Offensive Environment in Minor Leagues

[WyattGOAT]

I've noticed for several years now in my long-term sim that my minor league pitchers across the board have extremely inflated ERAs. Even players who have good ratings relative to the level they're playing at. Finding a pitcher with an ERA below 4 is extremely rare.

Has anyone else noticed something like this?

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by WyattGOAT

I've noticed for several years now in my long-term sim that my minor league pitchers across the board have extremely inflated ERAs. Even players who have good ratings relative to the level they're playing at. Finding a pitcher with an ERA below 4 is extremely rare.

Has anyone else noticed something like this?

Indeed. I now make a point of finding suitable historical LTMs for each MiLB level and applying them every season. You can either pick one set of stats and stick with them year-in, year-out, or find a league and just use them from year to year.

[jimmysthebestcop]

No because ERA is a completely pointless and meaningless stat. If you are using ERA stop use FIP- and SIERA that is basically the only 2 things needed for pitchers besides stamina

[Dr Naysay]

Yup.......I went through every minor league and found the numbers out of whack so I used the BREF 2018 numbers that you will find in the settings and the factors came back to normal. Some of the leagues the HR factors were nigh on or over 2.000

The pitching numbers are far more more normal now and I'm not hiding under the desk every time my star prospect comes up to pitch.

[WyattGOAT]

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

No because ERA is a completely pointless and meaningless stat. If you are using ERA stop use FIP- and SIERA that is basically the only 2 things needed for pitchers besides stamina

Lol I'm not using ERA to evaluate these pitchers as prospects but more just using ERA to show the raw run production in these leagues are far higher than they should be

[WyattGOAT]

Originally Posted by Dr Naysay

Yup.......I went through every minor league and found the numbers out of whack so I used the BREF 2018 numbers that you will find in the settings and the factors came back to normal. Some of the leagues the HR factors were nigh on or over 2.000

The pitching numbers are far more more normal now and I'm not hiding under the desk every time my star prospect comes up to pitch.

Thanks, I tweak my MLB modifiers often but hadn't even occurred to me you can do the same for the minors.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by WyattGOAT

Thanks, I tweak my MLB modifiers often but hadn't even occurred to me you can do the same for the minors.

Be aware that, for some reason, the auto adjust LTMs for accuracy setting doesn't seem to apply / work for any MiLB levels, so you'll need to autocalc each season. On OD, before you play out games, is the optimal time for this, but I also do it the day prior - although I'm not sure it does anything - so the AI has the right environment to set its OD rosters.

[venflaalachi]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Be aware that, for some reason, the auto adjust LTMs for accuracy setting doesn't seem to apply / work for any MiLB levels, so you'll need to autocalc each season. On OD, before you play out games, is the optimal time for this, but I also do it the day prior - although I'm not sure it does anything - so the AI has the right environment to set its OD rosters.

I've always wondered by the auto adjust LTM setting doesn't work for any of the minor leagues. I've started setting the numbers myself and run autocalc on opening day now.

[Matt Arnold]

One thing we noticed in some testing, and I believe ended up making the new default for the quickstart, was using the "control totals" option for the minor leagues. That acts sort of like the autocalc, except it seems to be a little better at matching the league quality level and is a little less likely to be swayed by a bad autocalc run.

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

One thing we noticed in some testing, and I believe ended up making the new default for the quickstart, was using the "control totals" option for the minor leagues. That acts sort of like the autocalc, except it seems to be a little better at matching the league quality level and is a little less likely to be swayed by a bad autocalc run.

