[His Own Bad Self]

Originally Posted by Elendil

Well, in 1995-2005 MLB, the correlation between K's and walks is a very modest (but statistically significant) 0.07. In the OOTP test I ran it's 0.10. So OOTP seems to capture that positive correlation, if it does exist. However, I think the problem is likely to be too much K consistency and especially too much BABIP consistency, which could be a result of qualifying DIPS a little too much.

When Markus was coding OOTP6, he found that if he fully implemented DIPS (gave pitchers no control over BABIP at all), no pitchers had ERAs under 3.00. So he gave some pitchers some control over BABIP, initially through the Stuff rating, which created a negative correlation between K/IP and BABIP. Now, it turns out he was right to want to give pitchers some control over BABIP, but I think he's given them too much control now. The problem might be that BABIP is in 2007 controlled through GB/FB ratio (GB pitchers have higher BABIP). However, some data have shown that OOTP has wider variation in GB% ratings compared to real-life MLB, and of course, GB% ratings don't change each year.

So I think the solution for 2008 is twofold: 1) compress the variance of GB% ratings in player creation; 2) allow the GB% rating to vary a little from year to year.

I follow you, and I agree. Much appreciated - thanks again.