Retirement and Trading AI Tweaks

mtw · 05-01-2002, 08:19 AM

Retirement tweak:

Players who are in their mid-to-late 30's seem to retire at a high frequency if they suffer a season-ending injury before achieving a "full season" of at-bats or innings pitched. This has caused two HOF'ers (because they retired) and a few productive players who had very high ratings to retire before their time should have been up. Both HOF'ers were working on league record-setting careers and would likely have reached those marks had they not retired. I would like to see more emphasis placed on ability when evaluating players for retirement, or at least to evaluate whether a player is on the DL at the end of a season and compare that to ratings to determine whether the player should retire.

Trading AI:

The AI has gotten better in the patches since the initial release, but one thing I still find to be very problemic. The AI will trade a player, and then later trade to fill the spot of the player it traded previously. In other words, if it trades a CF, it often trades again a little while later to get a CF. I've seen this pattern continue for trading/refilling 3-4 positions on a team in a single season. This is especially troubling when teams who are out of the pennant race are trading to get high-priced veterans who are filling a position recently traded by the AI. Either getting a player to fill the traded position in the same deal, or not evaluating the traded position as a weakness for the remainder of the season may help prevent these "musical chair" trades.

Also, it would be nice to see teams in the pennant hunt trading prospects to get major league support, and teams out the race trading veterans to get prospects. This does not seem to be part of the AI in OOTP4.

VT Os fan · 05-01-2002, 09:43 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by mtw:
 The AI will trade a player, and then later trade to fill the spot of the player it traded previously. In other words, if it trades a CF, it often trades again a little while later to get a CF. I've seen this pattern continue for trading/refilling 3-4 positions on a team in a single season. This is especially troubling when teams who are out of the pennant race are trading to get high-priced veterans who are filling a position recently traded by the AI. Either getting a player to fill the traded position in the same deal, or not evaluating the traded position as a weakness for the remainder of the season may help prevent these "musical chair" trades.

Also, it would be nice to see teams in the pennant hunt trading prospects to get major league support, and teams out the race trading veterans to get prospects. This does not seem to be part of the AI in OOTP4.<hr /></blockquote>I do this myself. I'll trade may aging 1B for needed bullpen support, then trade a minor league prospect for a young, veteran 1B. I've done this with 3 or 4 different positions one season because guys got injured or free agents didn't pan out.

However the scenario you describe, where a team not in the penant race is trading talent for veterans is something to look at. The AI should do as you describe, teams in the playoff hunt should trade prospects for veteran support, and teams not in the hunt should trade veterans to trim payroll and gain prospects. The corallary is that the teams that cut the fat out of the payroll should spend it on good free agents to address weaknesses.

mtw · 05-01-2002, 10:23 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by VT Os fan:
I do this myself. I'll trade may aging 1B for needed bullpen support, then trade a minor league prospect for a young, veteran 1B. I've done this with 3 or 4 different positions one season because guys got injured or free agents didn't pan out.<hr /></blockquote>The AI doesn't trade to replace injured players or to replace free agents who don't work out (i.e. aren't putting up decent numbers). In my experience, the AI (initiates) trades only for positions designated as weaknesses, based upon player ratings, not statisical performance. It would be very cool if the AI *would* trade to replace injured players or used stats to evaluate a player.

Also, what I was trying to describe was that the AI trades a productive CF for a SS. Now it has a hole at CF, so it trades it's 3B for a CF. Now it needs a 3B, so it trades it's LF to get one. Hole at LF, trade 2B, and so on. AI trades only because it decides it has a ratings weakness at the position, then creates a new weakness when it trades. In real player terms, it's like the Cubs trading Sosa for Bonds (Alou going to the bench), then dealing Corey Patterson (and others) for Ichiro, then trading Ichiro for Bernie Williams, etc. This circuitous trading is excessive in my opinion and seems like making trades for the sake of making trades, not to improve the team, especially when all these deals happen over a few months during a season.

mtw · 05-01-2002, 03:28 PM

Following up on player retirement, the MO for "performance-based" retirement seems to be: Upon hitting "retirement age" (around 35-36) the AI looks at the season totals for the current year compared to the totals for the prior year (since both are saved), and if there is a big dropoff in output, then the player has an excellent chance of retiring.

Looking at my retired players, I have found many who had every-day to star quality ratings when they retired, but who had an off-year the year they retired, either in number of at-bats (usually due to injury) or a substantial drop in batting average. I would much prefer to see the AI retire players who have major-league ratings (anything above an "average all-around player") only when they have hit "retirement age" and have had bad years (compared to the league and their average career performance) both the past season and the season prior to that--not just a dropoff one year to the next.

This would allow more players to pursue Hall-of-Fame numbers and league records, which is fairly non-existant in my leagues, especially when the current retirement evaluation is combined with the "rapid aging decline" that occurs in about 98% of players when they hit 36-37 years old.

