Talent Pool Experiment to create baseball legends

Gastric ReFlux · 08-06-2003, 12:57 PM

I began trying out an idea yesterday that owes some of its genesis to an argument in Talk Sports about Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. Whether or not you agree the size of baseball's talent pool was substantially smaller at the time of Babe Ruth, I realized that it was possible to recreate such a hypothetical environment with OOTP5, and begin tests to see if one could create fictional Ty Cobbs and/or Babe Ruths.

The first step was creating a new fictional league composed of two leagues with 12 teams each. No fictional players were created in the setup, instead after the league's initial setup was completed I went to each each team and proceeded to fill the AA and A rosters. This created 1200 players of rather marginal talent and actual ratings, though I suppose if I were to be very strict in the intial construct, I would have edited down many of the new players from their potential talent.

Coaches/scouts were turned off. But it was also time to create the 4 first potential superstars and legends of this league. For one time in the Federal league, I edited a third baseman, Edward Munn, to be brilliant across the board in his hitting talents. I turned a 6'6" 235 lbs righthander, Barry Kanter, into a big-time pitching prospect with 10 in velocity. In the National, a second baseman named Byron Alicea got the Munn treatment and a pitcher Alexander Bellew became a brilliant pitching prospect.

Ran computer manager on all teams, and of course, to fill the rosters, the AA players got moved to the major league rosters.

So now, instead of a usual fictional league start with the usual ratings distribution, there were instead guys with 4 for contact hitting who could likely hit over .300.

Lord Byron Alicea has had a great go of it. In a league where the batting average average is around .265, he has 5 times in 11 years, hit over .400, including an astounding season where hit about .436, walked over 100 times, and hit 46 homers. His OPS was over 1.200 if I remember right. Because the ratings distribution of the league has been wider, his ratings push him that much higher above the center of the talent.

Alexander Ballew has been a stud, winning well over 200 games and losing about 40. Struck out 380 batters in about 240 innings one season, although his strikeout numbers have been dropping as better arms from the drafts have been entering the league.

ctorg · 08-06-2003, 01:05 PM

Interesting experiment, Gastric. I usually start out fictional leagues in this way. I like to see guys who were phenomenal in the beginning come down to earth or even get benched when the real talent starts coming into the league.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-06-2003, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ctorg
Interesting experiment, Gastric. I usually start out fictional leagues in this way. I like to see guys who were phenomenal in the beginning come down to earth or even get benched when the real talent starts coming into the league.

Yeah, I've seen that too. And I think it does a lot to go towards recreating the talent pool environment of the first quarter century of the 20th century.

If I were patient enough, I could probably recreate a Babe Ruth type of player. To do it, I would need to edit down the homers talents of players coming into the league, and of course, adjust the League Totals to keep home runs depressed. Then one year, select someone to keep the brilliant homer talent, then start tweaking the League Totals to make a home run explosion like in baseball in the 1920s.

Henry · 08-06-2003, 01:49 PM

Might be interesting to do the same thing starting with AAA and AA to see how much difference you would see.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-06-2003, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Henry
Might be interesting to do the same thing starting with AAA and AA to see how much difference you would see.

Hah, I was thinking of going the other way. Generate A rookies on each club, run the comp manager, go back fill up the A rosters again.

And some day I'm going to get around to that idea of seeing how many runs a team made completely of Barry Bonds would score.

Kelric · 08-06-2003, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux

And some day I'm going to get around to that idea of seeing how many runs a team made completely of Barry Bonds would score.

1078. Give or take.

ctorg · 08-06-2003, 02:05 PM

What about a team of Roy Hobbs?

WLight · 08-06-2003, 03:44 PM

That's funny, I just started a league along these lines last week. Except I just filled everybody's minors at all levels before running computer manager. It's been very interesting -- I've done almost 5 seasons now and the stat totals each year are actually remaining fairly constant. I guess the gradually increasing skill levels on both sides of the ball have evened out so that bad hitting vs bad pitching produces similar stat sets to decent hitting vs decent hitting and etc.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-06-2003, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by WLight
That's funny, I just started a league along these lines last week. Except I just filled everybody's minors at all levels before running computer manager. It's been very interesting -- I've done almost 5 seasons now and the stat totals each year are actually remaining fairly constant. I guess the gradually increasing skill levels on both sides of the ball have evened out so that bad hitting vs bad pitching produces similar stat sets to decent hitting vs decent hitting and etc.

