Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Well, the first round of our tourney is complete. Congrats to all of the playoff teams.

Great job to all of the managers that competed.

I finished 83-79.
http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1119454

I'd like to take this time to share a few performances from my squad...

1. Gaylord Perry. Great season from the spitballer. I mean alleged spitballer.
2. Jim Maloney was solid as well all season.
3. Ray Sadecki was a late pickup. I was hesitant being in a RH HR park. But he held his own.
4. Ryan Duren. If ya can live with his walks, he's usually a good performer.

Hitting wise:

1. Horton was a late pickup, who produced.
2. Lemon as well.
3. Carty, though not a lot of pop, hit well.

My biggest surprise had to be Jim Lefebvre. A switch hitter slanted to the left, hitting so well in a righty HR park. 27 HR's, 77 RBI's. .546 SLG vs RH's. All for $1.85!.


I'm done rambling. Good luck to all the rest of the way...


visick

Clemente had a sub .700 OPS

That I didn't pull my remaining hair out!

Get me out of the 60s...

The 60's--and it's select selection of hitters--can be frustrating at times, but my teamfinished 89-73 and is getting ready for the first round of the playoffs--

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1119247

As for my pitching performances;

1. Bob Friend had 15 wins at the all-star break and went on to win 22 total.
2. Frank Lary, and his 1.12 Whip only had 7 wins at the half but went on to win 17.
3. Gene Brabender put up a 1.40 ERA in his limited Rh relief role for only .75 mil
4. And Wilbur Wood saved 29 while driving his manager crazy with 17 blown ones.

As for the hitters:

1. Joe Adcock, a very underrated card, was picked up 20 games into the season and went on to hit 43 dingers and drive in 114.
2. Minnie Minoso, another underrated card, was picked up 1/4 of the way and hit .345 with 13 homers and 35 doubles
3.Tony Conigliaro, another early season pickup, got past his eye troubles to blast 28 and drive in 97.
4. And Tony Kubek replaced a .149 hitting Belanger with 50 games to go and went on to hit .301

It all added up to a successful season and hopefully will make up for my .500 70's team and my disastrous 80's team

81-72 in the 60's with an outside shot at the wild card, three games out and owning the tie-breaker. As it turned out, I had to go 9-0 to make it. My guys went...................0-9! My overperforming hitters suddenly underperformed. Against the worst ERA staff in the league, I went 26 innings without scoring a run in my final meeting with them. It was Koufax or bust with Sandy going 22-9. The 70's is looking much better.

Biggest surprise for me is to finish my first mystery card regular season ever, and find myself, at least for the moment, on top of the tourney standings! I guess it points out the biggest weakness of the mystery format...takes a game that involves too much luck already, and makes it even more reliant on luck. But, having said that, knock on wood, it is fun to be lucky!

My 60s team won its division with 96 wins, including a 14-game win streak down the stretch, making no player moves the entire season. As far as I've determined, none of its hitters had either their best or worst cards, all were "average" with the possible exception of Tony Perez who had a great year, as did Colavito, Kaline, Cepeda, Brock, Crandall...all "outperforming" it seems.

Can't be sure, but I'm guessing the SP cards are better. All four starters solid, averaging over 300 IP...Gaylord Perry, Drysdale, Friend and Cardwell combining for 79 wins, ERAs all under 3.95, WHIPs all under 1.35. Bob Locker was also solid, going 9-5 with 29 saves in 102 relief innings.

My 70s team is performing even better, 89-52 with a week to go. Again, no "best" hitter cards and no player moves, and again Tony Perez has been great, but this time with his "worst" card, so I've kept it! The other hitters are mostly "average" cards or worse, performing well. And again, I'm guessing the SP cards are better, as Guidry, Wood, Stottlemyre and Christenson all have shots at 20 wins and 300 IP, with solid stats.

I've made player moves only with my 80s team...at 8 games under .500, dropped half a dozen players...took a couple of them back...now a winning record, tho pitching remains sketchy. My 90s team looks better, don't know yet if I'll make any moves, but so far looks like good cards for Arod, Manny, Eric Davis and Canseco, not a bad nucleus for the Skydome. Overall, if they continue to perform apace, we could land in the tourney finals!

FWIW, about the only strategy diff from what I've done in 20xx or ATG is to give a bit more weight to speed and defense, figuring you get what you pay for there, regardless of card. I drafted generally for "average" cards, generally avoiding players with more than one "bad" card, not taking extra risk for a shot at "great" cards, generally won't drop a player unless I'm sure I've got his "worst" card, if then.

In short, as a mystery card newbie momentarily leading the pack, I'm surprised as hell all over the place...may Lady Luck continue to smile upon us!

cabobob may think it is all luck but it is not. You can create your own "luck" if you follow a solid strategy like getting good defense and speed and going for players that are pretty equal over 4 or 5 of their cards so you know what to expect. That and being patient on player drop/adds so you don't just throw away your salary cap. That is a very solid strategy. There are others like getting a slanted park and drafting slanted players or a bomber park with players with lots of BPHR or a pitchers park with the opposite. Lots of different strategies can work which can help you create your own "luck".

As for jawhawk and his 60s bashing......A mystery card game is a mystery card game no matter what the name of the game is. If you are good at one you will be good at another. The player pools are different but the game is the same. Learn the differences in the player pools to know what strategies may work in one game better than in another.

60s surprises on my team -

picked up Mike McCormick 1/4 into the season and he goes 16-3 with a 2.42 ERA in Tiger Stadium.

On other teams in the league -

Mudcat Grant (1.08 salary SP) pitches 187 IP and wins 16 games
Willie Mays is supposed to be good but 72 HR and 194 RBI? YIKES
catcher Hank Foiles hits 26 HR
Tom Sturdivant (0.93 salary SP) pitches 165 IP with a 2.73 ERA and 1.13 WHIP
Billy Pierce (1.93 salary SP) pitches 214 IP with a 1.09 WHIP

thanks LMBombers, I agree on the mystery card game and creating your own luck.

I'm not bashing the 60s, in my 2 sucky seasons of playing them, I just haven't figured it out....YET!

If LMBombers thinks a newbie leading the pack is not due to luck, then I guess he must think I'm quite the amazing mystery card prodigy! Thanks LM!!

Way to go Cabobob! I think it's great that you're on top of the standings as a new player to the mystery format, and you haven't made any roster moves. I don't, however, share your general manager philosophy. In the 60s league, I made 52 transactions and finished the season 77-85. Still, I think my transactions helped. I started the season 30-53 and was bobbing between 117 and 118 in the overall rankings. My team finished strong going 22-9 to close the season. If the season lasted another 100 games I might have made the playoffs. I picked up Dick Allen even though I correctly suspected he had his worst season (1965), and he drove me crazy going homerless for the entire first half of the season. But I'm a big Dick Allen fan and he had to start popping a few, so I held on to him. My best pickups were Yogi Berra who has 4 years that he hits decently against righties and Doug Rader who practically carried my team in the second half. It must be his rookie year (1967) which doesn't really belong on the card since he had relatively few ABs but he didn't have 5 years in the 60s so I guess they had to include it.