John Heneghan emailed me and told me about a modification he’s come up with for his 1965 replay.  In keeping with the theme of my last post, it has to do with baserunning.  In this case, it’s a way for good defensive catchers to have an effect on steals.

John says:

I have been replaying the last month of the APBA 1965 season in the National League. It has always bugged me that great catchers have no influence on base stealing so I devised a simple chart for catchers rated 8 or 9 in which the baserunner runs a risk if he rolls a result of 10 or 11 and decides to steal. I have found that using this chart, I increased the value of the  9 or 8 Catcher, raised the involvement level of the managers and placed a reasonable risk for players to steal a base against a good arm.

• I have found that I am more likely to hesitate to pinch hit or pinch run for a good fielding catcher
• In tight games I have to decide to bring in a defensive catcher for the later innings against a “running team”
• In the late innings in a tight game, its a nail biter when a 9 catcher is behind the plate and a batter rolls an 11 ..to steal or not to steal ?
• Finally it brings a little bit of reality to the stat, stolen bases vs caught stealing

Great Defensive Catchers vs the Stolen Base;
The charts below are used for catchers rated 8 or 9
when a batter’s first column 10 or 11 results in a
stolen base

Example: Ty Cobb’s roll results in an 11. If the opposing catcher is rated an 8 or 9 Cobb’s 11 no longer results in an automatic steal. First, Cobb’s manager decides to “Coach” Cobb and if he instructs him not to steal, Cobb remains on first & no dice are rolled. If Cobb is allowed to steal then Cobb’s manager rolls two dice & combines the dice. He then refers to the chart corresponding to the catchers rating *”Chance” refers to the percentage chance

I haven’t tried this so I can’t verify how this works but certainly looks interesting.  John’s right in that the basic game doesn’t provide any disincentive for a player to not steal against a catcher with a cannon for an arm.  Our league used to use a Catcher’s Throwing Chart on hit an run plays only but ditched it in our housecleaning move a few year’s back. 

Thoughts anyone?  Has anyone used such modification? 

We’ve been discussing baseball basic game a lot recently.  During the comment discussions, the Unusual Play Card and Error Chart have been brought up.  I assumed a lot of APBA Baseball fans have used these modifications and if not, have at least heard of them.

Then again, there are a lot new APBA fans out there and others coming back to the game.  Finally, I could be erroneous in my thinking.  Perhaps the Unusual Play Card and its brother, the Error Chart may be popular in my neck of the APBA woods but not be as well known elsewhere.  So I thought I’d pass both it on for everyone so could evaluate them and use them if they find them useful.  Note:  both of these modifications have been around for decades and I don’t know who was the original creator of either.  If anyone knows, please inform me so I can give them credit.

Similar Purpose

The UPC and Error Chart both serve a similar purpose.  While easy to implement, both serve to randomize result numbers that occur on players’ cards which mostly appear due the position that they position.  For example, it addresses the question: “Is it right that a baserunner has a much higher chance to get caught stealing if a shortstop is at bat?”.  It takes away the inherit unfairness that comes with the game.

With both modifications, it requires an extra dice roll every so often but not so much to extend the length game significantly.

I should say at this time that the cards displayed below and methods described are not canon.  These are the cards that our league has used for used and I have used for replays.  I’m sure there are variations that work just as well.  If you like the concept but the rules or cards don’t quite work for you, feel free to change them.  Better yet, let us know HOW you change them and why.

Unusual Play Card

The rules for the UPC modification are simple:

If bases are not empty and the offensive manager’s result (red number on the card) is a 23 or 36-41, the offensive manager rolls two dice again and refers to the UPC.

The result (again the red number) is the actual result number the offensive manager will use to refer to the boards.

Error Chart

The Error Chart works much in the same way.

If the offensive manager’s result (red number on the card) is a 15-21, the offensive manager rolls two dice again and refers to the Error Chart (the Error Chart is referred to with bases empty unlike the UPC).

The result (again the red number) is the actual result number the offensive manager will use to refer to the boards.

One drawback (because someone will bring it up if I don’t) is the 15.  I’m sure APBA uses the 15 to increase HBP totals on batters and using the Error Chart will skew this a little.

