let’s play: Immaculate Grid!

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!

clems: there is a wild recency bias to the answers. i've found even obvious players from the 80s will be rare if there is a rando bench guy that will work from the last decade.

I think I was starting to notice that, yeah. This will help my rarity scores; I don't know any of the rando bench guys...Two guys whose 200+ hits surprised me: Dave Cash, twice for the Phillies, and that Ruth guy for the Yankees.

9/9, rarity 95

recently reading the book on the '86 Mets and my dad's favorite team being the Dodgers paid off

I contacted them today (meaning Baseball Reference) suggesting access to older grids, and also my managers/single-player ideas. So I fully expect to be hired by them any day now.

just this morning someone on reddit posted their new IG clone that auto generates them endlessly but it looks like the thread is gone now.

like a lot of these daily challenges, i initially yearn for the ability to play more and more before realizing that i would get burnt out if it wasn't limited. i've already hit a point where i've been able to reuse answers from past grids simply because i remember the past grid

B-R's adding the one thing i really wanted! i always end up using B-R's multi-franchise search after anyway.

I knew I'd do terrible as soon as I saw Arizona and Miami, and I'm not great on the White Sox or Mariners either. 6/9, only 1/4 on player movement (and that was the ever-popular default guess of Edwin Jackson). Also, soon enough after midnight that no fewer than three of my correct answers were 100%.

How the fuck did I not think of Randy Johnson for Seattle/Arizona? Most embarrassing whiff so far.

I felt dumb taking a full minute to arrive at that answer.

8/9, I missed on what I thought was a mulligan, but it turns out that Alex Rodriguez did not win ROY, he finished a close second.

For ROY/100RBI, I forgot the rules and thought it had to have happened in the same season, still got it right though (clem can probably guess who I picked).

6/9 - only 1 obvious one on the Marlin line I forgot Ichiro ended up in that cesspool and a wild guess at Sox ROY

NoTime: I thought it had to be in the same season too, went with the very safe Albert Pujols. For yours, since I'm '70s guy, I'll guess Fred Lynn.

I knew you'd get it!

My brain immediately crashed and burned on the bottom left pick, oh well! 8/9.


https://i.postimg.cc/fRQHR6q4/IMG-5004.jpg
-Eduardo Escobar: every time he appeared on a Mets Instagram story I’d look at his BR page. Have used him recently I think.
- BUSTER POSEY IS 0.9%?????
- Michael Morse is the scorer of the third most clutch hr in the 2014 Giants postseason and had his career ended by knuckle dragging pos Hunter Strickland instigating a pointless brawl. I still appreciate you, king!
- Mat Latos spent 2010-2012 complaining about the Giants, you’d better believe I’m familiar with his BR page

So your Rarity Score entirely depends upon when you do this. When I did today's a few minutes after midnight, Jeff Conine as the Marlins 100-RBI guy was 100%. "Seriously? Ahead of Miggy and Stanton?" Of course he's down to 2% now.

9/9, rarity score 201. Had the toughest time with the chisox ROY for some reason but dug deep. Immaculate Grid 101 9/9:
Rarity: 201
IMMACULATE!
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Play at:
https://immaculategrid.com
@immaculategrid x @baseball_ref

Whoops...oh well

got Ron kittle for the lower left, Alvin Davis for Seattle ROY. Had trouble remembering big unit too!

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!