let’s play: Immaculate Grid!

killed the braves column: mike hessman (det), ken oberkfell (stl), claudell washington (nyy) all 0.2%

but i had no col/det and i tried to get too fancy with the 40+ homers

Yeah if it helped I put Goldie for the middle right one and in retrospect, why

So is the rarity score actually one of the objectives? I haven't been playing that way, but I will if it is.

i would guess that most people playing the game can probably answer most of the questions (rockies/tigers aside), so yeah rarity is a thing. which is nice for you, as i bet you'll totally kick ass at it

Just a function of being older. When I answered Joe Torre for the Braves/Cardinals, that for me is an obvious answer: perennial All-Star with the Braves, an MVP with the Cardinals. But he was 2% of the correct answers. I'll still struggle with the intersecting teams--and will usually be happy if I can come up with even one answer--but I will go for more offbeat stat/award answers.

9/9, really concentrated on less obvious answers: all but one under 10%, six 5% or under, three under 1%. The one name that escaped me was J.A. Happ for the Jays 20-game winner, so I settled for Morris--who surprisingly was only 3% anyway.

Rarity Score: 62.

If they added a time component to this, I'd be dead.

8/9.
Could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME name a single A/Pirate, the only reason I got the reliever is cos I read about him being picked up by the Pirates off waivers.
https://i.postimg.cc/63hPG7Ct/IMG-4734.jpg
Sorry for letting you down with my lack of Pirates knowledge, Mookieproof.

What’s funny is your top right answer could have been used for the one you didn’t get!

That's who I used for my top left (I was pretty sure but not 100%). Could have used Jeff Kent twice too, if you were allowed to. I actually found Cy Young/MVP a little tricky since double-winners have been somewhat arbitrary. Best example: Rice beat out Guidry in '78, but Clemens beat out Mattingly in '86. I thought that's what happened, but again, wasn't 100% sure, so I went with a safe 36% choice there.

xp I didn’t know that until you said so, I had two answers for that top right square and Cutch was a more obvious choice

Let me know what your Jays answers were, Thermo. I had (working down) Al Oliver, Candy Maldonado--both under 1%--and Morris at 36%.

Those are all solid 80s answers!

I had Liriano, Pillar & Clemens (6%, 10% & 21%)

Unfortunately I chose the most obvious answers Jose Bautista, Brandon Belt, Roy Haaladay. I have plenty of room for improvement in this game.

I came up with what might be the only Immaculate Grid with the same answer for all nine squares (if you include a major award and a major statistical benchmark--there are guys who've played for nine teams, so that would be the other way to go). This is extremely easy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ib_kzXqxUdy4qWeNf2c_Q72Ka0UHxIZXq1d9ufTfll8/edit?usp=sharing

8/9, couldn't start to think of a Pirates/Jays crossover. Rarity score:304

Jason Kendall - Ray Knight - Barry Bonds
Barry Zito - Brandon Belt - Willie
Bob Welch - Roy Halladay - Sandy Koufax

Ray Knight was supposed to be Gary Carter - 'long career, played in Canada, might have made a pit stop in Pittsburgh?' - and still wrong

I had Bob Welch for his 27 win season my first year playing rotisserie baseball, age 9 - also Bobby Thigpen & Cecil Fielder... my roto talent scout career was all downhill from there

We don't need to get into specifics, but not good at all today. (I did figure out that you can think in terms of franchises, so I was able to use the Expos in place of the Nationals.)

4/9 - Chris Young for Rangers X Padres and Johnny Damon/Julio Franco/Paul Molitor for SB

The highlight for me was using two Seattle Pilots for Brewers answers.

5/9, nothing doing down the left side at all.
https://i.postimg.cc/v8Lr1JgG/IMG-4800.jpg

I can’t believe I fucked up the KC sb one. A solid decade of speedy players and I pick one who never broke 30 with them.
Also lol at me forgetting the obvious answers to SD & Tex/Mil and landing guys with 2% rarity

Here's your cheat sheet if you ever want to check yourself after the fact:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/multifranchise.cgi

Another single-answer grid, marginally tougher than the first one I posted (had to cut some slack on the statistical benchmark):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kOwakO07O_liYBPBCYHoDJuvEFKz-Zrs0lQnbjjhM98/edit?usp=sharing

8/9, Bert Blyleven never won a Cy

8/9...Flubbed my first Cubs/Red Sox guess (Josh Beckett), tried a second correct one, so never got to Cubs/Guardians. Rarity score 197: seven correct answers 1-10%, settled for the easy Twins/Red Sox answer. I almost boxed myself in with Rick Sutcliffe as the Cubs Cy Young winner--I should have used him for the Cubs/Guardians box. So there is some strategy involved.

