by Paul Semendinger
March 9, 2024
***
Well, they arrived - the new Strat cards. Strat-o-Matic makes playing cards for their game every single season. These printed cards are designed to replicate each player's performance based on their stats, performance, and probability.
In essence, the game is very sinple to play. To start one rolls a white die. If the number rolled is a 1, 2, or 3, you would next look on the batter's card to get a result. If the roll is a 4, 5, or 6, you'd look on the pitcher's card.
Once you go to the batter's or the pitcher's card, you'd roll two dice. The most common number to roll with two dice is a seven. The next most common numbers would be six and eight, followed by five and nine and so on. The least common numbers are, of course two and twelve. On a card, events that occur closest to seven will happen more often while events that happen with twos and threes and elevens and twelves will happen less often.
Let's take a look at Gerrit Cole's card representing his 2023 season:
You can see in column 5 especially, against right-handed and left-handed batters, that Gerrit Cole is going to strikeout a lot of batters.
Also note that Cole is good for six innings. After that, he'll tire out. That seven in column 5 becomes a single when a pitcher is tired.
Now here is Aaron Judge's card.
Note that this is almost the ultimate three outcome card. Judge is going to hit a ton of homers, he's going to walk a lot, and he's going to strikeout a lot.
Strat also rates each player's defense (range), probability for errors (e-rating), throwing arm, stolen base strength, bunting, and their speed on the bases.
The fastest runners in the game are ranked 1-17. (This is on a scale of 1-20.) The 2023 Yanks have no runners that fast. Their best two runners are 1-15, IKF and Anthony Volpe.
A slow runner is usually 1-9. The Yankees have two of them - Jose Trevino and Kyle Higashioka. Worse, Giancarlo Stanton is a 1-8. That's terrible.
A great defender would rank as a 1 defensively. A bad defender would be a 4 or a 5.
Aaron Judge ranks as a 1 in right field. (In center, he's a 3, not so good.) At shortstop, Anthony Volpe is a 2. IKF is a 4 in center field. Giancarlo Stanton is a 5 in right or left field.
Also note the strength of Aaron Judge's arm. It's a -4. That's great. A runner loses four "points" if he challenges Judge's arm in trying to take an extra base. (As such a 1-15 runner becomes a 1-11 with the 20-sided die.) In real life, and in the game, it would be foolish to challenge Judge's arm!
Strat-o-Matic has been making games since the early 1960s. They have built a reputation for developing accurate cards. One can see with the cards from the 2023 Yankees that the team will struggle. They don't run well, they don't field well. We already know they didn't pitch well (outside of Gerrit Cole) and they didn't hit much (outside of Judge and Gleyber Torres).
Still, the cards are always fun to look at and play games with. I have accumulated virtually every Yankees team set they have made. (They have not made them cards for every season.) I don't collect many items any longer, but I always buy the new Strat cards.
If you've never played the game, I recommend you give it a try.
I'm happy for you Paul that you finally got the cards.
But one thing about Cole 'tiring out' after 6. Yankees are very big believers, and strict about it, this 100 pitch garbage, so much so, that even Cole was not immune to the curse of the pitch count......
...now, do you still really want Snell, who generally will have on the higher side of PPI and be pulled by the Yankees, more times than not before he's officially pitched even 4.2 innings? Really want to pay him even $20M for that pleasure?
Note - The Judge card has his running "score" cut off.
Judge is a 1-13 runner.
What are the triangles and omegas on the left sides of some of the entries, and the diamond next to the "N-HR" entries (and what does "N-HR" mean)? Seems like they added some features from when I played in the late '70s. Also, I don't remember ever seeing a "plus injury" as high as a 9 entry; they were usually 12's or 11's if it was someone considered "fragile." Where is Stanton's "plus injury" on his card?
moving Mookie to shortstop?
that's certainly going to add extra wear and tear to a guy over 30 and also under contract for big bucks for 9 full seasons.
I've gotta believe that the move is no more than a feint
and that the Dodgers' will soon secure a "real" shortstop
in exchange for Lux or some other good bat-bad glove guy.
Betts is the real deal, a two-way player with a full tool belt