This past year, some APBA fans expressed some mild displeasure at the way power numbers were doled out for a couple hitters in the 2012 baseball set. Specifically, I’m talking about those players who hit a fair amount of homeruns but didn’t receive a single one on their card. Starlin Castro is one example. He hit 14 homers last year but received a 3-5-5 on his 2012 card. Jose Reyes is another odd case. Reyes banged out 11 dingers and has the power numbers 3-5-6. Mathematically, they work out but there’s no way they will hit a homerun with the bases empty. Pure and simple.
The issue really hit home with me today as I was replaying a 1966 game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates (I’m using a recently reprinted card set). It was a tight extra inning game and twice the Pirates needed a pinch hitter off the bench to hit one out to win it and go home. Unfortunately, there were two players who had similar characteristics as Castro and Reyes. Manny Mota hit 5 homers in 359 plate appearances. He was “blessed” with a 3-5 power combination. Jerry Lynch who hit one homer in 64 plate appearances (I know, not great but statistically, not horrible either) just had a single column 5. I had two pinch hitters whose ability to hit a homer was taken away from them with the bases empty.
Realistically, I can understand Lynch’s one 5. He was a scrub player at best in 1966 and APBA has been known to give unconventional cards to pitchers and players with little playing time. But players like Mota, Castro and Reyes, all who have considerable playing time, should have their chances to hit their four-baggers even it’s just a few 1s behind their zeroes. Cases like Reyes and Castro especially befuddle me. I even looked up Castro’s splits once to see if APBA’s choice was based on whether the bases were occupied when he hit his homers. It wasn’t.
I know this isn’t a huge issue or anything but I know I’ve heard rumblings from other APBA players on this topic, too. I’m hoping this is something that APBA is trying out and just gauging feedback on. For my part, if a player has hit homeruns, let them be able to hit them no matter the base situation unless they statistically have shown they can’t (but that’s a whole new ball of wax).
By the way, this is what went down in the Reds-Pirates game in my replay today (because I know you’re dying to know). Down a run with two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning, I ended up using Jim Pagliaroni to pinch hit for the Pirates. If memory serves, he had three 0s and a decent second column with a fair amount of 1s. But it wasn’t hardly fair to him since as a catcher, it was his day off. And in case you’re wondering, he struck out giving the Reds the win.
That is very odd. I wonder if they are trying out a new program and this has statistically shown that it will provide the correct number of homers at season end in the average no. of AB’s that player had?
I remember back in the late 70-80’s (cannot remember the exact year)Dave Winfield had a 6-6-6-6-1 or a 6-6-6-1 card and fans ripped them big time stating he was only average in all other hitting situations, but to quote one article I read “he becomes Babe Ruth with a runner on third”.
Personally my issue is how does someone as weak defensively as Castro get a SS-8?
That’s just one of the things I dislike about APBA. A game based on base situation is always going to have something ‘odd’ like this.