No idea how, but the only Cleveland/Cubs guy I could think of was Jody Gerut.
And today I learned that Cy Young, the man they named THE pitching award after, never got to 3,000 Ks!

8/9 not my best effort due to

Guardians.
https://i.postimg.cc/VvQzPjsx/IMG-4882.jpg

I tried to get clever with my first guess by guessing Lefty Grove for the Boston pitcher with 3000 K's. Oh well.
Craig Kimbrel - x - Rick Sutcliffe
David Ortiz - x - Frank Viola
Roger Clemens - Bert Blyleven - Pedro Martinez

When I'm stumped I guess Edwin Jackson or Octavio Dotel or one of those other handful of guys who played for 12+ teams. I haven't been right once!

gyac, your baseball knowledge is pretty impressive for someone who only recently got into the game. It's miles better than mine (I would never call myself a massive fan).

I got 7/9, my best showing yet. I'm much better at the stat categories than the team x team categories. Bill Buckner, Phil Niekro, and Tom Seaver were my best answers.

I whiffed on Bob Feller having 3000 Ks.

i fuckin did it. i will never do this again. boston in there was the only way i had a chance. rarity score 238

yeah i guessed warren spahn for cy young/3000 ks, turns out world war ii put a dent in a lot of counting stats from that era

My problem with this game--the game is great; I literally mean my problem--is my fading memory for names. The other day, I couldn't remember A.J. Happ, who goes back all of six or seven years with the Jays. I couldn't remember Ian Kinsler's name one day. ("Tampa Bay, the super-utility player, impressive WARs...") And this had to do with something else, not the grid, but I couldn't remember Jose Reyes's name. This is a guy with over 2000 hits, Hall of the Good, came to the Jays with a lot of fanfare, had a polarizing three seasons here (unfairly--when a team's going nowhere, your best players get them blame), hard player to forget. I remember him well. Just couldn't come up with a name.

Best thing on today's was having both Gaylord and Jim Perry on the same grid.

I'm mixing up Ian Kinsler with Ben Zobrist--it was Zobrist I couldn't remember. I can't even remember who I can't remember.

Ty PBKR! Speaking of Edwin Jackson, I saw this grid and need to try it.

While doing your immaculate grid here's a grid you could try, The Edwin Jackson grid

In his career Edwin Jackson played for 14 Teams while making an All star game and a WS which are all in this grid

This works like a normal grid but the only rule is you can't use Edwin Jackson pic.twitter.com/Na3c8czBDV

— Griff (@Jram2TBJ) July 6, 2023

I don't think there's a Cy Young or MVP box I'll ever miss; haven't encountered ROY yet, but I'd be easy to stump there. Outside of the occasional Fred Lynn or Albert Pujols, I forget half of them within a year.

I made up a managers Immaculate Grid:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wFtj-9oT4CYnBL05gZFyYVqd3pTKCclraQ_g9GH4L60/edit?usp=sharing

Most of it is easy, but one box might be very difficult.

7/9. I'm a washout when it comes to the Rays, Rockies, Marlins, and D-Backs--except for a few big stars, I know nothing about those teams. Picked three All-Stars who together added up to less than 1%: Frank Tanana, Mark Belanger, and Ralph Garr. Thrill of the day: Bo Belinsky for Angels/Reds, which I only knew because I just finished the Belinsky chapter in the Pat Jordan book--I think he pitched about three innings for the Reds in his final season.

One of my incorrect guesses was Lyman Bostock for the Angels' All-Star. He should have been on both the '76 and '77 teams--hitting .330 at the break both years. Wouldn't have helped me anyway: he was still on the Twins.

Miserable 6/9.

https://i.postimg.cc/xTzqhMVR/IMG-4909.jpg
- thought Tim Salmon would have been an All Star - no
- Derek Lowe was an AS but not for the Braves, but previously the game hasn’t enforced it like that? Anyway I wasted two guesses going “Sorry, what?” cos I was sure I’d selected the wrong Lowe or something.
- 90% of Orioles players I’m aware of are ex Giants, Kevin Gausman, and the current children of the corn roster.
-Shoutout to Brooks Conrad who gets mentioned in every writeup of the 2010 Giants postseason. I wondered if they traded him immediately after, they didn’t, but when they did they traded him to Tampa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Kr8Gky4Js

6/9, which is not bad for me. Hit pay dirt with Norm Charlton (0.3%) for CIN/ATL, and Roberto Alomar (0.3%) for BAL All-Star.

