30
December

A look at Schedule Generator v 1.0.8

The APBA Blog gets an email regarding replay schedules:

 

Dear APBA Blog,
                      I have been playing APBA Baseball since I was probably 7 years old. My dad passed it along to me and I have never grown bored or tired of the basic game and love just tossing the dice. I like to play my teams from blind drafts and have had as many 12 teams in a league. The problem I face is that every time I want to add teams I can never get my schedule right. Is there a website that I can go to or can you guys pass along schedules via email?
                 Just curious,

Shawn

 

I’m assuming Shawn is talking about creating schedules that somewhat reflect MLB’s style but with the number of teams that the APBA replayer has chosen to use for his replay.  A tricky endeavor in cases indeed.  I’ve had this problem in the past myself.

One solution out there (which sadly was not available when I needed it) is a freely downloadable program aptly called Schedule Generator.  It’s in version 1.0.8 right now. 

I’ve never used it for a replay myself but I did just download it and gave it a couple schedule tests to see how it works.  After a few tests, it seems to work fine with a few minor bugs which have workarounds. 

 

schgen

 

The Schedule Generator allows up to 40 teams, two leagues with three divisions.  You can choose the amount of games, a balanced or unbalanced schedule and interleague play and even insert an All-Star break. 

SG outputs into a neat text file which can also be imported into Excel for further manipulation and editing (the program seems to be geared towards those who play Out of the Park, a text-based simulation baseball game as it generates a data file for the game as well). 

I did get an I/O error at times but deleting the existing schedule file from before fixed that. 

You can download the Schedule Generator from Cnet’s download site for free.

This may or may not work for Shawn.  Twelve teams in a league might be tricky but if he puts them in two divisions and chooses “Balanced”, it might work. 

There are more schedule programs out there and probably other ways to generate schedules.  If you know of any or have solutions that work for you, please let us know. 

1 comment

28
December

What stats does your league keep?

In the late 80s, our basic game league had a manager who in addition to keeping the requisite league pitching and hitting stat categories, also kept fielding stats.  We all thought he was a little nuts but since he was in charge of putting out the newsletter, we got to see them every month. 

At least the APBA fielding ratings (flawed as it is) did have some bearing on his fielding stats.  The point of this article is to get a sense what stats categories (beyond the very conventional ones) does your league keep.  Also, is it spelled out in your league’s constitution exactly which stats the manager is required keep? 

I realize that in computer leagues, the question is a moot point.  The stats are kept for you.  ALL the stats.  So there isn’t really a decision to be made.  But in basic or master board game leagues it’s quite different.  And quite different from each other. 

The Illowa APBA League has evolved in stat keeping in the first couple of years.  In its first three years (1975-1977), managers didn’t tally hitters’ strikeouts or walks.  Interestingly, a look at our historical stats show that not all managers got on board with record keeping with these stats at the same time.  Indeed, our last holdout didn’t start recording batters’ strikeouts until 1989. 

Following the Major League’s lead, we recorded the Game Winning RBI (GWRBI) which was immensely popular (please sense the sarcasm).  We ditched it as soon as the majors did.  We don’t include the GWRBI in our historical register. 

The only other change we’ve made was to add batters’ HBP starting in 2004.  In hindsight, that was probably a long time coming.

Other than that, we keep the standard categories.  For hitters G, AB, R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, BB, K, SB, HBP, AVG, SLG, OBP.  For pitchers, G, GS, CG, IP, H, R, ER, BB, K, W, L, Sv, ShO, ERA.

As I said, those who play Master Game have a vested interest in recording different stats than those who play basic game.  In the basic game, it has no bearing how many homeruns CC Sabathia gave up  but in the Master Game with his ‘G’ HRA rating it is a little more interesting to see if over a course of a full season if he was able to lower his longball rate. 

The same could be said for balks, wild Pitches, caught stealing, and even pick-offs. 

So just curious… beyond the conventional ones, what stat categories does your league keep?  Which ones, if any, did you ditch?

2 comments

24
December

APBA card sets available for NCAA baseball

ncaaapba

Hallelujah! Just in time for Christmas, Steve Guthrie has once again come out with APBA cards for the NCAA.  Above you see secondbaseman Josh Parr who plays for my beloved Illini.

You can go to Steve’s web site to download the cards in excel file format.  Once downloaded, you can print them out to use.