All in all if you don’t mind rolling the dice a few more times per game, these two modifications are pretty decent if you’re looking to randomize those position-related numbers.  I’d like to hear from others who have used similar modifications.  Did they work for you??

A few days ago, we discussed pitching fatigue modifications in the basic game.  That prompted John H to write in about a slightly different topic relating to pitchers’ use. 

Here are his thoughts:

Perhaps this might be a subject to explore; Starters, unrated as relievers, being used in relief.
Guys like Koufax Ford and Spahn and even some modern stars have been asked to help out in a pinch. I suggest that a starter can be used in relief .. but:

1. He drops a grade immediately upon entering the game and drops a grade each inning of use.
2. If there is less then two days between his last start and his relief appearance his grade drops two grades (not one) immediately upon taking the mound in relief.
3. If he faces more then 3 batters he cannot start the next day
4. If he faces more then 9 batters he cannot start for two days.

John brings up a good topic for discussion.  With APBA, there’s no right way to do it.  However, there are most certainly ways each of us hasn’t thought of.

First, let’s start off with the official APBA rules.  What does the game allow?  According to the APBA Baseball basic game, there aren’t a lot of restrictions as far as pitcher use in the bullpen.  The only restriction to speak of is the asterisk which restricts that pitcher from being used as a starter (unless he is a split grade pitcher).  But nothing in the official rules says you can’t use a Chris Carpenter as a reliever even though in real life he pitched 34 games and started all of them.  

However, rules are rules and the beauty of the APBA basic game doesn’t prevent anyone from enhancing it (or mucking it up depending on your perspective) with modifications and extra rules.  If you think regulating pitching use in the pen is warranted, then there’s nothing stopping you or your league. 

What are the objectives here (and in most scenarios when implementing modifications)?  Essentially, realism, accuracy plus ease of play.  You may want to add the potential for starters to relieve for a variety of reasons but you don’t want a Koufax or Carl Mays to be the default go-to guy because of his nifty grade.  John’s system does alleviate that to a point.  It does penalize that Grade A starter should you make that call to the pen. 

In my league, we use strict limits.  Pitchers can only appear in the number of games started and games relieved throughout the season.  No starter may relieve unless they did so in real life. 

The only exceptions: 

• All D pitchers are eligible to relieve (an added bonus:  their games and innings limits are doubled)
• In the postseason, any pitcher who is not designated as a starting pitcher may appear as a reliever even if they didn’t have any relief appearances in real life.

Coincidentally, we implement a rule similar to John’s 3rd and 4th point in the postseason for ALL relievers.   No relief pitcher may pitch more than three innings in a span of two games.  If he goes down one grade.  The purpose of that is to prohibit overuse of highly graded relievers. 

Thoughts anyone?  It’s a highly specialized area but worth talking about. 

John H by the way, is the one who came up with the Great Defensive Catchers vs the Stolen Base Chart I posted about a while back.  That one is still being talked about so keep ‘em coming, John. 

This tip might be a shot in the dark but I thought it was useful for my 1966 replay. 

For those of you who are doing replays of past MLB seasons and strictly follow its schedule, you more than likely have a copy of that year’s schedule.  However, people like me might want a calendar of that year.  Maybe a calendar so you can cross off the dates as you slog through your replay.  Or maybe you can look up and say “oh, the game I’m playing right now is on a Sunday”.  In essence, to make the replay seem more real. 

Of course, finding a actual calendar from say, the year 1930, 1966 or whatever, is pretty much impossible.  That said, you can go to timeanddate.com and create your own calendar.  Just type in whatever year you want and you it will display that year’s 12 month calendar.  There are multiple design formats available to choose from and when you’re ready you can either save it to your desktop or just send it to your printer. 

It’s not mission critical.  Just something to add a little more flavor and fun to your replay.

Useful?  No?

For those looking for an updated “Pitcher’s Hitting Card”, this is what our league is using.  It’s not much different than last year’s but we do respect APBA placement of the 12 so we did a switcheroo with the 26 and the 61. 

This certainly isn’t meant to be an official or canon PHC or anything.  No doubt, there are many versions of this modification out there.  I just thought I’d pass on what we’re using. 

I hope that’s helpful to someone.

[Update]  I thought maybe it might be helpful to add a bit about the Pitchers’ Hitter Card for anyone who isn’t familiar with it…what it is and how it’s used.

