Infield Hits

[vxm]

Is anyone else getting an extraordinary amount of infield hits. When I play out games I get about 6 or more infield hits per game. This is not realistic. Is there a way of adjusting something to lower the amount?

[luckymann]

Just one of those quirks of the game. It's only in the graphical display that they are actually infield hits - to the game they are simply singles.

[Pelican]

I thought I noticed an uptick; but I attributed it to weaker fielding in the IF. It's another instance where the graphic does not correspond with the narrative - or you have the IF merely holding the ball while the batter runs to 1B. Dude, throw it!

Had to laugh though last night at the Phillies-Braves game, Didi Gregorius forgot how many were out (one; he thought two), and held the ball at 2B after a force on a sure DP ball. He looked exactly like the OOTP player in 3D who fails to complete the DP. Just. Standing. There. So maybe life imitates art, or whatever. Happy conclusion as the Phillies torched the Braves 14-4. And a first for me, after hundreds of games. I saw a position player pitch the ninth inning for Atlanta.

[md40022]

Funny you brought that up. I don't think I've noticed any more than usual. However, they seem to happen in patches for me. I'll go a few games without an IF hit and then all of a sudden I'll either get, or give up like 4 of them in the same inning haha. But as far as a grand total of IF hits, it doesn't seem out of line to me.

I will say, if Jonathan Villar is playing any position in your infield, there will be 20x more infield hits than normal.

I say that jokingly, but the OOTP23 Jonathan Villar might be the worst defensive player in the history of the game...... Whatever the exact opposite would be of Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl, or Michael Vick in whatever Madden year that was. That is Jonathan Villar's infield defense.

[Syd Thrift]

A little over 7% of a team’s hits were of the infield variety in 2021 and teams averaged a little under 1 per game. Any time you play a game out you should see on average 1.5 to 2 of them. Sometimes you’ll see more, sometimes you’ll see fewer.

It’d be nice if OOTP kept stats on that but while I see a fair amount of them too I’m not convinced that they’re particularity high.

[jeffw3000]

Originally Posted by Pelican

I thought I noticed an uptick; but I attributed it to weaker fielding in the IF. It's another instance where the graphic does not correspond with the narrative - or you have the IF merely holding the ball while the batter runs to 1B. Dude, throw it!

Had to laugh though last night at the Phillies-Braves game, Didi Gregorius forgot how many were out (one; he thought two), and held the ball at 2B after a force on a sure DP ball. He looked exactly like the OOTP player in 3D who fails to complete the DP. Just. Standing. There. So maybe life imitates art, or whatever. Happy conclusion as the Phillies torched the Braves 14-4. And a first for me, after hundreds of games. I saw a position player pitch the ninth inning for Atlanta.

I have always felt like there were not enough infield hits, so an uptick might be nice provided it is not too much of an uptick. I also do not see many slow runners with infield hits, but IRL anyone can have an infield hit. Daniel Vogelbach has 2 IF hits IRL this year.

Interesting you mention Did Gregorius not knowing how many outs.
In the Pirates-Nationals game on Wednesday, Keibert Ruiz forgot how many outs there were. Only he was a runner on third. Cesar Hernandez hit a line drive to left and Ruiz tagged up on third. The only issue is there were already 2 outs. The ball dropped for a single, but because he tagged up Yadiel Hernandez who was on 2nd, had to slow up. While Ruiz scored Hernandez was tagged out at home. Had Ruiz not tagged up Hernandez would have scored.

This is the same game as the screw up on the 4th out play, where Ehire Adrianza tagged the runner before the base and needed to appeal for a 4th out. There was a line out to Josh Bell, and the runners on 2nd and 3rd advanced without tagging. Bell threw to Adrianza at 3rd, and he tagged the runner that was on 2nd and now at 3rd, before he stepped on 3rd base. If he had stepped on third first the runner would have been out for not tagging up, but he did not. He tagged the runner from 2nd for the third out. He then stepped on third, but never showed he was appealing the play. The Nationals infielders immediately left the field. Since they had left the field it was too late for them to appeal. Because they did not appeal for the 4th out, the Pirates runner that did not tag up and scored counted. If not for these 2 plays the Nationals would have won, but instead lost 8-7.

[fredbeene]

can you show me how to run a report on to see who has the most infield hits for each team???
or is this all anecdotal.
more stuff we still can't report on?

