Josh Raup is
The Minister of Strat Mayhem
Volume I, Number 5
April, 2001
Feeding
the Addictions
As we are all well aware, addictions
can be powerful things. They can take
over and ruin lives. Some are harmless,
others are symptoms of a greater sickness.
I’m not quite sure where my addiction to Baseball, and Stratomatic lies. My wife would argue that I spend way too
much time involved in playing games, watching games on TV (or listening on the
radio), and pouring over statistics each and every week. But hey, it’s only a $2 a week habit, so I’m
not going to bankrupt myself with it, nor am I going to turn to a life of crime
to finance it. Even so, I still get
mean looks whenever I refuse to change the channel from a ball game, even
though it’ 12-1 in the bottom of the 9th with two outs, because she
wants to watch Designing Women.
But anyway, I recently fed my
addictions. A good healthy fix to jolt
my system. First off, I joined a second
league. I took over an over achieving
mediocre team. And I had way too many
Twinkies (aka Minnesota Twins) on the team.
So bye-bye to Koskie, Lawton, Hawkins, Mayne, Kevin Brown, Shannon
Stewart, Chad Allen, David Segui, and Carlos Guillen and hello to Matt
Williams, Brian Giles, Mike Lieberthal, Orlando Hernandez, Jeff Nelson, Jim
Thome, and Denny Neagle. Ok, so I
traded perhaps the second best pitcher in Strato. But this team was going to .500 with him, or with out him (just
like Ralph Kiner was once told by the Pirates), so I traded him for some more
power for the line up. But hey, I’m
looking at this as a challenge, and see what I can make of this team by the end
of the year.
And, just today, I went out and
bought Total Baseball, 7th Edition.
The latest and greatest version of Baseball’s official
encyclopedia. This is a stat junkies
dream. The ammount of information they
pack into this current volume is absolutely incredible. To the point that they even have
“situational statistics” for players (1978 on for now). You want to know how Mike Schmidt did
against lefties in 1979? It’s in
there. Want to know how many homers
Nolan Ryan gave up to righties in 1984?
It’s in there. They have a
wealth of information, from the various calculations used, to statistics based
on those same calculations. Records for
lifetime and season are broken down by eras as well as an over all list. It includes 19th century players
and numbers, not only in the registers, but in the all time leaders. Example: The single season strikeout record
is listed as 513, by Matt Kilroy in 1886.
Nolan Ryan’s 383 now ranks 8th on the all time list.
All sorts of other tasty tidbits are
in the book. There is a short history
of the game, how to score a game, how MLB and the HoF calculate averages and
other calculated statistics, the managerial roster, and the individual season
broken down by league and year. There
is a complete list of all teams that have ever been part of professional
baseball, their stadiums, and years of play.
There is even a register of coaches in addition to the managers. They even go overboard in all the numbers
they throw at you.
They use some of those strange
sabermetric statistics now. Stats like
OBP+Slug, adjusted ERA, Fielding wins, hitting wins, pitching wins, ERA+, Total
Player ranking, Total Pitcher Index, and a host of others. Don’t worry, they give explanations, and the
formulas that they used in determining these stats. Of course, you had best have an advanced degree in Mathematics to
understand half of it, but that’s OK.
Perhaps the best part of the book, other than the stats, is a section
devoted to Baseball quotes.
There are some great quotes in
there. They break the quotes down as
follows: Leading Off, Winning, Losing, Hitters, Pitchers, Fielders, Managers,
Words of Praise, Insults, Self Reflection, The Business of Baseball, Speaking
of Teams, The Arts, The Media, Umpires, and lastly, a section of just
Yogi-isms. Some of the quotes are
dated, such as “Rooting for the NY Yankees is like rooting for US Steel” (Red
Smith), and others are timeless, like this one from Ty Cobb of all people: “The
greatest trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the
game for the money and that’s it-not for the love of it, the excitement of it,
the thrill of it” (1925). Some are
humorous, others are poignant. Some are
classics, like Uke’s comment on catching knuckle balls, others are just
representative.
Now, how does all this relate to
strat? Simple. With the addition of the left-right batting
and pitching statistics, it becomes easier to research a team for a past season
recreation league. Well, as long as
it’s after 1978 that is. However, have
hope, as they state that they are working on getting more and more of the
seasons gone by done for the situational register section. But even so, all those stats that we strat
players want to see, like the left-right break downs, are now becoming
standards for the baseball community at large.
If all goes well, by the time of the 8th edition of Total
Baseball, we may see the splits for as far back as 1950 done, and in the
book. So, researching players for that
1954 league won’t be a problem.
Now, back to the addiction part of
all this. Well, I bought the book
today, at around noon. I haven’t put it
down since coming home. Even as I write
this, I haveit open, and am perusing its pages. Looking up bozo players, and wondering what ever happened to some
of them. Remember Rudy Pemberton? The ultimate Strat bozo hitter? 41 ABs, a .512 average, and a couple of
homers for N power? Or Sam Horn? And then to see how long some real duff
lasted in the najors is also entertaining.
See, I can’t even stop talking about the book. No, I’m not an addict.
See I can look away…wait, was that a list of draft picks for each year
since 1965? Well not exactly. It has the top ten for each year, and any
other notable picks for each year. Some
real interesting situations there. Like
who went in what rounds, and what duffs got drafted ahead of them. Feeling down about your last Strato
draft? Just peruse these lists, and you
won’t feel so bad. Trust me. Some of those drafts made my worst ones look
good in comparison.
There I’ve done it again. I tried to get back on track, but was again
evilly influenced by that book. So, I
guess I am addicted. I can’t help
it. Really, I can’t. It’s in my genetic make up. My father is a die hard Red Sox fan. My great-grandfather’s cousins played in the
Majors, one even being a HOFer (the Sewell Borthers). Both set sof grandparents are/were baseball fans. I grew up with baseball all around me. It’s not my fault. Honest. Now I guess I’ll
have to call the good doctor again. But
that’ll be for another time.
The Minister for Strat Mayhem is Josh
Raup
www.oocities.org/highoaksdrifter
Be sure to visit Strat-O-Matic World
Explore your world at www.somworld.com
Join the Strat Gamers List
www.egroups.com/subscribe/StratGamers