Basic Statis-Pro Filler Cards for Rookies or Players with No Card Due to Injury

With my Value Add Basketball Game season wrapped up and my graphics guy close to producing updated visual files for player cards, I'm finally turning to Statis-Pro baseball. I am keeping it simple this year as I play with current MLB rosters. Whether you order Advanced Statis-Pro cards or basic cards, I would keep a simple this basic card on hand to add a batter or pitcher you on an MLB roster but who does not have a card because he is a rookie, or was injured last year.

I have spreadsheets for inventing a card for a key player, but for starters I don't want to run out of pitchers or hitters. For example, in my season opener the Red Sox were beating up on the Orioles and I wanted to use Alex Cobb to eat up innings and save some of the pen for the nightcap. Cobb did not have a card because of injury, so I went to FanGraphs, saw his projected ERA was 4.90, printed out the card to the left and say that the 4.90 makes him a PB 2-4 and he pitched. Same with a batter, just look up his projected OPS and adjust the Home Run Range from 26- based on the note and you have a filler player.

Every week 70 or 100 clicks on the rules for the dice version and players I created last year in spreadsheet form - and here are my quick rules for my league play.

Use 2019 cards from players currently on MLB rosters. As an example I used basic cards rather than the at superior Advanced Cards just because it's easier to see what I wrote on them in this photo. Player Cards were available for all 25 players on the Red Sox roster depth chart except Ryan Weber (injured last year) and 21 year old shortstop prospect Jonathan Arauz. Zips projects Weber with a 5.82 ERA so I just wrote in the PB 2-4 on a replacement pitcher card and it projects Arauz OPS as .613, so he is in the lowest range and does not get am HR, just a 26-46 strikeout range.

Now with all 25 cards I pick the 4 starters across the top, the 9 starting batters across the bottom two rows in between.

• All series will be 2-game series.
• STARTING LINE-UP. Stack the line-up in order 1-9, and write a little "P" by any player who would platoon based on if the opposing starter is lefty or righty. Also, unless a catcher played 100 games I make all catchers platoon. If using a basic card like above, a player who appears to have a card based on a season of mainly platooning gets the disadvantage of the lefty vs. lefty 11-15 is an out, or righty vs. righty 11-12 is an out, but does NOT get the advantage on a hit for 87-88. I write letters in the upper left for their spot in the line-up with 1/8 means I hit Benintendi 1st against right handed pitching and 8th against lefties etc.
• RESERVE BATTERS. Stack reserve players under the starting line-up flipped upside down under them.
• RELIEVERS. Next stack the relievers going from best relief card to worse, but take the weakest of the 5 starters on the MLB roster as the last reliever. Each reliever can only pitch one of every two-game series and normally pitches one inning start to finish and each reliever must pitch to at least 3 batters unless an inning ends. However, if he comes in during an inning he can pitch into a new inning but as soon as he allows a base-runner in that inning or the inning ends he must come out of the game. Only the 5th starter who we are using as a reliever can pitch in both games and for multiple innings. I rank my starters in order in the upper left with Workman "1" as the obvious closer, Barnes "2" as second best all the way to Weber "7" who is one of the 5 starters in the rotation but since i use 4 man rotations he is free to pitch multiple innings as needed.
• STARTERS. Designated 4 starting pitchers, but put the ace on top followed by the 4th best pitcher - and those two will pitch in the first 2-game series. I write small in pencil on the back of starting pitcher's card the innings, earned runs, opponents and decision, so the Red Sox Rodriguez card now has "9, 1 W Balt" on the back. The 2nd series the remaining 2nd and 3rd best starting pitchers start, which means even when two teams meet and one team has played two more games then the other, neither team has a big pitching advantage like if the top two pitchers for one team were pitching against the bottom two for the other. Rodriguez "S1" and McHugh "S4" pitched against the Orioles so now Evoldi "S2" and the Perez "S3" will start in their next series.
• 5-RUN RULE LIMIT FOR SWEEPS. I play each game counts as three games in the standings. Normally the winner gets a 2-1 record for the game and the loser gets a 1-2 record. However, if the winning team was leading by at least 5 runs at the end of 8 innings, AND they did not use their closer or best reliever available through 8 innings, then they get credit for a 3-0 record for the game and the loser for 0-3.

My season started with the Red Sox beating the Orioles 10-1 for a sweep, then the Orioles rallying for a 5-3 win. Therefore my standings are:

Red Sox 4-2

Orioles 2-4

All other teams 0-0

Listing the teams in alpha order with east, then central, then west, this was the 1v2 game, then 3v4 etc to 13 v14 and then 15v1, 2v3 etc so that when 14 v 15 each team will have played 2 series.

• Boston 10, Baltimore 1 (sweep), Rodriguez 9 IP, 1 R, W; Means 3.1, 4 L.
• Baltimore 5, Boston 3, Milone 6, 2 W, McHugh 2.2, 3 L.
• NY Yankees 2, Tampa 0 (7 innings, rain). Cole 7, 0 W, Morton 5.2, 2 L.
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