I have some theories on game-play

[X3NEIZE]

I can't say I'm an expert, because I'm not and the sample I have is just under 10 seasons, with that said I have concluded that there are certain elements that come into play

- There are most definitely hidden attributes, clutch situational hitting is one, I have been seeing over and over again how certain players (namely Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig) no matter how bad they are performing, they seem to hit extremely well in these clutch situations, more so during the playoffs...

- I most definitely notice that no matter how phenomenal my hitter's ability is, their batting average goes down the further down the batting order. Again my guess is that there's some sort of hidden preferred 'batting order' where these players seem to hit better. I guess this makes sense so that if you have the top hitters in every position your team doesn't end up with 9 players over .300 BA..... Obviously more testing needs to be done, so I'm asking if you guys have noticed this.
When i was in Gold league my, I actually placed my best batters (just for testing) at the bottom of the order and Brett George who's hit well over .320 for me every season, batted .273 that season).
Small sample I know... I tried that with Joe DiMaggio another batter who was hitting ~.315 and at the bottom of the order two seasons ago he hit .284. My final example, Yogi Berra, the season he was in the 5th he hit .326, once he started batting 8 or 9 his BA plummeted to thelow .200's.
I have many more examples as I been taking notes (I'm a geek) because I love the trial and error on the game and I love delving deep in analytics.

- Lastly, I purposely tested a pen with 5 and then 6 relievers vs weak team and vs whale teams... and the observation is that with the very top Starters, no matter how many innings they go (and I pushed them on purpose for the sake of this test) they get hit hard vs whale teams when the pen is reduced to 4-5 vs 6-7 relievers. In each of those games my starters went the distance. It's almost like there's a mechanic of crippling your starters when facing a tough opposition when the pen is short vs long. But there's no issues when facing the same tough opp with a normal sized pen.
Again, I been testing this relatively a short time (4 seasons) but it seems that my elite SP perform much better when they have a 6 man pen, than with less than 6. Has anyone else noticed this? I know there are some successful teams with 5 relievers... but that's what I noticed.

[Argonaut]

It would be interesting if that were the case but I don't think I believe your theory. Just to add another data point - one of my teams this year has shaken out with the bottom of the order having the highest batting average and my cleanup hitter batting below the Mendoza Line.

I think even with weighted unbiased dice rolls we tend to see patterns, even if they're not there. It's just how the human brain works, part of how we've evolved as a species. It's a useful trait in some cases (sensing danger) and not so useful in others (gambling).

[yno88]

I agree with your assessment on the batting order somewhat. It does seem like if you put perfect Babe in the 9 slot he would hit like Aparicio. I've used the same Tatis Jr at 3rd in the lineup (.280 100 RBI) and at 9th (.214 42 RBI). But then you have to think about the other guys who are down there in the lineup who are not forcing your opponent to pitch to him. The sim is good, every team you play against is an all star team.

[Westheim]

I will believe none of this without a healthy set of data serving as proof.

[X3NEIZE]

I think some of you misunderstand my intentions

You don't have to buy any of this, not trying to sell anything after all.... all I wan't to understand is if any of you guys are seeing the same patterns...

The point about small sample is 100% accurate, but if we have 100 guys observe these patters than we can make more accurate concussions...

[Kushiel]

My perfect Babe in PT19 bats 3rd and 4th and always has. He still hits .240ish in Perfect with 40+ HR's. He has never hit more than .260 or more than 47HR's. The RNG's do what they want no matter what we all think.

[<Pion>]

The guys I put in the ninth spot tend to hit better than they do in other spots. It I don’t think there is any other reason to it than randomness.

[allenciox]

I have Richie Ashburn batting eighth in my gold league team (since he is a defense-first CF). He not only leads my team in ba, he is actually leading the entire league in BA.

[One Great Matrix]

I stuck Ordonez in this season because he's my favorite glove at SS all-time and he's hitting 8th, 9th and above .300...

I've had Brett for a few season and one season he was just off out of the 4 or 5, and his BA was .030 below his average, think it was that high above his average one season too, unrelated to where he was in the lineup.

Then again, I THOUGHT I noticed my pitcher's doing better if I set them as 1,2 one season in the rotation rather than 4,5, and that is a similar thing to where you put your hitters in the order.

