Babe Ruth tops 100 HR, everyone else normal

[rasnell]

I'm importing the 1920 season and doing a multi-season sim. The default era settings are a mystery to me. The homers are about right for all the rest of baseball, but Ruth is cranking BA of .456 and HR over 100.

When I adjust the settings to bring him back to earth, the numbers are way too low for everyone else.

Ruth's ratings are 88 at contact and 100 in power.

Any suggestions?

[Dagrims]

Re-run the season (or half the season) a number of times to see if Ruth's totals were an anomaly or routine. If routine, edit his ratings downward and re-test. Seems like a pain to have to do, but I don't see a workaround if you want realistic stats and you're not getting them.

[rasnell]

Just wondering if anyone else has seen such striking disparity when using the default settings during that era.

I've replayed several times and finally had to make major changes to hits, HR, BB, SO.

[arod23]

Yes, that is normal for Ruth. I experienced that also. His performance in 1919-1921 was so far above the norm that he completely dominates historical sims. With the league settings basically determining how many home runs the league will have coupled with Ruth's power dominance, he ends up getting a very large share.

Historically that was true also. In 1920, Ruth hit more home runs than any other AL team! He hit more HRs than 7 of the 8 NL teams too! Ruth was 1714% above the league average in HRs. That is the highest of all time. In fact, he holds the top-6 marks as shown below (from Sinins' Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia)

HOMERUNS                      YEAR     RATE   PLAYER   LEAGUE   
1    Babe Ruth                1920     1714       54        3   
2    Babe Ruth                1919     1188       29        2   
3    Babe Ruth                1921     1081       59        5   
4    Babe Ruth                1927     1066       60        6   
5    Babe Ruth                1918     1036       11        1   
6    Babe Ruth                1926      978       47        5   

This doesn't help your league though because lowering his figures makes him more "normal" and who wants that. My recommendation is to use Ankit's CareerAvg DB, it helps smooth out things like that.

[rasnell]

Arod23, you may have hit on something else. When setting up the league, starting with the 1920 import, I chose to have ratings based on the remaining career. Perhaps I should have set this to be based on his whole career and that might smooth it out.

[arod23]

That will help some but there will still be a huge difference in ratings.

[Comedian2004]

Interesting. I started a sim of fake players in 1901. I am up to 1942 now, but during the roaring 20's, there was one guy that was hitting homeruns galore. Well, he topped out at 52 and hit 450 over his career. Which was about normal, but he was WAY above everyone else each year. He would have 42, and the nearest guy would have 22. I called him the Babe Ruth of my league.

Those historical stats.. I can't figure em out... I like the stats I am producing now, with HR leaders usually in the 40s, averages around .360 for the leader, with an occasional guy battling to reach .400. But on the downside, doubles are too high and pitchers ERA are high.

It is so confusing. OK, I increase the double numbers and I have decreased doubles, but will averages be decreased? Do those doubles turn into outs or hits.

K's and walks... why are those two numbers so far apart?

Balls hit into play?? What does that do?

[arod23]

I agree, it is very confusing. Do a search on league settings, there are many posts with good advice. But, ultimately, you will likely have to run test sims to get the settings to where you want to be. Once I have my league set up, I copy the directory and run test sims (replay mode) until I get the final totals where I like them. Usually trying to closely match previous seasons. Then use those settings in the original file.

I was hoping that this would be changed in 6.5 or 7.0. It would be great to put in the league stats you desire and have the sim work from them rather than the non-intuitive, micro-tweaking that is required now. I realize that it is not a simple change to the code, but it would be nice.

[rasnell]

After several test sims, I've arrived at these settings that are getting me decent results. I also found Arod's advice to be the most helpful. Babe Ruth is so out of whack in comparison to the league in the early 1920s, that I start the import in 1925 and use these ERA settings:

87246 AB
25,000 H
5090 2B
855 3B
990 HR
12000 BB
404 hbp
6400 so
.287 avg

Oh, yes, and I added one tweak to the player development: +50 percent for pitcher stuff.

[Gastric ReFlux]

In the historical replays I have done, I have never had a dominant Ruth. The last one was really weird. At the age of 40, Ruth led the American League in steals!

[arod23]

Originally Posted by Gastric ReFlux

In the historical replays I have done, I have never had a dominant Ruth. The last one was really weird. At the age of 40, Ruth led the American League in steals!

Since Ruth entered MLB as a pitcher, he imports that way, so many historical sims have Ruth performing poorly as a hitter. If you use Lahman to import, he will be terrible (as will most rookies). If you import later (1920+) after his pitching years are done, he will come in as a hitter with great ratings.

Ankit's CareerAvg DB takes care of that problem because players import in the first year of significant play rather than their first year when they typically have few ABs or IPs. This gives more realistic ratings, not to mention the career average feature improves historical sims because talent ratings are more accurate. OOTP doesn't import pitcher/hitters well, so Ankit's DB also splits Ruth into Babe the hitter and George the pitcher.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally Posted by arod23

Since Ruth entered MLB as a pitcher, he imports that way, so many historical sims have Ruth performing poorly as a hitter. If you use Lahman to import, he will be terrible (as will most rookies). If you import later (1920+) after his pitching years are done, he will come in as a hitter with great ratings.

Ankit's CareerAvg DB takes care of that problem because players import in the first year of significant play rather than their first year when they typically have few ABs or IPs. This gives more realistic ratings, not to mention the career average feature improves historical sims because talent ratings are more accurate. OOTP doesn't import pitcher/hitters well, so Ankit's DB also splits Ruth into Babe the hitter and George the pitcher.

I'm well aware of that, and usually use Ankit's database which imports him as George Ruth pitcher, and Babe Ruth, hitter.

I've just never had good luck on the development of Ruth.

[Gastric ReFlux]

And oddly, the most Babe-like Ruth I ever had was in OOTP4 with an import from an unmodified Lahman's.

[Vezna31]

Originally Posted by rasnell

I'm importing the 1920 season and doing a multi-season sim. The default era settings are a mystery to me. The homers are about right for all the rest of baseball, but Ruth is cranking BA of .456 and HR over 100.

When I adjust the settings to bring him back to earth, the numbers are way too low for everyone else.

Ruth's ratings are 88 at contact and 100 in power.

Any suggestions?

I have similar experiences. I tried to make an all-time greats league which included the '27 Yanks and Ruth hit 80 HR's in 140 games. In a league started in 1919, I edited Ruth for 1920 since he was a pitcher and he hit 68 HR's. In a league started in 1915, I gave Ruth high hitting talent, and the ability to play outfield, but he would not develop as a hitter in the minors for 2 years. I edited his actual and he is barely batting .200 after a month with 2 HR's.

To give you suggestions, go to League setup and click to show ratings over 100. The 100 in power could very well have been over 100 which is what it is when you import Ruth for 1927 (133 to be exact) using the Lahman database. Second, don't edit the league totals if you are getting good numbers for the rest of the league. Just edit Ruth's power down into the 90's with his talent power being around 133 to allow for more growth. If you are in manager mode and can't edit, their is a utility you can download that will turn off manager mode and let you edit anything. Good luck.