Strat-o-matic has just turned the corner.  Into the next generation of fantasy baseball, our favorite game company has not been content to lay idle.  As the fantasy baseball market has evolved and skyrocketed, SOM has kept pace.  This years buzz is the baseball daily data (known as Baseball Daily which starts April 4th when the MLB season begins).  Holy toledo, I can't believe how much that will add to our loved game.

Daily Data:   Its boundless what my SOM can create with this feature. Imagine following along with cards, that update on a daily basis.   Real performances.  Real slumps.  We're on the verge of something even greater here.  You will be able to literally play that season and update the statistical database each day.  You will share the exciting experience of playing with the actual cards as they occur in real life.  WOW!   Recreating the performance of all the teams and rosters in MLB.  You will be able to more closely simulate such great and even unexpected late season drama with the players as they get hot or cool off. A Met fan could thrill to what the Murphy-Cespedes hot streak would have been like in SOM Baseball card form.  This feature is likely not suited for draft league play although I'm sure gamers will figure out something.  The 2016 cards in this version of Strat will be started based on projections. John Dewan's Baseball Info Solution's company is very highly regarded, and provides SOM with projections for the digital cards.  Obviously its a computer game feature with the old dice and cards are very much alive.

   As baseball fans, the real test of the Daily Data will be how the projections will appear to us as gamers when we start our seasons.  Will the projections seem a bit foreign to the veteran gamer?  As the season advances then,  the real statistical data will determine the form of each card.  Are their subjective things that statistics can not measure? This might not be a big bother to tweak things if you believe as such.  From what I can gather, the data and projections from Baseball Info Solution are professional and pretty much right in the pocket and quite reliable.  I don't suppose the Richman family would settle for anything less than the absolute state of the art, what is best for Strat-o-matic and the realism of game play.  I have complete faith in their decision earned over by close to 40 years of working with baseball statistics and projections.  Once the game gets launched I'd love to hear our readers thoughts on it.  I'll post the best reactions here in this column.  By the way, get a chance to read the interview with Ben Bernanke, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve on the Strat website?  Great read, I highly recommend you check it out.

   In my opinion, the game company is really cooking now.  Since Adam Richman (Hal's son) got more involved, we have seen some great things happen which include this historic new Daily Data.  After all these years I just love how this new generation of people working at Strat-o-matic are so conscious of us the gamers both from a traditional perspective and with the more tech saavy baseball fans.  The staff at Strat-o-matic is really cool, that team has taken SOM to next level.  I'm so glad, as the future didn't look as bright a few years back but now no one can say where this is all going and what new heights we will hit.

   I give great thanks for all the new advances the Game Company is implementing.  I am much more open to playing SOM for the sheer fun than mixing it up with those fantasy money online enterprises, that's for sure.
Indeed, I feel great about recommending all versions of the baseball game from the traditional version, to Netplay, Daily Data and it's online version, Baseball 365 to any family or young person.  If I seem enthusiastic, well indeed I really am.  SOM is really bringing us some great things.  The vision of the game company is moving forward at great speeds now. We all can feel great about this right.  SOM's bang for the buck is tremendous now. Where else can you get so much game play and hours spent for so little?  With daily data coming,  I can't help but think I'll need to budget more time to playing the 2016 season.  One of my leagues will see less time this year for sure.

Draft Creation

    Now hold on, I was just wrapping my brain around last years new draft feature that came out. I heard that they improved it even more for this year.  The "Draft Creation" feature last year was quite cool.   It's used to create league teams.  This feature is a great tool for Strat leagues and is perfect for initially drafting a new found league.  Solo gamers use this feature to plan their upcoming draft.   A well made recreation of your league can give you a great idea of your opponents possible draft patterns or tendencies.   Simply set up your league and the eligible draftees in Free Agency, and then export the league for online draft.  When you log into SOM's website through your game, you can import your league via a simple file that you can export into  your 'export' folder.  Of course after an easy set up, your league model will have a fully featured live draft chatroom, draft board, and player board. You simply drag and drop your draft order of teams to prepare your leagues draft.  If you set things as fast as possible, 30 seconds per team then you can witness the best possible player being taken from your draft, by the league teams in order.   This is a planning tool is easily utilized. Essentially the draft will use recommended players and does take a bit of time to go through.

The USBN Youtube Video Channel

    Just as there are now exciting times at Strat-o-matic, we can same the same for us here at Ultimate Strat Baseball.  The Ultimate Strat Baseball Youtube Video Channel has really started to take off a bit and we are going to be expanding this channel for 2016.  We have a full menu of Strat-o-matic and related videos now that you could spend an evening or two watching through alone.  It is the first Video Channel of it's kind in the Sports Simulation universe as far as I know.  USBN presents these videos and accepts videos to share for free with our community.  The contributors of these videos, who have given us permission to offer their videos, all want to share with you their love for the game and what they do. 

   We also encourage any submission that our members wish to make as well.  Why I have heard rumors, our dear editor the Wolfman will even be sharing something soon, because like myself, he is so excited about what is going to happen for the newsletter this year!  Even if your baseball league has some cool series happening going on, shoot us a video.  As I said, If you feel like you want to share something with all of our subscribers, this is a perfect forum to do so or just to make a test if you wish.   Our channel is open to all ages, just keep the content family minded of course, and please don't mention other baseball games, as we do Strat-o-matic here and only Strat-o-matic and this is a pretty big focus as it is.

  The response to our Video Channel so far has been awesome.  We were able to get new contributions from several gamers recently.  I particularly enjoyed watching how Ricky Royal from the UK was able to share the baseball game with the international community who may not have experienced the sport of baseball across the Atlantic from the US.  Thus, Strat-o-matic is truly becoming international.  I felt a sense of pride as I watched Ricky presented part 1 of his series of videos for beginners, for those individuals who may not be familiar with the game of baseball and then easily shows how Strat-o-matic could even be played by those who do not know baseball at all!  His videos could be used to teach young persons about the game and baseball too.  That's a homerun in my book.

To view the first of a series of videos done by Ricky Royal on the USBN Video Channel, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79MkVfmCsfw

   Aniorange (Brad Martin) has agreed to let our subscribers view his video about how to make a dice tower. We have a lot of dice rollers, and he makes the crafts he makes and fixes to his household seem so simple.  Nice little vid, again on our channel to be viewed.  We have a few posted now with a nice little library that we have built up.  Check 'em out on our USBN Video Channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX1LHjeUuCk

   Then, there is Josh Wenger who watched the 1969 SOM re-creation we posted and he wrote us a message on the USBN Channel (as you can leave your comments about the videos you view).  He is currently doing a project that would require simulating a large number of games using the windows computer version of Strat-o-Matic baseball. He stated, "I would need to take players from many different teams in MLB for this project. Is it possible to adjust rosters to custom teams in the windows game?" To answer him, Yes Josh, SOM has the ability to assign players to teams of your choosing just like in any league you create.  The game even has a draft creation tool should Josh choose to use it.   

Once again, if you haven't visited our channel, head over to our main page by going to: