Stuff I want to see

[Syd Thrift]

THE FANBOY SPEAKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

But seriously, the game is far from perfect, so Markus doesn't ever have to worry about there being a time when people will not migrate to the new version because the last one got it right. Without further adieu...

- Pitching endurance. I know I'm a broken record here, but geezola... this needs to be fixed. The vast majority of real-life MLBers can finish 5 innings in a pinch. This was even more pronounced 30+ years ago. In the game, half of all pitchers can never be trusted to start because the computer flat-out will not let a guy with an END of less than 110 pitch for more than 2 innings, ever, unless maybe every other pitcher on the roster is injured and there are no good third basemen available.

My quick fix that will likely raise a bunch of smaller problems: generate all pitchers to have ENDs between 100 and 250. 110 is the cut-off mark. Even with a random distribution, you'd have like 8% of the league not ever being able to start, which is okay by me.

- Make the positions make more sense. What do I mean by this?

If a right-hander has range and a decent arm, he becomes a shortstop.
If he doesn't have so much range but still the good arm, third base.
If he's only okay on either, second.
If he's poor in those (especially range) but can hit, he'll play the outfield.

If a left-hander has a good arm, he pitches.
If he has range, he'll play the outfield due to the conventional wisdom that lefties can't play 2nd or short or third.
If he's a slug, he plays first.

In the outfield, the fastest guys will almost always play center unless there's someone faster in the system.
A fast guy with a bad arm goes into left. A slow guy with a good arm goes into right. A guy with neither arm nor range plays left field or first base.

Catchers... catch, although they can occasionally put their arm to good use at third or right field.

Right now, the game doesn't really let you move guys between the infield and outfield at all. Also, it generates too many guys with low range ratings but high SPD, which is really rare (if a guy doesn't have the first step to give him good range at short or second but is a speedster, he gets moved to the outfield pretty quickly). As a result, you get too many John Olerud with legs types at first, where pretty much the only time you'd have a speed guy there is if the outfield is full.

- Can't there be some way to set a guy as a LOOGY in the pitching screen?

- Pitchers are flat-out not modeled well in the current game. Even after taking endurance into account, high-K, low-BB guys are there too often, and the low-K, low BB and high-K, high-BB guys not nearly enough even though those two groups represent the two largest pitcher stereotypes out there. There should be a pretty decent negative correlation between BB/9 and K/9 like (I think) there is in real life.

- Additionally, pitchers are waaaaaaaaaaaay too consistent. I have a potential fix for this as well... ramp pitcher injuries waaaaaaaaaay up. At any given time, IMO roughly half of a team's pitching staff ought to be injured and unable to play or playing through a minor injury (that could get worse because he's pitching through pain). Way back in the 80s Bill James made a comment that most pitchers could be successful but were either still learning how to pitch, were hurt, or were coming back from injury. OOTP doesn't model this. A guy who is able to keep pitching at a high level for more than a couple seasons should be rare, and a guy who can do that for a decade or more should be a once-in-a-generation type player.

- Also, the Tommy John. I don't see pitchers getting hurt for a season and a half. Right now injuries that don't kill them seem to top out at 12 months. The kicker here is that unlike pretty much every other injury, TJ surgery ought to result in a slight ratings *bump* when the pitcher comes back (and I'd turn off most of the random ratings hits that happen to a guy while he's hurt when he gets this surgery).

[bababui]

- Additionally, pitchers are waaaaaaaaaaaay too consistent. I have a potential fix for this as well... ramp pitcher injuries waaaaaaaaaay up. At any given time, IMO roughly half of a team's pitching staff ought to be injured and unable to play or playing through a minor injury (that could get worse because he's pitching through pain). Way back in the 80s Bill James made a comment that most pitchers could be successful but were either still learning how to pitch, were hurt, or were coming back from injury. OOTP doesn't model this. A guy who is able to keep pitching at a high level for more than a couple seasons should be rare, and a guy who can do that for a decade or more should be a once-in-a-generation type player.

I agree with lots in your post. However, the above is ridiculous. If half the teams in the MLB had this many injured pitchers..maybe. But, otherwise a thought provoking post.

[conception]

Originally Posted by bababui

I agree with lots in your post. However, the above is ridiculous. If half the teams in the MLB had this many injured pitchers..maybe. But, otherwise a thought provoking post.

I concur. Although I wouldn't mind the injury system being revamped a little, making all the pitcher injuries go haywire would just be a headache. Maybe if there were alternate options for batter and pitching injuries this would be feasible.

