Adjustments to 11-88 Results Make Vogelbach Sit; Verlander Beats Cubs

 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.

Mets 7, Cubs 2 (Sweep)

Jeff McNeil homered with two outs in the 8th to give the Mets a 7-2 lead, as the last chance to get to the 5+ run margin by the end of the 8th inning without using their closer. As mentioned above, Pham started to avoid Vogelbach opposing a lefty, and hit two homers. Pete Alonso added another homer.

The Cubs could not take advantage of their new 2023 speed despite nine hits. They did score two in the 6th with help from a Francisco Lindor error at short. While still a great player, Lindor dropped from a CD-5 (best clutch defense) to a CD-4 this year, and despite the bases being closer together has not regained his stolen bases of the past. He is a B/C with only 2 steals in the actual season.

Verlander got the win with 6 innings, 7 strikeouts, 1 walk and only 1 earned run.

Click for the free Statis-Pro Master Baseball Game. Click here for 60 of the all-time great MLB teams, or on teams of many of the all-time great players on teams by nation or state with one sheet for each team. Or click on the 2023 pitchers and 2023 batters in card form. You simply print two teams cards and then either print the master link above and fast action cards in master link or buy the dice to start playing.

. The reference to our league rule in which we count each game as a 3-game series, which is only a sweep if the winning team led by more than 5 runs after 8 innings, is not necessary to the game - just a fun rule that makes it more likely better teams will win as many games as they would if you could play more games because run differential predicts future results, and teams have a 14% chance of winning by 5 runs and a 14% chance of sweeping a 3-game series.

deGrom, all Pitchers Cards update by Post-Trade Deadline Team

In celebration of Jacob deGrom returning to Citifield to strike out 12 of the first 17 Atlanta Braves he faced without allowing a baserunner, you can now click on our updated (post trade deadline) Statis-Pro Pitching Cards by Aug. 7 2022 team. Each page now contains pitchers from only one team - so you only need to print two or three pages for each team starting with the page with the team name in the upper left corner.

The changes from the previous set of 2022 Projected Cards are the following:

1. We updated each player's team and resorted so the players on each team are together (e.g. page 36 of 63 below includes 9 of the Mets pitchers, starting with deGrom and ending wiht David Peterson).

2. If a player did not have a card (as deGrom did not in our early season run since he was on 60-day DL) then they were added and the word "new" appears by their team name.

3. If a player changed teams, then we indicated were he was in the original set near the beginning of the year. For example, the "NYM fr CHC" indicates Mychal Givens is with the Mets but came from (fr) the Cubs in the original deck.

4. If a player had a card in the original set, but we do not see him on the roster or on any other MLB roster, then we put a question mark by the team name in case he re-emerges. 

5. In our league we do not use any player card if the player is suspended or on 60-day DL. On the page below the one player we are not currently using is Joey Lucchesi due to being on 60-day DL, which is indicated in this blog on which players by team are on DL.

We will try to do the batters, but the matching requires a lazy afternoon with baseball on in the background. 

For now to use batters, check first on the projected 2022 batters cards from the beginning of the season.  If a key batter was traded who did not have an opening week card, go to this sheet of all batters to either find the player or use a cards based on his OPS. We have updated the data for the batters, which you can find on this sheet, but it has not been merged into cards yet.

Final Statis-Pro Rosters and Transactions: Braves, Mets, Cardinals, Nationals and Reds

The following are the rosters of Statis-Pro baseball cards we are using for the divisional games in our "South & East" Division. During the season we keep up with big trades, to keep the rosters pretty close, but we don't move the players cards in and out with all the changes in modern Major League Baseball.

1. If a player is on the roster and we already had a Statis-Pro card (or temporary card) in our deck for the games we'd been playing, then obviously the remain in the game and under "Last Update" it simply says "Roster."

2. If a player we had on the team was injured but is at least rehabbing (including in the minors) to prepare to play again we keep him in the game and note the last transaction update below.

3. If a player was sent to the minors or injured within the last two months then we leave them in the game.

4. We ditch a player if they were released or traded, were not on the roster and are on 60-day DL and not yet rehabbing, or if they were sent to the minors more than 2 months ago and have not returned. Most if these players we ditch, but a key player like deGrom we keep in the stack and just mark them to check the tramsactions wires regularly to see if they start pitching again.

5. "Temporary Card" indicates the player did not actually have a projected 2021 card, but due to playing a good bit we added a temporary "fringe" card for the player. Fringe cards appear after these 5 rosters - and entail using a pitcher's projected ERA or a batter's projected OPS and the corresponding card at the end of this blog.

Statis-Pro Baseball Wrap 5 Series Left - And Links if You Want to Play

With the Major League Baseball pennant races heating up, you can catch up on rosters or play your own Statis-Pro mini season to see how the season stacks up. We are in the stretch run for our seasons with the NL season being played out of Alabama and the AL season by my best friend in Montana (we first rotated Statis-Pro leagues in 1980).  We track our league bracket on this google sheet, and included a snap shot of the grid of games played and still remaining through the playoffs.

In addition to listing our Statis-Pro standings here at the 78-game mark, we compared each team to their actual record at the 78-game mark of the MLB season. Washington and Cincinnati have the exact same records they had after 78 games this season, Chicago and Milwaukee are one game better in Statis-Pro, making 4 of 10 teams within one game of their actual record. Four more teams are within 3 to 5 games of their actual record at the 78-game mark. That leaves only two of 10 that have been quite a bit different, with the Padres 7 games worse in Statis-Pro then their actual 78-game mark, and the Giants (the team that has shocked everyone) are 12 games worse in Statis-Pro then their actual season, so two of 10 outliers. We have found our rule about counting blowouts as 3-game sweeps and other wins as two games to one sweep makes the record more accurate when playing shorter seasons, since a team has a 14% chance of sweeping a 3-game series and a 14% chance of winning by at least 5 runs (see league rule below), but this is purely our fun rule and you do not need to play it in your games.

The following runs through the league rules we use, but none of these are mandatory.

League Rules

·         We play using the Statis-Pro 2021 Projected Cards and rules on that same link.

·         Change cards if they change teams, and use all players unless they on on 60 day DL or missing 2 months.

·         Adjust any batters here or pitchers here for players who had huge changes in OPS or ERA from the projections on which the Statis-Pro cards were based.

·         Pick 4 starting pitchers (list as A, B, C, D) and try to match the same place in the rotation for two teams playing, but if the two teams have played a different number of games then you can pitch the A & D starter for one team vs. the other team's B & C starter.

·         All 2-game series, and each reliever can pitch 1 of 2 games in each series.

·         The Montana league (NL this year) counts each game as a typical game.

·         The Alabama league (AL this year) plays each game counts as a 3 game series with wins awarded:

·         Typically the winning team is credited with winning 2 games to 1 for that game, but sweeps if both:

o   Winning team was ahead by at least 5 runs at the end of the 8th inning.

o   Winning team also did not use the card for whichever reliever card had the best ERA in the 1st 8 innings.

·         We played a couple of interleague series earlier in the year, but changed them to exhibitions for balanced schedules.

·         This year we had time for all 15 NL teams to play the other 14 teams in one two game series each.

·         We relegated 5 teams and broke the other 10 into 2 divisions, so each team can play each division foe again.

·         At that point each remaining NL team will have completed 18 two-game series, counting as 108 games.

All-Star Game 2 Scoresheets and Statis-Pro Results

 Trout, LaMahieu and Judge had three hits each, including Judge's 2-run homer that gave the AL a 5-3 win and sweep of our 2-game All-Star series. (the results of Game 1 of our 2-game All-Star series are here, while the free player cards and games are here).

Like the first game, it ended with Chapman striking out all three that he faced in the bottom of the ninth.

The NL utilized their speed on the bases to execute the hit and run to perfection - going 2 of 4 and advancing runners the other two times including Posey's RBI single in the third and RBI groundout in the 5th. Betts drove in the third and final NL run with his second double and third hit of the game.

Overall there were more than twice as many hits as in the AL 1-0 win in game 1. In that game both teams had just five hits, but the AL outhit the NL 13-8 in the second game to sweep.

We joke about the "statis-pro gods" making things happen sometimes, and we had one if those funny moments. The AL Commissioner put Rays close Nick Anderson on his AL roster, even though I had left him out of my interleague play because he tore something in his elbow early in the season and has been out for months. I left him in the pen for the 1st all-star game, but in the second game brought him in after Ohtani's 5 innings. The very first card was a Z-play, and the result was Anderson had to leave the game before facing one batter. The official z-play was an ejection for arguing balls and strikes, but im considering it an injury. The AL's four relievers who stepped in went four scoreless innings, and in real baseball Anderson is throwing off a minor league mound for the first time in months, so hopefully he returns.

The AL does not have as long a winning streak in Statis-pro as in real baseball. The NL did win 1-0 last year, when we used the pb 2-9 cards that were too strong mathmatically. However, the AL did dominate our 2019 game 5-1 and won on back-to-back Astros homers in my first year back in 2018, making the AL 4-1 since i resumed playing.

Suns Big Men in B10 Showdown - MD vs. WI

A Big Ten showdown in our NBA Finals alumni team featured two current Phoenix Suns. 

Rookie big man Jalen Smith brought his 2020 Maryland team with the best inside-outside duo with his point guard Anthony Cowan against teammate big man Frank Kaminisky and his 2015 Wisconsin team that won a stunner in the 2015 Final 4 against a Kentucky team many considered the greatest team in history.

We start this blog by setting up the teams. Here is who we put in the game at the beginning (44th possession) and leaving Smith on the bench for the first three possessions so that he could then play the final 41 possessions of the game. Here is the line-up.

The coins are the five players in the game, and we drew in the order the get the ball on the 8-sided die or top reading on the fast action card, with a roll of 1 to Cowan, 2 to Ayala, 3 to Scott, 4 to 2021 Big Ten defensive player and now Marquette player Morsell and 5 to Mitchell.

The dimes only go to players with a 2nd number on the "gets ball on" reading on the player card, so a 6 alos goes to Cowan, a 7 to Morsell and 8 to Mitchell.

We then put coins on the players who will start on the court for Wisconsin, and we chose:

1 to Jackson, 2 to Gasser, 3 to Hayes, 4 to Kaminsky and 5 to Dukan.

You may notice the "play time" space was accidentally left blank, which leaves two options. The simple option in any game is to play the bottom row from possession 44 to 38, and then the top row from 37 to 1, the final possession.

However we took the other option of adding the stamina for each player by going to www.kenpom.com and then taking half the % minutes number (Kaminski's 82% min means he can play 41 of the 44 possessions without getting tired.

By the time we made it to the 26th possession to go, wisconsin led 48-40 all all the starters were in the game with enough duration to play the last 26 possessions without getting tired.

However we did have one unplanned substitution with 10 possessions left. Cowan drew a 5th foul on WI PG Koenig.

We could have brought Jackson back in the game, but he had already played 14 possessions earlier in the game, so only had 2 possessions left st full strength of his 16 possessions.

However, Zak Showalter had not played and can play up to 8 possessions, so we decided to play him from the 10th to the 3rd possession to go, and then save Jackson's final two possessions at full strenght for the final two possessions of the game.

Surprisingly Zak would end up sealing the game with a 4-point play with 2 minutes to play to give the Badgers a 77-65 lead.

Cowan (26 points) and Smith (25 points, 11 rebounds, 5 blocked shots) were an unbelievable inside-outside duo we would have loved to see in the cancelled 2020 March Madness.

However, they received no help as Wiggins (7 points) was the only other Terp to score besides the 2 automatic points when we start at 20-20.

The game was closer than the final score indicated, as Cowan's scored with 7:03 left to cut it to 63-60, but they could get no closer.

However, the Badgers played their normal balanced game with only 8 total turnovers.

Kaminsky led the way with 14 points and 10 rebounds, but all 5 starters had double figures in addition to the 6 from showalter and another 8 from Jackson off the bench.

We did not plan to line up the conferences, the seeding just worked out that way.

One semifinal is an ACC semifinal, with UVA's national champs taking on the Louisville 2020 team that nudged Chris Paul's 2005 Wake Forest team 80-79.

With the Wisconsin win above the Big Ten clash, they face the winner of a Big East clash between 2018 national champs Villanova and the one other actual NBA Finals star Bridges against the Creighton team that won our 2020 March Madness title over Duke.

We have no way of knowing who would have one thr tournament that covid ruined, but Creighton was by far the hottest team entering the tournament - having risen for  23rd to 7th in the final month of the season, so the threes should be flying.

Ddd

Cubs' Kimbrel Best Reliever Again?

When Craig Kimbrel entered my Statis-Pro game to Save a 7-5 win over the Mets last night I did a double take. He is a PB2-7, placing him outside the top 15% of all pitchers based on ERA adjusted for ballpark and FIPs, so in the game he the action is on his card 7 of 12 the time of the time (die rolls of 2-7) and batters card on rolls of 8-12.

But his projected ratio of hits is incredible, only allowed hits on 5% of roll (11-13 on the two 8-sided dice, so 14-88 is NOT a hit). My cards are based on a combo of the projected stats going into last year, and to a lesser degree, his less than seller actual innings last year. (Note and earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated he had a pb2-9.

Could the projections on fangraphs have been overly optimistic for his return? After he shut down the Mets in my game I checked his real stats this year. Oh, 6 appearances, 10 strikeouts, 1 hit and no runs allowed. Still early, but maybe he is back.

Now as far as both teams having 12 hits in the first game, that was the real fluke. I'm not sure that has happened all year in my game and not sure the real Cubs have 12 hits total in their first 11 games LOL.

Only 2 series left in Round 4 with the bottom of the rotations. We will have the ace pitchers starting again for that round. The games are tracked on this google sheet.