05-01-2002, 08:19 AM	#1
mtw All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 653	Retirement and Trading AI Tweaks Retirement tweak: Players who are in their mid-to-late 30's seem to retire at a high frequency if they suffer a season-ending injury before achieving a "full season" of at-bats or innings pitched. This has caused two HOF'ers (because they retired) and a few productive players who had very high ratings to retire before their time should have been up. Both HOF'ers were working on league record-setting careers and would likely have reached those marks had they not retired. I would like to see more emphasis placed on ability when evaluating players for retirement, or at least to evaluate whether a player is on the DL at the end of a season and compare that to ratings to determine whether the player should retire. Trading AI: The AI has gotten better in the patches since the initial release, but one thing I still find to be very problemic. The AI will trade a player, and then later trade to fill the spot of the player it traded previously. In other words, if it trades a CF, it often trades again a little while later to get a CF. I've seen this pattern continue for trading/refilling 3-4 positions on a team in a single season. This is especially troubling when teams who are out of the pennant race are trading to get high-priced veterans who are filling a position recently traded by the AI. Either getting a player to fill the traded position in the same deal, or not evaluating the traded position as a weakness for the remainder of the season may help prevent these "musical chair" trades. Also, it would be nice to see teams in the pennant hunt trading prospects to get major league support, and teams out the race trading veterans to get prospects. This does not seem to be part of the AI in OOTP4. __________________ Over-Zealous Apologist

05-01-2002, 09:43 AM	#2
VT Os fan Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia) Posts: 226	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by mtw: <strong> The AI will trade a player, and then later trade to fill the spot of the player it traded previously. In other words, if it trades a CF, it often trades again a little while later to get a CF. I've seen this pattern continue for trading/refilling 3-4 positions on a team in a single season. This is especially troubling when teams who are out of the pennant race are trading to get high-priced veterans who are filling a position recently traded by the AI. Either getting a player to fill the traded position in the same deal, or not evaluating the traded position as a weakness for the remainder of the season may help prevent these "musical chair" trades. Also, it would be nice to see teams in the pennant hunt trading prospects to get major league support, and teams out the race trading veterans to get prospects. This does not seem to be part of the AI in OOTP4.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I do this myself. I'll trade may aging 1B for needed bullpen support, then trade a minor league prospect for a young, veteran 1B. I've done this with 3 or 4 different positions one season because guys got injured or free agents didn't pan out. However the scenario you describe, where a team not in the penant race is trading talent for veterans is something to look at. The AI should do as you describe, teams in the playoff hunt should trade prospects for veteran support, and teams not in the hunt should trade veterans to trim payroll and gain prospects. The corallary is that the teams that cut the fat out of the payroll should spend it on good free agents to address weaknesses. __________________ "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." -- Ayn Rand

05-01-2002, 10:23 AM	#3
mtw All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 653	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by VT Os fan: <strong>I do this myself. I'll trade may aging 1B for needed bullpen support, then trade a minor league prospect for a young, veteran 1B. I've done this with 3 or 4 different positions one season because guys got injured or free agents didn't pan out.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The AI doesn't trade to replace injured players or to replace free agents who don't work out (i.e. aren't putting up decent numbers). In my experience, the AI (initiates) trades only for positions designated as weaknesses, based upon player ratings, not statisical performance. It would be very cool if the AI would trade to replace injured players or used stats to evaluate a player. Also, what I was trying to describe was that the AI trades a productive CF for a SS. Now it has a hole at CF, so it trades it's 3B for a CF. Now it needs a 3B, so it trades it's LF to get one. Hole at LF, trade 2B, and so on. AI trades only because it decides it has a ratings weakness at the position, then creates a new weakness when it trades. In real player terms, it's like the Cubs trading Sosa for Bonds (Alou going to the bench), then dealing Corey Patterson (and others) for Ichiro, then trading Ichiro for Bernie Williams, etc. This circuitous trading is excessive in my opinion and seems like making trades for the sake of making trades, not to improve the team, especially when all these deals happen over a few months during a season. __________________ Over-Zealous Apologist

05-01-2002, 03:28 PM	#4
mtw All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 653	Following up on player retirement, the MO for "performance-based" retirement seems to be: Upon hitting "retirement age" (around 35-36) the AI looks at the season totals for the current year compared to the totals for the prior year (since both are saved), and if there is a big dropoff in output, then the player has an excellent chance of retiring. Looking at my retired players, I have found many who had every-day to star quality ratings when they retired, but who had an off-year the year they retired, either in number of at-bats (usually due to injury) or a substantial drop in batting average. I would much prefer to see the AI retire players who have major-league ratings (anything above an "average all-around player") only when they have hit "retirement age" and have had bad years (compared to the league and their average career performance) both the past season and the season prior to that--not just a dropoff one year to the next. This would allow more players to pursue Hall-of-Fame numbers and league records, which is fairly non-existant in my leagues, especially when the current retirement evaluation is combined with the "rapid aging decline" that occurs in about 98% of players when they hit 36-37 years old. __________________ Over-Zealous Apologist