Now part of B-R!

they moved on that pretty fast!

sporcle kicking themselves!

Finally a 9/9! (seemed much easier than usual though). Rarity score:226. Love that you can see all the possible answers for each square with one click. Just 14 players in the history of the Dodgers and Yankees franchises with 200 hits?

Zach Greinke - Mike Piazza - Steve Garvey
Gerrit Cole - RICKEY! - Derek Jeter
Roy Oswalt - Lenny Dykstra - Pete Rose

I needed the ego-boost of a 9/9, so I went for a couple of easy ones (including the super-obvious 63%). Rarity: 126. Best answers were all Houston (working down): Jimmy Wynn at 1%, Bob Watson at 0.6%, and--surprised he wasn't higher--Joe Morgan at 3%. It Makes a Fellow Proud to Guess the Astros.

More people are naming Curtis Granderson as a Yankee/Met than Darryl Strawberry or Dwight Gooden? That's weird.

Duke Snider's lack of hustle in 1950 cost me a perfect score! you only needed one more hit dude!

Old Nick would have been 0.9%.

I don’t understand what’s going on with the no hitter cat. It’s paired with three different teams and the rules say that the no hitter has to happen with that team… when I was done (7/9) the number stated in the results screen was just over 2x the number that the bb ref page is giving me.

Not sure what you mean by "the number"...I had two days in a row where one box kept me from scoring under 10%, then today was a wipeout.

Number = number of guys who pitched a no-hitter for that team? (It is team-specific, you're right.)

Ya. That number.

It was higher than the actual amount should have been in the summary.

I think I figured out what was happening. The grid summary includes everyone ever involved with a no hitter - but when you click through to the BBref page, it only lists the guys who threw full games.

That'd be it, yeah. I'm not good on no-hitters. The ones I remember tend to be the famous ones--when I re-tried today's on a different browser, I typed in Dock Ellis for the Pirates--56%!.

9/9, 15.

https://i.postimg.cc/J4J9hYzC/grid.jpg

That's about the best I can do with Silver Slugger on there--don't think I could have got it under 10.

I mean, I'm surprised Dave Stapleton isn't under 0.1%--he'll definitely be my pick next time one-team-only turns up for the Red Sox.

Did this this morning but had to head out for the day--9/9, 9. Twice I got some auto-fill help: 1) couldn't remember Shin-Soo Choo's name, just the bizarre play in 2015 right before the bat flip. Tried three or four different things till I was fairly confident I had the right guy; 2) I knew who I wanted there, but when I started to type in Rick Helling for the Rangers' 10-game winner, Rick Honeycutt popped up at the top of the list. Figured he was an even better bet for a low rarity, so I went with him--a little cheap, I'll concede. (More likely, they're both about the same for rarity.)

https://i.postimg.cc/tgPY7npj/grid.jpg

Science fiction: in '83, Honeycutt's 2.42 led the A.L. in ERA; he struck out 56 batters in 175 IP. (His FIP was 3.52.)

9/9, 59. Easy day for a 9, but a low rarity requires threading the needle on those first two columns--probably Zito for A's Cy Young, and Jon Lester for their 2000 K.

https://i.postimg.cc/VvjtCT94/grid.jpg

I would like to register my vehement disagreement with R.A. Dickey not being 6.0 WAR the year he won the Cy Young (5.7).

As well as I can do with GG involved--9/9, 30. I thought Brett would do better, reasoning that people would use him for the middle column; we read left to right, so maybe if the columns had been reversed. Ray Burris immediately popped into my head this morning--no idea why.

https://i.postimg.cc/rpB0HfTQ/grid.jpg

8/9, 105. Second or third Saturday in a row I've flubbed an easy one (today's was pretty much all my strongest categories)--forgot how often Yastrzemski walked; never more than 191 hits, not even in '67 or '70. Just barely over 2% for seven of these.

https://i.postimg.cc/Kj9200dQ/grid.jpg

Ah! I managed to best you today! 8/9 104.
Came to post this one because, assuming I got under 5% with that last answer, it would have been my personal best score without that wrong guess.

https://postimg.cc/fkGjcrMF
I thought for sure Steve Garvey had over 300 HRs (to go with 200 hit season), but he fell short by like 28, the fucking bum!

I get caught on that kind of stuff all the time. Garvey's solid on 200 hits and 100 RBIs at the seasonal level.

Harry Heilmann fan club in session.

THE MAN WAS A GOLDEN GOD!