I think most would agree that it can sometimes be a bit of a headache to read the play by play accounts on the box score pages. It’s especially difficult to keep track of who is currently pitching as you read down the play by play account.  Also, you sort of need a little bit of knowledge on whether or not a player is left or right handed.

Now, play by play account viewing is a lot more enjoyable with this new script.  Take a look at the features below:

1.  Player names are now shaded in blue if they are left handed and pink if they are right handed.  Also, I changed the player names into hyperlinks to their player cards.

Note:  Some players have the same name so they need to be handled a bit differently.  I’ve included hyperlinks for all duplicate names.  In the 2010 set, for example, ‘C.Lee’ could be either Cliff Lee or Carlos Lee.  So, next to C.Lee you’ll find two links numberered 1 & 2.  There’s really no easy way for the script to find exactly which C.Lee is being used in the game so this method will do for now.

2.  Clutch situations are now in “dark orange“.

3.  When Pitch Count Fatigue level gets below F9 the color changes to red.

4.  Ball Park (BPHR/BPOUTS) results appear at the bottom of the play account.  This only applies in the 2010 set.

5.  Pitcher roll percent totals also appear at the bottom.  This only applies in the 2010 set.

The script will currently work with the 2010 and Back to the ’90s player sets.  I was hoping to add All-Time Greats VI but that player list is way too large for me to handle right now.  Hopefully I can add ATG6 sometime in the near future.

Download Stratomatic Enhanced Play by Play Account

On each team page, red stars (rated 1 to 5) are added next to each player to indicate whether it was their good year or worst year.  For pitchers these ratings are based on their “WHIPERA”.  The year with the lowest WHIPERA gets five stars.  The year with the highest WHIPERA gets one star.  For batters, the ratings are based on their OPS.

These five star visuals are really helpful especially when you can see everything on the same page.  The stars will also appear on the Free Agent page.

Also on each team page I added an after season team analysis with three sections:

1.  Dropped Player Points – Points awarded based on the ratings of players dropped. e.g. five points awarded to one star players and 1 point awarded to five star players. Average is then divided by 20. Most points possible is 100.

2.  Five Star Players — Number of five star players currently on roster.

3.  “Lucky” Points — Points awarded based on the ratings of players who participated on the team. e.g. Five points awarded to five star players and one point awarded to one star players. Average is then divided by 20. Most points possible is 100.

These results are a bit primitive so it’s not the definitive answer on determining how you actually did as a manager but I think it’s good starting point for the initial release of the script.

Download Stratomatic Back to the 90′s Team Analyzer

Last year in the Strat-O-Matic 90′s keep track of Mystery Cards script I added a View Injuries button to ‘Team Schedule and Results’ page.  Now, I’ve created a new script based on that feature.  With this new script, I’ve added a Search dropdown to the Team Schedule and Results pages.

Now, you can search for the following:

INJURY: – Very handy in Mystery Card games.
Int Walk – Also very handy in Mystery Card games.
Sac Bunt – With the 12 team league format, most teams have All-Star lineups so Sac bunts should be used sparingly.  With this search, I can make sure Sac Bunts are kept at a minimum.
sqz – See Sac Bunts above.
Pickoff – These are costly and should be kept at a minimum.  If runners are getting picked off too often one might consider setting the ‘Don’t Steal’ checkbox.
Other Double Plays – I originally wanted to find a way to search for Outfield Assists but I’m not exactly certain how to find these.  For now, this search will help find some of these outfield assists.
Ground Out Double Play – Didn’t really need to add this but might as well offer a way to find all kinds of double plays.
SUBSTITUTE PH – In the Mystery Card games finding out who HAL likes to use as a pinch hitter might reveal a decent or good card.
Caught Stealing – This can help determine if runners are attempting to steal in the right situations.  I can probably add a search for Stolen Bases in the future.
h&r – See Caught Stealing.  This search option doesn’t apply to Mystery Card Games so it will be greyed out.
bpHR Chances – Will find all bpHR chances whether they are sucessfull or not.  Greyed out in Mystery Card Games.
bpSI Chances – Greyed out in Mystery Card Games.

Download Stratomatic Box Score Search

If you are a busy manager like I am and sometimes don’t have the time to analyze your next opponent then this script is for you!  This script will show additional details about your next opponent on the Front Office page.  The same information also appears on all Sim L/R splits pages.

Probable LHBs/RHBs in lineup
One of the most important aspects of analyzing an upcoming opponent is being able to match-up with their lineup.  Ideally as a manager, you can gather this information by reviewing the opponent’s box scores of previous games.  This can be a daunting task, especially if you can’t remember if a player is a left-handed, right-handed, or a switch hitter.  Another way is to find this information is to take a guess at the everyday players by viewing how many at bats they have on the opponents team page.  This script will help gather this information.  The Probable LHBs/RHBs in lineup category is determined by a combination of the number of at bats a player accumulated and their player salary.  Chances are a player with more at bats and/or higher salary is most likely to be in the starting lineup.  This info may not always be accurate but it’s a helpful aide.

Injuries
Displays the number of players currently injured.

OPS vs L/R
Determining your opponent’s strength against left handed pitchers versus right handed pitchers is also important.  If you find that your opponent is strong against lefties you might want to spot start a RHP.  This category calculates the opponent’s OPS by adding up the OBP and SLG on the opponent’s splits page.

