Quote:
Originally Posted by majesty95
Wins aren't an effective measure of a pitcher's talent as Felix Hernandez has shown us. I'm more concerned with WHIP and ERA+. With that said, when a pitcher has three years of 1.35, 1.41 and 1.24 WHIP and posts a 1.05 it throws me off. In my mind, that pitcher has shown he's not capable of that type of year in real life, so why is he all of the sudden so much better in the game (assuming he is on same team with coaching off). That's exacerbated when the 1.24 was a career low. If he was on a different team with better coaching I could maybe see it. But all things being even, it's hard to wrap my head around.
As far as your comment about looking at box scores, for me, I like to get players to perform like real life and then see what happens if some of the free agents signed with different teams or a few trades were made that didn't happen in real life. Could being on a different team affect their stats? Could they propel a 2nd place team to win their division? Kind of like your scenario of Bonds going to the Red Sox instead of the Giants.
|
One issue is that "all things being equal" in OOTP it
isn't all equal. It's all dependent on the Computer AI and other player ratings and park factors. I feel like you're trying to obtain real life numbers in a way that simply isn't that feasible with OOTP and the way it's structured.
Keep in mind that WHIP does involve hits so that 1.05 could've been reflected on the team suddenly acquiring a Gold Glove level SS or just a fluke season of random luck. Maybe the team's park factor went from a 1.020 down to a 0.960 instead for that year.
David Cone is a perfect example where he was putting up 1.20-1.25 WHIPs yet won the Cy Young in 1994 going 16-5 with a 1.07 WHIP (his career best). His BB/9 dropped to what he produced in 1990 & 1991 but the big difference was his H/9 dropped to 6.8 from the 7.2 and 7.3 range. One could argue he just got lucky as almost every other starter on Kansas City was almost 8+ H/9 for the season.
Courtesy of Baseball-Reference
- David Cone with the Red Sox in '94 (Neutral Adjusted): 13-6 with a 2.88 ERA and 1.092 WHIP
- David Cone with the Dodgers in '94 (Neutral Adjusted): 13-6 with a 2.27 ERA and 0.956 WHIP. Massive difference just going to a different ballpark, never mind whatever the actual defensive talent behind him would be or how that team's run production would affect him.
Derek Lowe played out of his mind in 2002 with a 0.97 WHIP while routinely putting up 1.20-1.40 WHIPs otherwise. It happens sometimes. Same thing for hitters where a guy like John Cangelosi (career .250 hitter) explodes for a .318 BA in 256 PA in 1995 for Houston.
As for your desire to see players perform like real life then throw them into different situations, that's great but further muddies the waters of what exactly real life you're expecting.
Bill James made a reference to Jose Cruz Sr. in his 1984 Historical Abstract (IIRC) stating that he was roughly the equivalent of Jim Rice as far as Slugging and potential power on the road. Now, in real life, Cruz Sr routinely finished around 14-17 HRs while hitting .300-.312 range because he was playing the Astrodome, a notoriously tough HR park in that era.
Yet on the road he was usually almost doubling his HRs at home and sometimes hitting 0.20-0.40 better in several years. So the question becomes what is realistic? If you look at his seasons, he should hit 12-17 HRs and around .305 for the year for most seasons recalc wise. But if you look at his road numbers and how the Astrodome hurt him, one could see him as a hitter challenging 20 HRs a year in the right ballpark.
So if you play OOTP out and Cruz is hitting at Fenway Park and hits .335 with 24 HR despite recalc saying he should top out around 15 HR and a .302 BA, is that a flaw in the realism you're expecting or is it OOTP adequately interpreting Cruz?