50/50 pitchers card - are good pitchers devalued?

Even the best pitchers have half of their results dictated by the hitter’s card due to SOm’s 50/5o dice roll. It seems that would devalue the top pitchers. It also means that it increases the importance of the lefty vs righty splits. For example, the 50/50 rule means pitching a mediocre pitcher to Get a result from the other side of the batters card is more important than in real life. The result is that it makes sense sometimes to take out a great pitcher when in real life you’d never do it.
But I don’t see that happen much in som 365.
What’s wrong with my analysis?

I agree. Always have. The X chances should have been on the hitters card, or at least split up on both. That is the single biggest flaw of Strat.

I have been playing the game since 68--it does devalue those great years--mostly because the power hitters still get the HR's and Doubles. Never got close to Gibsons 1.12ERA in 68 even with the new advanced 68 cards (The originals were Basic game only)

One good thing strat did a long time ago was the N/W power ratings--the hitter has to have Normal power to get a HR off a pitchers card.

One thing I never understood is why they didn't have similar ratings for pitchers--if a pitcher gives up few (or no) HRs the HR should be altered on the batters card as well. The N-HR on the pitchers card (they used to be printed that way) could be a P-HR on the batter.

Strat could give pitchers a power allowed Rating (or HR allowed) of 1-20 --similar to a balk or wild pitch rating)--the vast majority would be rated 20--but a few pitchers (like Kerhaw 2016, Maddux in 95) may have a lesser rating--the HR off the batters card now becomes a split chance. (or a double split chance if the batters reading was split chance)

Actually, the computer game (and online game) does make adjustments for players with extreme stats:

http://somonline.wikia.com/wiki/Maximum ... e_Excesses

You can see the Correct Board Game Excesses is checked for the online game here:

http://somonline.wikia.com/wiki/Maximum_Rules

For the vast majority of players the 50-50 split works better than you might think at first glance. While pitchers all have X-chart chances that take up one-third of their card, the remaining two columns give enough flexibility to differentiate between a Sandy Koufax versus a poor pitcher, even versus a position player pitching.

Also, imagine if they made a set of cards that matched up each hitter against each pitcher. So you would have a Koufax versus Mays card for example (i.e., thousands of cards representing each possible matchup). One giant card with all six columns. The card would have exactly the same number of hit, homerun, walk, and strikeout chances (and so on) as their two individual cards do now!

Never forget that in almost all online leagues, hitters are facing better pitching and pitchers are facing better hitters than they did in real life. Thus, it is statistically impossible for players on average to mirror their real life results.

milleram does make a good point about Bob Gibson and how unlikely it is he would duplicate a 1.12 ERA (even in a replay league). I agree! However, I would argue that his ERA being that good was a fluke. Sure, he had a great year. However, considering how many hits, homeruns, and walks he gave up--while really good--you would have expected a higher ERA than he had.

I had M. Cabrera give up around 10 HR in 50 innings average on several teams----he gave up none in 2016, so not sure that rule is implemented in on-line, or if it is--it is woefully inadequate.

I had M. Cabrera give up around 10 HR in 50 innings average on several teams----he gave up none in 2016, so not sure that rule is implemented in on-line, or if it is--it is woefully inadequate.

I agree; that certainly does sound inadequate. However, if he had no chance to give up homeruns, that would be bad too. That might make sense from a replay point of view, but it would be horrible from a gaming point of view. Also, while 10 per 50 IP is way too high, he would probably have given up a few homeruns in real life if he had to face the lineups he gets in the online game.

A couple random thoughts.

The rolls are really:
50% hitter
35% pitcher
15% defense

So the best pitchers are really only affecting 35% of the rolls (but that is the way Hal created this game). Arguably, a more logical split would be:

42% hitter
42% pitcher
15/15% defense

With this division the best pitchers would fair better facing the best hitters.

Partly in reference to Gibson's 1.12, there is a clutch rating/rolls for most hitters. There is a lot of debate on how valid any clutch rating is, especially given a small sample size. There, however, is no clutch rating/rolls on pitcher's card. Assuming clutch is even a valid concept, there is no real argument that it only applies to hitters and not to pitchers (again, this is the way the game is structured). There certainly could be some pitchers who get better in clutch situations.

Moving X chart chances to hitters' cards would not make pitchers more effective or more valuable. All it would do is move more regular outs (taken from the hitters' cards) to the pitchers' cards. Every pitcher would get the exact same number of increased regular outs!

Such a move would hurt the realism for a handful of hitters with extreme cards.

Moving X chart chances to hitters' cards would not make pitchers more effective or more valuable. All it would do is move more regular outs (taken from the hitters' cards) to the pitchers' cards. Every pitcher would get the exact same number of increased regular outs!

Such a move would hurt the realism for a handful of hitters with extreme cards.

No hitter has ever had 80 on base chances. Many pitchers have had negative on base when factoring in the X chances

No hitter has ever had 80 on base chances. Many pitchers have had negative on base when factoring in the X chances

Actually, I concede a guy like Nolan Ryan could use the extra space on his card because he doesn't have enough room for all the strikeouts after all the walks get put on his card. However, maximum rules allegedly cover situations like this.

I don't understand what you mean by negative on base. However, since the number of X chances are static, it's silly to say this affects a pitcher's effectiveness one way or another regardless where you put them. If you mean a pitcher should have less than zero on base chances on his card, then it still doesn't matter where the X chances are unless you are going to move more on base chances from the hitters' cards to the pitchers' cards for everybody. (And doing that would make it hard to differentiate between really bad hitters.)

Despite every pitcher having 30 X-chances (2 of which the pitcher actually has input with his own rating), you still have more than enough programmable chances to make a pitcher super effective or super horrible. Moving the X chances would not help make pitchers more effective.

Don't believe me? Look at the Strat-O-Matic express game. In this simplified version of the game, there are no X chances at all. Do you think pitchers are suddenly more effective there than in regular super-advanced?