My other disagreement is that I think too often the game zaps a player's potential ratings without an injury, or some kind of major injury causes this to happen anyway. I don't think pitchers being able to pitch at a high level many years in a row is incredibly far fetched...at least it wasn't in previous decades, although we are seeing a change resulting in the cryptic "there will be another 300 game winner" hoopla last year.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by bababui

I agree with lots in your post. However, the above is ridiculous. If half the teams in the MLB had this many injured pitchers..maybe. But, otherwise a thought provoking post.

Two points...

1. Take a look at the leaguewide IR come August. I guarantee you that half or more of them will be pitchers.

2. Again, I point out the Bill James line to demonstrate that my idea isn't a whistle in the dark. Pitchers get hurt. Pitchers get hurt a lot. The life of a pitcher is often playing through one pain or another.

2a. How would you make pitchers more unreliable? Not saying this as a "oh yeah, big guy????" kind of response; I'm genuinely interested to know how you'd make pitchers anywhere near as hard to predict as they are IRL.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by conception

My other disagreement is that I think too often the game zaps a player's potential ratings without an injury, or some kind of major injury causes this to happen anyway. I don't think pitchers being able to pitch at a high level many years in a row is incredibly far fetched...at least it wasn't in previous decades, although we are seeing a change resulting in the cryptic "there will be another 300 game winner" hoopla last year.

It absolutely was this way in previous decades. Early Wynn was supposed to be the last 300-game winner back in the mid-60s. Then when Nolan Ryan retired, it was him. If anything, pitchers might be more predictable today than before. The biggest difference is that old-time pitchers were able to pitch more innings and get more decisions during their brief windows of opportunity.

[Left-handed Badger]

And before Early Wynn and Warren Spahn (who reached it a little before Wynn) there had only been one since the mid-20s (Lefty Grove)

[SRJeff]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

It absolutely was this way in previous decades. Early Wynn was supposed to be the last 300-game winner back in the mid-60s.

Reluctantly, I must agree: that no ace goes 3C anymore (which would be INSANE) is mostly a product of the game's success. Why take the risk?

Still, there's a nascent school of thought (Mel Stottlemyre, etc) that likes to drag boys deeper into games, if, at least in theory, to mitigate what is perceived as hitter strengths and the generalized nonspecific environment of a particular game.

Nowadays, though, with millions at stake, you'd have to be nucking futz to let a dude cut his career that much shorter.

[ctorg]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

- Pitchers are flat-out not modeled well in the current game. Even after taking endurance into account, high-K, low-BB guys are there too often, and the low-K, low BB and high-K, high-BB guys not nearly enough even though those two groups represent the two largest pitcher stereotypes out there. There should be a pretty decent negative correlation between BB/9 and K/9 like (I think) there is in real life.

I think you mean there's a positive correlation between BB/9 and K/9.

This one has been bothering me a lot lately. I'm tired of seeing guys with 20+ k/bb ratios for the year pop up so often. It has never happened for a starter in real baseball. I'm also tired of seeing guys who give up like 5 homers in 200+ innings in the modern era. What gives? That's incredibly rare nowadays.

I've said before that, in general, the game produces too many top-level players. When I ran HOF Standards and HOF Monitor numbers on my league, the difference between my league and real life was staggering. And that was just for hitters. For pitchers, it seems worse. They are way too consistent.

[RchW]

I did a quick survey of the NL in 2007. On average 17.8 pitchers appeared in 10 or more games. Four teams had more than 20 pitchers >= 10 games. I didn't check carefully, but if you go to 5 games it would be over 20. That probably accounts for September callups.

Given pitching staffs of 11-12 (does anyone go with 10 now?), that's an average of 6 pitchers missing time. Now some of that could be trades, sending to the minors etc., but the majority IMO would be injuries that keep guys out for a week or 1 or 2 starts.

[injury log]

With pitcher injury, it's important to distinguish between shoulder and elbow injuries. I've never heard anyone claim that pitchers come back improved after a shoulder injury- usually velocity drops. Some claim that pitchers come back stronger after Tommy John (elbow) surgery, with higher velocity, though often with weaker command. This recent injury study is interesting:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0308091008.htm

Though the sample size is fairly small, this study does suggest that more than half of pitchers with a long injury should receive a talent hit (57% of the 35 pitchers studied came back at lower performance level in real life after surgery). Of the 22 players at the AA level or above, the recovery rate was far lower- 18%. Shoulder injuries were more damaging than elbow injuries, though it's clear that elbow injuries still often negatively affect performance.

