Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I think SOM has come a long way with realism with many improvements over the years. There are still a couple of holes. Injuries is one. However, the most unrealistic thing (IMHO) is not readily obvious: There should be doubles that automatically clear the bases.

Let's look two players on my current 90s team, Lance Johnson and Mike Macfarlane. Assume all rolls come off of the hitters' cards.

With Macfarlane (running 1-9) on first base and Johnson batting, there is a pretty good chance of a triple which will automatically score the slow-footed Macfarlane.

With Macfarlane batting and the much faster Johnson on first (running 1-17), he has zero chance to automatically score Johnson unless he hits a Home Run. Presumably, Macfarlane could hit a ball in the exact location as Johnson where Johnson could manage a triple but would only net a double for Macfarlane. So why does the runner automatically score from first just because the hitter is fast? It's silly.

Now admittedly, Johnson has a good chance to score on a double but he could also be thrown out, especially against a strong arm. There should be some doubles where it's 100 percent chance he will score.

If a fast hitter can hit a triple that clears the bases automatically, then any hitter should be able to hit a double that clears the bases automatically.

So, my wish is for some DOUBLE*** chances be added to the cards.

According to an article I just read, runners scored from first on doubles hit to left around 40 percent of the time, to center around 55 percent and right around 35 percent.

If a double*** on the batter's card is needed to help achieve those percentages, I'm all for it. On the other hand, if SOM statistics show that a normal mix of fast runner, weak outfielder, and normal-aggressive baserunning already achieves those percentages, then double*** is hardly necessary.

Otherwise, D03 on the super advanced fielding chart is the only sure thing.

The problem with doubles that automatically clear the bases is they don't take into account the runner on first. There have been and are sublimely slow runners who are never a guarantee to score from first, regardless of the double.

There are no sure doubles clearing the bases in real baseball; there should be none in SOM.

If MacFarlane had a Double**+ on his card, where the '+' means Johnson (or anyone else) only scored from first if his double was similar to another batter's triple (e.g. split card 1-15), regardless of the strength of the outfielder's arm, otherwise it's a Double**, I might understand that. The Double**+ would be similar to a triple as far as indicating that the ball was hit by the slower batter in the same location as a batter with more speed, but, that a split card roll is needed to determine if that happened. Either way Johnson would not run the risk of getting thrown out, which addresses the point of the original post. Maybe, you'd have to overhaul the super-advanced fielding chart and change some of the D03's to D02's so that the percentages don't get out of whack. Or maybe, the **+ would only come into play when there are two outs. Maybe, only slow batter cards with power would have this symbol.

You'd have to run simulation models to see if Double**+ really does add realism to the game, though, before you'd want to add such a feature.

I already pointed out Double*** would not add realism to the game. A Double*** would score the runner from first no matter who the runner is. As we know, and as I mentioned earlier. some major league runners will not score from first, regardless of the double.

If we want to add realism to the game, we need to make it more like real MLB, not less like it.

If a double*** means the hit by the slow batter was in the same location of a triple hit by a normal runner, then, it could add realism to the game. There is no guarantee a slow runner can go from first to third on a single, but, the game still has single**, so, having double*** or double**+ could make sense, if implemented intellegently.

You know, that single** is a very good point. Thanks for pointing it out to me. The double*** might work after all.

...is reliever innings pitched-- sometimes over 200IP and in the ATG I think over 250-300 sometimes

There are two things that make the online game very unrealistic to me.

1-- Over usage of players in all respects--Starting Pitchers, relief pitchers and lots of position players too----in modern times a 4 game rotation is not realistic, but if online would throw in an off day every 15 games, you still can get your #1 into more games---for a pitcher to go every 4 days he needs to have at least 270 IP--the last 4 man rotations I remember were in the 70's.

2 -- Every one playing in HR parks, and sometimes a lot of the same park in leagues--this year every other them was Progressive, GAP, or Yankee Stadium it seems and most of the others were the Coors type parks---this just pumps up the HR way out of proportion and puts small ball teams at a unrealistic disadvantage--it just ruins the strategy of building teams to me.

related to the 2nd issue is BP homeruns and players like 2013 Venable being drafted into LH power parks--As an old player that played the board game, BP HRs have screwed up the game to the point that realistic performances are generally hopeless--and most of the guys like these "tweeks" so people that like a more natural game are stuck with it.

I'm not disagreeing with these aspects being unrealistic. However, I don't see how SOM would particularly remedy these "un-realities."

1. If 4-man rotations bothers you, you could petition for their removal. I do agree there are no more 4-man rotations, and we could do without them. However, how else would SOM add significant value to SP's who pitch significantly more innings than others? Having SP's who threw less MLB innings throw a similar number of SOM innings to SPs who threw many would also be unrealistic.

2. As to Bp hrs, I see many small-ball stadiums and teams in every league I play. So, they aren't being discouraged. Ballpark home-runs are as much an integral part of SOM as ballpark singles, clutch hits, and fly ball (B)'s. If we get rid of them, players will be hitting as many home-runs in Safeco as they would in Coors. How realistic would that be?

And we definitely don't want to eliminate a player's option to choose his own park. That is an integral part of teambuilding important to every player. If we think the manager pool in SOM is low now, I don't want to imagine it if players were getting stuck with parks they didn't want.