Hmm, that could interesting to fiddle around with. Say we were to only bring quality pitchers into the mix, and keep the hitters down. Would the hitting totals decline or remain constant?

WLight · 08-06-2003, 06:36 PM

I bet the league would get skewed to favor pitching and you'd see league batting aggregates go way down. You could just delete every hitter that came into the draft and re-fill the minors when needed, or just edit down the ratings of all the hitters in the draft. Let pitching prospects develop as normal and you'd probably see any guy who's halfway decent by our normal standards put up huge numbers.

ETA: Except... the game might interfere to keep the batting totals consistent per the numbers on the league setup screen. Now that is weird. I wonder if you'd just see these monster pitching prospects consistently underperforming their ratings in order to make sure x number of HRs got hit in a season.

Springtime_for_Hunter · 08-07-2003, 03:02 AM

I did an experiment like this a couple of months ago, though generating my "superstar" players through the draft. It worked out to be self-sustaining (and is the model my MPBL in Dynasty Reports is based on). I'll see if I can find the thread.

Edit: the thread (my experiment is on page 2).

Edit 2: I see I didn't define "ultra-elite" in that thread. The ultra-elite qualifications (I think) were 3500 hits, 600 HRs, 350 wins, or 600 saves. So you can see they were very dominant players.

CBL-Commish · 08-07-2003, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
And some day I'm going to get around to that idea of seeing how many runs a team made completely of Barry Bonds would score.

Given that the 2002 Barry Bonds created about 21 runs per 27 outs (an astonishingly ridiculous number) a team comprised of all 2002 Bondses would score about 3400 runs in a 162 game season. And if you plopped that team down in the middle of the 2002 NL with an average pitching staff, they'd go about 153-9 on the year.

Using his career average of 9.9 RC/27 the all-Bonds team would score about 1600 runs.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-07-2003, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by CBL-Commish
Given that the 2002 Barry Bonds created about 21 runs per 27 outs (an astonishingly ridiculous number) a team comprised of all 2002 Bondses would score about 3400 runs in a 162 game season. And if you plopped that team down in the middle of the 2002 NL with an average pitching staff, they'd go about 153-9 on the year.

Using his career average of 9.9 RC/27 the all-Bonds team would score about 1600 runs.

Ahh yes. I'm quite aware of those sorts of projections, although I think Bill James has said there is probably distortion for super players like Bonds. That might be traced to the RC formula, which probably has difficulties in extreme cases of high slugging percentages.

The most extreme example would be the home run. Plugging a home run into the basic Runs Created formula gives a result of 4 runs created. (1)*(4)/(1) One hit, 4 total bases, 1 plate appearance.

--

I ran the league through a few more seasons. Lord Byron is still going fairly strong at age 37--he hit .365 this latest season and won the batting title. But his power ratings have dropped considerably. He's now over 3500 hits with a lifetime batting mark of around .370. The two original legendary pitchers have pretty well flamed out and will probably retire when I hit Proceed.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-07-2003, 07:16 PM

Well, I just ran a season using a team of players with Barry Bonds 2001 season to get the ratings.

The team finished 142-20, hit .329, 833 homers and scored 2234.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-07-2003, 07:30 PM

The team of the Baltimore Bonds administerd a 49-16 thrashing of Cleveland. It didn't help that Cleveland pitchers walked 49 batters that game. The best innning was the top of the 8th when Cleveland had to call on a position player to finish the game. Cleveland's Ramirez surrrendered 31 runs that inning and was on his way to issuing 32 walks in 4.2 innings of desperate relief.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-08-2003, 01:52 PM

A bump for Ctorg, along with some other numbers from the Baltimore Bonds.

