Now, for you voting members of the OOSL, we have two issues to vote upon. These were discussed in some detail in the February Issue of our newsletter, the Old-Time Sporting Life. If you have not read it yet, please check it out.

I want to remind voters that the Executive Committee unanimously supports these rule change ideas.

As discussed by John Mortimer, the game company has not normalized the catcher defense ratings. This proposal would implement his plan, using statistics and based on full information, to allow 19th Century catchers to participate in the league at a more representative level.

This would also adjust stolen base ratings for 19th Century stars back to 1994 Career Normalized Disk standards. In 1994 the players were properly rated; since then, the company has neutered virtually every great base stealer from that era, making them a shell (at best) of their former selves.

In theory, I would propose a *total* normalization of these players that also allowed them to have a more representative OPS and relative impact on our league. But that would be far afield from the philosophical foundation of our league. This deals *only* with the specific oversight of catcher defense and the further butchering of stolen base ratings that has occurred over the life of this product.

While there are errors throughout the CN universe, only the 19th Century players, as a group, exhibit the same and consistent mistakes that can be corrected in a factual, mathematical, objective process. This would not be a carte blanche validation of changing SOM's ratings in any general sense.

A vote of "Yes" will support implementation of John's suggested, conservative changes.

A vote of "No" will support not tinkering with the errors native to the 19th Century card set.

In light of Strat-O-Matic's new pitcher endurance ratings, this rule will allow us to have some fun with the rule while simultaneously implementing more sensible and fair usage guidelines into the league in general. I delineated the specifics of this in the article in "Old-Time Sporting Life," but here are the component parts once again:

1. All pitchers must observe a 100% innings pitched usage limit. Hurlers with 230 or more innings are no longer usage exempt.
2. Overused pitchers can now be overused up to 400 innings pitched. Previously, pitchers could not be overused beyond 300 innings pitched (even though, through the rules of our league, further overusage would have been irrelevant, anyway).
3. Lower inning pitchers may be overused twice to achieve 400 innings pitched. For example, if Addie Joss is overused currently, he goes from 115 innings pitched to 230 innings pitched. Now, after the initial overusage, he can be overused again. As 230 times 2 is 460, he would be brought back to the new maximum of 400 innings pitched for the cost of two overusage slots.
4. (This is a crucial component to understand) Pitchers who *exceed 300 innings pitched* in OOSL usage in a given season cannot be overused in any capacity for *three* seasons as opposed to the traditional two. This is to help regulate realistic career usage. Very few "real life" pitchers beyond the first decade of the 20th century pitched more than 300 innings more than once in their careers.
5. A team owner may elect to "cap" overusage at 300 innings. For instance, if Chief Bender were to be overused, he would naturally go up to 326 innings pitched. To ensure that he would not exceed the 300 innings pitched plateau, his owner could elect to "cap" him at 300 innings pitched. Alternately, an owner could overuse the player as normal and then, as the season progressed, decide to hold them at or below 300 innings pitched of actual usage. It is up to the individual owner as to how they want to proceed, mindful of anything over the 300th inning will push any capacity of overusage back for a season.
6. Active pitchers would now be eligible for overusage in the OOSL, with the following stipulations: A) Active Major League pitchers can only have one single overusage slot invested in them in a given year. B) Any active Major Leaguer who is overused cannot be overused again for three seasons, whether or not they have eclipsed the 300 inning threshold described above.
7. Rather than being pro-rated from their existing rating, the "Games Started" field will be filled with a number that corresponds with the innings pitched that the overused pitcher has, in cases where the innings pitched are between 301-400. Please note that pitchers are not *limited to* starting the listed number of games; this is designed to allow various pitchers, who have different "Games Started" totals for the same amount of innings by virtue of the era they played in, realize their overused inning total and not be artificially hampered by too few "Games Started" on their card. Here is the appropriate chart:

Innings         Games Started
301-314         43
315-328         44
329-342         45
343-356         46
357-370         47
371-384         48
385-398         49
399-400         50

A vote of "Yes" supports implementing this plan.

A vote of "No" supports a rejection of this plan.

Click here to send e-mail to the OOSL League Office with questions or comments.