** Welcome to USBN as the 2017 SOM Baseball Year begins
with a bang with Strat-o-matic offering all kinds of new 
products they have now announced for this year. Plus, we
have even sweetened the pot with our new draft guide tool
along with some great new articles and interviews
that you will find in this month issue - read on!!**

Comments from the Wolfman about this current issue as we continue and begin our fifth year (2017) of operation and publication. This issue is full of new exciting stories, news and happenings. As we continue to provide for our readers the most unique and interesting aspects of Strat-o-matic Baseball with links to Major League Baseball.  Time to meet some of the most interesting people who are connected to the game we love - 2017 should be another amazing year with all the new products and services that Strat-o-matic is offering - stay tuned - from your staff at the USBN, over & out ....
 

Also, as a die-hard Chicago Cub fan, I am very excited about the 2017 MLB season and if the lovable losers have become the lovable winners. With all the great players and teams in MLB at this time, it is very difficult to win the championship of the league in back to back season just as it is in the various strat baseball leagues we all are engaged in as well.  This issue has a lot to do with our leagues and drafts, as we have several articles which discuss strategies for your draft teams and how to determine which players you may want to take in your Keeper League(s), for those of you using the 2017 card set going to come out next month (very soon). 

Some of you already know what to expect with these new cards, as SOM has already released their highly popular Rating Guide, that shows the card chances and all the player's ratings. It should be another dynamic card set from the MLB season just ended as the current star players keep going and new young star players are appearing each year.  Thus, you should have a very enjoyable new season to play whether you are in a league or one of the draft tournaments.  But of course, as you may know already or will learn in this issue there are also several other seasons being offered by the game company as well that you may wish to partake and various combinations of card sets linked to the All-Time Great Players and elected Hall of Fame players.  Ah yes, this is going to be another exciting year of play indeed!

Before I go into a brief summary of what you will find in our January 2017 issue, we have recently received quite a few email from our members expressing their appreciation of our commitment to provide the best information we can for this newsletter along with our Video Channel. Also of course several people have thanked us for the new draft guide.  We always appreciate hearing from you as this only encourages us to keep going. We are happy that we can provide value to our members and help you in your enjoyment of playing this very realistic baseball game which will be seeing even more new advances in the rules getting another step closer to the real game of baseball especially linked to the computer game. We also appreciate so much those members who have felt inspired to "Support the Cause" with their donations and those individuals were rewarded this month with receiving our new draft guide as our gift. 

Just as I am aware of being an author of several books, very rarely do you hear from the people were reading your written words in these books or in this case via our newsletter, how the information shared has positively affected other people's lives. We trust it is going well otherwise we would not have over 1700 members and we promise to continue to strive to do our very best, by offering to our members a wide range of stories, news and articles.  But I know, from all the projects I have been involved with in my almost 62 years of life, the best method to see amazing results is through a co-creation by all of us. The more of our member who become involved with us will ensure this newsletter will become the best it can be, so shall we all benefit. So we thank you for your interest and support and new suggestions or contributions are always welcome.

Now to the matter at hand, what goodies do we have for you in this issue?  We continue to speak to two more face-to-face leagues including hearing from a fellow Chicagoan who was at Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.  The new article by Chuck Tinker at the "Chuck Stop" about "Old Guys Rule" has Part II where he discusses the achievement of key starting pitcher over the years and I come back with Part II on my personal strategies to build one's league team especially in preparing for your draft, using  my "Skokie Wolfmen" as an example (this is definitely definitely talking about being in a Keeper League's as many league's drafts are coming up soon).  Matt Eddy, a key writer at Baseball America, as well as a GM in his own Strat Keeper's League discusses in his article, 10 key young prospects you want to watch and pay attention to.

On our SOM News Page, we discuss briefly all the product announcements made by Strat-o-matic, most of which will begin to be released in February including the Rating Guide, the new version of the computer game and its enhancements, the new mobile apps, their new Video Studio, the new teams and seasons being released and the key dates when all of this great activities will be happening. This of course includes the start of everything on Opening Day, February 10th, where our "Johnny on the Spot" will be there to record live video of this important day.

Further, our friends at the Strat Tournament Players Club have crown their new WORLDS' champion so we share how this happened and what type of team won this tournament. Finally we finish this page with a quick summary of our new strat baseball tool, the "2017 USBN Essential Draft Guide" which evaluates over 300 players in the new edition 1.1 (release yesterday), thos players who will receive their 1st strat card (printed and in a computer image) for the 1st time - which has been received with great fanfare for all the information contained and for its ease of use by those who already have obtained their copy.

Then we have an old friend return, J. G. Preston, an early strat baseball mentor for me who came up with my nickname of "Wolfman" back in 1971, as we do a second interview to explore what great exploits he is currently involved with. Recently, he has been writing on-line a tremendous amount of baseball articles and blogs linked to MLB especially linked with the research baseball group called SABR.  Then we do an interview with Earl Reed, who has his own Strat Baseball Video Channel on Youtube called Tenacious - to find out how this channel got started and what Earl is doing with it, what type of videos are available there linked to strat.  Then of course, our newsletter has its two page for various on-line SOM and MLB Baseball and recommended books.  So once again, a very full and complete issue of materials for your reading pleasure to keep you busy and entertained to our next issue! Give yourself some time to go through all the new materials ....

For most of you, I would think you have probably already downloaded the two Stat spreadsheets we have been releasing over the past two months with the 2016 Hitter and Pitch stats and the Lefty/Righty splits but I am including the link to the files again, just in case any of members missed it. As these are key files that can help our Keeper League members who will be using the 2017 card set to prepare for their drafts.  Just click below on the spreadsheet(s) you wish to download to your selected device. 

Click Here for the Spreadsheet for Hitters vs LHP/RHP

Click Here for the Spreadsheet for Pitchers vs LHH/RHH