Our league uses the PHC for any pitcher who had less than 10 at-bats in real life.  If they had 10 at-bats or more, they use their own card. 

The purpose is two-fold from my perspective.  One, it gives those typical American League pitchers’ cards  a little more oomph.  Those pitchers have never batted (at least in that year) so they usually get the typical 7-8-9 card.  Hardly seems fair compared to the average NL pitcher. 

On the other hand, it prevents those Monster Cards (yeah, you know what I’m talking about) from getting an upper hand.  Those relief pitcher that come to bat two or three times and get one hit and as a result get a card that Babe Ruth would be jealous. 

Again, these are just our league’s rules.  Other league’s rules may vary.

And for something totally unrelated:  A Google News search for “APBA leagues” brought up this rather unusual result:  the Andhra Pradesh Basketball Association, a basketball league in Vijayawada, India. Apparently, they’re holding a tournament now.

Go figure,  usually the APBA searches I run into are the American Power Boat Association. 

Thanks to Paul Dylan who did a preview of the 2011-12 UEFA Championship Soccer teams on his site, One for Five.  The two teams, Chelsea and Bayern Munich are available for free download on APBA’s site.

Dylan’s preview includes a simulation match which he details quite well.  Very interesting for someone like me who has no idea how one would score a soccer match.

APBA Football fans should check out Greg Barath’s APBA Fan site, Oguard’s Replays. He launched it not too long ago and I plugged it then.  He’s really added a lot to it since then. In addition to his replay info, he has info regarding some APBA Football innovations and Excel tools.

Speaking of new cards, APBA has the 2011 Golf Card set ready to go.  You can see the list of golfer in the set here.

On a side note, I know everyone has their opinion of the new APBA official website.  Personally, it’s not so much how it looks but that the info is getting updated.

The proof is in the pudding for me.  When I get my Google News Alerts for the keyword “APBA” and for the first time ever, I’m getting links to the APBA Company’s site, that’s a good thing.  I did pass that on to John Herson because I think it’s something he should know.

Give your web person a bonus, John.  :)

I’ve gotten a few emails lately from people who have the older boards but have bought newer card sets.  The dilemma arises with the newer pitching ratings, the ‘K’ and the ‘R’.  How to handle these ratings when your boards don’t reflect these changes is the big question. 

David Glancy is one of these APBA players:

I have been playing APBA baseball since 1962 with 2 other guys. We formed an 8 team league in 1982 and have been playing ever since. We have most of the seasons, 1962 through 2001 as well as many all time great teams etc. We play the old fashioned way with dice and only use the computer to do end of the year stats & all-star teams. We play a 162 game schedule with 8 teams and we do commit the sin of mixing players, years etc.

My question is:  I recently purchased the 2010 season (we got down on the modern players because of steroids, player pay etc) and found the following symbols on some pitchers; K, R and there was no reference to them in the new boards & rule book I bought in 2001. So, they must be since then. What do they refer to, strikeouts, walks or ???

Thanks, Dave

The ‘R’ rating

As I said, I’ve gotten plenty of this type of question from readers.  Put simply, the ‘R’ rating is to reduce the number of strikeouts (lower than the rate of a pitcher with no strikeout letters). 

The ‘R’ rating has 4 rules it follows:

• it only takes effect with the result #13
• it only takes effect with less than two runners on base
• when it goes into effect, it turns a 13-Strikeout into a non-strikeout
• the fielding results are varied but none result in a runner being advanced

The ‘K’ rating

Conversely, the K rating turns fly outs, groundouts and pop outs into strikeouts… and there are MANY of these.  The K pitcher will strikeout many more than the normal ‘XY pitcher.  For example on the Bases Empty board, a ‘K’ pitcher will turn strikeouts on four extra results that a non-‘K’ pitcher will not.  The ‘K’ also has added oomph since the results it effects are more common such as 28, 30, 24 etc. 

Adapting to the new ratings

For those who are looking to adapt their new cards to old boards, there are a couple of options: 

1.  Buy the new boards. 

Aside from getting up to date on the new ratings, there are some significant changes to the new boards.  Most of them I even like.  If it’s in your budget, I highly recommend getting them.

2.  Adapt to a new K system

If you’re too in love with your APBA boards to part with them, you could treat the ‘K’ pitcher as an ‘XY’ rating and perhaps even add an extra number like 28 that would result in a added strikeout.  Others could chime in.  It may take more than one added result to achieve accurate numbers. 

Seriously though, buy the boards.  You’ll get better results.  :)

Here’s another entry for The APBA Blog Dice Shaker Project.  My buddy John “Brando” Brandeberry designed and crafted a new dice shaker for fellow manager Todd Ventresca and presented it to him this past weekend. 

Nice prize for the IAL Manager of the Year! 

Unlike mine which nice and hefty, this ceramic cup is quite light.  It has raised “dice” along the sides and also spells Todd’s team name, “Gamblers”. 

Almost makes me a bit envious.  Nice work, John!

by Scott Fennessy

This is an article that was sort of sparked by a question Tom asked me during of my replay updates. He asked if I used the charts for injuries, and I replied back that I did. I know sometimes the way the numbers on the charts lead to a lot of injuries to certain positions; In my 1901 and 1905 replays a surprising number of players have the result number 23. With both sets having two error numbers per card (due to the very low fielding percentages in the early days).

Well, over the course of the one and three quarters seasons I have replayed third baseman are basically an endangered species. I had noted on my most recent update about the troubles Harry Wolverton and Bill Bradley have had, and more interestingly enough just tonight George Rhoe has joined that elite group of constantly injured third baseman. What makes his joining this group even more spectacular is that he has not really had much opportunity to play at all anyway.

Rohe saw his first action in game 2 a sub for Lee Tannehill and in his first at bat of the season hits a home run. So I put him in the next day and he hits yet another home run. Considering he only has one zero on the card I say maybe I let him start a third game, and he promptly gets hurt and misses over a month. About three games after his return I put him in during a blowout and sure enough he gets hurt and misses over 10 games. Then after returning again I put him in the lineup solely to give Tannehill a much needed day off and he gets hurt for another 19 games. So through 87 games this guy has managed to play in 12 games, and be hurt for over 50 of the rest of the games. Sadly enough in this replay (the year before the White Sox were the hitless wonders) his 2 home runs LEADS the team, which has a total of 3 for the season.

So that said, has anyone ever had players get injured this often? While I have never actually considered modifying the injuries has anyone ever done this, and what were the results?

Some of us play (or rather replay) APBA sports to get away from the sordid aspects of our favorite sports… the million dollar contracts, the scandals and all the accusations of PEDs.  Some of us like to play our sports the way it should be played.  I know I do.  If that’s the case, this modification may or may not be for you.  It’s the APBA Baseball Brawl Chart which has been around in different versions for a while now.  To give fair due, Chris Blackburn gets credit for this version, I believe. 

I ran across this version of the Brawl Chart a few days ago.  The Brawl Chart is just an interesting modification for the APBA Baseball board game to spice things up a little bit.  It gives the replayer options to for ejections or suspensions as well as injuries so beware!  I have never used the Brawl Chart in replay or league play but I remember seeing some version of it a long time ago.  Our league does joke about using it whenever there are multiple hit batters in one of our games. 

As with most board modifications, this can be easily changed in a lot of different ways to suit your style of play (or even the era you are replaying).  Reading through the chart, it does appear to be a bit complicated but once you get the process down, it’s probably not that time-consuming especially considering how often it is actually used. 

Below is a sloppily-formatted table for viewing purposes.  If anyone wants to use it in game play, I suggest downloading the Excel spreadsheet.

Notes:

When teams meet again, you do not need to have multiple hit batters to start a fight. If you roll 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, or 66, then another fight ensues!

If the same pitcher and batter are involved again, then the two immediately create another bench clearing brawl with 8 players involved!

If anyone uses this chart, let us know how well it works!

[photo credit]

The APBA Company quietly rolled out the Starting Pitching Fatigue Chart with the new season.  Those of you who received new cards may have noticed a new rating with the pitchers’ grade.  The fatigue rating appears as a number right after the strikeout and control ratings on the same line as the pitcher’s grade. 

See the highlighted fatigue rating on Jake Odorizzi’s APBA card. 

