The Cubs have taken most advantage of the new stolen base opportunities, with three players upgraded and in the line-up - the biggest surprise is Ian Happ calculating as an OBR/SP: C/A meaning he is average getting around the bases (C), but so far a good base stealer this year (A). Nico Hoerner is upgraded to an AA, and Cody Beglinger to an A to give the Cubs great basestealing.
We also had to show Daniel Vogelbach's card at the other extreme as an "E." If a player steals just one base all year they become a "D," but as we know from the commercial this is year No. 8 in which he is an E for no steals. Vogelback is a D running the bases, and once gutted out a run home after badly straining a hammy coming around 3rd base.
However, he was out for today's game against a lefty starter, so we thought this would be a good game post to go over times you change from the 11-88 result on the card.
11-14 - If a batter does not hit as well against either left- or right-handed pitching, then the number 11, 12, 13 or 14 will appear before (for facing lefties) or after (for facing righties) a dash near the bottom of his card. When this happens, he strikes out on 11 through that number. So Vogelbach has a really good batting card BUT against lefties like our Cubs starter Justin Steele today his "14" means he strikes out on 11-14. Most important, this happens whether the number is on the pitcher or batter card so 11-14 kills a batter. When the Mets face a lefty we sub Tommy Pham into the game - and in this case he homered twice against Steele to key a 7-2 "sweep" win.
Top Number on Home Run range. Using Vogelbach's cards as an example, he hits home runs on 18-24. Certain 2023 pitchers have a line on the bottom of their card saying to turn the top number on a home run range from a home run to an out - so if he faced one of those pitchers then a 24 would become a deep fly out with all runners advancing one base. Home runs only occur on the batters card.
Lowest Number on Out Range. To balance this, some pitchers like the Mets and Verlander have a note that the lowest number in the out range becomes a homer. Obviously Vogelbach will not face fellow met Verlander, but if he did then his 66-88 would tell us that a 66 is now a homer rather than out for Vogelbach. This is only on the batters card.
78-84 on pitcher's card convert outs to strikeouts in 2023. This fixes a mistake in our calculations this year. For years, the Statis-Pro batting card formulas were set assuming there would be an average of 11 strikeouts on each pitcher card. However, when going back to the dead ball era, that number had to be shifted to 7 or less, and in more reason seasons it had to be increased to 17. Whatever that number, it has to be set as the average number of strikeouts for pitchers. This year I accidentally set it at the old number of 11, but then subtracted 17 when calculating each batter's card, so in the end all pitchers have 6 too few strikeouts on their 2023 projected cards. Luckily the numbers 77-84 are almost always outs, so as long as that result on a pitcher's card would have been an out, change it to a strikeout and all cards are completely accurate.
85-88 can change out to single, runners advance two bases. If instead of a number from 11-14 (see above) a player has an 85, 86, 87 or 88 before or after the dash at the bottom, then they change that result up to 88 to a single and runners advance two bases. Remember this is a huge improvement, because it adjust that number on both the batter and opposing pitcher card. As you can see, Vogelbach has an 88, so when he is facing a right-handed pitcher the result of 88 on either his card or the pitcher's card becomes a single instead of an out.
Below this first photo, we show the scoresheet in the Mets 7-2 "sweep" of the Cubs. With that result, the three NL teams that won 100 games last year - the Dodgers, Mets and Braves - are now the only three teams in our Statis-Pro baseball season with at least 13 wins.
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