1940 Hank Greenberg

historical accuracy in my book

Since when are any of these leagues "historically accurate"? These are "What if" leagues, and Greenberg was a 1B by trade, why shouldn't he be rated there in an ALL TIME GREATS LEAGUE? If this were a 1940 season reply, fine, but it is not.

I am just saying, we are the managers and the coaches, Greenberg played 1B the season prior, what is the big deal?

You're right, we don't play replay leagues, but, sorry, this 1940 card was created to mirror Greenberg's performance in 1940 when he played against who he played against. This isn't some fuzzy, "Well, Greenberg was a great player so let's just give him a great card". Christ, if we did that, why should we have ANY specific year for any player? You know, SOM has Hall-of-Fame cards. Maybe you should go play those instead. I think a majority of the rest of us would like to think that there is some semblence of historical accuracy and that is not just limited to the offensive portion of the cards, but also to the defensive parts. Maybe it's because I'm a historian that I am such a pedant when it comes to this game.

So since Carlos Delgado, Dale Murphy and Craig Biggio once played catcher then they should be rated as catches on all of their SOM cards, even years they never played catcher? What a crazy argument.

IS Craig Biggio considered the best catcher in the history of the franchise, would he be put in a lineup for the best players of all time in their franchise at catcher[/url]

I would say yes he could be the C or 2B for the all-time team. Cesar Cedeno or Jimmy Wynn would be the best CF. I don't see what that has to do with my point however. Just because a player played a position in a prior year doesn't mean that he should be carded to that position for all his future SOM cards was the point I was making. That is why Greenberg should not be carded for 1B on a 1940 card.

Discussion!!!! Though on a slightly strange kilter.

1. Reprice ALL cards.

2. guys, some context is what the pro 1B people are saying. Playing a position for 10 innings or 10 years ago like in some of the examples is quite different than Greenberg's case, where he played thousands of innings and built a HOF career as a 1B. (All for 1940 accuracy though)

3. mykeedee has a good point: is that 4(+5) rating really all that accurate or super-advanced anyways???? The evil "projected" 4e10 at 1B seems a bit more accurate, no?

4. I don't quite like the idea of the set unilaterally changing overnight because someone notices something. I've noticed no pricing changes for waaaaay too long. That's the biggest variable. If we're gonna get more accurate Greenbergs, lets make sure there D is rather than some +5 arm phooey and accurately price the players on a CONSISTENT COST CURVE rather than some herky-jerky one like we have now from 2 different companies with 2+ different views on how much these cards should be worth. New cards don't quite help here. ----> People don't seem keen on repricing......

5. The Greenberg defense coup was a grand-switcheroo some time after the card and 1940 Tigers were in ATG1-2 with Greenberg being exlclusively a molases-throwing, temporal manipulating ACCURATE LF only card. It was a fun conundrum.

Although rarely mentioned anymore, I believe the 1940 1b rating for Greenberg is a holdover from the Fantasim game where many skewed cards arose. In that game, like the mystery leagues, each player had 5 possible years, and their position included all of the positions they played in any of those 5 seasons.

Some of those Fantasim cards made it into ATG, and only a few were deleted or updated.

Ooooooo, dropping the FantaSim scorn! I'll firmly stand against the Fantasim. i remember the Arky Vaughn Inflapression well. Hey, probably plays quite a bit into my Powercreep stuff......

Hmmmmm, Greenberg's got me feeling all kinds of special treatment....



To fix them, you must reprice them.

Mike Gilbert surely has it right. In the early days of SOM, about the time they did the pre-60's leagues, they made sure that every team had a backup for every position from among their main card set (which often was fewer than 25 guys). Since York played every inning, they just gave a 1B rating to Greenberg. And TSN never changed it.

IN 1908 Johnny Evers played 1 part of 1 game 2.2 innings in RF, yet he is rated for CF, LF and RF why is that? He never played in the outfield at any other time. Seems like that is a bigger fielding miss than listing the greatest 1B of all time in Detroit at 1B. Or all the pitchers who were primarily relievers who are listed only as starters, the list is too numerous to mention here. Honus Wagner pitched in 1900 and yet we have no pitching card for him and he put in 3 innings as a pitcher 1 more than Evers in the outfield. Ralph Garr’s 1979 card has him playing RF yet he played only LF and DH in 1979 .

In 1976 Pete Rose played all of one inning in RF and for that we can play him 162 games in RF? In 1968 Pete Rose did not play LF yet we have him rated as a 1 -2 e3 about one of the best fielding LF in baseball, but the prior year he did play 124 games in LF so I assume he could play it…..

Also a player is rated for RF in 1921 that never played an inning in RF in 1921 —— Babe Ruth and the 1923 card does not show him eligible for CF even though he started 7 games there….

For those that are worried about Stratomatic purity and the grievous error of allowing Hank Greenberg to be listed as able to play 1B…..

Cesar Cedeno in 1972 did not play 1B yet the card is rated for 1B -----in 1971 he played 2 games there so I guess that carried over. Should I continue with the hundreds of errors (supposedly errors I would call them web site decisions) in the realistic accuracy that is so evangelically necessary for the play of this game, so that players can convert a statistical anomaly in a cavernous stadium into a fearsome terror in a bandbox of simulation?

If you want a good one one of the best defensive players of all time Roberto Clemente in 1969 only played RF yet the Stratomatic card has him rated for CF ……… in 1967 Roberto Clemente did play CF but is only rated for RF in Stratomatic

So since Carlos Delgado, Dale Murphy and Craig Biggio once played catcher then they should be rated as catches on all of their SOM cards, even years they never played catcher? What a crazy argument.

IS Carlos Delgado, Dale Murphy or Craig Biggio considered the best catcher in the history of the franchise, would they be put in a lineup for the best players of all time in their franchise at catcher - Hank Greenberg is viewed as the best first baseman of all time, he played 1B a bit more than once….

http://baseball.about.com/od/detroittigers/tp/Detroit-Tigers-All-Time-Lineup.htm

So what do we do with the 1998 Cal Ripken? He only played 3B during the season (161 games), but obviously the manager could have counted on Cal to play shortstop if he had to, since Cal was the greatest shortstop in Browns/Orioles history. But he didn't play shortstop in 98, but you would want him to have the possibility to play shortstop anyway because of his career? I counted on this game not to be post-truth...

No by 1999 Cal Ripken was no longer able to play SS as he was too old and he never played SS again after 1997 when he played all of 3 games there and they realized he was too old. Hank Greenberg on the other hand went back and played 258 more games at 1B after 1940, the war having taken a lot of good years away from him but he came back and played 1B before retiring after 1947.