Runs scored -- # of games the Bonds scored that

1 -- 0
2 -- 2
3 -- 1
4 -- 3
5 -- 1
6 -- 7
7 -- 7
8 -- 17
9 -- 10
10 -- 11
11 -- 16
12 -- 12
13 -- 14
14 -- 8
15 -- 9
16 -- 7
17 -- 4
18 -- 3
19 -- 2
20 -- 6
21 -- 2
22 -- 0
23 -- 2
24 -- 4
25 -- 3
26 -- 0
27 -- 1
28 -- 2
29 -- 3

34 -- 1

36 -- 1

40 -- 1

45 -- 1

49 -- 1

ctorg · 08-08-2003, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
The team of the Baltimore Bonds administerd a 49-16 thrashing of Cleveland. It didn't help that Cleveland pitchers walked 49 batters that game. The best innning was the top of the 8th when Cleveland had to call on a position player to finish the game. Cleveland's Ramirez surrrendered 31 runs that inning and was on his way to issuing 32 walks in 4.2 innings of desperate relief.

That's hilarious.

ctorg · 08-08-2003, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gastric ReFlux
A bump for Ctorg, along with some other numbers from the Baltimore Bonds.

Runs scored -- # of games the Bonds scored that

1 -- 0
2 -- 2
3 -- 1
4 -- 3
5 -- 1
6 -- 7
7 -- 7
8 -- 17
9 -- 10
10 -- 11
11 -- 16
12 -- 12
13 -- 14
14 -- 8
15 -- 9
16 -- 7
17 -- 4
18 -- 3
19 -- 2
20 -- 6
21 -- 2
22 -- 0
23 -- 2
24 -- 4
25 -- 3
26 -- 0
27 -- 1
28 -- 2
29 -- 3

34 -- 1

36 -- 1

40 -- 1

45 -- 1

49 -- 1

I assume they were never shut out either.

Gastric ReFlux · 08-08-2003, 02:04 PM

Yah, no shutouts.

ctorg · 08-08-2003, 02:13 PM

Amazing, they went 162 games without scoring less than 2 runs, and almost always scoring 8 or more.

08-06-2003, 12:57 PM	#1
Gastric ReFlux Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Member #3409 Posts: 8,350	Talent Pool Experiment to create baseball legends I began trying out an idea yesterday that owes some of its genesis to an argument in Talk Sports about Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. Whether or not you agree the size of baseball's talent pool was substantially smaller at the time of Babe Ruth, I realized that it was possible to recreate such a hypothetical environment with OOTP5, and begin tests to see if one could create fictional Ty Cobbs and/or Babe Ruths. The first step was creating a new fictional league composed of two leagues with 12 teams each. No fictional players were created in the setup, instead after the league's initial setup was completed I went to each each team and proceeded to fill the AA and A rosters. This created 1200 players of rather marginal talent and actual ratings, though I suppose if I were to be very strict in the intial construct, I would have edited down many of the new players from their potential talent. Coaches/scouts were turned off. But it was also time to create the 4 first potential superstars and legends of this league. For one time in the Federal league, I edited a third baseman, Edward Munn, to be brilliant across the board in his hitting talents. I turned a 6'6" 235 lbs righthander, Barry Kanter, into a big-time pitching prospect with 10 in velocity. In the National, a second baseman named Byron Alicea got the Munn treatment and a pitcher Alexander Bellew became a brilliant pitching prospect. Ran computer manager on all teams, and of course, to fill the rosters, the AA players got moved to the major league rosters. So now, instead of a usual fictional league start with the usual ratings distribution, there were instead guys with 4 for contact hitting who could likely hit over .300. Lord Byron Alicea has had a great go of it. In a league where the batting average average is around .265, he has 5 times in 11 years, hit over .400, including an astounding season where hit about .436, walked over 100 times, and hit 46 homers. His OPS was over 1.200 if I remember right. Because the ratings distribution of the league has been wider, his ratings push him that much higher above the center of the talent. Alexander Ballew has been a stud, winning well over 200 games and losing about 40. Struck out 380 batters in about 240 innings one season, although his strikeout numbers have been dropping as better arms from the drafts have been entering the league.

