Statis-Pro Predictor? Red Sox Crushing Braves Seemed Strange June 7 but ...

The biggest shocker in our Statis-Pro Baseball pool play so far came in our early June game when the Boston Red Sox—who, in real life, were beginning a four-game losing streak that dropped them to 27-39—stunned the Atlanta Braves, who were 45-21 at the time.

Statistically, an upset between teams with those records would be expected about once in every four-game series. When it happens, though, it makes you wonder whether the calculations on the cards are off—or whether it was simply a great day for the underdog.

The amazing thing is that since then, the real season has played out much like our Statis-Pro cards. The Red Sox have gone 22-9, while the Braves have gone 11-20. All that being side, Chris Sales' card projects to have an outstanding 3.19 ERA or FIPS, and in fact he is even better this year hovering around a 2.00 ERA so it is true even his card is not truly as great as he is.

The Braves did rally in their second pool game for a 4-2 win over the Rangers. With the Red Sox and Braves two of only four teams with four strong starting pitchers (all rated PB 2-7 or better), and with the Braves added benefit of having preserved their bullpen in the 8-1 loss to Boston, they still have a strong chance to emerge from the pool.

The other two teams are the Blue Jays and then the ridiculous Dodgers, with all four pitchers at least a PB 2-8 to make them seem unbeatable at times.

The second Red Sox-Braves matchup should determine which team advances, featuring an outstanding pitching duel between PB 2-7 starters Reynaldo López for the Braves and Ranger Suárez for the Red Sox.

If the Braves win that game and both teams finish 3-1 while the Rangers end up 0-4, the tiebreaker would come down to run differential. In that scenario, Atlanta would likely need to take full advantage of its final pitching matchup against Texas, with PB 2-7 Spencer Strider facing the Rangers' below-average (PB 2'-6) Jordan Montgomery. The Red Sox currently sit at +7 in run differential thanks to their 8-1 victory, while the Braves are at -5 through two games.

For those who do not play the Statis-Pro baseball game you should start with this free version, but the pitcher's PB is the key that makes us love the game more than any others. This is the range where the pitcher controls the action without allowing that chance for anything more than a single. A PB 2-9 is the best -an All-Star - and on a two-sided dice roll of 2-9 he controls the action, while 10-12 rolls put the action on the batters card. The other strong pitchers are 2-8 or 2-7, while the middle 30% of all pitchers control the action on PB 4-7, then the below average pitchers are 2-6, 2-5 or the weakest 2-4.

Here is a look at the batter and pitcher cards for both teams.

Here is the pool schedule.

Pod B	PB-	Pitcher	Opp	Score	Allow	Result	Proj ERA
ATL	2'-9	Chris Sale	Bos	1	8	L	3.19
ATL	2'-7	Reynaldo López	Bos				4.06
ATL	2'-7	Spencer Strider	Tex				3.82
ATL	2'-8	Spencer Schwellenbach	Tex	4	2	W	3.65
BOS	2'-7	Ranger Suarez	Atl				3.74
BOS	2'-8	Garrett Crochet	Atl	8	1	W	3.02
BOS	2'-7	Connelly Early	Tex				3.65
BOS	2'-8	Sonny Gray	Tex				3.69
TEX	2'-8	Nathan Eovaldi	Atl	2	4	L	3.65
TEX	2'-6	Jordan Montgomery	Atl				4.28
TEX	2'-7	MacKenzie Gore	Bos				3.82
TEX	4'-7	Kumar Rocker	Bos				4.23

Dodgers Beat Mets 4 Games to 1 to Get Rematch with Mariners in Statis-Pro World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Mets four games to one to advance to our 2025 Statis-Pro World Series championship against the Seattle Mariners. This is our first "double" Statis-Pro World Series in which our Milwaukee Commissioner who uses the sheets of projected player cards in the free Statis-Pro game.  The starting pitchers and line-up using the traditional cards are above, while the reserves and bullpen are at the bottom of the blog.

TRADITIONAL STATIS-PRO CARDS. Below those links are the traditional cards used by the Montana manager. They are from the previous season, so his teams get the current rosters but based on the previous seasons stats. Cards like these can be purchased by googling Statis-Pro baseball cards. Our suggestion is to order players cards like those pictured below along with a full Statis-Pro card game including charts and Fast Action Cards. however, the free game played in Milwaukee allows those new to Statis-Pro to try out the game for free using dice and the blog with instructions in order to get used to the game. The pictures of the corresponding Seattle Mariners traditional cards appear in this blog.

PROJECTED PLAYER SHEETS. We list the key figures from each of those projected cards, including the position played, the range of the Random Numbers from 11-88 on which the player hits a home run, how good he is at stealing bases (AAA best ever, E never steals). For pitchers the best number is a PB  2-9, meaning the pitcher keeps the action on his card on 5 of 6 batters (only a roll of 10-12 gives the batter a chance at an extra base hit), then his strikeout range, the maximum number of innings he can pitch, and the projected ERA based on his card.

The Commissioners rotate leagues each year, and this year it was the Milwaukee Commissioner using the free projected player sheets who played off the NL with the Dodgers prevailing, while the Montana commissioner playing with traditional Statis-Pro cards played off the AL with the Mariners prevailing. Last year they each played the other league, but the same two teams won. Until this year the two Commissioners played the home games of their league for the year, so the Montana Commissioner played the two games in Seattle, and then the Milwaukee Commissioner the two in Los Angeles, and the Dodgers won all four to get the sweep. This year they will both play the entire series in an "alternate reality" so we could have one champion winning both World Series or we could have a split.

In our final regular season standings with the playoff bracket, the Dodgers were favored as the only .600 team in our Statis-Pro season at 26-16 (0.619) without even playing the last place team in their final six games since they had clinched, but the Mariners barely made the playoffs at 26-24. The following bracket shows how many games each team won in each series.

 

Pos	Dodgers	HR	SB	OPS		Pos	Mariners	HR	SB	OPS
DH	Shohei Ohtani	23-31	AA	0.993		CF	Julio Rodríguez	31-33	AA	0.726
cf	Mookie Betts	27-32	B	0.885		C	Cal Raleigh	21-32	B	0.957
1b	Freddie Freeman	33-34	D	0.847		LF	Randy Arozarena	27-32	A	0.785
C	Will Smith	31-33	D	0.913		1b	Josh Naylor	28-32	C	0.789
RF	Teoscar Hernández	26-32	C	0.799		3b	Eugenio Suárez	18-27	D	0.827
2b	Hyeseong Kim	27-31	A	0.768		DH	Jorge Polanco	24-27	D	0.722
lf	Andy Pages	24-27	E	0.751		SS	JP Crawford	25-27	D	0.695
3b	Max Muncy	17-22	D	0.761		2b	Leo Rivas	27-28	B	0.72
SS	Miguel Rojas	28-28	C	0.653		RF	Victor Robles	28	A	0.697
Pos	Key Reserves	HR	SB	OPS		Pos	Key Reserves	HR	SB	OPS
RF	Michael Conforto	23-26	E	0.752		RF	Dominic Canzone	27-31	D	0.765
LF	Tommy Edman	27-31	A	0.728		DH	Luke Raley	23-27	B	0.762
CF	Alex Call	23-23	B	0.715		2b	Dylan Moore	18-22	A	0.7
IF	Kiké Hernández	27-28	D	0.655		DH	Mitch Garver	17-22	E	0.667
C	Dalton Rushing	26 (2b)	D	0.551		3b	Miles Mastrobuoni	27	A	0.638
PB	Dodgers Rotation	K	MaxIP	ERA		PB	Mariners Rotation	K	MaxIP	ERA
2'-9	Tyler Glasnow	24-47	7	3.41		2'-8	Logan Gilbert	25-44	7	3.38
2'-9	Blake Snell (L)	23-46	6	3.38		2'-8	Luis Castillo	25-44	7	3.50
2'-9	Yoshinobu Yamamoto	25-47	6	3.54		2'-8	George Kirby	26-44	7	3.38
PB	Starter/Long Relief	K	MaxIP	ERA		PB	Starter/Long Relief	K	MaxIP	ERA
2'-8	Clayton Kershaw (L)	26-46	6	3.89		2'-8	Bryan Woo	26-47	6	3.89
2'-8	Roki Sasaki	24-46	6	3.57		2'-7	Bryce Miller	25-43	6	3.64
2'-8	Shohei Ohtani	25-41	6			4'-7	Jhonathan Díaz (L)	25-38	6	4.33
PB	Dodgers Relievers	K	MaxIP	ERA		PB	Mariners Relievers	K	MaxIP	ERA
2'-8	Alex Vesia (L)	22-45	1	3.18		2'-9	Andrés Muñoz	23-51	2	2.85
2'-8	Blake Treinen	24-44	1	3.33		2'-9	Gregory Santos	24-43	2	2.54
2'-8	Will Klein	25-41	2	2.35		2'-8	Caleb Ferguson (L)	24-43	1	3.29
2'-8	Emmett Sheehan	25-41	2	2.82		2'-8	Matt Brash	23-45	2	3.11
2'-7	Tanner Scott (L)	22-44	1	3.08		2'-6	Trent Thornton	25-43	2	3.65

