Reliever Leadoff Walks

[r1ck3y24]

Just completed the 1989 season and had a very frustrating time with my bullpen all season. I understand there will be walks, but more than 50% of the time somebody came in from the pen, they walked the lead off batter. I thought it might just be some guys working out some issues, but every reliever suffered from this on my team. Including those who joined mid-season via free agency or trade. FYI, I turn off the warm up option for the bullpen.

Just curious if anybody else has suffered through an inordinate number of lead off walks. You know what they say about lead off walks? Well, it's true. When you miss the playoffs by one game you really know it's true.

[Harry_BallSack]

I don't have this issue but I keep warmup on and I find it dependant on control really and a bit of luck both of which are mitigated to a degree then warmed up properly and not tiring or cold

[r0nster]

it drives me nuts when my reliever comes into game and walks the first hitter and sometimes the 2nd hitter as well. Sometimes I will gamble and leave him in game and lo and behold he would strike out the next 2 then fly out with the next 3 hitters ... too many pitches GRRR

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by r1ck3y24

Just completed the 1989 season and had a very frustrating time with my bullpen all season. I understand there will be walks, but more than 50% of the time somebody came in from the pen, they walked the lead off batter.

With all due respect, unless you have been keeping a record of every instance you've brought in a reliever and what the outcome was (and you can present such detailed data, keeping in mind the usual caveat about sample size), I suspect you are falling prey to confirmation bias here.

[RchW]

I agree. Simple way to check. Look at the pitchers game log and count zero walk games. If you get any more than half then it didn't happen. If you get less than half check the box score game logs for the 1 walk games and so on to see if the walks were leadoff. If you get past half of his appearances it is a "no".

See this guy; 22 of his 34 relief appearances were zero BB. He had 23 BB in 37 appearances in total.

[The Wolf]

I felt this way too once and checked the logs. It was just confirmation bias on my part.

Finding false patterns in small sample sizes and falling victim to confirmation bias is part of what makes us all human.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I felt this way too once and checked the logs. It was just confirmation bias on my part.

Finding false patterns in small sample sizes and falling victim to confirmation bias is part of what makes us all human.

Yeah if early humans hadn't seen patterns in small sample sizes and adjusted their behavior due to them, we would have gone extinct before we moved out of the caves.

[Izz]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Yeah if early humans hadn't seen patterns in small sample sizes and adjusted their behavior due to them, we would have gone extinct before we moved out of the caves.

Whether sample size is small or not is dependent on the size of the overall data set.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by Izz

Whether sample size is small or not is dependent on the size of the overall data set.

As far as nature is concerned, the data set is pretty large. But I was just pointing out that the fact that we see patterns in data with small sample sizes is probably a result of evolutionary processes. All the humans or pre-humans that didn't were killed when they didn't see the pattern of lion footprints followed some time later by getting attacked by lions.

[Izz]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

As far as nature is concerned, the data set is pretty large.

And as far as early humans went, the data set would've been pretty small to begin with.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by Izz

And as far as early humans went, the data set would've been pretty small to begin with.

Exactly.

[RchW]

None of which has anything to do with confirmation bias and false perceptions. One can smell a lion if their life depends on it.

[Izz]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Exactly.

Seems like you've just contradicted yourself. If the data set is small, sample size within that data set is less likely to be.

Example: You have 6 early humans, and 1 interaction with 1 set of predator footprints. Later the predator attacks and 1 early human dies. That's not a small sample size. That's the entire sample size available to them at that time.

What if you have 30 early humans, in 5 different packs of 6, with each pack having 1 interaction with 1 set of predator footprints, and later 1 predator attacks 1 of those packs? The sample size is now smaller, but still large in the context of the size of the overall data set.

What if you have 3000 not-quite-so early humans, in 500 different packs of 6, with each pack having 1 interaction with 1 set of predator footprints, and later 1 predator attacks 1 of those packs? Now you have a small sample size, at least in comparison to the earlier data sets.

My point: early humans weren't making decisions based on small sample sizes. They were making decisions based on large sample sizes (sample size being relative, of course, to the size of the overall data set).

