Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Did you ever notice that in case of injury, the card you have on your lineup for a player is the only one affected...

When a player like Willie Keeler has more than one, you can drop the one you have for one of his other cards...

This happened to me with my Event 2 Barnstormers team...

I had Willie's $4.64M card originally and he then got injured for 15 games... even though he played 136 out of 136 games that year in 1900... because he didn't reach SOM's 600 magic number...

I took matters into my own hands and dropped Willie's $4.64M card for his $3.45M card...

Did I feel guilty or unethical doing so ???

No... not at all... Willie played all the games in 1900 ($4.64M card)... the 15 game injury was unfair, inexact and inappropriate...

I think that it's a major flaw SOM has to review...

I do believe it's stupid you can use another season's card when a player gets injured...

What's your opinion ???

It is not clear to me why it would be unethical--if I understand correctly, you dropped a 4.64 card for a 3.45 card and took a payroll hit. Keep up that strategy and I am sure your leaguemates will be thrilled. The fact that both cards happened to have Keeler on the top, does not seem to be relevant to me. It's not like Willie Keeler actually had an injury that magically healed, its just a card with a bunch of numbers on it.

Where it gets dicey are high cap leagues where a guy gets injured and you "drop" the injured card, pick up one of his other cards, and then restore the original card after the injury is over. I've seen this a lot over the years. Depending on the league's understanding this can be verboten or acceptable. Even so, there is still something of slime factor inherent in the practice, but which can be somewhat justified given SOM's deeply flawed and cavalier approach to injuries.

Personally, none of those card maneuvers bother me at all, even the high dollar drop for injury and re-add it back later. I look at each card as an individual entity and don't think there should be a relationship between cards. And this may be controversial, but I actually think the bigger problem is that you can lock up all the cards for a player by taking just 1 of them. I suspect it would totally blow up the game engine, but why should taking the cheapest Musial card lock up all the superior ones? I especially think that in the draft, if multiple people put a player on their draft card, it should go to whomever went after the most expensive card.

I tend to not drop an expensive card for the cheap one, and then go get the expensive one back after the injury because I know so many people view it as unethical and I try to respect that. I just disagree with that notion.

I suspect lots of disagreement coming with this, so have at it.

chris.sied@yahoo.com wrote:I suspect it would totally blow up the game engine, but why should taking the cheapest Musial card lock up all the superior ones?

You're saying you'd like to see multiple cards from the same player allowed in a single league? In a high cap league every team fielding a different Ruth card and/or a different Bonds card? Could even roster 2 or 3 of the same player in one outfield. Can't think of why this would be better than the status quo but it's definitely...something.

The alternative would be one could not swap out to another priced card--which I am sure would be unpopular. If I draft the cheapy card, it's either that card or nothing. Not even sure how that would work.

austinmdavidson wrote:

chris.sied@yahoo.com wrote:I suspect it would totally blow up the game engine, but why should taking the cheapest Musial card lock up all the superior ones?

You're saying you'd like to see multiple cards from the same player allowed in a single league? In a high cap league every team fielding a different Ruth card and/or a different Bonds card? Could even roster 2 or 3 of the same player in one outfield. Can't think of why this would be better than the status quo but it's definitely...something.

Why not? At it's heart, this game is numbers on a card that represent probabilities. Its our emotional attachment to the cards and players that make this a question. If I can put together an outfield of a 1920s Ruth, a 1950s Mantle and a 2000s bonds, then the only difference in the quality of the outfield I have assembled between that and three Ruth cards are the names at the top of the card.

If strat was unable to use players names because of licensing and so the cards were all fake names or just a simple card serial number, would we be having the same discussion? A..lets say...Trae Bluth card from 1927 and a Ray Truth card from 1923 wouldn't be the "same person" and of course we could play them together.

What is the distinguishing factor between cards? Is is the name, or is it the numbers on the card?

told you this might be controversial.

chris.sied@yahoo.com wrote:

austinmdavidson wrote:

chris.sied@yahoo.com wrote:I suspect it would totally blow up the game engine, but why should taking the cheapest Musial card lock up all the superior ones?

You're saying you'd like to see multiple cards from the same player allowed in a single league? In a high cap league every team fielding a different Ruth card and/or a different Bonds card? Could even roster 2 or 3 of the same player in one outfield. Can't think of why this would be better than the status quo but it's definitely...something.

Why not? At it's heart, this game is numbers on a card that represent probabilities. Its our emotional attachment to the cards and players that make this a question. If I can put together an outfield of a 1920s Ruth, a 1950s Mantle and a 2000s bonds, then the only difference in the quality of the outfield I have assembled between that and three Ruth cards are the names at the top of the card.

If strat was unable to use players names because of licensing and so the cards were all fake names or just a simple card serial number, would we be having the same discussion? A..lets say...Trae Bluth card from 1927 and a Ray Truth card from 1923 wouldn't be the "same person" and of course we could play them together.

What is the distinguishing factor between cards? Is is the name, or is it the numbers on the card?

told you this might be controversial.

I get it and actually appreciate the level of abstraction you're working on. Personally I prefer the current system if only because I find it more elegant on an aesthetic level. There's something about the idea of multiple Ruths in one league or one outfield that's just slightly...messy.

Reb Russell strikes out Reb Russell to win the game--that would be a great headline.

well, to be honest I have a bit of an issue with having 5 Ruth cards in the first place. They are slightly different, but I don't understand why we need 5 such similar cards. At least Hugh Duffy (as an example) has 1 card for big money and 1 for small money. Musial also. He's got mid level cards and big money. But every Ruth Card (and Bonds for that matter) is a big money card.