 

Thanks Steve for putting in the work to make this possible.  Personally, I’m a huge college fan and this is a treat.

3 comments

23
December

From the archives: a 1979 IAL article

I ran across this charming piece of Illowa APBA League history and couldn’t pass up the chance to share it.  It’s an article written in 1979 for our monthly newsletter.  Tedd Mallasch wrote it after winning the league championship that year. 

Charming because it’s a handwritten note, something we rarely see in these digital days.  Also charming because it’s not full of analysis and stats but rather of humor and emotion. 

It’s essentially a thank you note to his Chicago Champions team for winning it all.  And he certainly found something nice to say about everybody (“to Doug Rau for winning 2 of 3 decisions”). 

It brought a smile to my face.

 

cctynote1

 

cctynote2

No comments yet

18
December

1961 replay: Maris hits 61 on the nose

Our commissioner, Mike Bunch, is the most prolific APBA baseball player I know.  Between arbitrating and chaperoning the Illowa APBA League, he finds time to replay full seasons of 1960s baseball… and finishing them, too. 

It wasn’t too long ago when Mike completed his 1968 season replay.  He went right ahead and took on 1961.  He just emailed our league with the results. 

Say what you want about Mike but he keeps accurate and detailed stats.  Safe to say, what I’m showing below is an inkling of what he showed us. 

On to the results… first thing I noticed was Roger Maris.  He hit 61 on the nose.  The Giants’ Orlando Cepeda did him one better in the National League though.  That and his league leading 166 rbis makes him the NL MVP, says Mike.

On the AL side, Mike gives the MVP to Norm Cash who led the league in batting (.386) and runs scored (144), and OBP (.512). 

Mike has also deemed Mike McCormick and Whitey Ford the Cy Young Award winners.

Who’s on your ballot?

Mike will be playing the Giants-Tigers World Series soon.  I’m looking forward to an update!

 

 

  National League Wins Losses PCT GB
1 San Francisco Giants 101 53 .656 0   
2 Cincinnati Reds 87 67 .565 14   
3 Pittsburgh Pirates 83 71 .539 18   
4 Milwaukee Braves 82 72 .532 19   
5 Los Angeles Dodgers 78 76 .506 23   
6 St. Louis Cardinals 78 76 .506 23   
7 Chicago Cubs 66 88 .429 35   
8 Philadelphia Phillies 41 113 .266 60   
           
           
  American League Wins Losses PCT GB
1 Detroit Tigers 107 55 .660 0   
2 New York Yankees 103 59 .636 4   
3 Baltimore Orioles 86 76 .531 21   
4 Cleveland Indians 83 78 .516 23 1/2
5 Boston Red Sox 83 79 .512 24   
6 Los Angeles Angels 77 84 .478 29 1/2
7 Chicago White Sox 76 86 .469 31   
8 Minnesota Twins 70 90 .438 36   
9 Kansas City Athletics 62 99 .385 44 1/2
10 Washington Senators 60 101 .373 46 1/2

 

1961 NL Stats

 

Player AVG Tm Player SLG Tm Player OBP Tm
Pinson, V. .366 CIN   Cepeda, O. .725 SFG   Moon, W. .435 LAD
Clemente, R. .362 PIT   Aaron, H. .610 MIL   Clemente, R. .401 PIT
Cepeda, O. .351 SFG   Clemente, R. .599 PIT   Pinson, V. .398 CIN
Aaron, H. .332 MIL   Mays, W. .576 SFG   Mays, W. .395 SFG
Moon, W. .329 LAD   Pinson, V. .571 CIN   Mathews, E. .393 MIL
Boyer, K. .317 STL   Banks, E. .566 CHC   Cepeda, O. .393 SFG
Mays, W. .313 SFG   Robinson, Fr. .548 CIN   Santo, R. .391 CHC
Santo, R. .309 CHC   Mathews, E. .543 MIL   Robinson, Fr. .386 CIN
Robinson, Fr. .305 CIN   Santo, R. .543 CHC   Aaron, H. .381 MIL
Davis, T. .296 LAD   Stuart, D. .534 PIT   Hoak, D. .373 PIT
                     
