Strat-O-Matic Ultimate Team idea

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Madden Ultimate Team and I’ve been enjoying it so much that I thought about what it would be like if Strat-O-Matic baseball online had the same format. Just imagine being able to collect a set of virtual baseball cards to build a fantasy team that you can use in Strat-O-Matic baseball online. There would be four packs of random player cards to choose from – platinum, gold, silver, and bronze. Platinum packs might consist of players in the 9M and above range, gold 6M-8M, silver 3M-5M, and bronze .50M-2M.

You would start out with a set of 25 randomized bronze players along with a (bronze valued) ballpark. As an example, here’s a list of players you might start out with:

Ballpark
McAfee Coliseum

Lineup
Travis Buck C 2.48M
Ross Gload 1B .78M
Jeff Baker 2B 2.13M
Jose Bautista 3B 1.34M
Bobby Crosby SS 1.23M
Clete Thomas LF 2.03M
Willie Bloomquist CF 1.01M
Eric Hinkse RF 2.68M
Brian Barton DH .67M

Bench
Paul Lo Duca C .50M
Julio Lugo SS .50M
Jose Vidro 1B .50M
Travis Hafner DH .50M
Omar Vizquel SS .50M

Pitchers
John Lannan SP 2.29M
Nick Blackburn SP 1.88M
Aaron Harang SP .81M
Brett Tomko SP .55M
Zach Duke SP .50M

Francisco Rodriguez CP 2.66M
Juan Cruz RP .85M
Jamey Wright RP .59M
David Aardsma RP .50M
Jason Grilli RP 1.71M
Jack Cassel RP .50M

From a quick glance, this team (worth about 30M) appears to be pretty well balanced but there’s a chance you might end up with a team that is short on left-handed batters or you might end up with an all lefty starting rotation for instance. It’s all random to begin with so it would be a nice challenge to be able to rebuild and optimize your team.

Earning Coins
You would start out with zero coins but you can earn coins through your performance on the field. Let’s say you win a game you might earn 200 coins. Hit a home run or pitch a shutout and your team would earn bonus coins. You could start out by playing with your bronze team for the first 20 or so games and this would allow you to earn enough coins to buy new cards from the auction block or buy new packs.

Contract Cards
Each card would have a contract of a certain number of games. Let’s say each card starts with a 20 game contract. Before the contract expires you must decide if you want to extend the contract (with a contract card) or allow the contract expire and buy another player from the auction house. Contract cards would be valuable, especially when it comes to keeping gold-level talent on your team. There would also be injury cards you could use to speed up the healing process of your injured players.

Team Chemistry
I’m not sure if this would work in Strat-O-Matic’s current online engine but in Madden Ultimate Team there’s a chemistry feature that plays a large factor on your team’s performance. If you are able to collect cards with players from the same pro and college team you get an on-field performance boost. In Strat-O-Matic perhaps each batter on the team could get a minor increase in home run chances, for example.

Admittedly, most Strat-O-Matic players won’t particularly like the idea of playing in a league with duplicate players involved but I think the fun factor of a Strat-O-Matic Ultimate team would outweigh any of these concerns.

For more information about Madden Ultimate Team visit Madden Online Tips.