By Paul Semendinger
March 5, 2023
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I was away on vacation last week and when I arrived home, I was very pleased to see that the new Strat-o-Matic cards that I had ordered have arrived.
I have been playing Strat-o-Matic Baseball (the best baseball board game, in my humble opinion) since 1981 when I received my first game set as a Christmas present from my grandmother.
I have ordered the "new guys" every single year since...
I love seeing the new player cards.
I can't give away all the secrets here, but I'll share some of my most exciting observations:
* In the Advanced Version of the game, a player gets two ratings on defense, a range factor and an error rating. The best fielders are rated a 1 while the worst score a 4 or a 5. In regard to error ratings, the higher number, the worse the player is.
A player can't do better as a fielder than the 2022 season Aaron Judge in right field. He is a 1e0. In other words, he has the best range and he can't make an error. Judge also has a (-4) arm which means that any runner trying to advance an extra base on a throw from Judge loses 4 points of their running rating. (In centerfield, Judge is a 3e0; still no errors, but he has much less range.)
Some other defensive highlights:
D.J. LeMahieu can play second base (2e10), third base (2e4), and first base (2e5). That's a great card.
IKF is a 2e18 at shortstop. Also very good.
Oswaldo Cabrera is better if rightfield (3e4) than leftfield (4e4).
Marwin Gonzalez can play a host of positions, but he's bad everywhere: shortstop (4e16), first base (4e30), right and left fields (4e4), third base (4e8) and second base (4e32). He hit .185 last year, but the Yankees gave him 184 at bats. Why? Uggg.
* In regard to running, the 2022 Yankees have no speed. Speed is determined by a roll of a 20-sided dice. Usually a team has a player that is 1-17 in running. 1-16 is still pretty fast. The Yankees have only one 1-15 runner, it's IKF. They also have a host of slow guys: Anthony Rizzo and Josh Donaldson (1-10), Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Trevino (1-9), and Kyle Higashioka (1-8). (Now imagine losing 4 points if any of these guys ran against Aaron Judge's arm.)
* Also note, since the cards are based on the 2022 roster, Harrison Bader, who didn't play very much, does not have a card. His running would certainly be a 1-15 or 1-16.
* Of the 36 possible outcomes on Giancarlo's batting card (against right handed pitching) he strikes out on ten of them. Yikes.
* Of those same 36 possible outcomes, Aaron Judge would reach base on (about)* 18 dice rolls. (*I say about, because it's not quite that simple, but close enough.) Of course, half of the time (on average) when a batter is batting, one looks at the pitcher's card so Judge wouldn't have a .500 on base percentage.
* Speaking of pitchers, Aroldis Chapman has a ton of walks all over his card.
* The Yankees starters don't last long into games. The most durable starter is Gerrit Cole who would get tired in the 6th inning. He's the only starter that can go that "far" before getting tired.
***
Strat-o-Matic is a great game. There are a lot of aspects to the game and at first it seems complicated, but it isn't. It's a quick game to learn and play. A typical game takes about 30-minutes.
Again, I do not believe there is a better baseball game out there than Strat-o-Matic.
