Fewer candidates for HOF

[SandMan]

As I get more seasons into a test league I am running I am finding a disturbing trend where the longer I go the fewer HOF candidates I am getting. The league started in 2020. Going forward I have 40 players in 2040 meet the requirements I have selected for HOF induction. 2050, 31 players. 2060, 22 players and 2070, 14 players. It seems like the earlier classes created more players that would be HOF caliber.

As an example I have 10 players that reached 500 homeruns. All of these players played in earlier years of the league and I have no prospects of any players reaching the milestone. The closest I have is a active player with 267 homers. I doubt he will make it to 500.

Has anyone else noticed this trend of declining star players playing in the league? I feel that there should be some variance but not to the point of where the top 71 players played in the first 30 years of the league and only 36 for the next 20.

[CatKnight]

Do you have your league set to automatic evolution? That could be depressing your offense and/or pitching.

[SandMan]

Originally Posted by CatKnight

Do you have your league set to automatic evolution? That could be depressing your offense and/or pitching.

No, I turned off the option. It just seems like the draft classes are getting weaker as I progress through history.

[damientheomen3]

If you'd like to add more talent to the draft pool, bump up the 'generate players for X rounds' number as that'll add more players in general, adding to the high end as well. Alternatively, if you're not gonna be managing in this league and/or don't have a problem knowing some players' real ratings, bump up a prospect or two in every draft pool to be more of a 'super prospect'.

[OakDragon]

Originally Posted by SandMan

As I get more seasons into a test league I am running I am finding a disturbing trend where the longer I go the fewer HOF candidates I am getting. The league started in 2020. Going forward I have 40 players in 2040 meet the requirements I have selected for HOF induction. 2050, 31 players. 2060, 22 players and 2070, 14 players. It seems like the earlier classes created more players that would be HOF caliber.

As an example I have 10 players that reached 500 homeruns. All of these players played in earlier years of the league and I have no prospects of any players reaching the milestone. The closest I have is a active player with 267 homers. I doubt he will make it to 500.

Has anyone else noticed this trend of declining star players playing in the league? I feel that there should be some variance but not to the point of where the top 71 players played in the first 30 years of the league and only 36 for the next 20.

That's to be expected somewhat, since the players have less competition early on. Whether what you are seeing is too drastic, though, I'm not sure.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by damientheomen3

If you'd like to add more talent to the draft pool, bump up the 'generate players for X rounds' number as that'll add more players in general, adding to the high end as well. Alternatively, if you're not gonna be managing in this league and/or don't have a problem knowing some players' real ratings, bump up a prospect or two in every draft pool to be more of a 'super prospect'.

This won't help contrary to popular opinion. Talent levels are a zero-sum game. Each bump is offset by a lump. It is this way so that leagues do not spiral out of control. Only changing the creation modifiers will change the talent level in a league.

Either way, high talent or low talent...the results are not based upon talent or ratings. The end-result is based upon the "League-Totals modifiers". If you had a league where the total HR power-ability of the league was an average of "3" but you put in a guy with a 20 power-ability the guy with the "20" will have a higher weighting for homeruns. He will crush it compared to the rest of the (3.0) league. 100-200 HR's is likely. This is very similar to the weightings when using Bobble's facial hair mod. The homeruns will be distributed based upon the "League-Totals Modifers" downwards--not the other way around. Adding talent is virtually meaningless taken in this context.

As far as scout finds are concerned, it is doubtful that they change the (nearly meaningless) talent levels in the league. Again, this is handled by the creation modifiers. Even if you pump up the league and everyone is a 5-star, what have you accomplished? Nothing. You will get the same results if everyone was a 1-star. It's just that stars are pretty. Stats will be distributed according to the "League-Totals Modifiers."

This total-result will be distributed accroding to the weighting of the players' ability in the league. For instance...you have a 5-man league with four players that have a "1" power and you have one player with "6" power. The league-totals modifer is set to achieve 100 HR's Total.


Therefore:

10X=100. 1X=10. 6X=60. 95% of the time 4 guys will hit within 2 standard deviations of 10 HR's and one guy will hit within 2 standard deviations of 60 HR's. This is how the results are distributed.

Increasing talent will not change the bell-shaped curve distribution of stats at all. There may be more stars but there won't be any different production. Having a 7 power guy in a 5 power league is just as good as having a 14 power guy in a 10 power league. I am certain.

Within a week I will present the data to prove this.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Back on topic...

The problem with your league is that the bell-shaped curve has flattened out. More than likely your problem lies in too many players. Either too many teams or too many free-agents. ***EDIT...this is wrong. Too many teams is not a problem. The problem is too many available players per team, in a nut shell***

If you have too many free-agents (most of them will suck) you will be using just the high-end guys on active rosters. The majors will only have the 2nd or 3rd standard deviation of all players playing. This will faltten your curve.

