It's kind of funny that SOM articles somehow always end up being about Bill James. Although there are plenty of articles (not including this one) that claim James plays SOM, Bill has said he has never played it.

James and Richman are at least now "connected" insofar as they're both on the Fielding Bible panel, and of course many of the same people are interested in their products, which is in all probability what the real connection is.

Anyway, good article for SOM fans. (BTW, I think Glenn Guzzo's book Strat-O-Matic Fanatics, despite the goofball title, would even be an interesting read for non-fans). One thing's for sure, you have to be a real diehard to risk stranding yourself out there in today's weather.

Just found my strat-o-matic from 1975. Box is beat up but everything is there including about a thousand pencil scribbled score cards.

It's kind of funny that SOM articles somehow always end up being about Bill James

I didn't RTFA, so it may have been mentioned in it, but in one of Bill James' Abstracts he suggested that it might not be a bad idea for an inexperienced manager to have a few hundred games of S-O-M under his belt, just to make instinctive some of the game's more basic managerial tactics. I can't remember the specific manager he was discussing when he made this remark.

Given how S-O-M models defense, there is no way that any kind of semi-sophisticated evaluation of Cabrera and Trout would have them remotely close in value. Trout's 1 in CF and Cabrera's 4 at 3B would have a HUGE (quantifiable) impact in S-O-M. I think Richman was simply being diplomatic when using his soft language.

I can't remember the specific manager he was discussing when he made this remark.

Jim Davenport of the Giants.

Yeah, that "flight simulator for managers" thing might be part of why people associate James with SOM. Apparently he just meant "a simulation game", though (and I think he did also mention APBA and other games in that spiel), since he says he's never played SOM.

Here are the full Trout and Cabrera cards.

I got my younger son the Strat-O-Matic Hall of Fame game for his 10th birthday. We play once in a while; it's a fun way to pass the time, and it gives us a feel for some of the old-timers.

Though in fairness, I *did* apply the Runs Created formula to a cross-section of my set back in around 1982 or so, and allowed one of my teams to become a kind of Gene Tenace All-Star experiment....

#5, that card highlites the value diffference at least as much as WAR does

Never played SOM or APBA. Just Ethan Allen's All-Star Baseball, Sports Illustrated/Avalon Hill's Major League and, in college, Pursue the Pennant.

Ah...Avalon Hill. Wonder where any of those games are? Played a lot of Major League and others I can't even recall any more.

I've played just about every sim game *except* for S-O-M. I was always partial to APBA because it was easier to play quickly. I had piles of APBA scoresheets in my closet that we finally threw out when we cleanred out and sold my parents' house a few years ago.

-- MWE

I was always partial to APBA because it was easier to play quickly.

My first game was APBA, in the Motor City Thirties League (six friends in Detroit playing with teams drafted from the 1930 set), and a couple of subsequent Motor City Leagues until I went to England. I suggested a switch to Strat, but people said that

a) APBA plays faster, and
b) one can tell how good the players are more easily with APBA.

I argued that pitchers and defenders have more value in Strat because of the splits and 4,5,6 outcomes being read off the pitcher's card, a single advantage which outweighed APBA's two virtues.

But in recent years I mostly played Diamond Mind, because I like the way you can set up your own eras.

pitchers and defenders have more value in Strat because of the splits and 4,5,6 outcomes being read off the pitcher's card, a single advantage which outweighed APBA's two virtues.

Agreed. While APBA is fun to play, Strat is far more realistic due to the 50/50 game engine and separating range and errors for fielders.