To illustrate: 600 humans eat 1 type of fish. 1 human gets sick, 599 don't. Should all humans stop eating the fish? If we are only aware of the 1 person who got sick, and not the 599 who didn't, and make our decision accordingly, then we're making a decision based on small sample size (with or without confirmation bias or false perceptions). To reverse the scenario: 599 humans get sick eating this fish, 1 doesn't. If we are only aware of the person who didn't get sick before making a decision whether or not all humans should or shouldn't eat this fish, what is the likely decision we will make, with what consequences?

To relate to this thread: now, as at any time over the course of human history, humans make the best decisions based on large sample sizes. Determining if there is a problem with the OOTP game engine is no different. The data set can be as big as you want it to be, so collect as much data as possible, then see if there's a problem or not.

Originally Posted by RchW

None of which has anything to do with confirmation bias and false perceptions. One can smell a lion if their life depends on it.

True (though we're getting into another data set here, aren't we? 6 early humans have 1 interaction with lion scent. Later lion attacks, killing 1 early human. Small or large sample size? ).

Real reason for the length of this reply: procrastination. Alas, back to work i go.

[Dyzalot]

I have no idea what you are arguing. That's like saying my sample size of one game isn't a small sample size if I've only played one game. Yes, one encounter with lions after seeing lion footprints one time is a small sample size in the entire data set of nature. The fact that we find patterns in small sample sizes likely helped us survive when we were ignorant of the way the world actually worked around us.

Just because it is the entire sample size available to someone does not negate the idea that the sample size is small.

For example, just because we have only come across one set of footprints and one lion does not mean those are the only lion footprints in the entire world not are those the entire lions. Just because we aren't aware of that data does not mean it didn't exist.

[r1ck3y24]

I have already started the pre-seaosn. Is there a way to see the logs for past seasons? I am sure there is but I am unable to see them. I would like to go through them.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Yeah if early humans hadn't seen patterns in small sample sizes and adjusted their behavior due to them, we would have gone extinct before we moved out of the caves.

Those who made decisions based on small sample sizes were almost certainly the ones who died and did not reproduce, because doing that is stupid and routinely leads to false conclusions.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Those who made decisions based on small sample sizes were almost certainly the ones who died and did not reproduce, because doing that is stupid and routinely leads to false conclusions.

It does lead to false conclusions. But finding patterns easily also saves lives when science is way beyond your reach. The guy that put the sound of a howl together with getting attacked by a pack of wolves quicker than the other guy was the one that survived. I mean if all the people who saw patterns with limited sample sizes died then there wouldn't be humans today that find patterns in limited sample sizes. All you have to do is go to a casino and you can see this isn't true.

[The Wolf]

Once again posted as an educational public service:

Sample Size | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

It does lead to false conclusions. But finding patterns easily also saves lives when science is way beyond your reach. The guy that put the sound of a howl together with getting attacked by a pack of wolves quicker than the other guy was the one that survived. I mean if all the people who saw patterns with limited sample sizes died then there wouldn't be humans today that find patterns in limited sample sizes. All you have to do is go to a casino and you can see this isn't true.

Wow. You really believe this?

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Wow. You really believe this?

I believe in evolution, don't you?

Traditionally, scientists have treated patternicity as an error in cognition. A type I error, or a false positive, is believing something is real when it is not (finding a nonexistent pattern). A type II error, or a false negative, is not believing something is real when it is (not recognizing a real pattern—call it “apat*ternicity”). In my 2000 book How We Believe (Times Books), I argue that our brains are belief engines: evolved pattern-recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that we think we see in nature. Sometimes A really is connected to B; sometimes it is not. When it is, we have learned something valuable about the environment from which we can make predictions that aid in survival and reproduction. We are the ancestors of those most successful at finding patterns. This process is called association learning, and it is fundamental to all animal behavior, from the humble worm C. elegans to H. sapiens.

Unfortunately, we did not evolve a Baloney Detection Network in the brain to distinguish between true and false patterns. We have no error-detection governor to modulate the pattern-recognition engine. (Thus the need for science with its self-correcting mechanisms of replication and peer review.) But such erroneous cognition is not likely to remove us from the gene pool and would therefore not have been selected against by evolution.

Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise - Scientific American