Player Runs Tm Player Hits Tm Player 2B Tm
Mays, W. 141 SFG   Pinson, V. 226 CIN   Pinson, V. 46 CIN
Cepeda, O. 136 SFG   Cepeda, O. 211 SFG   Clemente, R. 40 PIT
Mathews, E. 131 MIL   Clemente, R. 209 PIT   Aaron, H. 39 MIL
Santo, R. 112 CHC   Aaron, H. 206 MIL   Freese, E. 38 CIN
Robinson, Fr. 111 CIN   Boyer, K. 191 STL   Santo, R. 35 CHC
Pinson, V. 110 CIN   Mays, W. 183 SFG   Altman, G. 33 CHC
Aaron, H. 109 MIL   Santo, R. 176 CHC   Mays, W. 31 SFG
Clemente, R. 107 PIT   Virdon, B. 173 PIT   Davenport, J. 29 SFG
Bolling, F. 100 MIL   Mathews, E. 172 MIL   Stuart, D. 29 PIT
Boyer, K. 98 STL   Robinson, Fr. 169 CIN   Robinson, Fr. 28 CIN
                     
Player 3B Tm Player HR Tm Player RBI Tm
Wills, M. 20 LAD   Cepeda, O. 62 SFG   Cepeda, O. 166 SFG
Aaron, H. 17 MIL   Mays, W. 41 SFG   Aaron, H. 159 MIL
Gonzalez, T. 15 PHI   Mathews, E. 41 MIL   Mays, W. 137 SFG
Clemente, R. 14 PIT   Banks, E. 40 CHC   Robinson, Fr. 120 CIN
White, B. 14 STL   Adcock, J. 40 MIL   Boyer, K. 117 STL
Blasingame, D. 11 CIN   Coleman, G. 35 CIN   Adcock, J. 117 MIL
Virdon, B. 10 PIT   Stuart, D. 34 PIT   Mathews, E. 108 MIL
Boyer, K. 9 STL   Aaron, H. 33 MIL   Stuart, D. 107 PIT
Cepeda, O. 8 SFG   Robinson, Fr. 33 CIN   Banks, E. 98 CHC
Altman, G. 8 CHC   Santo, R. 28 CHC   White, B. 98 STL
                     
Player BB Tm Player SO Tm Player SB Tm
Mathews, E. 99 MIL   Herrera, P. 126 PHI   Wills, M. 41 LAD
Moon, W. 88 LAD   Stuart, D. 120 PIT   Robinson, Fr. 23 CIN
Mays, W. 79 SFG   Altman, G. 113 CHC   Pinson, V. 22 CIN
Santo, R. 75 CHC   Adcock, J. 112 MIL   Mays, W. 16 SFG
Cunningham, J. 70 STL   McMillan, R. 105 MIL   Davis, W. 16 LAD
McMillan, R. 69 MIL   Mathews, E. 99 MIL   Cepeda, O. 14 SFG
Wills, M. 68 LAD   Kindall, J. 96 CHC   Aaron, H. 14 MIL
Bolling, F. 67 MIL   White, B. 91 STL   Maye, L. 13 MIL
Callison, J. 67 PHI   Smith, C. 86 PHI   Christopher, J. 12 PIT
Hoak, D. 65 PIT   Moon, W. 85 LAD   Gonzalez, T. 12 PHI
                     
Player HBP Tm Player ERA Tm Player W Tm
Cunningham, J. 11 STL   McCormick, M. 2.56 SFG   McCormick, M. 24 SFG
Robinson, Fr. 10 CIN   Podres, J. 3.19 LAD   O’Toole, J. 21 CIN
Torre, J. 8 MIL   Haddix, H. 3.23 PIT   Spahn, W. 19 MIL
Dalrymple, C. 7 PHI   Koufax, S. 3.29 LAD   Purkey, B. 18 CIN
Taylor, S. 6 CHC   Willey, C. 3.30 MIL   Sanford, J. 18 SFG
Bailey, E. (2/2) 5 SFG   Simmons, C. 3.32 STL   Cardwell, D. 17 CHC
Ashburn, R. 5 CHC   Purkey, B. 3.38 CIN   Drysdale, D. 17 LAD
Skinner, B. 5 PIT   Jay, J. 3.46 CIN   Burdette, L. 17 MIL
Jones, M. 4 MIL   Cardwell, D. 3.57 CHC   Koufax, S. 15 LAD
Chacon, E. 4 CIN   Jackson, L. 3.61 STL   Friend, B. 15 PIT
                     
