I have totally given up on Legend mode. Hall of Fame mode is much more satisfying. I switched to Hall of Fame mode in 2015 while was in AA. I finally broke the Mendoza line with a .207 average! My stats overall are mediocre at this time in my career but at least I’m improving each year. Hall of Fame mode definitely seems to be a more challenging than last year’s game but at least I’m seeing success unlike legend mode.
In 2018, I was finally able to reach a level where I’m dominating at the plate. I got my batting average up to .300 but then I was hit with an injury which landed me on the 60 day disabled list. I think I hurt myself legging out a single or I may have fielded a ground ball the wrong way.
| YEAR |
TEAM |
G |
AB |
AVG |
H |
R |
2B |
3B |
HR |
RBI |
SB |
BB |
K |
SLG |
OBP |
OPS |
| 2018 |
Nationals |
66 |
197 |
.259 |
51 |
24 |
6 |
0 |
10 |
32 |
1 |
13 |
37 |
.442 |
.313 |
.755 |
| 2017 |
Nationals |
41 |
130 |
.246 |
32 |
15 |
4 |
1 |
4 |
21 |
0 |
18 |
27 |
.385 |
.331 |
.716 |
| 2015 |
Nationals |
10 |
12 |
.000 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
.000 |
.077 |
.077 |
| 2014 |
Nationals |
6 |
15 |
.067 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
.067 |
.067 |
.133 |
| 2013 |
Cardinals |
64 |
136 |
.184 |
25 |
11 |
4 |
0 |
1 |
12 |
0 |
12 |
33 |
.235 |
.252 |
.487 |
| TOTALS |
|
187 |
490 |
.223 |
109 |
50 |
14 |
1 |
15 |
66 |
1 |
43 |
105 |
.347 |
.289 |
.637 |
Update on hitting tips
1. Never swing at first pitch – In the first at bat of a game, it seems like I’m always able to get to a 3-2 count. Be very patient in your first at bat at the beginning of the game. In the following at bats, I never swing at the first pitch unless I’m in a hot streak or if I’m facing a tired pitcher.
2. Guess the sides with two strikes in the count – I always guess fastball with two strikes in the count. As a right handed-batter, I’ll guess for a fastball outside if I’m facing a right-handed pitcher- especially if he has a slider in his arsenal. If the pitcher doesn’t throw very hard breaking balls I’m more comfortable guessing from the inside of the plate, however. The idea is not to let the pitcher make you chase balls outside of the zone.
Against a left handed pitcher, I tend to always guess inside even through I’m more comfortable guessing outside pitches. The CPU would tend to take advantage because I kept getting tied up on pitches inside. To avoid this, I will guess inside pitches.
Standings At Close of Play of July 28, 1996
Darryl Strawberry hit a two-run walk-off home run in deep center field on Jason Jacome in the Yankees 3-2 victory over the Royals. It was Strawberry’s 300th career homer.
“He’s not up there to walk,” Torre said. “We wanted him to hit the ball.”
Twice in the game Strawberry had batted with runners on, and he struck out twice against Royals starter Kevin Appier. Perhaps he was trying for No. 300 too hard.
Take a look at this box score. In the 13th inning, Jim Thome hit a three-run home run. In the 12th, Kenny Lofton made a game-saving catch to rob Roberto Alomar of a two-run homer.
In another 13 inning game, Jesse Levis singled home the winning run for the Brewers. Randy Velarde went 4 for 6 for the Angels. Velarde ended up having a fairly good season. He hit .285 with a .799 OPS.
Alex Fernandez pitched well for the White Sox by pitching eight innings without an earned run. Fernandez raised his record to 10-7. Ron Karkovice and Tony Phillips homered.
The Tigers scored 14 runs in the win over Seattle. Cecil Fielder homered twice and drove in five runs.
The Blue Jays beat the A’s 1-0 in a pitching duel. Pat Hentgen (12-6) pitched a three-hit shutout for his fifth straight victory. He went on to win the Cy Young in 1996.
Sammy Sosa had a big day at Coors field. He had four hits including his league-leading 35th home run of the year. Sosa ended up with 40 home runs and 100 RBIs in 1996. Galararraga ended up winning the home run (47) and RBI (150) crowns in 1996.
Gary Sheffield set a Marlin record with his 28th homer. Sheffield had 3 hits and 3 runs. John Flaherty’s 27-game hitting streak ended. Flaherty’s streak was the longest in the majors. Flaherty was 0 for 3 against Al Leiter who allowed 2 hits (and 6 walks!) in 6 2/3 innings.
Orlando Miller hit a walk-off home run in the ninth inning for the Astros to beat the Dodgers
Giants rookie Shawn Estes outpitched John Smoltz (17-5) and Barry Bonds hit his 27th homer and drove in four runs. Smoltz won the Cy Young in 1996 and ended up with a 24-8 record.
