PITCHERS HAVE OWN BATTING CARDS NOW

 

By Glenn Guzzo

 

            Now, Strat-O-Matic computer-baseball players can see what a great hitting pitcher Mark Mulder was last year. They can see what type of card 1955 Don Newcombe earned with a .359 average and 7 home runs. And they can come up with their own batting cards for Babe Ruth’s pitching days.

 

            It’s all possible with the new feature in the Version 12 patch that supports individual pitcher-batting cards, one of the most-sought-after features on gamers’ wish lists.

 

The v12 help file describes how gamers can create their own pitcher-batting cards with the game’s fringe-player module. However, that is unnecessary for most pitchers who batted in 2006, 1971 and 28 other seasons.

 

 They are available free online at Gary's Strat-O-Shack: http://my.opera.com/GarLen/blog/

 

They were created by Len Durrant and Gary Simonds, with assistance from Ken Wenger, Ed Williams, Jon Grauer, and Joe Freitas.

 

These guys and others are part of the Update team – the part of the Strat-O-Matic user community that has provided a bounty of add-ons. They include, among many other things, seasons updated with super-advanced features (error ratings, balks, wild pitches and more) not available at the time of their original SOM release. They include the 19th-Century seasons Strat-O-Matic has made available the past two years. And they include individual pitcher-hitting cards, once just for board gamers. Now, all can use them.

 

“We think this feature is a godsend, particularly for the earlier years of
balling, and we love what we’ve done here,” Durrant writes on the Strat-O-Shack blog. “Your comments are of particular interest to us.”

Also from the blog:

 

“What we have made so far are all SAdv sets. They cover most team pitchers
with more than 18 at bats, roughly speaking. (We're not going to create cards for
pitchers with only a few abs- that's just too much work, and considering the gain, not worth it to us. If you want a PAH card for your entire pitching roster please use your game's Fringe player creation module to add them.)

 

“Over time we'll be adding many more sets.”

 

Here are the 30 seasons now available on that site:
 
2006, 1993, 1988, 1986, 1985, 1978, 1975, 1971
1967, 1966, 1965, 1964, 1963, 1960, 1959, 1957, 1955, 1954
1948, 1941, 1934, 1927, 1920, 1911

1900, 1897, 1895, 1894, 1889, 1887

            All gamers have to do to use these free files is download them into their SOMBB/CDROMBB/ROSTERS folder, and then restart the game.

 

            You ought to see a new league with the year name followed by 99. That league will have a free-agent pool of all the pitcher-batting cards. That pool will work with all seasons you have with the same year name. So if you have, say, a 2006-season draft league, a replay league and something else, you download just once and have the use of the pitcher-batting cards for all leagues.

 

To activate the feature for any league, just check the “Use Actual Pitcher Batting Cards” item on the “Lineups and Usage Options” dialog. That way, you can use the feature with one league, but not another, if that’s your pleasure.

 

If a pitcher doesn’t have his own batting card, the game will default to the regular, generic 1-8 pitcher batting cards.

 

A sample of the cards shows these long-desired results:

 

-- Different cards for players with the same general SOM rating. For instance, Cincinnati’s Bronson Arroyo and Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano would have the same 6N batting cards in regular Strat-O-Matic.

 

But with their own cards, Zambrano is Mr. Home Run Derby – it’s either a homer or an out. None of the singles found on the 6N card. Arroyo has some doubles, but not as many homers as Zambrano. San Francisco’s Jason Schmidt, another 6N, has homers, doubles and singles, but fewer homers than either Zambrano or Arroyo.

 

-- Lefty-righty differences. Arroyo can’t get a hit on his own card vs. right-handed foes. Schmidt hits righties, with no chance against lefties. Zambrano homers well both ways, but much more against lefties.

 

-- True value for pitchers who used it to help win (or cut their losses). Mark Mulder can hit all types of pitching. Why, he’s even got a card with more on-base and power than his pitching card yields!

 

            -- History lessons. 1955 Don Newcombe is a truly great hitter vs. right-handers. He’s not bad against lefties, but has “W” power there.