Player SO Tm Player SV Tm Player SHO Tm
Koufax, S. 235 LAD   Miller, S. 26 SFG   Simmons, C. 4 STL
Williams, S. 187 LAD   Schultz, B. 15 CHC   Cardwell, D. 4 CHC
Gibson, B. 182 STL   Henry, B. 14 CIN   Friend, B. 4 PIT
O’Toole, J. 177 CIN   McMahon, D. 13 MIL   McCormick, M. 3 SFG
Jay, J. 166 CIN   Face, R. 12 PIT   Podres, J. 3 LAD
Drysdale, D. 166 LAD   Perranoski, R. 10 LAD   Haddix, H. 3 PIT
Gibbon, J. 162 PIT   Shantz, B. 9 PIT   Jay, J. 3 CIN
McCormick, M. 147 SFG   McDaniel, L. 7 STL   Francis, E. 3 PIT
Jackson, L. 140 STL   Brosnan, J. 6 CIN   Spahn, W. 3 MIL
Podres, J. 134 LAD   4 tied with 5     Gibson, B. 3 STL
                O’Toole, J. 3 CIN
                Mahaffey, A. 3 PHI

 

1961 AL Stats

 

Player AVG Tm Player SLG Tm Player OBP Tm
Cash, N. .386 DET   Killebrew, H. .700 MIN   Cash, N. .512 DET
Piersall, J. .359 CLE   Mantle, M. .698 NYY   Mantle, M. .475 NYY
Pearson, A. .354 LAA   Cash, N. .688 DET   Pearson, A. .447 LAA
Kaline, A. .339 DET   Gentile, J. .631 BAL   Colavito, R. .426 DET
Mantle, M. .335 NYY   Colavito, R. .624 DET   Killebrew, H. .424 MIN
Francona, T. .312 CLE   Maris, R. .586 NYY   Siebern, N. .416 KCA
Colavito, R. .308 DET   Kaline, A. .566 DET   Piersall, J. .414 CLE
Siebern, N. .305 KCA   Smith, A. .559 CWS   Howser, D. .414 KCA
Minoso, M. .305 CWS   Wagner, L. .542 LAA   Kaline, A. .413 DET
Green, L. .299 MIN   Romano, J. .525 CLE   Gentile, J. .413 BAL
                     
Player Runs Tm Player Hits Tm Player 2B Tm
Cash, N. 144 DET   Cash, N. 209 DET   Kaline, A. 55 DET
Mantle, M. 142 NYY   Kaline, A. 202 DET   Kubek, T. 45 NYY
Colavito, R. 140 DET   Francona, T. 186 CLE   Power, V. 44 CLE
Killebrew, H. 133 MIN   Colavito, R. 182 DET   Siebern, N. 38 KCA
Kaline, A. 130 DET   Green, L. 182 MIN   Versalles, Z. 37 MIN
Maris, R. 127 NYY   Howser, D. 181 KCA   Robinson, B. 35 BAL
Howser, D. 109 KCA   Schilling, C. 179 BOS   Smith, A. 34 CWS
Wood, J. 104 DET   Aparicio, L. 176 CWS   Howser, D. 33 KCA
Minoso, M. 98 CWS   Piersall, J. 174 CLE   Schilling, C. 33 BOS
Gentile, J. 98 BAL   Mantle, M. 172 NYY   Pearson, A. 32 LAA
                     
Player 3B Tm Player HR Tm Player RBI Tm
Wood, J. 24 DET   Maris, R. 61 NYY   Colavito, R. 148 DET
Howard, E. 12 NYY   Killebrew, H. 59 MIN   Killebrew, H. 140 MIN
Landis, J. 12 CWS   Colavito, R. 53 DET   Maris, R. 134 NYY
Cash, N. 10 DET   Mantle, M. 51 NYY   Cash, N. 121 DET
Thomas, J. 9 LAA   Gentile, J. 50 BAL   Kaline, A. 121 DET
Geiger, G. 9 BOS   Cash, N. 40 DET   Mantle, M. 116 NYY
Green, L. 8 MIN   Smith, A. 40 CWS   Smith, A. 116 CWS
Killebrew, H. 8 MIN   Allison, B. 39 MIN   Siebern, N. 115 KCA
Sievers, R. 8 CWS   Kirkland, W. 35 CLE   Francona, T. 114 CLE
8 tied with 7     Bilko, S. 34 LAA   Gentile, J. 114 BAL
                     
