The Sandy Koufax/Nolan Ryan problem

[uruguru]

One thing I've definitely noticed is the inability of truly dominant pitchers to have dominant games.

I have run many historical sims and have yet to have one where Sandy Koufax or Nolan Ryan throw a no-hitter, even though they have appropriately dominant seasons. Mind boggling! I'm assuming this is because pitcher "stuff" is constant from game to game, after all why wouldn't it be?

This results in no-hitters in OOTP being more random, and nobody like a Koufax or Ryan (or even a more normally average pitcher like Don Wilson) becoming known for incredibly dominant games. As a reminder, Nolan Ryan had 7 no-hitters, 12 one-hitters, 18 two-hitters and 31 three-hitters in his career. This is a real world aberration that OOTP does not model.

I suspect that irl pitcher stuff varies from game to game centered around some baseline level that is reflected in a pitcher's seasonal averages.

Maybe it would make sense for a pitcher's stuff to fluctuate from game to game such that the really good pitchers (i.e. Koufax/Ryan) would (when their stuff is peaking) have greater chances to have game where they are basically unhittable. This is sort of a real thing in baseball that doesn't seem to be modeled in OOTP.

[Ataraxzy]

I love this idea.

[Syd Thrift]

I don’t know… I’d much rather see a comparison of Ryan’s K rates from game to game than how many low hit games he had, because no hitters are a combination of a lot of luck mixed with strikeouts. Historically guys like Juan Nieves and Joe Cowley pitched no-no’s during Ryan’s career, guys like Dave Stieb missed several times, and even guys like Randy Johnson and Pedro finished well behind Ryan’s total no hitter count.

I do suspect that pitchers vary from start to start IRL more than they do in OOTP; to get such a thing added to the game, you won’t just need to assert it, you’ll need to show it statistically speaking so the devs know exactly how much variance to throw in.

[Biggio509]

Can't remember who said it but it was something like you have 5 games a year with your best stuff and 5 games a year with your worst stuff. It is what you do for the other games that makes the difference. I may have the game numbers wrong but the point is real pitchers have noted the variability.

I am not sure how OOTP does this but I have found hitters and pitchers sometimes just have off years even with ratings not appearing to change. They revert to the mean next year. Even game to game sometimes has real differences in performance. I seen developed guys with 5+ ERA go down to mid 3 over the season.

[sprague]

I deal with these issues historically alot. The great pitchers tend not to be so great. the question is why?
Big reason is the game generates its ratings historically direct from statistics. And as we know they are skewed. One key pitching stat ignored is ERA.
2 pitchers can both have 200 innings, give up 190 hits, 22 home runs and strikeout 190...but one ERA will be 2.95 the other 3.50. The difference (discounting the fielding aspect) is one pitcher gives up hits and home runs with RISP while the better pitcher bears down and gets outs so gives up less runs.
And of course the real key is how many runs does a pitcher give up. That does not get so reflected OOTP or even back in strat o matic for expample which again was stat based, ERA ignored.


What I do to even it out is raise star pitchers, like cy young, mathewson, gibson, etc by 10% of the GB rate. That does take them to a higher tier, they do tend to become the top of the heap but not beyond it.

Best tweek fix I have managed to figure out

[MathBandit]

Originally Posted by sprague

One key pitching stat ignored is ERA.
2 pitchers can both have 200 innings, give up 190 hits, 22 home runs and strikeout 190...but one ERA will be 2.95 the other 3.50. The difference (discounting the fielding aspect) is one pitcher gives up hits and home runs with RISP while the better pitcher bears down and gets outs so gives up less runs.
And of course the real key is how many runs does a pitcher give up.

Nowadays we know that's mostly noise, not signal, so it makes sense that OOTP doesn't consider that. ERA tells you very little about a pitcher's performance and even less how about well the pitcher is likely to perform in the future compared to even 'basic' stats like FIP.

[sprague]

Originally Posted by MathBandit

Nowadays we know that's mostly noise, not signal, so it makes sense that OOTP doesn't consider that. ERA tells you very little about a pitcher's performance and even less how about well the pitcher is likely to perform in the future compared to even 'basic' stats like FIP.

