Strat-O-Matic baseball

[looksthatkillbn]

Has anyone ever done it before? My dad was in a league for twenty years before it disbanded a couple years ago, and I got some of my friends here at school hooked on it and we're starting a league when the 2007 cards come out.

[avengedtbs]

My dad used to do it every year when he was still married to my mom. He would let me play sometimes when he had free time. I thought it was awesome.

[Scott Weber]

Is it all online now? Or what?

[Broken Parachute]

How exactly does it work?

[bigmike]

It's a game played with cards and a die I believe. The cards for pitchers/hitters have attributes or something and by some combination of the die and cards you get a result of the AB and whatnot. It was really innovative back in the 1960's. I'm fairly certain it was the game invented by like Peter Gammons' nephew or something. They detailed it in the book The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics which I highly recommend. It's not about the numbers themselves, but the people (like the kid who invented strat-o-matic ... which he did when he was like 11 if I'm remembering the right game as there were a couple of them that came out ... he revised it at 18 and then it took off when he was 24).

I'd really like to grab it and play it. Apparently kids back in the 60's/70's kept entire leagues and their own statsheets standings, etc. Kind of the first baseball game before video games hit. Here it is on wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strat-O-Matic)

[looksthatkillbn]

it's a game where you form teams like a fantasy team, except you draft from last seasons stats. each player has a card, as shown below, that best reflects his stats from the season. below is a juan gonzalez card from the mid-90s. in the top left corner, shows that he is right handed. below his name is his fielding rating. he can only play right field, he has a three range (1-5), his arm strength is 0 (average), and his error rating is a three (0-88, where 0 made no errors on the year and 88 made an error on every play). to the right is stealing percentage, the number to the left (2 on this card), you roll two dice to see if he gets a good jump. if he does, you roll a 20 sided dice for the first number, and if he gets it (for gonzalez, that means if you roll anything), you steal the base. if you don't get the jump, you can still try to steal the base, but it's much less likely (for gonzalez, 1-6). as you can see, he's a D bunter and a D hit & runner (A-E), and on a general running play, like a possibility of a sac fly, he's 1-11.

this is an above average card against lefties and an average card against righties, because he gets salvaged by the power there, but he didn't hit any more than about .250 or .260 against righties that year.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/img/2level/jgonzalez.jpg

you have three dice, one of one color and two of another, and you roll all three dice. let's say that the single dice is a 3, and the other two dice add up to eight. then, if gonzalez is facing a left handed pitcher, he popped out to short, as you see. if he's facing a righty, it's a lineout to third.
pitchers cards have 4-6 at the top of the columns on their cards, whereas the hitters, as seen above, have 1-3. so if a 1-3 is rolled on the single die, it goes to the hitters card, and if a 4-6 is rolled on the single die, it goes to the pitchers card.

it's a very realistic and well thought out game. it's basically fantasy baseball on steroids. it takes about 45 minutes to play a full game.

my dad was in a league that started in i believe 1986, and went through 2004. it ended up going online in about 2000, and some guys in the league were for the switch, some were against, and that's what eventually (among other things) tore the league apart. i took my dad's strat stuff to school last year and showed it to some guys, and there are six of us now that are going to give it a shot.

[bduke13]

I used to play Showdown when I was younger

[Broken Parachute]

It's basically the original form of MLB Showdown? I remember how big Showdown became, everyone was playing it at one point.

Anyway it looks awesome and I wish I had friends who would play with me. My friends are cocksuckers though.

[looksthatkillbn]

It's basically the original form of MLB Showdown? I remember how big Showdown became, everyone was playing it at one point.

Anyway it looks awesome and I wish I had friends who would play with me. My friends are cocksuckers though.

i've honestly never heard of showdown so i have no clue. but it really is a great time. i'll see if i can't keep things updated when my cards come at the beginning of february.

[Broken Parachute]

i've honestly never heard of showdown so i have no clue. but it really is a great time. i'll see if i can't keep things updated when my cards come at the beginning of february.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB_Showdown

[looksthatkillbn]

it seems kinda similar but also seems very dumbed down, whereas strat is comlex to the point of pure insanity. i wish i would've known about showdown when it existed

[Scott Weber]

can't you do online strat leagues now? we should do one.

[looksthatkillbn]

can't you do online strat leagues now? we should do one.

i'm fairly certain you can, and i will look into that shortly and head it up if you guys want. it won't be up and ready at least for the 2007 season until the cards come out i know. i'll look around.

[looksthatkillbn]

i just looked at it, and a 12-team online league can be done through the sporting news, and it is fucking expensive. to do 2006's year, it costs $24.95 to get one team.

[Scott Weber]

That's not that bad, I'd do it for $25.

[looksthatkillbn]

can we find ten others to agree? i mean, i'm doing it with the cards among six guys, and it's costing us like $16 a piece, including supplies (dice, scorebooks, etc.)

[Scott Weber]

can we find ten others to agree? i mean, i'm doing it with the cards among six guys, and it's costing us like $16 a piece, including supplies (dice, scorebooks, etc.)
How long does an online season last?

[ForlrnPerplxity]

I'd do it if there was a payoff for the winner at the end of the season.

[looksthatkillbn]

How long does an online season last?

it's a full, 162 game season

[Scott Weber]

it's a full, 162 game season
:inlove:

[bduke13]

I'll consider doing it. I was a huge showdown geek like 5 years ago

[looksthatkillbn]

:inlove:

if we can get twelve i'm in

[Scott Weber]

Yeah count me in too.

[CubbyNick42]

I'd be down for trying it.

[bduke13]

Yea I'll definitly do it. That makes 4 or 5 of us

[looksthatkillbn]

this looks to be failing

[Scott Weber]

interest will probably come back up around spring training, we should wait til the 07 numbers come out anyways.

[looksthatkillbn]

interest will probably come back up around spring training, we should wait til the 07 numbers come out anyways.

yeah i'll wait two months and bump this