Sponsored by RobsJapaneseCards.com

Japanese Franchise All Stars Disk

Jim Albright has just produced a Japanese Franchise All-Star disk which offers the best players from each Japanese franchise.  There are two files for downloadind below.  The main All-Star disk is named b-jfas.  The second file, b-jfasm, is a minor league which includes players who were close to making a franchise squad but were cut.  Most of these players were HOFers, won 200 games, had at least 2000 hits, played in the U.S., or just had three very good years in the franchise's uniform.  The minor league will have to be affiliated using league manager, by calling up the affiliate minor from LM when in the major league, and clicking OK.

HOW THE PLAYERS WERE SELECTED AND WHY THERE ARE DUPLICATE LISTINGS OF PLAYERS ON DIFFERENT TEAMS (by Jim Albright)

Each player is rated in his performance for the team he is on. For instance,  Ochiai the Dragon is rated on his best three years as a Dragon, and Ochiai the Marine is rated on his best  three years as a Marine/Orion   This allows duplicates, which I believe raises the level of play and has other benefits.. However, all the duplicates made serious contributions to both of the teams they are rated for.  I wanted to avoid the Frank Robinson problem of denying him to the Orioles because he was better as a Red.  He was damn good as an Oriole, too, and was a big contributor on some league and world champions in Baltimore.  I felt he deserves to be rated for *both* the Reds and the Orioles, but his rating should reflect his performance for the team he is rated for.  Thus the Reds would have the better player, but the Orioles would be happy with the one they had.  Another problem that comes up with the one player, one team rule is the problem where you have to worry about moving active players if they happen to play better with a second team (think ARod the Ranger as a possibility).  It means either eliminating active players from consideration (should I rate Ichiro even now--he could wind up back in Japan) or having to keep around scads of extra players in case I moved an active player to another team.  I felt this structure is better because once a player is good enough to be rated for a franchise, he's there until he is displaced by a better player--though if he has better seasons, he can be upgraded I guess to sum up, my focus is on the *franchises* in this disk, and if that is your primary focus, I think there is no doubt the approach I am using is preferable.  If you focus on the players instead, the one man, one team rule may be better, especially if you're not the one trying to keep the disk current and want to use current players.

I tried to be as inclusive as possible, so if a franchise such as the Robins was merged into the then Whales and now Swallows, Robins players and Robins seasons were eligible to be rated for the Swallows franchise on this disk.  There are some 30's, 40's and 50's franchises which aren't represented on this disk, but with the exception of the Stars, few players were left out.  However, some of the stars of those years had their best seasons on these defunct teams and therefore they may not look as good as you might think they should.  Again, they are only rated for the franchise they play for.

I also normalized all stats to an average year in a neutral ballpark.  Given the large swings in run scoring over the years in Japan, this can result in significant adjustments to the player's stats.  I adjusted batters to a 132 game schedule, but because of the extremely heavy use of pitchers historically in Japan, I did not see the need to do so for pitchers.

DEFENSE (by Jim Albright)

First of all, I must thank Rob Fitts for his help with this disk.  Almost all the defensive data comes from his site or was provided directly by him.  Without his help, the defensive ratings for the players would be much less accurate than they are.  Rob deserves the credit for making that possible.

The rules I used for rating a player at a defensive position are as follows:  If a player plays 20 or more games in the three carded year at a position, he is rated at that position.  If he plays less than 20 games at a position in those three years, but at least 40 in his career starting with the first carded year, he will be rated at that position.  The basic rationale I am using is I want to have a guy clearly have the skills to play the position in the carded years, and to have played a sufficient amount to show what he could do at the position.  The reason for the starting point being the first carded year is that since players slow down as they age and may lose the ability to play a position, I don't want to rate them at a position they could no longer play by the carded years.

SCOUTING REPORT

DOWNLOAD HERE
 

Back to Main Page

Copyright 2001 by RobsJapaneseCards.com