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Post 31 Jan 2014, 7:19 am

Something for the stats geek & baseball fan in you (oftentimes synonymous):

I received a copy of Strat-o-matic (SOM) baseball for Christmas this year. After playing through a few simulations, both solo & with my 8-year old daughter, I went in search of online play. Turns out you can do just that. I joined a free mini-season league and find it quite fun. I am thinking about creating a full-season league if there is enough interest. Between the current RBL ownership and others here, there may be enough for a 12-team league.

If you don't know what SOM is...

It's a baseball simulation game based on player's performances in the previous year (or any year a league chooses including old-timers). It's different from fantasy baseball in that you actually simulate games with line-ups, pitcher rotations, relievers, stolen bases attempts, etc... things you can control here but not in traditional fantasy. In the board game, often called the card & dice (C&D) version, you roll dice and look up outcomes on player cards. It can be as simple as that or much more complex if you wish to add fielding charts, ballpark effects, etc... The online game compacts three games into one night so while you lose some control (you can't say Bryce Harper will now attempt a SB but you can set Harper to 'aggressive' on the bases), you gain automation. The machine rolls all the dice and you can finish a 162-game season plus playoffs in about two months.

Teams are selected via live draft (or auto pick - yuck) subject to a salary cap. Each player has a designated salary and you have to fit all 25 players under the cap.

Full leagues are pricy ($20 each which you can recoup if you land in the top three) but new members are offered their first two leagues for $15. Doable for a trial run.

Here's the freebie league I'm in if you wish to check it out: Home of the Ashburn Cows. You can jump off from there to look at the SOM home.

By the way, my daughter loves games and I play many with her. We play Ticket to Ride, Dominion, Carcassone, Chess, and others.

p.s. I also play Wooden Ships & Iron Men (WSIM), an old Avalon Hill board game at You Play It. Look me up if you wish to play - same username.
Last edited by SLOTerp on 07 Feb 2014, 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post 02 Feb 2014, 6:14 pm

I would play and my brother.
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NASCAR Driver (Pro V)
 
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Post 03 Feb 2014, 7:02 am

Cool! My plan is to use the 2013 cards which are due out sometime soon. I'll start working on other parameters but if you have some ideas, please let me know.

We still need nine...
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Post 07 Feb 2014, 7:14 pm

I realized the link I provided above doesn't get you to the trial league I was in (corrected now). Here are some other interesting links to that league.

Standings (I’m the Cows): http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/league/348397
League leaders: http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/league/stats/leaders/348397
League awards (Go LaRoche!): http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/league/stats/awards/348397
Sample box score (a fine Cow outing): http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/game/348397/114
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Post 10 Feb 2014, 2:58 pm

I got into a free league that starts next Monday. Nice offense Mike! It looks like it will be fun but I'll report back on it. I kind of like my team, a lot of speed, some power, good starting pitching and Kimbrel as closer.
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Post 11 Feb 2014, 10:36 am

Provide a link to your team if you don't mind. Did your brother join as well? You might be in the same test league as Jared (on the RBL waitlist). He's trying it as well.

Anyone else out there want to give this a try?
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Post 11 Feb 2014, 1:18 pm

Yeah, I might be in the same league with Jared (looks like he is Fairfax Fireballs). And, if so, he has a great team. Here is my league.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/league/348603

My brother has not joined a league, I don't think. But we used to play in other computer baseball simulation games, so I am pretty sure he would be on board with playing in a league (and he said he would).

The only real concern is that the simulation is too fast. I get that stratomatic wants to make more money...but it would be better if the league lasted all year, I think.
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Post 11 Feb 2014, 3:01 pm

I agree on the speed. Three games / night takes too much control out of our hands. I wish they had a one / game per night option.

I like your pitching and Jared has some real thump in his offense. Looks like you go head-to-head on the 21st.
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Post 11 Feb 2014, 7:27 pm

I am getting a kick out of working on finding effective platoons, getting players who play good defense, constructing a bullpen that has a good mix of pitchers who can get lefties and righties, figuring out what type of team you like (on-base, power, speed, etc.). I love head-to-head fantasy baseball, but I am not sure as it is as fun as a computer simulation league. It's just that the games that were somewhat realistic were not popular enough to get supported over time. But I am interested to see how stratomatic goes...

With regard to the league, I am thinking of getting the on-line game when it comes out with 2013 cards. If you can run a league on the game, then you just need a commish to run the games and publish the results. Then we would be able to go at our own speed and avoid paying stratomatic the league fees to boot.
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Post 12 Feb 2014, 6:26 am

If you're willing to commish a league and the software makes it feasible, let's do it. If everyone chips in, it's less than $5 per season.

Furthermore, if the league runs concurrently with real baseball, we could piggyback off one of the fantasy services to utilize their live draft software.
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Post 12 Feb 2014, 10:33 am

Ok. I'll take a look at it when I get it and let you know.
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Post 18 Feb 2014, 4:21 pm

3-0 start. Nice.
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Post 19 Feb 2014, 12:08 am

5-1! Too bad it's only a week long league...About ready to play in a league but the 2013 cards aren't ready for the on-line game and I will be looking at the windows game (which is ready I think) to see if a league can be run that way later in the week.
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Post 19 Feb 2014, 11:25 am

I did sign up for the special offer ($15 for two) but will wait for 2013 cards as well.

Some options going forward:

A) Software based email league. This will depend on what you find out regards # teams, how much work is involved, etc... Cost-wise this is the best for a private league and we can do it at our own pace.

B) Create an online league, with our preferences, and open it to the public if we can't find 12 interested parties.

C) Join a league created by others. We could join the same one or just go our own happy ways.

I would love to see (A) work although we'd have to then consider how to draft:

1. Live via some social networking site.

2. Live in an ESPN (or Yahoo) draft room. As I thought about piggybacking off of ESPN, I realized that we'd probably want more time than is permitted in the live draft rooms. Salaries have to be kept up with by hand so I don't think a 'seat of the pants' draft would work.

3. Email draft. There are some free services you can use to conduct the draft. They provide time limits and turn reminders. Here's one such service: http://www.myemaildraft.com/

4. Auto draft. Let the software run an auto-draft. Boo!

No matter what we choose, I am looking forward to playing a full season.
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Post 20 Feb 2014, 5:49 pm

Well I got the game and looked at it. I think you have to have one person run everything on one computer. I could set up the league and I can manually input the draft. So we could do an email draft (either through one of the services you mentioned or some IM or similar thing). As you said, we would have to keep track of salaries for each team. It looks like each team has a computer manager and that you can import files to update the manager. So, teams can update their teams by email to me and then I would import the files. And then we would need a website to publish the scores. Everyone in the league would need to have the windows game (so they could update their team preferences) to me.

I am not the most computer savvy guy in the world but appears it at least possible to run the league this way. There is no real way though to make sure I would not be making mistakes (like forgetting to import files, though.) And of course we would have to find 12 managers. I guess free agents would be handled by e-mail as well.

If we were going to do it this way I would suggest a trial run to see if it is feasible. We should only be talking about 5-10 minutes a night for the commish, so that's not that big of a deal. Right now, we're only at maybe 4 teams, so we would need quite a few more teams. And someone besides me would have to get the windows game to do the test run. Quite a few years ago I was in a league that was run this way on Diamondmind? and it seemed to work ok.

Otherwise, I suggest we see if anyone else wants to play in a league other than us four and assuming we're short, we just open up the remaining spots to the public on the stratomatic website.