08-06-2003, 01:05 PM	#2
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	Interesting experiment, Gastric. I usually start out fictional leagues in this way. I like to see guys who were phenomenal in the beginning come down to earth or even get benched when the real talent starts coming into the league. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

08-06-2003, 02:05 PM	#7
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	What about a team of Roy Hobbs? __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

08-06-2003, 06:36 PM	#10
WLight Major Leagues Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: CA Posts: 314	I bet the league would get skewed to favor pitching and you'd see league batting aggregates go way down. You could just delete every hitter that came into the draft and re-fill the minors when needed, or just edit down the ratings of all the hitters in the draft. Let pitching prospects develop as normal and you'd probably see any guy who's halfway decent by our normal standards put up huge numbers. ETA: Except... the game might interfere to keep the batting totals consistent per the numbers on the league setup screen. Now that is weird. I wonder if you'd just see these monster pitching prospects consistently underperforming their ratings in order to make sure x number of HRs got hit in a season. Last edited by WLight; 08-06-2003 at 06:39 PM.

08-07-2003, 03:02 AM	#11
Springtime_for_Hunter All Star Reserve Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 846	I did an experiment like this a couple of months ago, though generating my "superstar" players through the draft. It worked out to be self-sustaining (and is the model my MPBL in Dynasty Reports is based on). I'll see if I can find the thread. Edit: the thread (my experiment is on page 2). Edit 2: I see I didn't define "ultra-elite" in that thread. The ultra-elite qualifications (I think) were 3500 hits, 600 HRs, 350 wins, or 600 saves. So you can see they were very dominant players. __________________ "Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again" Red Smith, New York Herald-Tribune, October 4, 1951 Last edited by Springtime_for_Hunter; 08-07-2003 at 03:15 AM.

08-06-2003, 01:49 PM	#4
Henry Hall of Fame Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 6,498	Might be interesting to do the same thing starting with AAA and AA to see how much difference you would see.

08-06-2003, 03:44 PM	#8
WLight Major Leagues Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: CA Posts: 314	That's funny, I just started a league along these lines last week. Except I just filled everybody's minors at all levels before running computer manager. It's been very interesting -- I've done almost 5 seasons now and the stat totals each year are actually remaining fairly constant. I guess the gradually increasing skill levels on both sides of the ball have evened out so that bad hitting vs bad pitching produces similar stat sets to decent hitting vs decent hitting and etc.

08-07-2003, 07:16 PM	#14
Gastric ReFlux Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Member #3409 Posts: 8,350	Well, I just ran a season using a team of players with Barry Bonds 2001 season to get the ratings. The team finished 142-20, hit .329, 833 homers and scored 2234.

08-07-2003, 07:30 PM	#15
Gastric ReFlux Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Member #3409 Posts: 8,350	The team of the Baltimore Bonds administerd a 49-16 thrashing of Cleveland. It didn't help that Cleveland pitchers walked 49 batters that game. The best innning was the top of the 8th when Cleveland had to call on a position player to finish the game. Cleveland's Ramirez surrrendered 31 runs that inning and was on his way to issuing 32 walks in 4.2 innings of desperate relief.

08-08-2003, 01:52 PM	#16
Gastric ReFlux Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Member #3409 Posts: 8,350	A bump for Ctorg, along with some other numbers from the Baltimore Bonds. Runs scored -- # of games the Bonds scored that 1 -- 0 2 -- 2 3 -- 1 4 -- 3 5 -- 1 6 -- 7 7 -- 7 8 -- 17 9 -- 10 10 -- 11 11 -- 16 12 -- 12 13 -- 14 14 -- 8 15 -- 9 16 -- 7 17 -- 4 18 -- 3 19 -- 2 20 -- 6 21 -- 2 22 -- 0 23 -- 2 24 -- 4 25 -- 3 26 -- 0 27 -- 1 28 -- 2 29 -- 3 34 -- 1 36 -- 1 40 -- 1 45 -- 1 49 -- 1

08-08-2003, 02:04 PM	#19
Gastric ReFlux Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Member #3409 Posts: 8,350	Yah, no shutouts.

08-08-2003, 02:13 PM	#20
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	Amazing, they went 162 games without scoring less than 2 runs, and almost always scoring 8 or more. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils