by rburgh » Sun Nov 20, 2011 4:49 pm
I don't think hitting and running is a good idea with this card set, except in limited circumstances. Since the best possible outcome of hitting and running is 27 hit chances, you have to have either (1) a really bad hitter for this card set at the plate, or (2) a guy like Sanguillen with a whole lot of gbA's on his card.
Having played a whole lot of face-to-face Strat with the tournament crowd back in the day, I can tell you that the consensus of the groups I have played with is that it is most useful for good hit-and-run guys with lopsided cards when they are caught on the wrong side of their card. It saves a pinch-hitting move. But I don't know of many instances where a guy was drafted specifically for his hit and run rating.
I think the mechanics of the game for the hit-and-run are all wrong. They should simply obliterate all walks, strikeouts, and gbA's, and change all singles and doubles to SI**, and change all triples and HR's to DO***. Walks and strikeouts should be treated as in the game, gbA's, except from the X-charts, should change to gbC's. But the changes should be on both cards.
Effectively, this change in the game rules would allow most of the dead-ball guys to be killer hit-and-run guys, as I am sure they were.