Strato Baseball Daily

I think what they're trying to do is admirable. Playing last year's set this year, in today's instantaneous Information Age, comes across as archaic. I'm watching Kris Bryant live, but I can't play him on my Strato team until next year - while fantasy baseball managers are playing Kris Bryant in real time.

I get that. But the execution part of the strategy is complicated. You can't have free drops, because changing a roster every single day is not the authentic GM/Managerial experience. You can't have drop penalties, because a diminished roster generally does not compete well with a fully plenished roster.

I think the attempt to cross-breed Strato (game engine, salaries, drop system, etc) with fantasy (real time, auction, pay for drops, etc) is misguided. You end up not with the best features from each format, but rather the worst. Just one manager's opinion.

FWIW, I agree with Grandpa qksilver and Negative Niners: there's so much to be done to improve Strat-O-Matic, that worrying about how to compete with Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball should be the last thing on their mind. Grilled chicken McWrap, anyone?

It's been over 20 years since I did fantasy leagues.
1) Did not have the time to constantly monitor injuries, waivers and the like.
2) More importantly I did not like rooting for players or worrying about how certain players did instead of teams
3) I'm clueless on the cost of fantasy baseball these days, but I assume it's a steep cost for Baseball 365 relative to whatever it is.

As an aside:

What would be wrong with a "2016-A" card set? Each week (or daily), replace the card set with real time stats. HOWEVER, the card set is frozen for the group that drafted it. The next week, the new card set would be "2016-B" with updated cards based on the most current stats. Freeze that pool until the next update.

You're playing the most current cards possible, without the gimmicky nonsense of dropping a guy who went 5 for 58 during the week in favor of a guy who hit back to back pinch hit home runs that week. No rotating salaries that screw up set roster salary caps.

By the time you get to 2016-Z, the card set is then the actual permanent 2016 card set. No?

It's Strat, in it's most current, up to date form. Seems simple enough to me. Strat 2016! Actually in 2016!

Fwiw I really liked it. I realize it's trying to marry the traditional Strat game system with fantasy baseball, but hey, why not? I love the game system and I'm going to really love the fantasy daily version. Loved the beta test season. Loved checking out the card changes, the hot players and the new cards as they came out. Yeah there are flaws and possible improvements but I had a blast. Loved finding value cards in that beta season.

The salaries did not reflect the new card values well, but that just meant that i had to check out the cards and decide where the bargains were. The cap ends up being a loose kind of competitive equalizer, but the daily game is more like the mystery games than any other kind of STRAT game. You're looking for great values. The difference is that in the mystery gAme, you're trying to figure out which card you've got - the star or the bum - whereas in "daily" you're looking for value based on the current card, or *which way you think the card is going to change *. And the search for value cards based on current value, is constantly changing. I really like it.

But like every strat game platform, you might like one version of the game more, and others less. It's personal preference. The variety can't be bad. Some strat gamers might ultimately play only the daily game each year. To each their own. It's all good, and the discussion of flaws is also useful and good. It's another debate in the world of strat.

This discussion also begs the question: If cards can be updated daily now, why are we waiting until April 2016 to play the 2015 card set??

Why did we not start playing in October of last year? Will the salaries of the 2015 cards exactly match the frozen salaries at the end of the daily game beta test? If not, why not??

From the first things first department: How 'bout those 2006 year stats?

sitting someone in a slump sounds great, but will they really reflect huge swings in production on the cards? I see them making small adjustments based on the prior nights action, but it would take a deep slump to make pronounced changes i'll bet.

Kind of unrelated , but did any of you guys play Bill James Fantasy Baseball? I think it's called STATS FB now(since Bill took his name off of it to go work for the Red Sox). By FAR the best fantasy game I ever played!

To Beta testers...

How were late season call ups handled?

Did a new card just appear in the set?

Apologies if this was already addressed but I did not have the time or interest to wade through non related BS.

:D

This discussion also begs the question: If cards can be updated daily now, why are we waiting until April 2016 to play the 2015 card set??

Why did we not start playing in October of last year? Will the salaries of the 2015 cards exactly match the frozen salaries at the end of the daily game beta test? If not, why not??

From the first things first department: How 'bout those 2006 year stats?

I think they've stated that the final cards from 2015 are not the same as 2016 set cards, they've been tweaked to reflect the entire year's performance and not just the last days of the season.

To Beta testers...

How were late season call ups handled?

Did a new card just appear in the set?

Apologies if this was already addressed but I did not have the time or interest to wade through non related BS.

Yes, new cards were added daily with a box displaying who they were....additionally there was a "who's hot, who's not" display box.

I can dig it!