Season 4 Winter Meetings

Player Additions and Deletions

From Adrian in an email 2016-01-08 1:26PM:

  1. Remove Kid Nichols and Mickey Welch from the available players to draft
  2. Discuss adding these pitchers:
  3. Discuss adding these hitters:

Decision

This section was tabled until Season 5 so that Season 4 kept the same players as Season 3.

Relief Pitcher Rest

From Adrian in an email 2016-01-21 12:02AM:

I've thought before about how unrealistic it is to have our middle relievers go 4 innings multiple games in a row.  It doesn't seem as likely that will happen this year, but nonetheless, I have a proposal for the Winter Meetings that can implement this rule for Season 4.  (Actually I was just on the Strat-O-Matic website and read something similar there which prompted me to send this e-mail).  Any reliever who pitches more than 2 innings must have rest equal to at least one day less than the number of innings - (rounded down) - that he pitched.  So anyone pitching between 2.3 or 2.7 innings must have 1 day of rest.  Anyone pitching 3.0 to 3.7 innings must have 2 days of rest.  4 innings or more must have 3 days of rest like a starter.

A follow-up suggestion by Jason:

A slight change to the rule that I would like to add to the Winter Meetings topic is having the range be 2.0-2.7 innings (inclusive) is 1 day, 3.0-3.7 innings is 2 days, and 4.0+ is 3 days.  It makes the innings a little more uniform and easier to remember.

Another update by Jason:

Should rest days be calculated by batters faced?  In MLB I believe it is by pitch count, which we do not have.  Maybe one day of rest for every 15 batters faced?  This might be harder for the website to keep track of, I am not sure.

Decision

2.0 - 2.7 innings pitched means 1 day of rest

3.0 - 3.7 innings pitched means 2 days of rest

4+ innings pitched means 3 days of rest

Scoring Wild Pitches and Passed Balls

During the last Winter Meetings it was decided to stop scoring wild pitches and passed balls as errors and instead score them as MLB did; a separate statistic. MLB only gives a wild pitch or passed ball if there are runners on base that advance (runners always advance in strat).

This item is here to decide if we should set up our own scoring and give a wild pitch or passed ball regardless of whether runners are on base or not. The argument for awarding regardless of runners is because the event did occur and thus should be recorded. Pitchers and catchers should not be allowing these events to occur and it should be recorded that the events did occur even if there is no hurtful outcome to the team.

Decision

Passed balls and wild pitches are always recorded. Additionally an error is recorded when a runner advances at least one base.

Update Double/Triple Info for Pitchers

From Adrian in an email 2016-11-22 12:13PM:

...we have more info on allowed doubles and triples for pitchers than used to be available on Baseball Reference....

Because of the additional years that baseball-reference.com now has doubles and triples statistics for pitchers we should update the pitcher cards that we can to include this data.

Decision

Postponed to a future season.

Fielding Chart Updates

There have been several suggestions about updating the fielding chart. These are all lumped into one topic here.

  • Separate pitchers from first and third base (keep first and third together)
  • Allow for more granularity in specifying fielding ability (i.e. add more columns to the fielding chart)

Decision

Postponed to a future season or whenever a new, agreed upon, fielding chart is created.

Change Pitcher Fielding Chart Doubles To 2-base Errors

Interpret the doubles on the pitcher’s fielding chart as 2-base errors only if the pitcher is the player fielding the ball.

Decision

Agreed!

RBIs Matching Runs

Currently the RBIs and runs a team has are supposed to match. This is different from MLB, is not strictly enforced, and players to receive an RBI on a fielder’s choice or error. The suggestion is that we adopt MLB rules about applying RBIs (and add those rules to the Strat Rules; don’t require a lookup of MLB rules).

Decision

Yes, use MLB rules for recording RBIs.

Trammell’s Fielding Rating

From Adrian in an email 2017-05-18 12:58PM

...saw that I have Trammell listed as a 3.  Yet, his card has him at a 1.  3 is the correct rating if going purely by stats.  Did we make some special exception for him at some point, and just declare him a 1?

Decide and record Trammell’s fielding rating. Since fielding rating seems to be determined more by range and less by fielding percentage, Trammell’s range seem to match better with other 3 shortstops.

Decision

Postponed to another season.

Yearly Pitcher Limit

Increase the season innings limit for starting pitchers to be 40 * the number of per-game innings they are allowed.

Decision

Postponed to another season

Third base and Home Stealing

Add another stealing rating to player cards for stealing third and home.

Decision

Yes. For runners with 0 real attempts they start at a 0-7 rating and are have the normal penalty applied for going over allowed attempts.

Also, adding the new ratings to the cards was postponed to another season.

Wins/Holds/Saves

Add stats for Hold, Blown Hold, and Blown Save. The human rolling for the team decides how the pitchers will be awarded a win or a loss or a hold.

Decision

Yes, the new stats will be added.

Yes, the human rolling for the team decides how the win, loss, or hold stats are awarded.

A Hold may only be awarded to a pitcher who enters the game with a lead and maintains that lead with quality pitching.

A Blown Hold may only be awarded to a pitcher who enters the game with a lead and leaves the game behind.

A Blown Save must be awarded to a pitcher who enters the game in a save situation but is awarded the loss.

The game sheet and website will be restructured to accommodate the new statistics.

Adding Hit By Pitch Stat

From Jason in email on 2017-01-28:

I would like to add a discussion to the Winter Meetings about adding a Hit By Pitch statistic to strat.  I propose that it happen when the pitcher's "plus injury" is hit *and* the pitcher does not receive an injury (i.e. the roll is 10 or less) that a HBP is the outcome.

To be more realistic we may need to make this an actual line item on the card.  For example, Joe McGinnity hit a batter about every 3rd full game he pitched.  Using the "plus injury" approach described above we will not accurately reproduce that frequency for McGinnity.

Decision

No for Season 4. In the future, when the cards are redone, a HBP item will be added to both hitters and pitchers cards based on their real life statistics.

Add/Drop Cutoff Date

Copied from last season’s Winter Meetings since it was not enforced during Season 3. Do we want to enforce this rule in Season 4?

Decision

Yes, enforce it. No adding or dropping players after game 120. Also, no trades after game 120.

Yearly Game Limit for Players

Should hitters be assigned a yearly game limit? This would be the number of games they are allowed to appear in, not an AB or plate appearance.

Decision

For Season 4 the rules on hitter game limits will remain the same as Season 3 (i.e. no limits).