But I think it becomes obvious when something is really a game-changer, when you are a little out of it, you can react to the results of one game as if it is a new "Trend"...but if you are on the ball, then you chalk some anomaly up to chance and back it up with the facts like I noticed even though Lance Johnson has good rating for a CF and terrific range, that Willie Mays in CF , known for his range, caught/catches almost everything to CF and both gaps while Johnson only has about 75-80% of this range...there are more attributes to the game and to each player than is on display.

I "noticed" Derek Jeter refused to throw himself out from shortstop one time.

[One Great Matrix]

Another player seemed to at least respond to where he was in the order. It helped when I moved him up from 8th/9th but when I moved him even further up he struggled again. Of course he wasn't in the 6th spot for much longer than a couple weeks. May have just gotten hot.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

I can't say I'm an expert, because I'm not and the sample I have is just under 10 seasons, with that said I have concluded that there are certain elements that come into play

- There are most definitely hidden attributes, clutch situational hitting is one, I have been seeing over and over again how certain players (namely Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig) no matter how bad they are performing, they seem to hit extremely well in these clutch situations, more so during the playoffs...

- I most definitely notice that no matter how phenomenal my hitter's ability is, their batting average goes down the further down the batting order. Again my guess is that there's some sort of hidden preferred 'batting order' where these players seem to hit better. I guess this makes sense so that if you have the top hitters in every position your team doesn't end up with 9 players over .300 BA..... Obviously more testing needs to be done, so I'm asking if you guys have noticed this.
When i was in Gold league my, I actually placed my best batters (just for testing) at the bottom of the order and Brett George who's hit well over .320 for me every season, batted .273 that season).
Small sample I know... I tried that with Joe DiMaggio another batter who was hitting ~.315 and at the bottom of the order two seasons ago he hit .284. My final example, Yogi Berra, the season he was in the 5th he hit .326, once he started batting 8 or 9 his BA plummeted to thelow .200's.
I have many more examples as I been taking notes (I'm a geek) because I love the trial and error on the game and I love delving deep in analytics.

- Lastly, I purposely tested a pen with 5 and then 6 relievers vs weak team and vs whale teams... and the observation is that with the very top Starters, no matter how many innings they go (and I pushed them on purpose for the sake of this test) they get hit hard vs whale teams when the pen is reduced to 4-5 vs 6-7 relievers. In each of those games my starters went the distance. It's almost like there's a mechanic of crippling your starters when facing a tough opposition when the pen is short vs long. But there's no issues when facing the same tough opp with a normal sized pen.
Again, I been testing this relatively a short time (4 seasons) but it seems that my elite SP perform much better when they have a 6 man pen, than with less than 6. Has anyone else noticed this? I know there are some successful teams with 5 relievers... but that's what I noticed.

Agreed.
There is some factor that allows some scrubs to perform well on all scrub team.
ie
If i have 9 scrubs one is bound to hit 20 homers
If i have a 8 golds and put the one scrub who previously had 20 homers you would think he would do better surrounded with much better hitters.
Nope.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

I can't say I'm an expert, because I'm not and the sample I have is just under 10 seasons, with that said I have concluded that there are certain elements that come into play

- There are most definitely hidden attributes, clutch situational hitting is one, I have been seeing over and over again how certain players (namely Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig) no matter how bad they are performing, they seem to hit extremely well in these clutch situations, more so during the playoffs...

- I most definitely notice that no matter how phenomenal my hitter's ability is, their batting average goes down the further down the batting order. Again my guess is that there's some sort of hidden preferred 'batting order' where these players seem to hit better. I guess this makes sense so that if you have the top hitters in every position your team doesn't end up with 9 players over .300 BA..... Obviously more testing needs to be done, so I'm asking if you guys have noticed this.
When i was in Gold league my, I actually placed my best batters (just for testing) at the bottom of the order and Brett George who's hit well over .320 for me every season, batted .273 that season).
Small sample I know... I tried that with Joe DiMaggio another batter who was hitting ~.315 and at the bottom of the order two seasons ago he hit .284. My final example, Yogi Berra, the season he was in the 5th he hit .326, once he started batting 8 or 9 his BA plummeted to thelow .200's.
I have many more examples as I been taking notes (I'm a geek) because I love the trial and error on the game and I love delving deep in analytics.