It matters in an historical replay though

[MathBandit]

Originally Posted by sprague

It matters in an historical replay though

It matters if you're trying to mirror the results, which OOTP does not pretend to do. OOTP wants to assign the correct underlying skills to the players and re-play the year from there.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by sprague

I deal with these issues historically alot. The great pitchers tend not to be so great. the question is why?
Big reason is the game generates its ratings historically direct from statistics. And as we know they are skewed. One key pitching stat ignored is ERA.
2 pitchers can both have 200 innings, give up 190 hits, 22 home runs and strikeout 190...but one ERA will be 2.95 the other 3.50. The difference (discounting the fielding aspect) is one pitcher gives up hits and home runs with RISP while the better pitcher bears down and gets outs so gives up less runs.
And of course the real key is how many runs does a pitcher give up. That does not get so reflected OOTP or even back in strat o matic for expample which again was stat based, ERA ignored.


What I do to even it out is raise star pitchers, like cy young, mathewson, gibson, etc by 10% of the GB rate. That does take them to a higher tier, they do tend to become the top of the heap but not beyond it.

Best tweek fix I have managed to figure out

This.

For mine, GB% is up there with the most important under-the-hood pitching stats in OOTP. Most would be amazed at the difference just a 1% change to it in the editor makes to the player's ratings and, ultimately, performance.

[Pelican]

One thing to remember - not to take anything away from Koufax - is that his “victims” in those games tended to be awful hitting teams, like the original Mets. If you are playing a historical replay of 1962, he should have a real shot agains the Mets, Colt 45’s, Phillies (sob!), and Cubs of that era. But if you’re playing fictional draft teams that are reasonably balanced, maybe not.

Don’t know about Ryan. He seemed to dominate some good hitting teams. But the opposition still makes a difference. I would hope that OOTP can recreate that on a historical season basis with accurate rosters. I do find that these guys still have good and bad games, which seems like realistic variability.

My thought is, it’s no accident that Jim Bunning threw a perfect game for the streaking Phillies against the Mets in 1964 in the first game of a DH on a hot day. Sometimes the variables conspire.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by sprague

I deal with these issues historically alot. The great pitchers tend not to be so great. the question is why?
Big reason is the game generates its ratings historically direct from statistics. And as we know they are skewed. One key pitching stat ignored is ERA.
2 pitchers can both have 200 innings, give up 190 hits, 22 home runs and strikeout 190...but one ERA will be 2.95 the other 3.50. The difference (discounting the fielding aspect) is one pitcher gives up hits and home runs with RISP while the better pitcher bears down and gets outs so gives up less runs.
And of course the real key is how many runs does a pitcher give up. That does not get so reflected OOTP or even back in strat o matic for expample which again was stat based, ERA ignored.


What I do to even it out is raise star pitchers, like cy young, mathewson, gibson, etc by 10% of the GB rate. That does take them to a higher tier, they do tend to become the top of the heap but not beyond it.

Best tweek fix I have managed to figure out

The beta team has an ongoing discussion about this subject. Career-wise, HOF pitchers almost always underperform. Many of the greatest teams also tend to underperform. We're trying to figure out why.

[Ty Cobb]

5 of the 21 guys since 1900 who threw perfecto's are basically losers (Larsen, Humber, Robertson, Braden, and Barker). Mike Witt is a .500 pitcher.

The list of guys with no hitters includes Weldon Henley, Mal Eason, Iron Davis, Frank Allen, Alex Main, and a host of other deeply forgettable names all the way up to Chris Heston. Nearly a third of the guys on the list make you shake your head and say, "Who?"

I'll agree guys like Ryan, Koufax, and Johnson (either) are deeply underpowered, but let's get real...Armando Galarraga, who belongs on the perfecto list, was also basically a nobody otherwise. It's not always about talent. Back a number of years ago, I had rookie Don Sutton start in Game 7 of the series because my pitching staff was worn to a nub and he tossed a perfect game. "Stuff" happens.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Pelican

One thing to remember - not to take anything away from Koufax - is that his “victims” in those games tended to be awful hitting teams, like the original Mets.

I mean, that's a reasonable position because great pitchers are going to look even better against bad teams. But let's not forget that Koufax struck out 380+ batters in a season during a period when hitters really didn't strike out that much. He was great against everyone.

Koufax was in a very elite class and would probably have had Ryan-esque career strikeout numbers (4000+ easily) if not for the arm injury.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

5 of the 21 guys since 1900 who threw perfecto's are basically losers (Larsen, Humber, Robertson, Braden, and Barker). Mike Witt is a .500 pitcher.