and here are the cards

Here are the reserve cards

Cubs Win! Advance to Face Statis-Pro Dodgers

 While the Texas Rangers were winning a thrilling Game 1 of the World Series with a game-tying homer in the 9th and game-winning homer in the 11th, the Cubs were winning the opening series in your "what if" Statis-Pro playoff and will now face the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Braves will play the Phillies in the other series, and the Astros have already won the AL Statis-Pro.

In actual MLB it was the Diamondbacks who made the playoffs by 1 game over the Cubs and are now in the World Series while in Statis-Pro it was the DBacks who missed the playoffs by one game and the Cubs trying to make the same run.

Joc Pederson homered off Jason Steele in the first inning to give the Giants a 1-0 lead, but Steele did not allow another baserunner in seven innings and the Giants hit only 0.145 in the entire two game sweep.

Webb, the first of two PB 2-8 starters for the Giants, made the 1-0 lead hold up until Cody Bellinger tied it with an RBI triple and then scored on a Dansby Swanson single to make it 2-1. In the eighth Seija Suzuki singled and Ian Happ doubled him home and the 3-1 lead held up.

The Cubs then pounded the Giants second PB 2-8 pitcher Cobb for five runs as the 2-3-4 hitters (Bellinger-Suzuki-Happ) combined for an incredible 12 of 25 including four stolen bases and a homer in a 7-2 win to sweep.  It was 5-0 when they chased Cobb in the top of the 5th inning.
 

No.	Pos	Cubs Batter	AB	R	H	BI	Notes
1	2B	Nico Hoerner	8	2	0	0
2	1B	Cody Bellinger	9	3	5	1	3b, 2 SB
3	RF	Seiya Suzuki	9	2	3	3	HR
4	LF	Ian Happ	7	1	4	1	2 SB
5	SS	Dansby Swanson	9	0	2	1
6	3B	Jeimer Candelario	8	1	1	0	2b
7.5	PR	Alexander Canario	0	0	0	0	CS
7	SS	Patrick Wisdom	7	1	4	1	HR
8	DH	Christopher Morel	9	0	3	0
9	C	Yan Gomes	8	0	0	0
		Cubs .297 BA	74	10	22	7
No.	Pos	Giants Batter	AB	R	H	BI	Notes
1	2B	Thairo Estrada	8	0	2	1	2b
2	3B	Casey Schmitt	6	0	1	0
3	1B	LaMonte Wade Jr.	7	0	0	0
4	DH	Joc Pederson	7	1	1	1	HR
5	3B	JD Davis	7	0	2	0
6	RF	Mike Yastrzemski	7	0	0	0
7	LF	Michael Conforto	6	1	1	0
8	C	Blake Sabol	6	1	1	0
9	DH	Mitch Haniger	8	0	1	0
		Giants 0.145 BA	62	3	9	2

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.

Video of Stacking Player Cards and Tracking Pitcher's Rest and Endurance (using Dodgers vs. Nats)

Here is another quick video on storing the players cards for quick play. The video shows how to place relievers who must rest behind starting pitchers until he is available to pitch again. Everyone can choose how to determine how long pitchers can stay in a game before they are tired, can pitch again, but here is how we keep track.

How long can a pitcher pitch in a game?

Statis-Pro uses an SR rating for the starting pitcher's endurance, and an RR rating for a reliever's endurance. That number is reduced if any of the following happen:

- The pitcher allows a runner to each base unless it is due to an error.

- The pitcher allows a run to score, unless that runner is on based due to an error.

- An inning ends.