This fatigue rating is to be used with APBA Starting Pitching Fatigue Chart which is found on APBA’s web site here.  As far as I can tell, this fatigue rating chart is meant to be used as an advanced feature for the Basic Game.  Though it could be used with the Master Game, that game has its own fatigue system with the Q rating. 

How does it work?  To put it VERY simply, two dice are rolled and added before the game.  You then refer to the chart.  That gives you an idea how many batters the pitcher can face before his grade is affected.  There are additional rules regarding whether or not he retires the following batters which may quicken his demise. 

As a point of information (because I was confused by this), the numbers in the parenthesis are to be subtracted from the BF Rating. 

Note that if your pitcher hasn’t given up an earned run, he is still subject to the grade advancements as per usual APBA rules, UNTIL he gives up a run. 

In concept, I like the idea of a pitchers’ fatigue system especially for replays.  I haven’t had a chance to test this one out yet though.  Has anyone test driven this Starting Pitching Fatigue System out?  I’m curious how it’s worked for you.  If so, post your results. 

Now that the Major League Baseball season is over, some of you may want to have a copy of the stats on your computer to view, sort and filter. 

Most of us are fine with browsing the nicely formatted web pages at Baseball Reference, MLB.com or ESPN.com.   However, if you’re a stat geek, a replayer, or a league commissioner, you’ll want a spreadsheet in front of you so you can filter, sort and manipulate the data.  I’ve already seen some websites that have advertised they have them the 2016 MLB stats available for download.  However, not all may include every stat that you may want. 

Here’s one solution:

• Go to Baseball Reference’s 2016 MLB Standard Batting page. 
• Scroll down to the player roster and click “Export” (see top photo).  A file named leagues_NL_2016-standard-pitching_players_standard_batting.csv will be downloaded to your computer.
• Using Excel, open this file.  Since it is a comma-delimited text file, it will ask you how it is delimited.  Make sure to choose “Delimited” and “Comma” (see right) and it will format the columns correctly. 
• Save it as an Excel document.  This will allow advanced formatting and give you the ability to sort and filter. 
• Repeat the same process with the 2016 MLB Standard Pitching page.  This file will be named “leagues_NL_2016-standard-pitching_players_standard_pitching.csv.

One caveat

This feature will only those players who are qualifiers by default.  If you want to export every player, you need to uncheck the box next to “Hide non-qualifiers for rate stats” (see left).

In all, the process takes just a few minutes.  There are plenty of tables of data at Baseball Reference that allow you to Export the data so that you can you can use it. 

Unfortunately, the transactions data cannot be exported but can be copied and pasted into an Excel worksheet and with a little massaging, it be usable. 

I hope this helps someone!

Hey everyone,

I know a lot of you are big fans of Steve’s APBA Card Computer so you will want to know that it has a new home.  You can now find it at this address:

http://www.compuducksports.com/cardcomp/

For those who haven’t used it, Steve’s APBA Card Computer is the baby of Steve Stein.  Steve is a programmer as well as a manager in the Transcontinental Baseball League. His Card Computer is a quick way to get an idea of what an APBA card should look like.  Steve has populated his database with MLB stats from 1950-2016. 

If there is a player from before that you want to check, you can enter in the stats yourself.  Steve readily admits that this NOT a replacement for the official APBA product.  This is rather a testing ground and a predicting tool.  With the 2016 stats entered, I know I’ve been using it a lot to see how my players on my Illowa APBA League (that’s my boy Kris Bryant up there) and Boys of Summer League teams are looking for next year.  Good for scouting trade and draft prospects too!! 

Thanks Steve for a great resource!! 

The Fielding Range Chart does more than identify the three different Fielding ratings.

It also tracks RP results on Bases Empty and Catcher wild throws on safe steals. For the more ambitious, it also tracks Dropped Throws on Stealing Tags.

First the RP Bases Empty. This saves having to consult the RP board, with the bases empty, only to find that the result is a Ball, Strike, or Foul Ball. Big time-saver; but, remember, this only applies to Bases Empty. With men on base, everything is a potential play, so you have to look it up.

Here’s an example.

Using Andrew McCutchen’s 2015 season card, you roll a 35, which results in 40. Rather than trudge to the RP board to get the result, simply roll the dice and if any one of the 14 numbers that result in a Ball, Strike, or Foul Ball come up, you know instantly that there is no play result. You can then re-roll until a play result number surfaces.

