Veterans’ Challenge Series - Training Camp (Challenge #2)

Training Camp (Challenge #2)

In a tribute to these heroes, I present Part 2 of the Veterans’ Challenge Series. The series consists of four parts, and ideally you advance to take on the next challenge. Consider it your time in the service. Challenges will stretch from Memorial Day to the 76^th anniversary of the “Day of Days (June 6^th, D-Day).”

Player Comparison Tool

One of the things I love the most about MLB Showdown is doing statistical analysis on my cards and finding ways to optimize roster creation.

This is possible because the engine is much more open than in video games, for example, and because it is relatively simple: an at-bat is determined by two rolls of a 20-sided die, one for the pitch and one for the swing. Therefore, we have a total of 20x20 = 400 possible outcomes of an at-bat between a given batter and a pitcher. By figuring out every possible outcome, we can calculate expected stats for that at-bat.

I designed a simple tool in Google Sheets that will do this calculation and calculate some of the basic hitting stats. I included a link to the tool at the bottom of this blog.  

The tool has three parts, each on their own sheet:

Veterans’ Challenge Series - Boot Camp (Challenge #1)

In a tribute to these heroes, I present Part 1 of the Veterans’ Challenge Series. The series consists of four parts, and you must advance to take on the next challenge. Consider it your time in the service. Challenges will stretch from Memorial Day to the 76^th anniversary of the “Day of Days (June 6^th, D-Day).”

 

Hall of Fame Veterans

9 years ago, I was lucky enough to be at Arlington on Memorial Day. It’s a day I will never forget the rest of my life. Walking around and paying tribute to our heroes on that day is unlike anything I have done. It doesn’t matter what your political views are, we can all take some time to appreciate those who have served our country. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the luxuries in our life like this game we have all gathered on.

Pictured here is one of our fallen I visited on that day. He is a hero back in our hometown, being one of the first casualties in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1996 Season Preview

Immmm back! Maybe... sometimes? I'm here when I can be. Luckily I've been able to have some free time with the pandemic to get some 1996 cards done for everyone. The set is finally calculated. I keep tinkering with it probably because its my baby. I know.. never tinker! But I had to. Some of our great genius minds on the discord and twitter were able to help me with better statistics. I went from Spd to BsR. I also fixed the IP issue with some of these pitchers going heavy deep making no sense for a 6C guy or 5C. No set can ever be perfect and I know we have some more ideas to make 2020? if they play set better. But at least this was a good test for me to keep tinkering with.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB -- 1997 Colorado Rockies lineup

Today is Bob's birthday -- you know him from his podcast Bourbon over Baseball, amazing league, blind drafts, and being responsible for the amazing design of the 2018 and 1996 sets! To celebrate Bob, I thought I'd surprise him with the 1997 Colorado Rockies lineup! While Bob's a huge Indians fan, the Rockies are (seem to be?) his second favorite team, especially from our formative years in the 90s. As the Indians teams have basically all been made on this site by our ravenous bunch of Cleveland card creators, I decided to create a helping of Colorado cards.

I decided on the 1997 Rockies for one reason and one reason only -- hitting! The Rockies may have only been 83-79, but they finished #1 in runs (923!!), hits, home runs, batting average, and on-base percentage in the National League that season. As a result, they've got an absolutely lethal lineup and figured Bob would love to add them to his collection! Without further ado, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB!

The Last Dance -- NBA Showdown 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls

What more can be said about this team, if you have watched the documentary, there is probably nothing new that I can tell you. So this write up will be very brief, but I figured to coincide with the finale of the Last Dance, before I drop the 2019-2020 season cards, I am here to bless you all with the greatness of the end of the Chicago Bulls Dynasty that won 6 rings in 8 years, and the two years they didn't win, Michael Jordan wasn't around the whole season.This team is certainly not as good as some of their other championship teams, which you may or may not be seeing over the coming months, but they still have a formidable big 3, and arguably the greatest player of all time depending on which side of the bed I wake up on that morning.

2000 Foil Challenge - Who's Your Daddy

Since we have so many people talking foils recently (whether deserving/undeserving, overpriced on ebay, etc.) I have decided to come up with a unique and simple challenge: construct the best foil only batting line up from the 2000 deck. Sounds easy right? Let’s see how you will be judged:

Introducing the New NBA Showdown: Rules

Hey guys, time to throw everyone off a bit with my introductory post to my reinvention of NBA Showdown. Yes this is still the Greatest MLB Showdown Blogspot, but Peter has been pressing me for months to get this new game out there, and is kind enough to allow me to post it on the MLB page. We are all here because we love the great game of showdown, but maybe some of you enjoy basketball as well but never got into the one year game, that I believe would be way more popular today than it would have been back in the early 2000s. I wanted to make the game a little more simple to rate -- so instead of Power vs Speed, I did straight-up offense vs defense as the player's two rating.

In creating these cards, I had a lot of success with my play testing and found these cards are tons of fun to play. Now, in this post I am going to re-explain the rules of NBA Showdown, but with my twists of playing the game.  The best thing about this post is, that once it is posted, and you understand the rules, the cards will follow. You don't have to buy packs to hopefully get the guys you love to build your team. You can just print them off and build a team of your favorites, or just play with your favorite team. Much like our version of MLB Showdown, no strategy cards, so it is just straight basketball action with decisions to be made by the coach.

The G.O.A.T. Player Appreciation Post

During these quarantine times, I think most of us have been tuning in for the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance. As episodes 7 and 8 aired last night, I had to make a tribute for basketball and Showdown's respective GOATs. Enjoy!

MLB SHOWDOWN 2019 SET - EXPANSION PACK *FUTURE STARS*

You thought the lack of a 2020 season at this point was going to slow down the MLB Showdown Crew? Every season we see teams calling players up throughout the season, and they don't always get a card that year due to lack of PAs. Well in my spare time I took our 2018 and 2019 sets and put the players with their current 2020 teams to get a glimpse of sorts on what a team may look like. In doing that, you see some glaring holes as some teams need some prospect help. I am also a firm believer in guys earning their chart, and while these prospects were Stars in the minors, coming up to the big leagues isn't always a guarantee to their success. Now after some slight OB adjustments to take into account they were in the minors or overseas, most of these guys will come in and make an impact for their current teams if called upon. I personally never really know much about prospects, so this was a nice learning experience for me and hopefully it will be for you as well. I also recommend printing them off and adding them to your 2019 squads for pure enjoyment of the September call ups.

Stadiums

Hey all. If you are on discord you all know me as Rekt. I was asked to write this article for this cool little project i have been working on. With a help from a bunch of you on the discord (Boshwack, Leibermaniac, Showdownfan, Savard the Goat, Kilo147 and if i missed anyone im sorry!) (also a big shoutout to Bob for making the cards)i was able to come up with the current 30 stadiums for all MLB teams. A lot of these stadiums as you will see will have iconic features such as ballpark dimensions, climate, mascots, fans, philosophies etc. They add ways for you to draft teams and build your team around your home ball park. As these have just been made, I am looking to play test and have you all play test these stadiums so we can improve them and add a little wrinkle of strategy to our future games. Also since i am not an expert on all these stadiums i could have missed some important stuff so if anyone has any cool ideas that you dont see on your favorite stadiums drop a comment and let us know what we missed. So without further ado lets take a deep dive into each stadium.