Player BB Tm Player SO Tm Player SB Tm
Cash, N. 133 DET   Wood, J. 138 DET   Aparicio, L. 50 CWS
Mantle, M. 133 NYY   Held, W. 130 CLE   Howser, D. 32 KCA
Howser, D. 122 KCA   Lemon, J. 121 MIN   Wood, J. 28 DET
Colavito, R. 120 DET   Hunt, K. 119 LAA   Hinton, C. 20 WAS
Killebrew, H. 114 MIN   Gentile, J. 117 BAL   Versalles, Z. 18 MIN
Siebern, N. 105 KCA   Skowron, B. 115 NYY   Geiger, G. 18 BOS
Gentile, J. 90 BAL   Killebrew, H. 114 MIN   Bruton, B. 15 DET
Allison, B. 85 MIN   Tasby, W. 105 WAS   O’Connell, D. 15 WAS
Geiger, G. 85 BOS   Mantle, M. 103 NYY   Green, L. 13 MIN
Maris, R. 82 NYY   Siebern, N. 102 KCA   Mantle, M. 12 NYY
                     
Player HBP Tm Player ERA Tm Player W Tm
Minoso, M. 21 CWS   Ford, W. 1.65 NYY   Ford, W. 26 NYY
Boros, S. 21 DET   Donovan, D. 1.67 WAS   Lary, F. 23 DET
Gentile, J. 19 BAL   Mossi, D. 2.43 DET   Bunning, J. 21 DET
Fox, N. 9 CWS   Schwall, D. 2.78 BOS   Mossi, D. 20 DET
Cash, N. 8 DET   Kralick, J. 2.94 MIN   Stafford, B. 19 NYY
Nixon, R. 7 BOS   Lary, F. 3.03 DET   Grant, M. 16 CLE
Geiger, G. 7 BOS   Brown, H. 3.08 BAL   Pizarro, J. 15 CWS
Francona, T. 6 CLE   Pappas, M. 3.10 BAL   Pascual, C. 15 MIN
Lollar, S. 6 CWS   Stafford, B. 3.14 NYY   Barber, S. 15 BAL
Smith, A. 6 CWS   Pizarro, J. 3.14 CWS   2 Tied with 14  
                     
Player SO Tm Player SV Tm Player SHO Tm
Ford, W. 214 NYY   Arroyo, L. 28 NYY   Ford, W. 7 NYY
Bunning, J. 203 DET   Wilhelm, H. 17 BAL   Barber, S. 7 BAL
Pascual, C. 186 MIN   Lown, T. 15 CWS   Grant, M. 5 CLE
McBride, K. 175 LAA   Morgan, T. 14 LAA   Schwall, D. 4 BOS
Barber, S. 169 BAL   Aguirre, H. 13 DET   Kralick, J. 4 MIN
Ramos, P. 168 MIN   Fox, T. 12 DET   Lary, F. 4 DET
Grant, M. 167 CLE   Funk, F. 10 CLE   Bell, G. 4 CLE
Pizarro, J. 166 CWS   Nichols, C. 10 BOS   7 tied with 3  
Kralick, J. 160 MIN   Fowler, A. 10 LAA        
Lary, F. 151 DET   Fornieles, M. 8 BOS        
                     

7 comments

15
December

New Illowa APBA League website

Last week, I holed myself up in a coffee house for a few days and reworked our league’s website. 

Here is the result.

It’s been a few years since I’ve paid any serious attention to it so this was definitely overdue.  I decided to use WordPress (which is what I use for The APBA Blog) as the web content management system.  WordPress is typically used a blogging platform but certainly can be used as a basis for a conventional web site as well. 

The advantage for using WordPress is its interactive features which I hope to use both internally and externally.  Internally, all league managers are now able to easily post articles and team updates if they wish via the WordPress web interface. 

Also, pretty much all the content on the site can receive feedback from anyone in the form of comments similar to The APBA Blog.  I’m hoping this gets utilized a lot both by IAL managers and other APBA players who come to the site. 

The site is not done and probably never will be.  I think we’re going to re-work our “About” page since the text is about 5 years old.  Also, I’m going to be in the process of migrating some of our old “news” items from the old site bit by bit. 