So what happens if you roll three strikes or four balls in a row?

The odds of a strikeout or base on balls occurring with this are infinitesimal. I’ve never had it happen in more than 10,000 games.

Next: Tracking catcher’s wild throws

Read all of Rod’s Replay Insider articles!

Using the Errors Chart, tabulating errors is simple.

After you tally up your batting stats, simply record errors, by individual on the Errors Chart. It only takes about 10 seconds and the information adds another dimension to your replay.

You can simply record total errors or, if you want to track more detailed data, you can track individual errors at each position they played. If you want to add some spice to the Errors Chart, you can also record catcher’s passed balls and outfielder assists.

Finally, you can record unusual fielding accomplishments by writing the information at the bottom of the sheet. Triple plays, two OF assists by a single player in a game, an unassisted double play all would qualify as unusual fielding accomplishments. Noting unusual fielding events adds depth to your replay and underscores the importance of defense for each team and individual player.

Follow this link to see the what a completed Errors Chart looks like. It recaps the fielding for the 1912 Philadelphia Phillies in a replay I completed in 2017.

The Errors Chart shows, at a glance, that SS Mickey Doolan recorded 30 errors. It also shows that RF Dode Paskert committed 33 errors (more on OF error rates later in the series). In red, in the lower right section, four of the Phillies lowlights are recorded, three games with five or more errors and a three-error game by Doolan on Aug. 5.

Generally speaking, right fielders have thrown out the most baserunners in every replay I have conducted. In the linked illustration, one has to recollect that RF Gavvy Cravath was not blessed with a great arm, which meant that baserunners more frequently ran on him, which, in turn gave him more opportunities to throw runners out. What the chart does not show is how many runners took advantage of Cravath’s weak arm.

Next: Tracking hitting streaks

Read all of Rod’s Replay Insider articles!

This post is may not seem APBA-related but for me, it is. It’s geared for APBA players who like me, store APBA files on their computer. Examples of these can be Excel stat files, backups of APBA BBW files, or for that matter any type of documentation of replays.

This past month, my computer suffered a massive hard drive crash. Among other files, my Excel spreadsheets which contained stats from my ongoing 1966 stats as well as my league stats for my Twin City Thunderchickens were all gone.

In most instances, I would have been panicking. But mostly, I was just mildly annoyed. It was a major inconvenience to have a disk crash and be without my normal computer for a week while it was repaired. But I didn’t give the safety of my important files a second thought.

Why?

Cloud backups

That’s why.

The “cloud” may be a marketing term but does refer to something real. Many of use the cloud or cloud storage without even realizing it. In fact, tech companies like Apple and Microsoft encourage customers to use their branded cloud storage. There are other cloud storage which offer free storage.

In short, my APBA league stats and my 1966 replay stats were synced online. Once I got my replacement computer back, I logged in to my cloud storage account and my files synced up to my new computer.

Which cloud storage?

I am not about to recommend one cloud storage solution over another. Most of the top ones will work just fine.

Some examples:

• Microsoft OneDrive (works best with Windows)
• Apple iCloud (works best with Macs)
• Google Drive
• DropBox

Most of these offer a free amount of data which is sufficient for most of our data. If you wish to add to your quota, you can pay a nominal fee.

Other benefits

Aside from backup recovery, there are more benefits to cloud storage. Most helpful, is file sharing. The Boys of Summer League has been using OneDrive to share league documentation as well as its weekly BBW commissioner file and lineup files. With just one click, I could download the necessary file. I’ve been trying to encourage my Illowa APBA League to use a cloud storage solution to distribute our monthly newsletter.

Versioning is another benefit. Take the above example of sharing newsletters. Say there was a mistake of some sort in the latest newsletter. The commissioner could simply make the change on the uploaded copy and the link would still point to it. There would be no need for sending out multiple versions of documents encouraging confusion as to which one was the correct one.

I was lucky in that I synced my files just before my hard drive crashed. It’s best to make sure that all files that important to you are being synced. One (non-APBA related) file did not get synced and is lost forever and had to get re-created.

Honestly, it wasn’t that I was so happy that everything was backed up. I didn’t give it much thought. At the same time, I have now seen the value of cloud backups first hand!