[Syd Thrift]

So, thinking about this a bit more because my sense, too, is that there are too many infield hits... I think the issue is that pretty much whenever an infielder loses a range check, the end result is an IF hit. I think that a lot of those - perhaps the majority - should get past the infielder and into the outfield. They don't need to be extra base hits or first-to-third types but yeah... the "shortstop eats a grounder" play does seem to happen too often, whereas what I think you'd really see is "the shortstop dives at a ball that still gets past him into left" or "the shortstop gets a bad jump and it just gets past him into the hole".

I do appreciate that when OOTP started tracking where hits were, this data wasn't widely available, and putouts, assists, etc. don't appear to be crazy off, so this is kind of cosmetic, but yeah... teams average around 125 a year and IME it's probably closer to 200 or so.

[highandoutside]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

A little over 7% of a team’s hits were of the infield variety in 2021 and teams averaged a little under 1 per game. Any time you play a game out you should see on average 1.5 to 2 of them. Sometimes you’ll see more, sometimes you’ll see fewer.

It’d be nice if OOTP kept stats on that but while I see a fair amount of them too I’m not convinced that they’re particularity high.

I'm glad this topic came up because I've been noticing an uptick in infield hits in '23, as well. I haven't kept track of how many I'm getting a game, but I was hoping that, like injuries, there are more of them in real life than I previously recognized and that the game is just improving its modeling of reality.

[Syd Thrift]

There were an awful lot of them in 22 and I think 21 as well. This isn't really a new thing IMO, more of a "oh hey, this actually doesn't happen IRL as much as it does in OOTP, does it" thing.

[DCG12]

In yesterday’s Red Sox/Cubs game ( 7/3/22) 6 of the Sox first 7 hits were of the true infield variety i.e. slow rollers or high choppers that the runner beat out.

And to finish in true OOTP style the Sox won with 2 out in the 11th when the pitcher fielded a little nubber in front of the plate and threw it down the right field line allowing 2 runs to score.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by DCG12

In yesterday’s Red Sox/Cubs game ( 7/3/22) 6 of the Sox first 7 hits were of the true infield variety i.e. slow rollers or high choppers that the runner beat out.

And to finish in true OOTP style the Sox won with 2 out in the 11th when the pitcher fielded a little nubber in front of the plate and threw it down the right field line allowing 2 runs to score.

Also going into this game, according to the pbp team, 6 of the Cubs' last 11 hits were.... infield hits.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Just one of those quirks of the game. It's only in the graphical display that they are actually infield hits - to the game they are simply singles.

bump.

we can change those ball locations in stadium settings? maybe, move a few out to short OF from infield? or maybe i am thining of something else.

[Matt Arnold]

There's different ways to calculate how correct we are, whether you look at IFH/GB or IFH/SI. Whenever I run the numbers, we tend to be a hare low if anything.

I think it's the sort of thing that you do tend to notice more often than not when playing out a game. Partly because our animations of infield hits are... not great. I think the 3 most common plays you see are slow rolling balls that the infielder has no real chance at, balls that are hit a little harder, that the infielder might take an extra fraction of a second to get to, and the runner just beats out at the base, or hard hit balls that get classified as infield hits because the fielder cuts it down, but if they didn't, it would get through them for more.

And in all 3 cases, those are like the 3 worst plays we handle in the 3d. The first case, it's really hard to get balls to get that sort of slow bounce that looks realistic. The second one is a timing issue, so trying to line up the ball getting to the fielder plus the fielder's throw to arrive just a hare slower than the batter getting to the base is just extra tricky. And the 3rd case we've only really "added" somewhat more recently, tend to kind of look like an error for us that gets called a hit.

They're all always on my list to improve, but because of how fast the plays run, they are the hardest ones to look correct. But whenever we run our internal tests, the numbers come out as expected. I have some test data, and it comes out to around 1650-1850 infield singles out of about 13000-14000 singles total, which is pretty close to MLB numbers which are 1746 infield hits in 12668 total singles this year (and has consistently been in around that range for the last few years now).

[Syd Thrift]

It’d be nice to have data like this available so we can see for ourselves if stuff is off. As I’ve said in the past I thought wild pitches and passed balls were insanely high in my league, then I checked against the league rates and if anything they were low (I think WPs ran around 10% too low and PBS around 10% too high). It’d be a really nice and easy way to put this issue to rest.

