Most exciting new cards

Been some criticism of new cards. Been some defending strat and criticising the critics.

But what has been really noticeable is the lack of excitement. So a challenge for those who think strat did a great job of selecting the new cards. Who are you excited about? What did they get right?

I expect by now everyone who was going to be a user of ATG8 has created at least one team and had a chance to at least skim through the new cards. Who are the ones you have selected you have the highest hopes for? Who do you think slipped in without fanfare with the most potential to surprise us all and become popular at the various caps?

Kicking it off I built a 200 mil team around the new Mays card. Liked having the flexibility of being rated for all 3 OF slots.

I've got Chino, Oscar and Honus in an 80m league. Chino and Honus are sentimental faves- we'll see what they can do.

Dave (don't call me Davey) A. Johnson's fluke 1973 season

IMO the only decent cards added was in pitching. Sutton, Brown, Seaver, White, etc. Not that many good hitting cards added. Just my opinion.

I like a lot of the post WW2 new cards that are useable at lower caps like the new Buddy Bell (bullet proof, great defense, decent power), Ralph Garr (.353 batting average, 17 triples and good speed at a decent price) and Davey Lopes' (his only 1 at 2B...??) cards.

Was that the only year Davey Lopes was a 1 at 2B? How was he a 3 the year before and the year after, that is kind of odd. I bet there was a lot of debate about Lopes' defense during that time...???

I like a lot of the post WW2 new cards that are useable at lower caps like the new Buddy Bell (bullet proof, great defense, decent power), Ralph Garr (.353 batting average, 17 triples and good speed at a decent price) and Davey Lopes' (his only 1 at 2B...??) cards.

Was that the only year Davey Lopes was a 1 at 2B? How was he a 3 the year before and the year after, that is kind of odd. I bet there was a lot of debate about Lopes' defense during that time...???

Lopes won the GG pretty much by default the year Joe Morgan was injured a lot. Lopes was a solid 2bman, but was by no means a gold glove caliber defender. He was, however, my favorite non-pitcher on the team in the 70's. He was a fantastic leadoff man and sparkplug

I agree about the new Mays card, the Dave A Johnson card (a real bargain, if you can live with the defense?) and also that there are some nice pitching cards, such as those kunkel named. The new Gagne card also looks scary.

Beyond that, there aren't a lot of blow-you-away cards, but there are several that I think bear investigation. One is King Kelley. He can play almost anywhere and might come in handy in 200M leagues.

I think a lot of the "specific-year" NEL players bear a closer look for 80M & 100M leagues. Most are cheaper than their generic cousins, and this might make them affordable at lower caps.

I'm pleased to see Kal Daniels 1987 card, which was a favorite during my 80's Mystery Card days. It seems to me there are likely to be other good platoon cards.

But one thing I wonder is why SOM didn't import a whole bunch of good cards from the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s games. That would have been pretty easy, I would think, and it could have gone a long way toward meeting the piled ups mass of card requests. Mo Vaughn has only one season in ATG, but there are 4 others potentially ready to go on his 90s card. There are five potential new cards for Edgar Martinez, others for Chipper Jones, Albert Belle, Jay Buhner, Mark Grace, Brady Anderson, John Olerud, Bernard Gilkey, Shane Mack, Carlos Delgado, Matt Stairs, Danny Tartabull, Luis Gonzalez, Kent Hrbek, and--well the list goes on. Most of these players currently have no cards or just one card in ATG. And this just hitters, and just from the 90s. There are many other cards ready to go from the 60s, 70s, & 80s. For every Kal Daniels and Davey Johnson SOM has added to ATG, there are hundreds of potential cards that await delivery.

So, why not draw more heavily on their existing stock of interesting and comparatively recent cards?

They did a fair job on the pitchers, although a few more top relievers would have been welcome. As for the hitters...several players got their third (or more) cards that were very similar to their prior cards. I thought with ATG VII they had some better choices of useful low end guys; this time not so much. I appreciate that I got a number of cards that I repeatedly asked for: Mays, Clemente, Daniels, Seaver, Kaline, Johnson, Lopes, Maranville,and Garr come to mind.

Maybe SOM thought that they were adding enough cards with the Cuban and Japanese players included. Be that as it may, the release of 8 was highly flawed. Timing issues aside, there were way too few hitters added and many of those probably won't see much playing time. They certainly messed up at the higher end, really just Mays and Yaz and some second cards for guys like Josh Gibson. What I was particularly disappointed with was the lack of impact players of the last 15 years.

This is fixable. Even if they just added 5 hitters and 2 pitchers per month until ATG 9 comes out, that would help keep the game fresh and leagues forming. It would take so little on their part and would surely be in their best interest economically.

But, for whatever reasons, I doubt they have the foresight and the flexibility to admit they screwed up and try to fix it.

Ultimately, same old story.

Forgot to mention pricing. While they attempted to redress some salaries (Speaker), the general impression that I came away with was that some guys they saw as needing adjustment received marginal modifications in price. But clearly their was no systematic pricing overall, just some arbitrary minor tweaks. Overall the pricing changes were little more than a joke.