Yes, and that's what OOTP currently simulates -- random pitchers getting lucky and getting no-hitters. No one is denying that happens in OOTP or real life

But there is a certain class of dominant pitchers, rare company admittedly, that are for whatever reason not reflected at all in the OOTP sim.

And it's not like the baseline luck of no-hitters modeled (properly, imo) in OOTP will instead anoint some other pitcher to get a long string of dominant games - instead of Ryan/Koufax throwing the multiple no-hitters its Johnson/Clemens/Seaver/Carlton or someone else.

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

The beta team has an ongoing discussion about this subject. Career-wise, HOF pitchers almost always underperform. Many of the greatest teams also tend to underperform. We're trying to figure out why.

One thing to consider is that the top pitchers had little performance degradation in the late game. I think there was a study that Ryan's K/IP ratio was basically the same from innings 1 through 9. Pitcher stamina as an ability is not modeled properly in OOTP anyway, but that's a different issue.

[Ty Cobb]

Wondering what your conclusion re: stamina is based on.

[Dave Stieb II]

Really, aren't no hitters among the most extreme of outliers?
If, as the OP suggested, Koufax and Ryan are "having appropriately dominant seasons", maybe asking that OOTP replicate the number of no hitters they threw is a little much. Or to guarantee any no hitters for either of them or other elite pitchers.
I haven't played any historical for about 4 versions now, so perhaps I shouldn't weigh in.
But it just seems to me that there really isn't a problem here, especially if their overall performances are "appropriately dominant".

[uruguru]

Originally Posted by Ty Cobb

Wondering what your conclusion re: stamina is based on.

Pitcher stamina, as used in OOTP, is a usage stat masquerading as an ability rating. This is really the easiest way to describe the problem. The rating doesn't actually reflect the physical stamina of the pitcher but simply how the real-world manager used that pitcher.

As a result, OOTP managers are required to use pitchers exactly how they were used in real life. Want to keep Dennis Eckersley or John Smoltz in the rotation? Too bad. Their stamina gets recalculated to a low value because the real-world manager had different ideas and so you have to put him in the bullpen too (choosing the "career average" for stamina does not solve this problem, btw)

Then, if you have Eckersley in the pen and one of your starters gets injured, you can't put him back in the rotation when obviously the real manager always had that as an option.

This also creates havoc for expansions because players are recalculated based on their next season ratings before the draft. For example, the real 1962 Dodgers did not protect their reliever Turk Farrell. He was drafted by Houston moved into the starting rotation (this happens a LOT in historical sims). But in OOTP, the 1962 Dodgers suddenly see Farrell as a starter (based on his 1962 stamina) and decide to protect him and put him in the rotation. If you are playing without minor leagues, expansion teams in historical sims are basically screwed because there have no real options for drafting starting pitchers. This is why people will run historical sims and see expansion teams with 10-152 records.

I have played this game way too much.

[reflections]

Originally Posted by Pelican

One thing to remember - not to take anything away from Koufax - is that his “victims” in those games tended to be awful hitting teams, like the original Mets. If you are playing a historical replay of 1962, he should have a real shot agains the Mets, Colt 45’s, Phillies (sob!), and Cubs of that era. But if you’re playing fictional draft teams that are reasonably balanced, maybe not.

Don’t know about Ryan. He seemed to dominate some good hitting teams. But the opposition still makes a difference. I would hope that OOTP can recreate that on a historical season basis with accurate rosters. I do find that these guys still have good and bad games, which seems like realistic variability.

My thought is, it’s no accident that Jim Bunning threw a perfect game for the streaking Phillies against the Mets in 1964 in the first game of a DH on a hot day. Sometimes the variables conspire.

So Mets yeah but the other 2 of the other 3 weren't horrible. The Cubs weren't great but had some HoF hitters also.

1963 Giants 88-74 Scored 2nd most runs
Cepeda, McCovey, Mays, Alou.
1964 Phillies 92-70 Scored 3rd most runs
Dick Allen, Covington, Johnny Callison
1965 Cubs
Banks, Santo, Billy Williams

[Hoiles]

Do you play with recalc on? If not, historical players who had cups of coffee or struggled during their first season (like those two) start out with low ratings/high potentials, but often don’t pan out later in their careers. The random “dice rolls” with the development engine don’t give them the needed boosts to get them to their real-life peaks.