Player Ratings

by Jesse on Jul 4, 2007 4:34 PM EDT in News Comment 9 comments

Remember "Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball"? It came out in 1994, and I spent many evenings of that summer playing it on my SNES.

It was one of the most enjoyable baseball games I've ever played. Its statistics were basic: batting average, homers and RBI for hitters; wins, losses and ERA for pitchers. Attributes for hitters were split between batting, power, speed and defense, while pitchers were evaluated based on pitch speed, pitch control and fatigue. Graphics were cartoonish but fun, gameplay was easy and straighforward, and who can forget the ump calling a strike:

STEE-RIIIIKE.

I don't know what made me think of it, but what if this year's Twins were rated in the same way Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Kevin Tapani and Terry Jorgenson were rated? Well, here's what I think.
Pitchers Name SPD CON FAT J. Santana 9 10 10 B. Bonser 7 7 6 C. Silva 7 6 7 K. Slowey 6 5 5 S. Baker 6 7 7 M. Garza 10 5 5 F. Liriano 10 7 7 M. Guerrier 7 8 4 J. Crain 8 7 3 D. Reyes 5 7 2 J. Rincon 8 5 3 P. Neshek 7 9 2 J. Nathan 9 8 2

Hitters Name BAT POW SPD DEF L. Castillo 8 2 8 8 J. Bartlett 6 3 7 7 J. Mauer 10 5 7 10 M. Cuddyer 7 7 6 8 J. Morneau 8 10 5 7 T. Hunter 8 8 8 9 J. Kubel 5 5 5 5 L. Ford 5 3 8 7 N. Punto 3 1 8 8

M. Redmond 7 1 3 8 J. Tyner 6 1 9 6 R. White 6 4 5 4 J. Cirillo 6 2 5 6 L. Rodriguez 4 1 5 6

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Nice...

Interestingly enough, I've been playing a bunch of this game lately. The Twins would be interesting to play with - no power, but the pitching is excellent, and they'd get their share of hits (although the speed is blunted by how darn hard it is to get extra base hits in that game). They're a slightly slower, slightly more powerful version of the Cardinals in the original RBI Baseball.

My quibbles:
Nathan should be 9/9 speed/control, or maybe even 10/10 - the original game was very kind to elite closers.

Cuddyer should have 9 or 10 fielding - even though that rating affected their movement in the field, it was largely based on arm strength (e.g. Shawon Dunston's 10 rating).

1 ratings are extremely rare - I'd definitely raise Rodriguez and Redmond's power ratings (since they have homeruns), and probably Cirillo's as well.

The batting ratings seem a bit high for some of the lower-echelon players - they should probably be lowered for Cirillo, White, and Ford.

I believe there is an editor for this game floating around on the internets somewhere... I'll do some searching and maybe put together an updated version.

On a related note to that, there is also a very thorough RBI Baseball editor online as well, if someone is looking to put together another update of a classic baseball game.

by BeefMaster on Jul 4, 2007 5:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Bartlett

at 7 speed? He leads the team in steals this year by 4 over Punto and has only been caught once. He's gotta be at least a 9 relative to the rest of the team. No way Castillo is as fast or faster than Bartlett.

I laughed when I saw FAT as a category for Silva, Bonser, and Reyes.

Replace Nick Punto.

by rayken on Jul 4, 2007 5:24 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

It's

I think it stands for "fatigue"

Baseball is great because you cant take a knee or kill the clock. You gotta put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn shot E Weaver abridged

by AdamOnFirst on Jul 5, 2007 7:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I

I happen to lke the sequel to this game, ken Griffey Jr's Winning Run myself...

Baseball is great because you cant take a knee or kill the clock. You gotta put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn shot E Weaver abridged

by AdamOnFirst on Jul 5, 2007 7:57 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Re: Winning Run

I liked it for the graphics (awesome at the time), the more in-depth player ratings, the hidden secrets, more realistic stadiums, you could trade players whose ratings changed depending on how they played, etc, but there was one reason I wasn't as fond of it as I was the first game...YOU COULDN'T EDIT PLAYER NAMES. At least with the first one, even though they didn't have the MLBPA license, you had the option of editing the rosters so they were accurate. Winning Run was superior in nearly every way except that one...but it was a big reason, and it was disappointing.

I was so disillusioned...

by Jesse on Jul 5, 2007 8:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

"1" for Tyner in power????

Too high when his career total of HR's matches mine.

by BD57 on Jul 5, 2007 9:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

You and me both

Sadly, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball did not give ratings of '0'.

Look at it this way, when it comes to home run power, we're just as prolific as a major league baseball player!

by Jesse on Jul 5, 2007 10:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ah, 1994...

The summer of playing the crap out of our SNES's. I nearly forgot about that game! Being all nerdy with the Nintendo Power coverage... and it was before we had summer jobs! So that automatically meant true SUMMER VACATION. Do you still have it? All my SNES hardware is packed away in a box somewhere.

Wasn't that the same summer you got your typewriter? I just remember staying up all night typing short stories on that thing and becoming hypnotized by its auto-print mode.

And let us not forget, this was also the summer of seeing Lion King and Forrest Gump a dozen times each.

And to keep the comment baseball-related, I drove by Griffey Jr's high school 'round Cincinnati once - they had a banner of his face up on the side of the building. And I was like, "Huh! That's neat." And then I drove away with the newfound knowledge that pro ball players once went to high school too - and DIDN'T just sprout from the Magical MLB Garden.

by Trevour on Jul 6, 2007 1:32 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Nice

And then I drove away with the newfound knowledge that pro ball players once went to high school too - and DIDN'T just sprout from the Magical MLB Garden.

That's funny.

I do still have all of my SNES hardware, although it's packed up at my parents place. Every time I visit them I think about taking it back to Minneapolis with me, but I always forget.

by Jesse on Jul 6, 2007 1:45 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs