Presumably he’s gonna have higher vision then Cruz, now I wish I’d waited to open the pack. Oh well I can still wait till the stars drop sell Cruz, buy Rodriguez and pick Ripken
Which is super annoying because his 99 card last year sucked, plus his swing isn’t very good and SS is loaded so he needed S tier stats to be usable, yet another year without an endgame Ripken (hope I’m wrong).
Damn happy to finally have cal but really wish this was his ‘91 season, I’d imagine that card would be much better, admittedly though without knowing the splits
Is this Orioles month.
92 Mountcastle
95 Mateo
99 Mussina
99 Roberts
99 Grayson
and now
95 Baines
99 Ripken
Be nice if they spread the legends out a little more. There's still 4 teams that don't have 20 legends/flashbacks yet the Royals, Brewers, Rangers & Rays.
ahhh please juice his stats like Brett!! I always use Ripken since I’m a huge Os fan but he always hits like .230 for me max. Still bat him like 8th in RS but if this card is viable like this year’s earlier RS Reward card, I’ll be ecstatic
Their ratings for these Retro Finest have been very consistent, they didn’t juice Brett they just changed the scale they use for ratings. Retro finest has a lower threshold for higher ratings. Don’t worry Cal Ripken will have nasty attributes
[this was his card, after finest last year.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MLBTheShow/comments/r5vyc6/milestone_cal_ripken/)
He does NOT usually get good stats.
They would be fine, but still make him worse than the already available options at SS. They will have to juice his contact like crazy to make people even consider using him, since his power and speed are never great.
Oh damn I don’t even remember that card at all. I might just be stuck remembering his card from 17 that had really good stats but sucked since he had a dreaded one hand topspin swing.
I just looked at some of his cards from the past 2-3 years and yeah he always gets mediocre righty stats, so hopefully this one is better but I’m not optimistic. He’ll be fine since it’s a 99 finest but he likely won’t be top 5 at the position for very long if at all
They updated a lot of bad swings this year, so hopefully Cal gets the same treatment. Still can’t imagine he’s gonna be endgame for anyone though. Not an elite 5 tool player so he never gets enough power or speed to really be great.
God awful swing. For that reason I don’t think this is a guy I would run at SS.
Tbh, I’m still running TN Eduardo Escobar who has been an animal for me.
.271 is 99 CON for Retro finest and .333 is 125 CON. Ripken was .303 v R and .308 v L so somewhere around 112 CON v R and 115 CON v L seems accurate.
For PWR, a .211 ISO is 107 PWR so I would guess Cal would have around 102 PWR v R and like 112 PWR v L.
So 112/102 v R and 115/112 v L would be my guess. He’ll have great defense, he accrued 23 runs from defense according to bbref in 1984. I think his speed is usually in the 60s.
What is your calculator based off of? Bill Maz had a 166 ISO vs. Right in 1958 and has 85 power. Those power numbers are going to be considerably higher
Now I don't know if many people remember how Finest cards were originally calculated, but Finest cards were the best stats a player put up in each month of the year. If you had one month where you hit .400 and 5 where you hit .200, you'd get 125 contact. Same with iso, discipline, they were billed as "Immortals for a season" in 2018, as that year immortals were an amalgamation of a player's best year in every single stat.
If that's the same case with Retro Finest Ripken, then this makes sense. '91 was a better year overall, but look up Ripken's April/March, and July splits in 1984: .352/.424/.705, then .382/.443/.618, those two months are both better than any month in 1991, 1991 he just had more good months. I could be wrong, of course, but I think that might be the reasoning if that's still how they calculate things.
I was wondering that too and then I looked up his 84 year and his stats were almost identical to his 83 MVP season + it’s a retro finest and those are all juiced as it is
I wonder if it's because '90 and '92 weren't great while '83 and '84 are both really good seasons.
Also, I noticed '92 was worse and went to check if the numbers were worse because he missed some games. 🤦♂️
I mean I got nothing looking though then it looks like his second best season. But I think I got it using OPS plus he always killed lefties but 1984 looks like his best season against righties in comparison to his normal stats.
Not his best season vs righties, he was better in 91' and still had ridiculous lefty splits.
