Anti-1981 Bias

There seems to be an obvious discrimination against player cards from 1981 in the ATG8 set.

BATTER CARDS:
1978 - 35
1979 - 48
1980 - 48
1981 - 2
1982 - 66
1983 - 34
1984 - 76

PITCHER CARDS:
1978 - 28
1979 - 30
1980 - 31
1981 - 8
1982 - 49
1983 - 28
1984 - 51

Is it just because the players went on strike in the middle of the season? Is this some sort of twisted pay-back? What gives? 1981 was memorable for many reasons:
- Six of the 7 AL East teams had records over .500.
- Billy Martin's Oakland A's lead the league in HR.
- The Yankees won the pennant, and then missed the play-off for the next 14 seasons.
- Over in the NL, because of the strike the teams with the best records in both divisions missed the play-offs.
- The Expos made their only play-off appearance.
- For the only time in history, the World Series MVP was shared by 3 players.

The next time that SOM wants to add players to the ATG set, how about focussing on this apparently "forgotten" season!

Everybody would be a 15-game injury risk.

Everybody would be a 15-game injury risk.

I don't think that's it. I have the 1981 player cards. That simply is not true.

I was speaking generally. Ozzie Smith (507) and Dwight Evans (504) were the only players with 500 or more Plate Appearances, so other than guys who may have played every game of the Strike-shortened season, most hitters would be a 15-game injury risk.

I like to use those kind of cards. A lot of 15 game injury risk players are good values.

I like to use those kind of cards. A lot of 15 game injury risk players are good values.

Yeah I don't let them scare me off either. Though I will almost never use a non-catcher with a 2 INJ rating. Weird.

As a general rule when people search for cards to nominate they nominate useful cards. As a general rule that eliminates most from 81 because as noted they carry a 15 game injury risk. But there is more. Given the shortened season counting stats are not going to be as noticeable when you are scanning the careers of players. For example Schmidt led with 31 HRs but when I look at his career for seasons to nominate there were 12 seasons with more. Now I understand if he had finished that season he likely would have been close to if not over 40. But I doubt most think of that when just scanning the seasons. It gets worse with the other hitters as only 9 reached 20.

Probably same for pitching as there was nobody with 200 Ks. Even Ryan only reached 140. Just not that much that jumps out and screams hey look here this was a career year for this guy. And let's face it for the most part when most of us nominate a card we are looking for career years or at least close.

Perhaps with this in mind next time there are nominations you can remind us of the lack of cards from 81 and we can all take a closer look for hidden gems. Ryan for exampl had a 1.69 ERA.

Valen, I thought they should have stuck with Tolleson today. What do you think?

Couldn't strat pro-rate the card for Injuries?

I know you can pro-rate players for 162 that played in strike shortened seasons in a very old version I had (6.2) that was released on floppy disks.

I'm not sure how many games were played in 1981 season, but if around 130 and a guy had at-bats that would pro-rate to 600AB in a 162 game season--make him a 3 game max guy, or if pro-rates to 670+AB a remainder of game only injury status---or for that matter if he played in every game the team played make him an injury proof player.

Couldn't strat pro-rate the card for Injuries?

I know you can pro-rate players for 162 that played in strike shortened seasons in a very old version I had (6.2) that was released on floppy disks.

I'm not sure how many games were played in 1981 season, but if around 130 and a guy had at-bats that would pro-rate to 600AB in a 162 game season--make him a 3 game max guy, or if pro-rates to 670+AB a remainder of game only injury status---or for that matter if he played in every game the team played make him an injury proof player.

Yes, it would be simple enough to pro-rate the 600 Plate Appearances based on the percentage of real games played. It's just math, and works out to approximately 395. I don't know how their programs are written, but to correct this can't be more than one line of coding.

I doubt they'd do this though since they didn't consider the shortened season when adding the 1994 Expos recently. And it doesn't look as if they considered the same scenario in the labor-dispute shortened 1972 and 1995 seasons either.

Anyway, I don't think this is much of an argument against 1981 since we all use players all the time that have 15-game injury chances. Isn't it their role to make players available, and then our decision which players we choose to use?