AVG Hitter Balance/Prorated Balance
The script will sort the 9 batters that are expected to be in the starting lineup and determine the average hitter balance.  The Prorated balance column is based on the batter’s salary.  These categories may not be as valuable as the OPS but may help a manager with their starting and Relief pitcher settings.

Another added feature is it will display the opponents probable starting pitcher balance.  If you’re playing a Mystery Card game, such as Back to the ’90s, mouse over your opponent’s starting pitcher to view his Home Runs and Opponent Average against left and right-handed batters.

Download Stratomatic Analyze Next Opponent

This script will add a new SIM column to the Free Agent Pool list.  If you are searching for a pitcher and they have already played during the season, their SIM ERA will be displayed in the new column.  For batters, their SIM batting average will be displayed.  If the player has not participated in the season the results will be blank.

I’ve also added a feature to help keep track of players that were dropped during the season but didn’t participate in any games.  In the Mystery Card games, this information is especially important.  If a player wasn’t used (by HAL) it probably means they have a bad mystery year.  These dropped players do not show up on the “no longer on the roster” page.  Now with this script, these dropped players will have a DNP displayed in the SIM column.

There is one situation where the DNP tag might be incorrectly tracked and it’s when a manager picks up a player and then drops them on the same day.  The manager may have accidently picked up the wrong player or maybe they changed their minds and picked up another player.  This is a rare occurance but it does happen from time to time.  Maybe in a future script update this can be somehow addressed.

Download Stratomatic Show Dropped Players

I eventually came up with this script which will randomly show league leaders from the active leagues that I’m involved in. For now, I’ve only added two random categories – one for batters and the other for pitchers.  Each time the page is reloaded the  stat categories will randomly change.

One of the reasons for deciding on a league leaders display is because this is one area that I infrequently visit during a season.  Instead of having to go to that page it can come to me in small doses every day.  I also had the MVP and Cy Young Award voting details to appear from time to time.

The script will also highlight a team’s win/loss record in red or green to tell you that the results for a team has come in.  If your team has moved up in the standings the Place column and/or games behind column will turn green.  If your team won the series, the record will turn green.

Download League Leaders added to ‘Your Teams’ Page

For some extreme win/loss fun try the script in this theme league.  This was a league where every team tried to lose as many games as possible, except one which had all the superstars on it.  This league is apparently a model for debunking the “normalization” discussions that come up from time to time.

Download Stratomatic Monthly win Loss Records

The scripts will now store information of up to five teams.  If all five slots are taken up, a drop down will appear asking which team you want to overwrite:

Strat-O-Matic Save Lineups

Keep track of Mystery Cards

I conducted a poll at the Strat-O-Matic Baseball Online Forums and most managers (68%) usually have about 1-5 teams running at the same time.  There were a few managers who had more than 10 teams going on at the same time.  I probably could expand the scripts to support more teams but this could cause too much overhead.

New Script:  Pluggable SortTable Stratomatic
I have written a modified version of Pluggable SortTable for Stratomatic Online.  Now, when you go to Team Stats the columns are sortable.

Download Pluggable SortTable Stratomatic.

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.

I thought it would be interesting to analyze these teams to see what kind of formula this manager has put together.  These teams played in primarily pitcher parks and Fenway Park was a favorite.

Batting
The one thing that stood out was the team on base percentage.  Two teams had a .380 OBP.  Of the five teams, the lowest team OBP was .358.  The average slugging percentage was .446.

So far, Milton Bradley at DH and Mike Fontenot at 2B have been favorites.   Both of these players have been on every single team.  Pablo Sandoval is used at 1B and Brian McCann is the catcher.  All outfielders have excellent OBP percentage and/or high double chances.  Matt Holliday or Ryan Spilborghs play in left field, Nyler Morgan in Center field, and Brian Giles in right field.  This appears to make a pretty solid lineup so far.  The only position left is shortstop and no player has really been a fixture here.  Orlando Cabrera has been used a couple times.

Bench
Luis Rodriguez was found on every team.  He can play SS, 2B, 1B, and 3B.  He has 28 single chances against right-handed pitchers and also has a good OBP against right handers.  Against left handed pitchers Blake Dewitt and Jeff Keppinger were taken most of the time.  Milton Bradley has an injury on a 3 so any of these bench guys can fill in for Bradley at DH.

Pitching
For this manager, only one team had a * (Needs only 3 days of rest between starts.) starting rotation.  All of the other teams used non * starting pitchers.  For an $80M salary cap, an average of $26.38M was used for these pitching staffs.

For the starting rotation the following pitchers were used on a total of 5 teams:

David Bush
Scott Kazmir
Randy Johnson
John Lannan

With the exception of Harden being drafted a couple times, the highest paid SP was always usually around the  3.5M-3.7M range.

For the bullpen, Dan Giese was the setup man four times and Hong-Chih Kuo was on the team three times.  Both of these pitchers have a relief endurance of R3.  If you browse the Strat-O-Matic 2008 card-set these two pitchers are probably the only quality non-starting relievers that have an R3 rating.  Having an R3 reliever in your pitching staff appears to be essential for success.

For the closer Bobby Jenks was primarily taken.  He’s affordable at $3.55M and has a C6 rating.

For pitching, the strategy appears to be to use a starting rotation of non * pitchers with endurance ratings of S6 or lower and then have a setup man with an R3 rating pitch around 200-250 innings in relief.  A closer with a C5 or C6 closer rating is also a prerequisite for success.