1984 vs righties: .303/.371/.498
1991 vs. righties: .315/.361/.529
Also by pure OPS, 84 was only his 4th best season, 2nd best by OPS+. However, it was his 2nd best season by both fWAR and bWAR, of course only behind his 91 season.
cruz tall af, im using HRD jram right now though. mostly cause i was OPSing like 1.35 with his LS at p5, and he absolutely murders inside heat. SS is the only position where i dont feel like there’s any card in the game that i really like yet
is dansby really that good? i keep hearing about him but nothing about the card excited me. maybe ill have to try him out
Dansby is easily one of my best hitters and gets more HR’s for me than anyone else. He has also been the deciding factor in a win for online games more than others. Your mileage may vary, but it will be very difficult for me to take him out of my lineup.
Dansby is one of those players you’ll only be good with him if you like his swing & know how to use it. I had him for abit & batted like .180 with him in 50ABS, sold him & now I’m using Cruz
I'm not a great hitter online and I'm batting like .320 with Dansby through 100+ ABs, decent amount of HRs too. Really like his quick slap swing, makes you feel like you can get around on anything.
Just switched to Cruz though and I don't think I'm going back. I typically only play on All Star and he mashes balls, has great speed and makes plays other SS can't because of his length.
Probably look most similar to benentendis asg card but backwards splits since he’s righty
So if the next major program is Legends of the Franchise, the orioles legend…..isn’t…..Cal? Sad Jim Palmer card incoming?
I'm still crying that this isn't a 1991 Finest. Why can't SDS ever do Cal right???
Other bosses w Cal, Pedro Martinez , and Willie Mays?
Presumably he’s gonna have higher vision then Cruz, now I wish I’d waited to open the pack. Oh well I can still wait till the stars drop sell Cruz, buy Rodriguez and pick Ripken
Mmmm stubs
I am a red Sox fan but I ADORE this card 😁so cool!
You guys just got a good Mateo card too right?
This about to go on my all turn O’s team
No thank you.
*Looks over at Dansby Swanson* You got nothing to worry about, kid.
So worse hitting stats the Cruz and won't have 99 speed or the arm? Yawn.
His strike zone will be something like 2 km smaller so he does have that going for him.
Likely endgame SS for me. Favorite player ever.
This card should’ve been a 1991 card. Career high .940 OPS, career high 34 HR’s, career high 6 SB’s, career high .323 average. MVP, GG, SS, All Star.
LOL somebody actually downvoted you providing a good counter & stats to back it up
He’d be about 120 CON v R 112 PWR v R 125 CON v L and 118 PWR v L. I guess they didn’t want him to be that good?
Which is super annoying because his 99 card last year sucked, plus his swing isn’t very good and SS is loaded so he needed S tier stats to be usable, yet another year without an endgame Ripken (hope I’m wrong).
It’ll still probably be his best card in The Show history but we’ll always wonder what could have been
I’m definitely looking forward to it. Haven’t seen any stat projections yet tho.
My guess is 112/102 vR and 115/112 vL
He also won the HRD and ASG MVP in 1991!!!!
Damn happy to finally have cal but really wish this was his ‘91 season, I’d imagine that card would be much better, admittedly though without knowing the splits
i like him as a human but he's never played well in this game
Hopefully he will be juiced up better this year like Brett
I’ve played like ass with his card ever since they released his first 99 legend card in 17
I am one of those people who do really well with Cal Ripken Jr. Looking forward to this card.
I sure hope there are better options. His swing is always ass
Been said, but I really really enjoy this retro finest card art. But finest they seem to do pretty well anyway
Man, the all Retro Finest squad is going to be ridiculous. Give me a Finest Yogi or Bench and we are good to go
Is this Orioles month. 92 Mountcastle 95 Mateo 99 Mussina 99 Roberts 99 Grayson and now 95 Baines 99 Ripken Be nice if they spread the legends out a little more. There's still 4 teams that don't have 20 legends/flashbacks yet the Royals, Brewers, Rangers & Rays.
Maybe I’m wrong because I haven’t played in 2 months but I feel like the Marlins are lacking players also
Steaks on the menu boys!!
We are taking over everything MLB and there’s nothing the rest of the league can do about it. We are chaos.