Thanks Matt, I'll give it a go in one of my saves and see what happens.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

One thing we noticed in some testing, and I believe ended up making the new default for the quickstart, was using the "control totals" option for the minor leagues. That acts sort of like the autocalc, except it seems to be a little better at matching the league quality level and is a little less likely to be swayed by a bad autocalc run.

doesn't that bog sims down? especially if all of the MiL does it. no big deal for players that play every game, but noticeable when simulating. (in the past using that option, even had a warning about it in the game at one time?)

smaller leagues should vary more year to year.

if stats are off that's a user-error thing, typically... and this time maybe a little can be blamed on the fact a simple toggle that would avoid this whole problem doesn't work when checked.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Be aware that, for some reason, the auto adjust LTMs for accuracy setting doesn't seem to apply / work for any MiLB levels, so you'll need to autocalc each season. On OD, before you play out games, is the optimal time for this, but I also do it the day prior - although I'm not sure it does anything - so the AI has the right environment to set its OD rosters.

you don't have to autocalculate every year, if you want to save a little effort. definitely do it after changing any totals.

if you change totals to what you want as baselines, make sure they jive, mathematically. you create a set that results in a .330 BABIP aveage and want .300 BABIP average, that's you're own fault each time you autocalculate witha set of totals like that you'll have to adjust something each time to drop BABIP... or fix the totals to make better sense and autocalc will take care of it.

3-5 years... go press that button sometimes near opening day for MiLs. Should avoid anything crazy.

transitioning from real life draftees to fictionally created draftees will also cause a shift in statistical results... MiL and ML. any similar change in distribution of talent will have same effect. may need to autocalculate more often during these types of transitions

i don't care how often i use it in mil, but i don't want it influencing my ML results. it's a dial that changes the probability of results per rating. that's not really how things work in RL. change is caused by different players, not a dial. but, sometimes it is needed in ML too.

i'm a big fan of pre-dating fictional modern leages (customized a bit) 30 years, then zipping forward to have a fully fictionally created and populated league to start... erase all the stats, injuries, purge database etc etc.. just like new but better. a full FA selection, can start wherever you want in offseason etc etc... make a template and save the work next time.

anyway, avoiding that transiton from seed players-to-ceated players means my totals and modifiers will hold up long-term... i'll make a backup and rename it to protect it at this point.. then i'll run 100+ year sims auto-generating csv stat files and a spreadsheet automatically takes those files and crunches the numbers. some line graphs to visualize year-to-year variance of stats etc... a little suggestion for changing modifier that isn't so accurate, but helps a bit. (each modifier is a relativistic factor, so only predictable when chanigng 1 variable more often than not.)

i start with static modifiers that stand up long-term, but takes a bit of effort that most have no interest in doing, lol.. .for good reason.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by NoOne

doesn't that bog sims down? especially if all of the MiL does it. no big deal for players that play every game, but noticeable when simulating. (in the past using that option, even had a warning about it in the game at one time?)

smaller leagues should vary more year to year.

if stats are off that's a user-error thing, typically... and this time maybe a little can be blamed on the fact a simple toggle that would avoid this whole problem doesn't work when checked.

Control Totals actually handles things differently in interpolating to the league average, so it doesn't actually run continuous autocalc. It shouldn't really have a noticeable impact in sim speed compared to not using it.

Not saying it's the solution to all problems, but something anyone looking at minor league totals should try and see if it helps in their case.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Control Totals actually handles things differently in interpolating to the league average, so it doesn't actually run continuous autocalc. It shouldn't really have a noticeable impact in sim speed compared to not using it.

Not saying it's the solution to all problems, but something anyone looking at minor league totals should try and see if it helps in their case.

To clarify, when you say Control Totals are you referring to the Lock League Totals option or the Control In-Game Engine option?

[jpeters1734]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

One thing we noticed in some testing, and I believe ended up making the new default for the quickstart, was using the "control totals" option for the minor leagues. That acts sort of like the autocalc, except it seems to be a little better at matching the league quality level and is a little less likely to be swayed by a bad autocalc run.

This is interesting! If you have it checked to auto control the in-game engine, does it ignore the modifiers? Would you still need to auto-calc? Also, why is it only recommended for minors/feeders?

[PSUColonel]

I apologize for bringing up something a bit off topic, but sort of similar.

I have also been wondering the same thing for finances. Is it better to use say 2021 numbers than the default ones? The 2021 settings are the actual numbers and are complete…I am just asking, as finances sometimes can go haywire. (Teams running out of money or having too much of it)