I’m pretty sure it’s possible from a “these are things the game engine tracks” standpoint to come up with a graph like this:

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...12-31&sort=9,d

[brotherblues]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

So, thinking about this a bit more because my sense, too, is that there are too many infield hits... I think the issue is that pretty much whenever an infielder loses a range check, the end result is an IF hit. I think that a lot of those - perhaps the majority - should get past the infielder and into the outfield.

Man I think you 100% nailed it here. This adds an important layer in that we can actually *see* the player failing a range check.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There's different ways to calculate how correct we are, whether you look at IFH/GB or IFH/SI. Whenever I run the numbers, we tend to be a hare low if anything.

I think it's the sort of thing that you do tend to notice more often than not when playing out a game. Partly because our animations of infield hits are... not great. I think the 3 most common plays you see are slow rolling balls that the infielder has no real chance at, balls that are hit a little harder, that the infielder might take an extra fraction of a second to get to, and the runner just beats out at the base, or hard hit balls that get classified as infield hits because the fielder cuts it down, but if they didn't, it would get through them for more.

And in all 3 cases, those are like the 3 worst plays we handle in the 3d. The first case, it's really hard to get balls to get that sort of slow bounce that looks realistic. The second one is a timing issue, so trying to line up the ball getting to the fielder plus the fielder's throw to arrive just a hare slower than the batter getting to the base is just extra tricky. And the 3rd case we've only really "added" somewhat more recently, tend to kind of look like an error for us that gets called a hit.

They're all always on my list to improve, but because of how fast the plays run, they are the hardest ones to look correct. But whenever we run our internal tests, the numbers come out as expected. I have some test data, and it comes out to around 1650-1850 infield singles out of about 13000-14000 singles total, which is pretty close to MLB numbers which are 1746 infield hits in 12668 total singles this year (and has consistently been in around that range for the last few years now).

Thanks Matt for giving us this information... you and Lukas are really good about teaching us how the game is designed to work.

We really appreciate all of you on the OOTP Development Team.

[Pacoheadley]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

There's different ways to calculate how correct we are, whether you look at IFH/GB or IFH/SI. Whenever I run the numbers, we tend to be a hare low if anything.

I think it's the sort of thing that you do tend to notice more often than not when playing out a game. Partly because our animations of infield hits are... not great. I think the 3 most common plays you see are slow rolling balls that the infielder has no real chance at, balls that are hit a little harder, that the infielder might take an extra fraction of a second to get to, and the runner just beats out at the base, or hard hit balls that get classified as infield hits because the fielder cuts it down, but if they didn't, it would get through them for more.

And in all 3 cases, those are like the 3 worst plays we handle in the 3d. The first case, it's really hard to get balls to get that sort of slow bounce that looks realistic. The second one is a timing issue, so trying to line up the ball getting to the fielder plus the fielder's throw to arrive just a hare slower than the batter getting to the base is just extra tricky. And the 3rd case we've only really "added" somewhat more recently, tend to kind of look like an error for us that gets called a hit.

They're all always on my list to improve, but because of how fast the plays run, they are the hardest ones to look correct. But whenever we run our internal tests, the numbers come out as expected. I have some test data, and it comes out to around 1650-1850 infield singles out of about 13000-14000 singles total, which is pretty close to MLB numbers which are 1746 infield hits in 12668 total singles this year (and has consistently been in around that range for the last few years now).

Thanks a ton for the transparency with this type of thing.

[Pacoheadley]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

So, thinking about this a bit more because my sense, too, is that there are too many infield hits... I think the issue is that pretty much whenever an infielder loses a range check, the end result is an IF hit. I think that a lot of those - perhaps the majority - should get past the infielder and into the outfield. They don't need to be extra base hits or first-to-third types but yeah... the "shortstop eats a grounder" play does seem to happen too often, whereas what I think you'd really see is "the shortstop dives at a ball that still gets past him into left" or "the shortstop gets a bad jump and it just gets past him into the hole".

I do appreciate that when OOTP started tracking where hits were, this data wasn't widely available, and putouts, assists, etc. don't appear to be crazy off, so this is kind of cosmetic, but yeah... teams average around 125 a year and IME it's probably closer to 200 or so.

I do think we have regular hits for failed range checks, but I'm not certain. It does feel like with poor defenders I get plays with a description somewhat like "There's a groundball to short... and it gets into the outfield". Which sounds routine until it isn't. Or it could be a PbP quirk