[struggles_mightily]

I just can't really begin to assimilate the relevancy of this statement. It's like trying to eat jello with chopsticks. Bet you're already thinking up a way to tear that one down and dissect it.

"Tear down and dissect" what? It's not like you've made a point or anything.

In saying:

"The Major League Baseball season is a really bad test of the abilities of baseball teams, though, isn't it?"

I meant:

"The Major League Baseball season is a really bad test of the abilities of baseball teams, though, isn't it?"

But I'd be happy to draw the lines a bit more clearly.

i) Many people do not base their ideas regarding what consitutes a "plausible" outcome upon considerations of "true talent." Instead, they measure OOTP's "accuracy" by comparing its outputs to the "actual result" (i.e. the result of the relevant Major League Baseball season or seasons).

ii) However, expecting OOTP's outputs closely to resemble the "actual result" is misplaced and (to me, anyway) odd. This is because a single Major League Baseball season is not a good means of figuring out the "true talent" of teams and, to a lesser extent, players ("to a lesser extent" just because there are fewer variables in the second case).

iii) I think that what we should expect from OOTP is that it produces a result which is plausible based on the true talent of Major League Baseball players and (thus) teams. "True talent" is obviously a very slippery fish to grasp. But, by that phrase, I basically mean "the abilities of baseball players based on their record to date and discounting extraneous irrelevancies such as park factor, injury, aging and luck on balls in play." There may be other "irrelevances" that I'm missing, and some may dispute the degree to which BABIP is a result of luck. And the precise calculations and adjustments to be made will be highly contentious. But I think that what I mean by "true talent" (at least as differentiated from "actual result") is clear.

To expand on ii):

Think about it: if you wanted to figure out how good the 30 MLB teams were, really and truly, what would you do?

-- You'd play the 162 game seasons many times. At least a hundred. You yourself ran ten test seasons, so obviously you understand why this is.

-- You would turn off injuries. They're not really relevant to determining how good a team is. (Or, what you should really do, is distribute injuries to a pre-decided level based on a player's historical injury-proneness.)

-- You would ensure that all players had a league average BABIP, or a BABIP in line with their own career norms.

There are probably other adjustments.

The MLB season does not do any of this. It features wildly unpredictable injuries, schedules a paltry 162 games per club and leaves the fate of balls in play up to chance (to a degree). The MLB season is a really bad, unscientific way of determining which teams are the "best." We shouldn't expect OOTP to replicate its results.

Expecting that would be kind of like simming 100 seasons in Baseball Mogul, selecting one of those 100 seasons at random, and then demanding that a single replay of the same season on OOTP closely resemble that one BM replay.

If you darted out and took a look at Bill James Relative Power Index for 2006 as basis for this (I believe RPI is based loosely on Pythagorean theorem)...your statement was indeed plausible...but not accurate. In fact this index noted Minnesota EXPW-L at 94-68. Probably just a type-o on your part.

I was looking at Baseball Reference, which gives the value I quouted. I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways of calculating ExWL. My general point should be clear.

Just to save a whole lot of bickering I'm just going to say you're correct and I'm absolutely incorrect with my concept of what is plausible and what is not. Let's just say you're logic is deeply profound and I'm sim-tistically challenged.

Glad to have established some common ground. (Winky face).