Annual call for an inside-the-park homer fix.

[CBL-Commish]

Full explanation here, last year's thread.

Inside-the-park homers don't work right in OOTP, outside of a modern MLB setup with modern MLB parks and style of play. If you're trying to sim the deadball era, or a fictional era with huge ballparks the frequency of ISTP homers is way, way, way off. Lots of deadball era players had 30, 40 even 50% of their homers inside the park. In OOTP, no matter the size of the park or the era you play ISTP homers are hard-coded as a tiny fraction of overall homers.

So, if you have Jesse Burkett playing in a park with a couple 500-ft walls and accurate overall park factors he'll hit roughly six homers a year, like in real life. But if you follow along the play-by-play, chances are very good that every one of the homers will be over the fence, some probably 500+ feet, when in real life half of them were inside the park, and he probably never hit a soggy, stained, deadball era ball 425 feet in his life.

And yes, this is a largely cosmetic fix. Like I said, Burkett will hit the right number of homers. But the play-by-play text will be all wrong, and if we get that OOTP13 2D/3D engine the on-field action will be all wrong.

[fhomess]

I'd imagine there are two ways to adress this:
1. Use a physics based model that understands how far a ball can really travel.
2. Add an ISTP homer park factor to stadiums, perhaps as a percentage of total home runs, but have this based heavily on player speed.

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by fhomess

I'd imagine there are two ways to adress this:
1. Use a physics based model that understands how far a ball can really travel.
2. Add an ISTP homer park factor to stadiums, perhaps as a percentage of total home runs, but have this based heavily on player speed.

I think you'd want #2, but have it based on a combination of gap power, HR power, and speed.

You'd have to be careful to balance speed and power. Someone like Eric Davis would get a ton of ISTPers in a place with 500 ft fences. But what about Albert Pujols vs Brian Roberts? Pujols would be much, much more likely to hit a ball over the OFers' heads, but less likely to leg it out if it didn't go all the way to the wall. Roberts is much faster, but much less likely to get one to the wall.

The list here seems to be a pretty good mix of sluggers and fast guys:

Top 20 Career
Inside the Park Home Run Hitters
 
Jesse Burkett 55
Sam Crawford 51
Tommy Leach 48
Ty Cobb 46
Honus Wagner 46
Jake Beckley 38
Tris Speaker 38
Rogers Hornsby 33
Edd Roush 31
Jake Daubert 30
Willie Keeler 30
Chief Wilson 29
Fred Clarke 28
Ed Konetchy 28
Ginger Beaumont 27
Max Carey 27
Mike Donlin 27
Hobe Ferris 27
Harry Stovey 27
Buck Freeman 24
Cy Seymour 24

Chief Wilson was a great triple and inside-the-park hitter, and he stole 12 bases a year in an era where everyone stole bases all the time. Rogers Hornsby never stole 20 bases in a season.

[Cryomaniac]

For some reason I just tried to imagine how many ISTP home runs a guy like Deion Sanders would hit in parks with 500ft fences...

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

For some reason I just tried to imagine how many ISTP home runs a guy like Deion Sanders would hit in parks with 500ft fences...

Didn't Willie Wilson have several years where he hit six or eight INTP homers playing half his games in Royals Stadium in KC? Give somebody like that 81 games a year in the deadball configuration of Forbes Field or Braves Field in Boston and you'd probably get a dozen balls a year where the outfielders would just watch it roll, like a McGwire homer into the 5th deck.

[tejdog1]

Jose Reyes would easily hit 15 ITPHRs in a park with huge dimensions.

[jaxmagicman]

Couldn't you just make a change in the PLAY by Play file yourself? Change all the homerun calls to istp homerun calls. Then wouldn't the PBP be right?

[CBL-Commish]

Originally Posted by jaxmagicman

Couldn't you just make a change in the PLAY by Play file yourself? Change all the homerun calls to istp homerun calls. Then wouldn't the PBP be right?

You don't want all of them, just a percentage. Even in 1910 probably 60% of homers went over the fence. And I'd hope the percentage would be based on some combination of ballpark and player attributes.

Can you change the frequency of how different play-by-play events happen? If so, that might be a decent enough kludge, even if it's not quite what I'm looking for.

[Dreifort]

Don't forget that in modern era...adding 500 ft fences may not increase ISTP HRs..

Outfielders would play deeper, thus increasing xtra base hits, but not HRs. And if you think a Deion Sanders would have the speed to get ISTP HRs on more occasions, don't forget that a Juan Pierre or Raja Davis would be playing in the outfield and run down the line drives just as speedy as Deion runs the bases.

[Cornelius McGillicuddy]

To do it right the whole thing would have to be era specific. It's really something Markus would need to do.

[ctorg]

Would it be possible to have ISTP HR frequency be a function of triple frequency - i.e. use the ballpark factor for triples as a factor for ISTP HRs? I realize this would involve some reconfiguring of ballpark factors - just trying to think of a way to do it without adding more variables into the mix.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by ctorg

Would it be possible to have ISTP HR frequency be a function of triple frequency - i.e. use the ballpark factor for triples as a factor for ISTP HRs? I realize this would involve some reconfiguring of ballpark factors - just trying to think of a way to do it without adding more variables into the mix.

That sounds like a good idea.