Offensive Stats always creep upwards

[Charliedog]

Hey, I've been playing on and off over the years. One thing that always leads to me stopping playing is that after the first two years, most of my offensive league-wide stats creep up every year to the tune of BA, for example, going up .003 or .004 every year(.250 to .253. to .259 to .264) Does anyone else have this happen?

Currently I have tried numerous attempts at a Stats only league. I used much of the advice given in some of the Stats Only threads for settings.

My starting year for everything(finances, player development, league totals modifiers) was 2010.

My perfect league would have a BA of around low .250's, OBP low .300's, slugging around .400, and OPS around low .700. ERA somewhere mid-upper 3's.

I tweaked my homer, walks, HBP league total modifiers just a tad to successfully achieve these numbers. BABIP is set at .300( I have tried others too).

Player development I left at default values. Player creation modifiers I left at default values.

I did not check the box for Adjust League Total Modifiers for accuracy(but have tried both ways).


....But, I have found after many experiences that none of the previous settings are causing my problem because I have tried the leagues many different ways and they aways seem to have BA, HRs, BB's, ERA, WHIP, etc. creep up. Some of the only league stats that don't increase over the years are HBP's, K's, Triples, and SBs.

Like I said I have tried to narrow the problem down. I have started with different years back to the 80's, for example. I also don't think it has to do with player development or creation modifiers because the upward creep happens in the second or third year and continues on after that. If the development or creation modifiers were causing it, it would probably take more than two years for the increases to start actually showing up.

I think the only thing I do vastly different than most here is that I only simulate two or three years of history before jumping in as leader of a poor performing team. I know some of you sim many years.

EDIT: I also always have all League Evolution turned off.


So does anyone else experience this and if so, what do you do about it?

Thanks for any help!


PS. I am ditching the league and just going to run the simulator for about 10 years and see if it ever finds a peak. Will check back in a bit.

[David Watts]

After your season's over and you reach the preseason you can place a check in the import historical modifiers box. Then select a year with the type of stats you prefer your league to have. The game will run the calculations and you should get the stats you desire. Important --make sure you uncheck the box once the calculations are made. Play your season. You will want to repeat this process each season when you reach the preseason. So if you want 2010 every year, just enter 2010 every preseason.

Set up a test league and see if what I suggest works for you.

[Charliedog]

Thanks for the suggestion David,

But what if the league stats I wanted are not in a particular year's league modifier totals? I achieved my preferred stats by using 2010 and slightly adjusting some of the 1.000 options for HR, BB, etc.

I would like those to be my overall league stats each years, or real close. How can I make my achieved league stats be "static" year over year?

[David Watts]

Sorry, I can't help you there. Others can probably tell you how to manually adjust things.

[RchW]

You can tweak the overall stats quite easily by tracking league output on certain key stats.

See the last 37 seasons in one of several long term leagues I have. Something as simple as a 3% tweak in the hits modifier can take a 0.260 BA to 0.253 so you must be careful.

[Charliedog]

Ok, thanks. Your history looks a lot like what I want to achieve.

BTW - I simmed my league out 15 years and it did settle down. It settled about 12 points higher in BA than I want. Everything including HRs settled, just higher overall than I want.

Remaining question:

1)How often do you make your adjustments? Each year, or just as needed?

2)Do you ever lower the BABIP to adjust your overall hits? I find that lowering this leads to similar results as adjusting the total hits modifier. I suspect maybe that lowing overall hits modifier will also adjust the HRs, 2B, 3B's down slightly, while BABIP will just affect singles.

[Charliedog]

I didn't mention in the original post; and just in case it matters, my league is purely fictional. I have two divisions of 8 teams each in one league.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Charliedog

Ok, thanks. Your history looks a lot like what I want to achieve.

BTW - I simmed my league out 15 years and it did settle down. It settled about 12 points higher in BA than I want. Everything including HRs settled, just higher overall than I want.

Remaining question:

1)How often do you make your adjustments? Each year, or just as needed?

2)Do you ever lower the BABIP to adjust your overall hits? I find that lowering this leads to similar results as adjusting the total hits modifier. I suspect maybe that lowing overall hits modifier will also adjust the HRs, 2B, 3B's down slightly, while BABIP will just affect singles.

FWIW my league is fictional.

If your BA is consistently high I would adjust hits because BA is H/AB and it is useful to keep league AB constant because so many other stats occur at rate X/AB. Reducing hits will lower BA.


For your questions;

I do adjust every year but I'm quite OCD and statistical output is my thing instead of logos and feeders etc. I don't think you need to get close to my level. Having said that there is nothing wrong with simming to the end of April and making tweaks to help for the rest of the season. OOTP can produce csv files monthly.

I wouldn't touch babip. Unlike BA babip changes very little. For example the high/low for babip in the last 8 seasons is less than 3%. Not sure where you get the idea that babip affects only singles: doubles and triples are balls in play so are errors on GB and FB. HR are not in play. What is your babip? Does it match the output you want? Obviously a mid 1960's babip is way lower than modern day.

Reducing hits will affect 2B, 3B and HR but in proportion to the occurrence rate. If that bothers you adjust the modifiers to compensate

[Charliedog]

Rich,

Thanks! This helped tons.

Finally I would ask you what is your BABIP set to in your league?

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Charliedog

Rich,

Thanks! This helped tons.

Finally I would ask you what is your BABIP set to in your league?

My babip is 0.303. My stat output is an amalgam of MLB 2007-2009.