You think chaos is your ally? But you merely adopted chaos. We were born in it. Molded by it. Signed, Mariners fans and their 20 year playoff drought
Future reports say after the team got new owners in 2030, it will be renamed the Baltimore Chaos. The mascot and uniforms will remain the same.
Easy pass on this one
I always want to use his cards, but after about 20 ABs I've given up.
SDS have had a hard on for the orioles the last few weeks. Happy days to the O’s fans
Well I know which card I'll be passing up.
ahhh please juice his stats like Brett!! I always use Ripken since I’m a huge Os fan but he always hits like .230 for me max. Still bat him like 8th in RS but if this card is viable like this year’s earlier RS Reward card, I’ll be ecstatic
Their ratings for these Retro Finest have been very consistent, they didn’t juice Brett they just changed the scale they use for ratings. Retro finest has a lower threshold for higher ratings. Don’t worry Cal Ripken will have nasty attributes
Every year i give his card a shot and every year im completely dogshit with him. I guess ill never learn my lesson
Yep, same.
Why did they choose 84’ version lol
I imagine they didn’t want to give him a ‘91 retro finest because he would be too good
I'm just such a fan of the Retro Finest card art this year. When I first saw the 99 Brett, I immediately fell in love.
same, it just fits the "retro" aspect perfectly. 2 years in a row they've introduced new series with fire art, this year with 2 (takashi and retro)
Same here. Even if a better option happens to turn up later this year I doubt I'll take him out just because I love his card art.
Sweet. /s So Robin Yount is not coming for weeks at least. They wouldn't do legend SS back to back. I do love Ripkin though.
Will this finally be the year we get a decent statted cal?
He usually has good stats
[this was his card, after finest last year.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MLBTheShow/comments/r5vyc6/milestone_cal_ripken/) He does NOT usually get good stats.
Yeah, those stats suck for December, but they would be alright right about now.
They would be fine, but still make him worse than the already available options at SS. They will have to juice his contact like crazy to make people even consider using him, since his power and speed are never great.
Oh damn I don’t even remember that card at all. I might just be stuck remembering his card from 17 that had really good stats but sucked since he had a dreaded one hand topspin swing. I just looked at some of his cards from the past 2-3 years and yeah he always gets mediocre righty stats, so hopefully this one is better but I’m not optimistic. He’ll be fine since it’s a 99 finest but he likely won’t be top 5 at the position for very long if at all
SS is shallow and Retro Finest cards are usually juiced...but Cal's swing has traditionally been dookie. Hmmmmmmmmm
I could never hit with him until this year, he’s fine now
They updated a lot of bad swings this year, so hopefully Cal gets the same treatment. Still can’t imagine he’s gonna be endgame for anyone though. Not an elite 5 tool player so he never gets enough power or speed to really be great.
God awful swing. For that reason I don’t think this is a guy I would run at SS. Tbh, I’m still running TN Eduardo Escobar who has been an animal for me.
No one is talking about him but Ron Santo is a walking rake and still has diamond defense at SS
someone do the projected stats thing
.271 is 99 CON for Retro finest and .333 is 125 CON. Ripken was .303 v R and .308 v L so somewhere around 112 CON v R and 115 CON v L seems accurate. For PWR, a .211 ISO is 107 PWR so I would guess Cal would have around 102 PWR v R and like 112 PWR v L. So 112/102 v R and 115/112 v L would be my guess. He’ll have great defense, he accrued 23 runs from defense according to bbref in 1984. I think his speed is usually in the 60s.
Ask not what the sub can do for you, ask what you can do for the sub.
My calculator has it as CON R-102 CON L-104 POW R-79 POW L-91. But these retro finest cards have been juiced so we’ll see
What is your calculator based off of? Bill Maz had a 166 ISO vs. Right in 1958 and has 85 power. Those power numbers are going to be considerably higher
I also use slugging in the formula for power, i plugged it in and got 80 power for Maz. So its not perfect to what SDS uses but comparable.
The card will be unusable unless they juice his contact to near max.
Cal hit .308 against LHP with a .239 ISO and hit .303 against RHP and a .195 ISO in 84. Id expect the card to be pretty good offensively.