- Lastly, I purposely tested a pen with 5 and then 6 relievers vs weak team and vs whale teams... and the observation is that with the very top Starters, no matter how many innings they go (and I pushed them on purpose for the sake of this test) they get hit hard vs whale teams when the pen is reduced to 4-5 vs 6-7 relievers. In each of those games my starters went the distance. It's almost like there's a mechanic of crippling your starters when facing a tough opposition when the pen is short vs long. But there's no issues when facing the same tough opp with a normal sized pen.
Again, I been testing this relatively a short time (4 seasons) but it seems that my elite SP perform much better when they have a 6 man pen, than with less than 6. Has anyone else noticed this? I know there are some successful teams with 5 relievers... but that's what I noticed.

I have not experienced your SP phenomena. If I throw out 5 great starters i can have a 4 man pen.

[Mat]

Originally Posted by X3NEIZE

...all I wan't to understand is if any of you guys are seeing the same patterns..

No!

But I have noticed a lot of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by Mat

No!

But I have noticed a lot of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

No I promise I found these to be true!!

[dkgo]

season of future keston hiura batting leadoff: .330/.412/.577

added rickey henderson

half season of future keston hiura batting eighth: .290/.343/.448

definitely a believer in batting order mattering, but I think it might be more for the player than the spot in particular. some guys are great hitting 7/8, tank as soon as I move them up in the order, then go right back to hitting when I switch back

and yeah Im aware of biases and everything, it doesnt "prove" ****, yada yada yada, but it is still evidence that we can see and among the data we have to work with. Everyone can choose what they think matters or not when making managing decisions.

[stl jason]

couple of my contact hitters over the years with league level (from the data I could pull off my screenshots in the dynasty thread, so missing a couple spots). Travis has had his lowest and highest (partial season as it's the current one) averages in the 6th spot; but also hit well leadoff where he won his only batting title. Pesky has been in the 9th spot for all but one year and has ranged from a low of .252 to a high of .348.


Cecil Travis:

2022 - batting 1st: .327 avg (bronze) - won batting title
2024 - batting 2nd: .315 avg (silver)
2025 - batting 2nd: .316 avg (silver)
2026 - batting 2nd: .315 avg (silver)
2028 - batting 2nd: .294 avg (gold)
2029 - batting 2nd: .291 avg (gold)
2030 - batting 6th: .280 avg (gold)
2031 - batting 6th: .328 avg (gold) - through June


Johnny Pesky:

2022 - batting 7th: .276 avg (bronze)
2023 - batting 9th: .348 avg (silver) - won the batting title
2024 - batting 9th: .324 avg (silver) - won batting title again
2025 - batting 9th: .308 avg (silver)
2026 - batting 9th: .284 avg (silver)
2028 - batting 9th: .300 avg (gold)
2029 - batting 9th: .295 avg (gold)
2030 - batting 9th: .252 avg (gold)
2031 - batting 9th: .288 avg (gold) through June

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by dkgo

season of future keston hiura batting leadoff: .330/.412/.577

added rickey henderson

half season of future keston hiura batting eighth: .290/.343/.448

definitely a believer in batting order mattering, but I think it might be more for the player than the spot in particular. some guys are great hitting 7/8, tank as soon as I move them up in the order, then go right back to hitting when I switch back

and yeah Im aware of biases and everything, it doesnt "prove" ****, yada yada yada, but it is still evidence that we can see and among the data we have to work with. Everyone can choose what they think matters or not when making managing decisions.

There's absolutely something in the batting order.... we'll get there with more data

Thanks!

[Matt Arnold]

^As to the above, about SP performance vs bullpen size, the only thing I can think of that would impact that is that the AI GM does factor in how rested your bullpen is when making decisions about when to pull your pitcher. So if you have a really short bullpen, they'll keep your starters in longer. So I could definitely see a case where going with a really tiny bullpen can cause your starters to perform worse on the whole (if they pushed past their tired limits).

The rest? Nah.

[chazzycat]

The only thing I can think of with regards to batting order is that leadoff hitters get more ABs. So they are slightly more likely to produce their "true talent" batting average than the 9th hitter, just by virtue of a larger sample size.

[X3NEIZE]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

The only thing I can think of with regards to batting order is that leadoff hitters get more ABs. So they are slightly more likely to produce their "true talent" batting average than the 9th hitter, just by virtue of a larger sample size.

I would agree if it was 1-2 games... when I'm looking at 1000+ AB vs 1040 AB, we're in the ballpark...

I'm still seeing this and it's evident in all my teams.... there are exceptions to the rule sure, but it's been consistently happening season after season.