I'd note also that many pitchers now return from Tommy John surgery within 12 months, and position players typically return much more quickly.

[MadMax58]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Two points...
2. Again, I point out the Bill James line to demonstrate that my idea isn't a whistle in the dark. Pitchers get hurt. Pitchers get hurt a lot. The life of a pitcher is often playing through one pain or another.

I agree with just about every point in your original post...but this is one of my biggest pet peaves. There are many reasons for why pitchers miss starts and/or time (as RchW pointed out), but minor, nagging injuries are the bulk of it. Not necessarily 1 or more months every year, but 7 days here, 9 days there, and yes the occassional more significant injury.

I know I get annoyed when I see the majority of CPU teams' starting rotations all having the same GS numbers...33,33,33,32,32...or darn close anyway.

It just isnt very realistic and I agree that increased nagging injuries for pitchers would help model this better(if thats an accurate portrayal of your point that is).

[ctorg]

Perhaps having a greater occurence of DTD injuries for pitchers would help, too, so that good pitchers pitching through pain will be a little less consistent some years.

[james17]

Hmmm. I actually am pretty happy with the way the injury model is right now and wouldn't want to see it change so that pitchers get hurt more than they are right now. I also don't think there are way too many excellent players in the leagues. Seems to be about right or even a bit low to me.

[The Wolf]

I agree with Syd's original post except for the part about the injuries. IMO we have enough of them as it is.

[Left-handed Badger]

Originally Posted by RchW

I did a quick survey of the NL in 2007. On average 17.8 pitchers appeared in 10 or more games. Four teams had more than 20 pitchers >= 10 games. I didn't check carefully, but if you go to 5 games it would be over 20. That probably accounts for September callups.

Given pitching staffs of 11-12 (does anyone go with 10 now?), that's an average of 6 pitchers missing time. Now some of that could be trades, sending to the minors etc., but the majority IMO would be injuries that keep guys out for a week or 1 or 2 starts.

Nah, nobody had had 10 pitchers for over a decade (probably not since early 90s). Though, I really hate 12 man staffs, that is starting to get too much. Really cuts in the bench, in my opinion.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Left-handed Badger

Nah, nobody had had 10 pitchers for over a decade (probably not since early 90s). Though, I really hate 12 man staffs, that is starting to get too much. Really cuts in the bench, in my opinion.

Sure... the genius of having lots of DtD injuries for pitchers is that you can run a 12 man staff and work around whoever's hurt or you can go back to an old-school 9-man staff and hope that your ace is still good enough at 80% to bring you wins. My opinion on the matter is that more often than not he is, but that's just me.

I remember the backlash surrounding the massive increase in injuries in 2006. People thought that was unrealistic when in reality every baseball game up until now had been unrealistic. I know this has the downside that GMs actually have to make adjustments to their teams, often on a day to day basis. I don't see this as a bad thing but just like with the old injury system vs. the new one it would take some getting used to by some. Would this require a PR job? Probably, but in a couple years it'd be just another way the game sims real baseball well.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Would this require a PR job?

If pitcher injuries were increased over what they already are then we all would have been jobbed for sure.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

If pitcher injuries were increased over what they already are then we all would have been jobbed for sure.

Yes, realism really screws people over. Markus, plz add pixies and unicorns!!!!

Another thing that I think would help with pitching becoming less consistent is to give team defense a bigger role in the engine than it currently has. I'm going to try and check this later on today but it seems to me that there isn't as big of a spread WRT BABIPs and pitchers in OOTP as there is in the real-life MLB. A Jeff Ballard or an Allan Anderson or a Dave Fleming can maintain a low BABIP for an entire season or a Jim Palmer for an entire career but I don't see that so much in the game. Since fielding itself is pretty volatile, that could, I am sure, cause some flash-in-the-pan moments and also increase strategy.

[injury log]

Injury frequency is customizable- if you find there are too many on default, then you can change injury frequency to Low. So I don't understand complaints about modifying injury frequencies in OOTP. What does appar to be true is that the balance of injuries, between pitchers and hitters, is off in the game. Pitchers should be injured more often, hitters less.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yes, realism really screws people over.

I routinely have two starters on the DL and this is with injuries set on normal. I have also lost way too many treasured young pitchers to CEI's. This is all the pitcher injury "realism" that I think that I need, thank you very much. Plus your view of pitcher injury "realism" is just an opinion, just like mine and everyone else's, and no more.