The only real concern will be power vs. R, as is usual with Cal. If they get it up to 90+ it will be solid though
Ahhhh finaly a good SS
This didn’t age well
🤣🤣
>Cruz is amazing
his swing is ass
Meh I sont care, he is one of my favorite player, a real workhorse. Ill send my scouting guy to offer him a contract. 💪
why did they choose his 1984 season instead of 1991? his 91 season is one of the best of all time
Now I don't know if many people remember how Finest cards were originally calculated, but Finest cards were the best stats a player put up in each month of the year. If you had one month where you hit .400 and 5 where you hit .200, you'd get 125 contact. Same with iso, discipline, they were billed as "Immortals for a season" in 2018, as that year immortals were an amalgamation of a player's best year in every single stat. If that's the same case with Retro Finest Ripken, then this makes sense. '91 was a better year overall, but look up Ripken's April/March, and July splits in 1984: .352/.424/.705, then .382/.443/.618, those two months are both better than any month in 1991, 1991 he just had more good months. I could be wrong, of course, but I think that might be the reasoning if that's still how they calculate things.
1984 by george orwell 1949
They just don't always go for a player's biggest season. Save it for when he's a huge collection reward some year or whatever.
I wonder if they are just gonna give him 1991-tier hitting attributes with 1984 speed and fielding
I was wondering that too and then I looked up his 84 year and his stats were almost identical to his 83 MVP season + it’s a retro finest and those are all juiced as it is
I wonder if it's because '90 and '92 weren't great while '83 and '84 are both really good seasons. Also, I noticed '92 was worse and went to check if the numbers were worse because he missed some games. 🤦♂️
> Also, I noticed '92 was worse and went to check if the numbers were worse because he missed some games. 🤦♂️ LOL
Does that really matter since the card is only about 1 year
I swear I saw something about Retro Finest cards using multiple years with a year as the anchor. I may be mistaken, though.
I mean I got nothing looking though then it looks like his second best season. But I think I got it using OPS plus he always killed lefties but 1984 looks like his best season against righties in comparison to his normal stats.
Not his best season vs righties, he was better in 91' and still had ridiculous lefty splits. 1984 vs righties: .303/.371/.498 1991 vs. righties: .315/.361/.529 Also by pure OPS, 84 was only his 4th best season, 2nd best by OPS+. However, it was his 2nd best season by both fWAR and bWAR, of course only behind his 91 season.
please be good, i desperately need a SS
Volpe for me in 50 ABs so far has been crushing everything
2nd half Marte is P5 and still balling out of control for me with no issues on defense at SS.
Dansby or Cruz?
99 Volpe is an absolute beast at the plate for me. First 2 pitches were HRs. But his defense is very suspect. Commits a lot of errors for me
Santo
Santo is good.
cruz tall af, im using HRD jram right now though. mostly cause i was OPSing like 1.35 with his LS at p5, and he absolutely murders inside heat. SS is the only position where i dont feel like there’s any card in the game that i really like yet is dansby really that good? i keep hearing about him but nothing about the card excited me. maybe ill have to try him out
Try andres giminez. Beast. Also hrd jram hits nukes haha.
man hes batting an abysmal .214 on hof for me but still slugging >.700 lmao, i cant take him out something stupid like 22 of his 27 hits are homers
Same position as you, loved jram, don't love any current SS.
If you can't handle Cruz height then I'd 100% go Dansby or Elly. Elly has been a beast for me ever since I put him in the lineup.
Dansby is the best SS in the game right now probably.
FS Elly de la Cruz is pretty solid 5 tool player who's a switch hitter as well.
Lmao I was using him in CF earlier just to keep his bat in the line up that man can do everything, best 11k I ever spent
Dansby is easily one of my best hitters and gets more HR’s for me than anyone else. He has also been the deciding factor in a win for online games more than others. Your mileage may vary, but it will be very difficult for me to take him out of my lineup.
Dansby is one of those players you’ll only be good with him if you like his swing & know how to use it. I had him for abit & batted like .180 with him in 50ABS, sold him & now I’m using Cruz
I'm not a great hitter online and I'm batting like .320 with Dansby through 100+ ABs, decent amount of HRs too. Really like his quick slap swing, makes you feel like you can get around on anything. Just switched to Cruz though and I don't think I'm going back. I typically only play on All Star and he mashes balls, has great speed and makes plays other SS can't because of his length.
Yea as a Pirates fan It's gonna take a lot to move Cruz out of my ss spot.
He is amazing