But it’s a good start. 

I encourage everyone to stop by and check out the site (and say hello).  Check out our History page which has links to our All-time leader pages and our Hall of Fame page.  To me, that’s one of my favorite parts. 

And most certainly, feedback is definitely welcome. 

My next step is to get Steve Stein to teach me how he does his stats on his web page. :-)

 

Postscript (12/16): As I was importing some of our old news stories, I ran across this rather incredible story from 2004 about Brandon Webb which I had almost forgotten about. 

Not only did Webb pitch back-to-back no-hitters but the first one was a perfect game. 

Webb did this as a rookie for the Todd Ventresca’s Aurora Gamblers.  It was made even sweeter for Todd because he did this against his brother.

No comments yet

15
December

Illowa APBA League LLC

Even now, I’m surprised by the stuff I find when I search Google.

I was searching on the keywords of our league name, “Illowa APBA League”.  Apparently, there’s a Internet startup company called List Company that simply lists corporations and companies throughout the world and categorizes them and gives a quick synopsis of them.  They do this by crawling the web with “spiders” or programs that mine data from websites.

They obviously don’t do any follow-up research because the Illowa APBA League showed up in their database as a “Sports Teams company”.  They gleaned text from our “About” page to put in their summary of us. 

Here is their entry for the Illowa APBA League. 

I joked with our league managers that we need to discuss whether we need to go public.  Any takers who want buy our stock?  :-)

No comments yet

8
December

Here’s your average 2009 APBA baseball card

Meet Mr 2009 of APBA Baseball. 

For each dice roll number on the card, I’ve determined the most common result number using the card data from all the position players in both leagues.  Then I made a composite card out of it.

 

 

averageapba

 

This card won’t win any MVP awards, that’s for sure. 

I gave him an OF-2 since there were more players with that rating than any other (save pitchers).  There were 105 OF-2s in the 2009 set. 

I even toyed with calling him Young since I believe that was the most prevalent surname (don’t quote me on that). 

I was a bit surprised on the 35-13 and the 42-13 quite honestly.  I guess the XBs and other bench players lowered the standard. 

2 comments

8
December

2009 APBA baseball set by the numbers: I’m not done yet

The network was down where I was at so it gave me some time to look at the 2009 disk some again.  More fun with Excel.  Maybe there’s room for one more segment in the 2009 APBA Baseball set: By the Numbers series. 

We’ll start with a couple of team comparisons today.  Then I’ll look at a few hitting card anomalies (or maybe the lack thereof). 

Finally, we’ll apply some stat filters and see who’s left standing. 

 

Teams that can field three OF-3

 

Boston Brian Anderson, JD Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury
Kansas City Coco Crisp, David DeJesus, Mitch Maier
Seattle Endy Chavez, Franklin Gutierrez, Ryan Langerhans, Ichiro Suzuki

 

Only one team that can put a Fielding One player at both shortstop and secondbase.  The Toronto Blue Jays have Aaron Hill who is a 9 at 2B and John McDonald who is a 9 at SS.

 

Three teams have three B (MG grade 10) or better starters

 

Atlanta Tommy Hanson, Jair Jurrjens, Javier Vasquez
Chicago (NL) Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly, Randy Wells
St Louis Chris Carpenter, Joel Piniero, Adam Wainwright

The Cardinals get the advantage here.  Carpenter and Wainwright are both graded A. 

 

Teams with at least three graded A or better relievers

I’m amazed at how many there were.  The Dodgers even had four on their team.

 

Los Angeles (NL) Ronald Belisario, Jonathan Broxton, George Sherrill, Ramon Troncoso
Boston Jonathan Papelbon, Takashi Saito, Billy Wagner
Cincinnati Francisco Cordero, Nick Masset, Arthur Rhodes
Minnesota Matt Guerrier, Jose Mijares, Joe Nathan
San Francisco Justin Miller, Jeremy Affeldt, Brian Wilson
St Louis Ryan Franklin, Blake Hawksworth, Trever Miller

Wow, St Louis has quite a pitching staff!!  They have one more C starter (Mitchell Boggs) to along with Carpenter, Wainwright and Piniero.  Not only that, add two more B relievers to go with their three A*s. 

 

And here’s a little bit of miscellaneous stuff for individual players.

Which players had a 42 AND a 22?

