The Next Mickey Mantle

Had to share, this was from River Ave Blues today - once called the next Mickey Mantle.... Ruben Rivera

Select Iron Men

I've worked through the Iron Man setting for batters and pitchers.  The results are satisfactory to me - about 10% of the batter pool and 7% of the pitcher pool ends up being Iron Men. 

Key Iron Men:

First Base
1927 Lou Gehrig
1932 Jimmie Foxx
1940 Johnny Mize
2009 Albert Pujols
1938 Hank Greenberg

Second Base
1910 Nap Lajoie
1909 Eddie Collins
1951 and 1949 Jackie Robinson
1934 Charlie Gehringer
1892 Cupid Childs

Third Base
1953 Al Rosen
1969 Harmon Killebrew
1971 Joe Torre
1953 Eddie Mathews
2005 Alex Rodriguez

Shortstop
1887 Oyster Burns
1959 Ernie Banks
2001 Alex Rodriguez
1936 Arky Vaughan
1898 Hughie Jennings

Left Field
1924 Babe Ruth
1947 Ted Williams
1948 Stan Musial
1967 Carl Yastrzemski
1937 Joe Medwick

Center Field
1912 Tris Speaker
1915 Ty Cobb
1930 hack Wilson
1953 Duke Snider
1962 Willie Mays

Right Field
2001 Sammy Sosa
1912 Joe Jackson
1909 Ty Cobb
1962 Frank Robinson
1996 Gary Sheffield

Starters
2004 Randy Johnson
1965 Sandy Koufax
1901 Cy Young
1915 Pete Alexander
1908 Christy Mathewson
1971 Vida Blue
1883 Tim Keefe

Proposed Changes for Next Season

It's time to starting thinking about the next ATB, tentatively set for early spring of 2012.  During the off-season I'll be updating our database with various 2011 players and improving upon our fatigue settings.  Additionally, I am toying around with the following changes:

1) 28 Man Rosters

• To speed up the draft, especially since I want to expand # of teams
• I am all for platooning, but want to make sure this isn't over used.  

2) Iron Man Injury Ratings

• DMB allows for an iron man injury setting, reducing the odds a player gets injured.  It does not eliminate the chance of injury.  Batters and Pitchers will have unique sets of parameters, and I want to keep the number of players with this rating to under 20%.  First Draft:

a.    Batters 

i.    160 games 1961 – current
ii.    152 games 1904-1960
iii.    135 games 1893-1903
iv.    140 games 1886-1892
v.    1885 or early not eligible

b.    Pitchers

i.    35+ starts 1994-current
ii.    36+ starts 1988-1993
iii.    38+ starts 1924-1980
iv.    40+ starts 1909-1923
v.    45+ starts 1897-1908
vi.    50+ starts 1893-1896
vii.    68+ starts 1874-1892
viii.    55+ starts 1871-1873

3)  Clutch Ratings.  All HOF'ers and Negro Leaguer's to be considered 'clutch'.  Minor impact, per DMB:

If you use them, batters and pitchers with better-than-normal clutch and jam ratings will be a little better than usual in the late innings of close games. But this isn't a strong factor in the design of the game, so we recommend that you avoid placing a lot of weight on these ratings when making your decisions. It's rarely a good idea to use a weaker player over a better one just because the weaker player may have a better clutch or jam rating.

4) Finally, I am toying around with idea of reducing the number of games played per week.  Right now it is about 15. Perhaps we can play 2 games per mini-sim and reduce it to 10 games per week.

Would love your thoughts on all the above.  nothing is set it stone, but I am fairly convinced 1 and 2 are great ideas, 3 and 4 less so.