Even experimenting with a bunch of different team strategies, my teams still won almost half of their games (.496). Only one team sucked really badly, while 3 made the playoffs and 2 won titles.

For the other newbies reading this, I would recommend reading all of the strategy posts you can find and then testing out different concepts, to see what works best for you: Slugging teams, those with great starters or bullpens, high OBP, or great speed. Try 'em all and then make sure each is in the right ballpark.

Thanks to all for making this a great game. I'm looking forward to the new cards coming out next month...