For example, if a pitcher had an SR of 12 and he allowed a single it would drop to 11. If he walked the next batter it would drop to 10. If the next player hit a 3-run homer it would drop four more to 6 (one of another runner reaching and three more for 3 scoring). If he then retired the next three batters to end the inning, it would drop to 5 because the inning ended.

Once the SR or RR drops to 0 he would normally leave the game though he can stay in the game and his PB drops by 1 when he hits 0, and drops an extra 1 for every extra reduction based on any of the above. For example, a pitcher with the best PB:2-9 who ran out of SR or RR would drop to a PB2-8, then PB2-7, PB4-7, PB2-6, PB2-5, PB2-4, PB2-3, PB2-2 and if he dropped one more he would not have a PB. A pitcher completely out of a PB performs the same as a position player brought into pitch, the PB rating is skipped and the Random Number or Dice Roll of 11-88 is read immediately off the batter's card.

However, even if a pitcher still has SR or RR endurance, his PB can be reduced if he exceeds the following number of innings or batters:

Type of Pitcher	Max IP	or Batters Faced	Rest Games
Starting Pitcher	Ave IP + 1	Ave IP x 4	3
Long Relief (ave. 2.1+ IP)	2	8	1
Short Relief	1	4	1

In addition to an SR/RR rating, each pitcher has an average number of innings pitched on their card.

For a starter, round that number up and then add 1 inning for the most innings he can pitch. For example, if a starter averaged 4.3 innings pitched, we round up to 5 and add one inning, so 6 innings is the most he can pitch even if he still had SR endurance remaining.

If he remains past the end of that inning, his PB drops 1 every batter even if he gets them out.

The only exception we make is if a pitcher is really on a roll, perhaps a perfect game after several innings, then we do let them calculated a "maximum batters faced" which is the average innings pitched x 4. so that same pitcher with an average 4.3 innings alternate batter count is 17, so could not take him past 6 innings anyway, BUT if a great pitcher averaged 6.7 innings pitched then he could instead pitch to 27 batters instead of 8 innings without a reduction, so he could theoretically take a shot at a perfect game.

The Long Reliever would normally pitch 2 innings max, but if he came in during an inning he can either finish that inning and the next for his 2 innings, or he can go up to 8 batters total. You might note that means he would average less than his 2+ average innings BUT we are letting him pitch every other game, so overall this let's him pitch just slightly more than he would in the season.

Likewise, the Short Reliever can pitch one full inning, or come in and pitch to four batters at full strength. Keep in mind a great PB2-9 like Chapman or Hader with an RR of 2 could be reduced 1st by simply allowing two baserunners, or finishing one inning and then allowing one baserunner. However, they are still very effective as a PB2-8, or even strong as a PB2-7.

How many games must pitchers rest after pitching?

During my league play I play all 2-game series and keep it simple. Each bullpen starts fresh for the series, and if a pitcher pitches in one game then they cannot pitch in the second game.

However, during my playoffs or when I have not played all 2-game series, I require relievers to rest based on the following:

RELIEVERS REST. If a reliever pitches to at least 5 batters they must skip the next game. If they pitch to at least 10 batters they must skip two games. If a player pitches in consecutive games, even if to fewer than 5 batters, they must sit out the next game.

STARTING PITCHERS REST 3 GAMES. Obviously pitchers really pitch in 5-man rotations now, but in our league we have them pitch every four games.

How long are position players injured?

When a player is injured on a Z-play, we only keep the player out for the remainder of the two game series - so even if injured in the first game they miss the remainder of that game and the second game of the series. In the playoffs, or if we were not playing 2 game series, we make them miss the remainder of the game plus one full game.

We do not use the Injury Rating traditionally used in Statis-Pro because we use projected stats and therefore do not us "fluke cards."

The injury rating is important when using cards from a single season to guard against a player with a unrealistically great player card due to hitting a few home runs in very few at bats. The biggest example in history of this was when Mike Schmidt put together one of the greatest seasons ever for a Home Run range of 28-38, and a little used player named Mickey Klutts had one of the best Home Run ranges ever of an even better 25-41 based on about 50 at bats and completely out of line with the rest of his career.

With those cards, Klutts injury was the highest so the first time he was injured he might miss 60 or 70 games, while if Schmidt was hurt he might just miss a game. However, the way we do it Klutts would have had a mediocre card based on his projected stats, and there would have been no need for a high injury rating.