Unleashed - not happy with half of them

agreed, but Davis threw 67 1/3 innings so 200 innings would be 3 times that amount. Parker hit 6 home runs, so 3 times that would be 18....not 70+ To hit 70+ that would be 12 times his actual amount....so by that proportion, Davis would pitch 12 times his actual amount or about 800 innings. I think if Davis pitched 800 innings there would be an uproar, heck there already is to some degree when he goes 3 times over his actual.

to me the bigger problem is that now the #1 card in the whole set is Parker's and Arencibia is probably in the top 6 or so as well. Is that really representative of what strat wants. 2 of the top 6 guys to be flukes. but I know....that's why it's unleashed. just arguing the point. even in the unleashed world, Jarret Parker just became the best player in baseball (way ahead of Trout and Harper) and that's where I think something is wrong.

It's too bad he had that brief June call up against Arizona. He went 0 for 9. Had that not happened and he only had his September numbers, he'd have been 16/40 with a .400 batting avg and even more ridiculous numbers. maybe then strat would have denied him a card (40 at bats at huge numbers). odd that a weekend callup made the difference (possibly), and that it was a bad weekend...which probably helped (odd) to get him a card.

I guess my whole point was that SOM needs to put together some parameters for Unleashed. Last year, Unleashed players had 40, 50, 60 ABs. This year, 3 players have 100 ABs. Based on historical practices, guys who are in Keeper Leagues (I have 5 of them) and do Pre-Card drafts (I have 2 of them) should know what they are dealing with in advance.
Based on history of the game, it was very reasonable to assume that the 3 100AB guys would be carded. Now that they aren't, some managers have wasted draft picks!

I would be OK if SOM came out with a blanket statement that says something like "if a player has less than 110 ABs or less than 130 PAs, they could be ineligible for the regular game", or something of this nature.

Garcia has made it clear that he could enter these players into regular leagues on demand, so that is a cool offer, but inconvenient for him and us.

Kev

I agree with you 100% Kev. It was a shock to me that guys with over 100 AB's would be unleashed. To me this changes the principle behind the unleashed set - it's now becoming like a form of sports strategy censureship - someone has too good of a part year (over 100 AB's) and he gets demoted from regular set to unleashed. I don't like this at all. As you said, Kev, this makes keeper leagues seem goofy (most keeper leagues exclude the unleashed cards), when you lose a player because his card was just "too good".

For full disclosure, I am in 7 keeper leagues. 2 use the unleashed set, 5 do not. I only have 1 player in 1 league that will be excluded because of this issue. It's the principle of it that bothers me so much - sports strategy censureship. I liked the way it was in prior years, when the unleashed players had under 100 AB's.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but I strongly disagree with players like Cory Seager being treated as unleashed. This issue will only become more annoying as the years go by, if they continue with this kind of arbitrary, flip a coin, approach to "which cards are just too good this year". And it will look foolish with hindsight, as (inevitably) some of those unleashed card players, like Seager, happen to have similarly good cards in future years.

Another by the way comment on this issue - this is partly due to the way MLB clubs operate these days, where they tend to not "let" star prospects start the season with the big club. If they end up being called up in August instead of June, they will be right back into the Cory Seager unleashed purgatory category.

As always, Geoff said it better than I did. Well saud. It must be the Canadian schools that made you so smart.

Strat isn't censoring players, the keeper leagues are. They made a card set with those players, whether or not we chose to use them is on us, not them. And there is a specific reason why most keeper leagues are not allowing Jared Parker, Et al. into their leagues....a small sample size that would have a disproportional effect on the entire simulation.

100 ABs, 50 ABs, 75 ABs....they are all arbitrary cutoffs. Why not give the guy who goes 1-1 in his only PA a perfect card? The line has to be arbitrary based on what happens each year. And I would bet nearly everyone agrees that none of those players other than Seager has any chance of repeating those numbers over 400-500 PAs...If they could, their teams would be giving them those sorts of opportunities IRL. Seager is the exception, but it is understandable and I have him in some keeper leagues as well.

If you like having the those cards in , play unleashed by all means, but I don't see the problem with giving us the option.

The discussions and points are good. Ultimately, I agree with the idea that each keeper league has to decide for themselves what to do with unleashed and each manager has to decide what league(s) they want to play in.

The self inflicted flaw is for keeper leagues who ban unleashed players and hold drafts when it is not yet known who will be unleashed. The two sided risk is selecting a player who is later made unleashed versus not selecting a player who is later not made unleashed. The only fair solution is to hold drafts after learning who will be unleashed.

Hveed makes a great point on keeper leagues. I adjusted our keeper league policy as follows:

The only excluded players will be non-catcher hitters with a) less than 80 PAs and b) salary over $7.5M. At this time, the only hitter I see who might fit that category is Jarrett Parker of the Giants. So this means:

ALL pitchers who get an online card are in.

ALL catchers who get an online card are in.

ALL players with 80 PA or more are in.

Why 80? I think this is a good cutoff for callups like Parker who hit just a ridiculous amount of HRs in a very small sample and have the potential to really skew the game. It will not exclude some callups who play the entire month of September and are exciting to have in our game and also make the competition better by adding depth to the card set.

I made that call on Oct 18 and I like it still. Yes, Arencibia and his crazy card is in, but as a C he has an automatic injury roll which will mitigate his PAs to some degree.

I understand that some folks think the Unleashed cards make the game less about real ball and more about fluke cards, but you still have to pay for those cards with high draft picks or show some judgment in pre-card draft leagues.

Looking back on it, I probably would not have entered the current unleashed 24-team Keeper league I'm still drafting in if I knew beforehand players like Jarrett Parker would be carded. I thought there was no way. So much for integrity of the sport/game. Parker's inclusion for this season makes a joke out of the game. Nothing less. OTOH, knowing it's a joke I no longer take this game quite as seriously as I used to. So there's a positive effect.

Parker should not have a card at all.

There's no requirement to play in unleashed leagues. Personally, I like them -- this is a game, so the more game pieces, the merrier!

And besides, why would 70 HR for Parker be any more unreasonable than 200 IP for a super-reliever like a Wade Davis or a Jeff Manship? And that would be possible even in the leagues that are not unleashed...

Exactly!!! This has been one of my main bones of contention since Unleashed came out. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Unfortunately, when that regular keeper league you joined in 2009 or 2010 decided to go unleashed starting with 2014, you don't always get the option to not play unleashed.

Not sure that one faulty aspect of the game is justified by another faulty aspect.

I'm in fredpaii's new keeper league too. I drafted Parker in the 5th round and Arencibia in the 8th. I was perfectly willing to take the pain of not getting either guy carded, although I thought Arencibia was a lock. But it seems like I have an awfully strong team with both of them being carded. I estimate that (in US Cell) they will hit upwards of 125 HR between them.

But the whole issue becomes moot if Strat would just have an option for the online game of having guys go down with season ending injuries at, say, 100%, 110%, 125%, 150%, or not at all of their (AB+BB) or IP. The commish (or the league members in recurring and keeper leagues) decide what the injury limit is. If your guy goes down for the count, you have a mandatory add/drop with whatever the penalty is at that point of the season.

Boom!

End of problem.

And please, Strat, add that option to the ATG set too. No more Dale Murray, or Ken Smith, or Gates Brown issues.

For a guy with 49 at bats to be the most expensive card in the deck is just plain ridiculous. It is even worse than playing with those guys from the 1800s that would struggle to make minor league rosters of today.