Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

In my current league with the 2019 cards we have finished 36 games and Matt Chapman is hitting .179 and Javier Baez is hitting .177. I calculated the odds of that and got about 5000 to 1. Even stranger, I had the same experience in my last league with the 2018 cards. Edwin Encarnacion hit .173 (real-life .246) and Adalberto Mondesi hit .212 (real-life .276). The odds of this happening over a full season are about 750,000 to 1. I expect a few players to hit 20 to 30 points below their real-life batting average, but obviously, this is extremely unusual. Am I the only one who is experiencing this???

I do not like the 2019 set at all. Like you, batting averages are waaaay down. 170 is the new Mendoza line. Way too many ballpark homers and walks. Pitching pretty much sucks and relievers implode way too often despite good cards. I would say it is reflective of baseball these days with 3 primary outcomes (K, BB or HR) being the norm so perhaps it's a function of that more than the cards. Give me 1982 or 1986 any day.

I'm in 15 leagues (all played 48 to 132 games). Here are the League combined batting averages:

*Real Life - League batting average for 2019 was .252.

League
#1 - .249
#2 - .247
#3 - .245
#4 - .243
#5 - .239
#6 - .238
#7 - .242
#8 - .246
#9 - .244
#10 - .253
#11 - .263
#12 - .255
#13 - .253
#14 - .251
#15 - .248

Yes, averages are lower than real life (particularly when most leagues have all DHs). Obviously, there are a lot of factors (ballparks, strategies, etc. that would affect average). I think most guys do go for the HRs over teams playing small ball.

So the average for those 15 leagues is .248. It would be interesting to see what the average is for 15 of your leagues from last year for comparison.

I noticed this, too --guys with awful batting averages.

But our league has only 12 teams, so it should be expected that individual hitters do worse than they do in real life, because they are facing only the best pitchers.

This wouldn't explain overall league batting averages, though. Our league average is .250 (after 48 games) but our OPS is 788 compared with a true 2019 MLB of 758. Maybe the cards are favoring walks and HRs a bit more.

One thing I will say after playing 20 years of roto fantasy (this is my first year in Strat-O-Matic): real MBL players do hit terribly for months a time. But they get benched, or claim to be hurt, and stop playing. Only in this simulated world do I keep sending Eugenio Suarez out there to hit against lefties even though he is hitting .175 because I know there isnt' actually anything wrong with him.

But in real baseball, guys get bitten by what I call "the suck bug" all the time. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's age, maybe it's an injury, but you can't take that risk as a fantasy mgr OR as a real mgr, and so they get benched or put on the injured list. See Gary Sanchez, 2018

Here's some info-

2019 cards- From 8 leagues 6372 games then comparison with 2018 from 6 leagues 5832 games- all 12 team leagues

2019--- 2018
BA .244--- .241
HR's per game 3.50 --- 2.77
K's per game 18.90 --- 18.30
BB's per game 6.86 --- 6.85
ERA 4.64--- 4.22
Runs per game 9.82--- 8.94

note: 2019- 24 team leagues 1296 games HR's per game were 3.07 and runs per game were 9.64

Verbal Warrior wrote:I do not like the 2019 set at all. Like you, batting averages are waaaay down. 170 is the new Mendoza line. Way too many ballpark homers and walks. Pitching pretty much sucks and relievers implode way too often despite good cards. I would say it is reflective of baseball these days with 3 primary outcomes (K, BB or HR) being the norm so perhaps it's a function of that more than the cards. Give me 1982 or 1986 any day.

I dread my relief coming in. They are not great pitchers but they are pretty good. My SP is giving up way to many HR's. As for the set I traded away a few 1st RD picks 1st overall because there just wasn't anyone worthy of the 1st pick. Had a couple of Leagues left to draft and I spent early and often on RP. Looks like that is more valuable then Trout of Yelich now. I will see.

Thanks for that Terry. Runs/game went up 8.5% in MLB last year which is close to what your data says.

chasenally wrote:

Verbal Warrior wrote:I do not like the 2019 set at all. Like you, batting averages are waaaay down. 170 is the new Mendoza line. Way too many ballpark homers and walks. Pitching pretty much sucks and relievers implode way too often despite good cards. I would say it is reflective of baseball these days with 3 primary outcomes (K, BB or HR) being the norm so perhaps it's a function of that more than the cards. Give me 1982 or 1986 any day.

I dread my relief coming in. They are not great pitchers but they are pretty good. My SP is giving up way to many HR's. As for the set I traded away a few 1st RD picks 1st overall because there just wasn't anyone worthy of the 1st pick. Had a couple of Leagues left to draft and I spent early and often on RP. Looks like that is more valuable then Trout of Yelich now. I will see.

My 'superior relief corps' blows 1 outta 3 save ops. That's putrid. I've seen waaaay too many 9th innings where the opposing team just goes through 5 or 6 straight hitter card rolls and ends the game before it even gets to a roll on a Pitcher card who has F9. Maddening.

I play Scoresheet baseball and that site talks about the All-Star effect. Players will likely preform worse than their real life stats because the poorer players have generally been dropped from the player pools. I am only in my 3rd Strato league, but I already see that here. When you have mostly the good hitters against the good pitchers something has to give.