I posted this 1966 Roberto “Bobby” Pena card a few days ago on The APBA Blog Facebook page. Why? In my ‘66 NL replay where I’m using actual lineups, his Cubs have taken to starting him at shortstop in mid-April. Not only that, they have led him off once or twice. As you can guess from his stats on his card, the “Pena Experiment” by the Cubs won’t last long and Don Kessinger will be the shortstop of choice.
It was Pena’s second year in the majors and despite the Cubs’ efforts, he couldn’t make it. I honestly don’t know… he may have gotten injured. Regardless, he went 3 for 17 with two doubles and that was that.
| Split | G | GS | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 Totals | 6 | 4 | 17 | 17 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | .176 | .176 | .294 |
1966 Bobby Pena probably deserves four sixes instead of the three that he got. Most likely, he was downgraded due to his lack of playing time. What is interesting is that he received a 45-14 despite getting zero walks in 1966.
Ugly numbers: 51-39, 31-23, 13-13 and SS-6
The Phillies acquired Bobby Pena after the 1966 season and after spending some time in the minors, he became a more reliable talent hitting in the .240-.260 range. Starting in 1968, he played three full time seasons albeit with four different teams.
Hi Tom,
Is the Pena card from the so-called XC set?I believe that Bobby Pena hit tow homers in a game back in ’66 and if I’m not mistaken he reappeared with the expansion Padres in ’69.
Cluke
Hey Chuck,
You might be thinking of Pena hitting a home run in each of his first two games of his career. That was in ’65.
I’m still not understanding the idea of running a replay using exact rotations and line-ups. Isn’t the fun of APBA proving that you are a better manager than the guy running the team?
Hi Adam,
My opinion is that he is trying this to see how accurate the cards are as to actual numbers.
Personally I am somewhat of a “mixed bag” in regards to replays. I tend to use the players that have the best cards, in order to see “what may have been”.
I don’t care if a player is a J-4 as far as playing time goes; although I DO use the injury charts by rating and have had several players go down for very long periods of time because of this.
Granted in the early days of baseball when rosters only carry 2-3 players in reserve it’s easier to say “my starters are my starters”, so I will use an example of one of my favorite players from when I first learned to play, Atlanta Braves 3B Bob Horner.
For those not familiar with Mr. Horner, he was a legit HR machine and decent defender. Unfortunately he was constantly injured, and the textbook definition of “when healthy…” and was usually a J-3 or J-4 if I remember right, but usually had some great cards, and my friends used to get on me for playing him too much, to which I replied, “my goal is to win games, not match games played”
But you bring up an interesting point, which is that it is up to YOU the player as to how real you want to get.
It gets more difficult when you have a Mickey Klutts, “Count” Pucchinelli or such card for sure. I have not yet had a “monster card” to affect decision making yet although my 1905 John McGraw card could qualify.
I think I walk the fine line myself and while I don’t “abuse” the cards, I will test the limits to a certain degree. I apologize for the long post.
Hi Adam and Scott,
This is the first time I’ve done a replay with actual rotations and actual lineups. Like Scott says, replays can be done with a more “what-if?” approach and those can be a lot of fun.
I will say that using actual lineups has been very educational for me. Before, I would too tempted to just play the best available lineup or at least the starting lineup everyday. I would occasionally pay lip service to a sub by playing him every so often but not near enough. This way, Pena gets his fair due.
With the actual lineups, I see the ’66 Cardinals play George Kernek every day in April and wonder why. I did some research and found he was going to be their new superstar 1B until they found he couldn’t hit. Probably the same goes for Pena and the Cubs.
Essentially, replaying the games this way puts me more in the 1966 mindset. And like Scott says, it will also give me more accurate numbers too.
Finally, in a way, I do want to see if I’m a better manager than the ’66 skippers. My not-so-secret goal is to see if the Cubs can lose less than 100 games or maybe even avoid the cellar (I think they can). But I want to do it without pitching Jenkins every fourth start (he only started 12 games) etc. That would be the easy way out. ;-)
That all said, I’ve seen some creative replays where managers will stop in the middle of a season and make some crazy blockbuster trades that never really happened just to see how it will pan out.
tom
Hi Tom,
The point with Jenkins is a solid one, and probably deserves its own article some day.
While I know you probably mentioned his grade at some point, I don’t remember. But take this year for example.
For those playing the game out of the box, how much different will their 2013 replay be with the Yankees getting a full season of Soriano, as opposed to 2 months?
Talk about a change of scenery helping a player huh? Still glad the Cubs traded him as he would not be part of the rebuild and it’s time to see what the kids can do.
Both or either approaches to a season replay
are what make the game great! You can be your own manager or General manager and play the players as you see fit in the replay. Alternatively, you can become the SABRmetician(?)/historian/ fan and observer and see how the year plays out by using the actual lineups.In my ’59 replay, I’m encountering the problem of teams over and underachieving and thus impacting races by their September call ups- interesting but fun
situation. I like Tom think it’s interesting and I scratch my head when I see Milwaukee skipper Fred Haney plug an inept (by 1959) Enos Slaughter into the cleanup spot with his .1 something avaerage- makes it interesting though from a historical perspective.
Cluke