Other news on this date:
Cincinnati Red owner Marge Schott returned to Riverfront Stadium for the first time since being banned from her office by major league baseball (she was initially banned for her remarks about Adolf Hitler, women and Asians). Schott was on the field with her St. Bernard dog before the Reds’ game with the New York Mets. Baseball had allowed a partial lifting of the ban but Schott was still barred from going to her executive office, and from taking part in day-to-day operations.
I began writing a Visual Basic program back in 2001 that would randomly grab boxscores of a day from http://retrosheet.org. A week ago I decided to finish what I started. So far, the application seems to be functioning correctly. On the left sidebar are scores from May 24, 1984.
The Detroit Tigers, World Champions in ‘84, started the year with a record of 35-5! They then went on a three game losing streak but ended up when 104 games that year. On this date, Jack Morris (9-1) pitched a complete game allowing one run and striking out 10 batters as the Tigers beat the Angels 5-1.
Phil Niekro (7-2) pitched well for the Yankees going seven innings and striking out seven batters in a combined shutout. Dave Righetti got his 6th save.
Take a look at Bob Dernier’s performance. He went 5 for 5 with two runs scored. Leon Durham went 3-4 and had two home runs and six RBI’s. The wind must have been blowing out at Wrigley Field – Cubs 10 Braves 7.
My program is still buggy when it finds doubleheaders so the score for the second game of the doubleheader at Wrigley Field should actually be Cubs 7 Braves 5.
The Phillies won in the bottom of the ninth when Juan Samuel hit his 7th triple of the year (he ended up with 19 triples that year). Len Matuszek singled to drive in Samuel.
What’s your manager strategy for Stratomatic’s online baseball game? I feel that over the course of a season my team will be more productive if I set most of my managerial settings to normal:
Base running – normal
Base stealing – normal
Relief usage – normal
Bunting – normal
Hit and Run – normal
Intentional Walk
I will set Intentional walk to Conservative. Depending on the series, I might set “IBB less with this pitcher” individual settings for all of my pitchers. This is especially necessary if my opponent is batting a high clutch hitter in front of a superstar. If you don’t have “IBB less with this pitcher” individual settings set, HAL will usually always have your pitcher intentionally walk the high clutch hitter to face the superstar.
Hit and Run
Depending on the situation, I may sometimes turn the “Don’t hit and run” individual settings on for all of my starting lineup. More often than not the hit and run play results in a waste of an at bat.
Setup man/Closer
Back in 2002 when Strat-O-Matic had its ’super relievers’ I would always draft a ’super reliever’ and drop him into the setup role and leave the Closer settings empty. Chris Hammond, who pitched 242 innings, for one of my teams was a favorite back in the 2002 season.
Now that the ’super reliever era’ is gone, I usually always try to land a decent closer within the 3M-6M range. I will usually keep the Setup Man settings empty unless there’s a good matchup with my opponent.
Some RTTS Guidelines
Selecting a position – In MLB 08 playing 3B was a good choice if you preferred batting more than fielding because you would have less fielding opportunities than you would if you played outfield. MLB 09 allows you to limit the amount of fielding so choose a position you prefer to play. For your secondary position, it’s recommended that you choose either IF or OF. This can help increase your chances of getting into a game.
Base Running and Fielding – MLB 09 The Show offers options to turn off the RTTS baserunning and fielding. This will allow your games to play out more quickly which will also allow you to play more games in less time. From my experience, limiting the amount of base running and fielding opportunities is highly recommended. Let’s calculate how many games one would need to play per day in order to have a 20 season career: Let’s say you play 10 games a day. There are 162 games in a season. Divide 162 by 10 and you get 16.2. It takes 16.2 days to finish a season if you average 10 games a day. Divide 365 by 16.2 and you get 22 seasons. So, you may need to average 10 games a day in order to reach a 20 season career. In MLB 08 this did not seem to be attainable unless a you simulated a portion of your games. With the new base running and fielding options in MLB 09 having a 20 season career seems to be a bit more attainable.
Training points - Since there aren’t any deadlines during spring training don’t spend any training points during this period. When the season starts be sure to use your training points on attributes that have not been updated within three weeks. When an attribute is not updated after four weeks it begins to decline. Try to have batting attribute points between left and right balanced. Right attributes should be a priority, though, because you will likely face more right-handed pitchers than left-handed pitchers during the course of a season. All batting (contact and power) and durability points should take priority over base running and fielding points. Maintaining your bunting attributes should be a low priority but you should still try to update your bunting attributes before the four week deadline. It might be a good idea to let ‘Drag Bunting’ attributes take precedence over ‘Bunting Drills’ because the ‘Drag Bunting’ attribute also has speed as a secondary attribute. Give ‘Base Running Drills’ priority over ‘Sprints’ because ‘Base Running Drills’ include speed and base running attritues which are also the same attributes for ‘Sprints’. So, you’ll be able to update ’sprints’ at the same time you update ‘Base Running Drills’.