LaRUE Jason STL
DELGADO Carlos NYM
BLANKS Kyle SD
UTLEY Chase PHI

 

Which (F) players had the most 24s? 

 

CUNNINGHAM Aaron OAK 5
ROMERO Alex ARI 5
PENCE Hunter HOU 4
LONGORIA Evan TB 4

I always thought there was a inverse correlation between the speed of a player and the number of 24s but it almost doesn’t seem the case this year.

Oh, in case you were wondering, there were no (F) catchers (Russell Martin and Joe Mauer both had a 12 speed rating). 

Nor were there any (S) players with a first column 11 (the close APBA got was Atlanta outfielder Matt Diaz who had one 11 and had a speed rating of 9). 

 

Fielding, Speed and a little bit of Power

These are the only players in this year’s set that can say they are Fielding One, have a (F) rating, and have a first column 1.

 

BARMES Clint COL
CANO Robinson NYY
PHILLIPS Brandon CIN
KINSLER Ian TEX
UTLEY Chase PHI
HILL Aaron TOR
LONGORIA Evan TB
ROLLINS Jimmy PHI
YOUNG Chris B. ARI
JONES Adam BAL
SIZEMORE Grady CLE
GRANDERSON Curtis DET
PENCE Hunter HOU
KEMP Matt LAD
CAMERON Mike MIL
WERTH Jayson PHI
GUTIERREZ Franklin SEA

 

Superstar Cards?

Taking this a bit further, these are the only players with a (F) rating, a Fielding One rating, a first column 1 AND at least 4 EBH #s

 

*drum roll*

 

LONGORIA Evan TB
CANO Robinson NYY
HILL Aaron TOR
YOUNG Chris B. ARI
ROLLINS Jimmy PHI
BARMES Clint COL
KINSLER Ian TEX

 

If you haven’t seen the rest of the articles in the 2009 APBA baseball set by the numbers series, check them out. 

1 comment

5
December

2009 APBA Baseball set by the numbers: a potpourri of ratings breakdowns

In my last segment of APBA’s 2009 baseball set by the numbers, I’m going to break down at some of the more esoteric (ok, esoteric for us Basic Game guys) ratings used by the computer game.  Hopefully, that will give you an idea of the value of a rating in comparison to the rest of the Major League. 

But first, let’s look at the Speed breakdown.  Nothing too exciting…

 

Speed Ratings

 

# of players rated F 171
# of players rated S 104

 

I had a request from the APBA BTL forums to break down the catchers’ ratings.  Here they are.  These are all 74 players that had a ‘C’ rating.

 

Catchers’ Th ratings

 

Th +6 2
Th +5 3
Th +4 7
Th +3 4
Th +2 8
Th +1 4
Th 0 10
Th –1 14
Th –2 7
Th –3 6
Th –4 9

 

 

Who had the biggest (or at least most accurate) cannons behind the plate at least according to APBA? 

 

Highest Individual Th ratings 

 

Kenji Johjima Sea Th +6
Dave Ross Atl Th +6
Ryan Hanigan Cin Th +5
Lou Marson Cle Th +5
Humberto Quintero Hou Th +5

 

Plenty of Th –4 catchers to choose from but Boston fans will have to play Jason Varitek over 100 games.  I can sympathize because I have him on my team.

 

Now, let’s look at some pitcher ratings.  I’ll start with the move to first (MF) rating.

Pitchers’ MF ratings

 

MF 3 32
MF 2 61
MF 1 116
MF 0 233

 

Homerun ratings are always interesting…

 

G 88
H 26
L 89
M 22

The highest graded pitchers with an M rating were Brett Tomko who was a 7z starter and Dan Wheeler who was a 12xz reliever.

Scot Shields who was a 2w, still managed an H rating.

 

Pitchers’ Wild Pitch (WP) ratings.

 

WP 3 220
WP 2 65
WP 1 104
WP 0 53

 

And here are the all-or-nothing Balk (BK) and Hit Batsman (HB) ratings.  Among the 442 pitchers this is how many got rated 0.

 

BK 0 337
HB 0 45

 

That’s about it.  If you haven’t seen the 2009 APBA Position Players by the numbers or 2009 APBA Pitchers by the numbers, check them out.  I love crunching numbers and had fun doing this. 

No comments yet

« Previous Entries