My suggestion is to delete out your enormous free-agent pool or reduce the size of your universe. Also reduce the roster limits of your lower minor-leagues. Do not make then unlimited. It is better to see a player demoted/promoted 100 times in one day than it is to screw up your bell-shaped curve. Unlimited will kill your curves. 50 iwill kill your curves. I'd wager 40 is too high for rookie if you want a nice high bell-shaped curve of statisitical distribution.

Reduce/Increae players to raise/flatten the distribution of stats.

[WSoxfan86]

If the talent is simply that high, then couldn't you manually add in 10-15 teams to spread out the talent? Admittedly I have no idea if this would work or not.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn

Back on topic...

The problem with your league is that the bell-shaped curve has flattened out. More than likely your problem lies in too many players. Either too many teams or too many free-agents.

If you have too many free-agents (most of them will suck) you will be using just the high-end guys on active rosters. The majors will only have the 2nd or 3rd standard deviation of all players playing. This will faltten your curve.

I would like to clarify this one point. I would like to further explain why having more guys in your universe reduces your HOF'ers (superstars). First, talent distribution is spread in the shape of a bell-shaped curve. The result of having more players in your universe (50-man minors, glut of free-agents, etc.) is that your major-league level will be more selective and more "cream of the crop" players will be in your major-leagues. This results in a flatter curve because player abilities will be more similar to one another when taken in the context of the whole curve.

Visualize this: Draw a bell-shaped curve. Imagine that you chop off 95 percent of the curve to the left. No look at your slope. You no longer have an nth degree polynomial. Doing this results in a linear slope f(x)=ax+c. In English...flat line. More equal distribution of stats amongst players. Result...No superstars.

Let's look at an example taken to the extreme. Assume 50,000,000 free-agents. Assume 30 teams with full minor-league systems with 50,000,000 roster-size limits. Most, if not all, players in this hypothetical universe will have ratings of 18+ in every skill. In this situation, you would end up with complete parity. The stats would be distributed almost euqally among all players. There aren't enough bums. The closer the ratings are to one another the less variation you will observe. On the contrary, the fewer players there are the less selective the major-league level can be. Consequently, you have more variation of abilities and a much higher curve that, ultimately, leads to more 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th deviations that result in HOF'ers. It's really quite normal when you think about it.

So really, the idea is counter-intuitive. Reducing overall talent in a league (short of reducing players) is more likely to provide a greater spread, therefore, a higher curve than increasing it. This is a temporary fix because at some point all the players will suck (assuming a billion players) and the stats will once again be distributed equally. You will then be forced to raise them again. Ad nauseum.

Remember, changing talent-levels will not alter results in and of themselves. Well, unless you actively spike it and deflate it intermittently for short periods of time. This is why the new feature that allows this is so useful. I have not used it as I have read ridiculuos end-results over many many years. I prefer to do this myself. One season I will generate monster power hitters and the next great control pitchers, the next great glove guys, followed by default for a few seasons, etc. You get the idea.

Finally, I highly doubt that scout-finds will impact this much. If they do increase overall talent they will have the opposite effect than you are looking for if your problem is in fact too many players/teams. Unless scout-finds are tied to creation modifiers somehow, I highly doubt that they impact overall talent levels anyway. A bump to player A means a lump to player B. Net effect is zero. I'm pretty sure this is how this works because if it wasn't designed this way it would be game-breaking in the long run. Too much talent would mean too few superstars.

Whew!

Moral of the story. Keep player availability as scarce as possible. Scarcity equals value. This is why I do not take the suggestions to use unlimited size minor-league levels to get rid of the promotion/demotion bug. I'd rather see that problem than flatter curves.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by WSoxfan86

If the talent is simply that high, then couldn't you manually add in 10-15 teams to spread out the talent? Admittedly I have no idea if this would work or not.

Hmmm...

Yeah I gues that would do it. It's really more of a function of the ratio of player availability per team than it is the total number of teams.


Notice my edit in previous post. I incorrectly keyed 50,000,000 teams blah blah blah when it should have been 30 teams blah blah blah.


Thanks for pointing that out.

[phightin]

Simply put your players are not lasting long enough to have productive careers and hit milestones needed to be added to the HOF. We went over this in the ageing thread and I saw this in my test sims of years and years. Fewer HOFers, fewer guys hitting 300+, 400+ home runs, and other major milestones. The game's default ageing settings have too many players declining much too early in their careers and thus less of a chance of hall of famers. Turn them down and it should help to a certain extent.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by phightin

Simply put your players are not lasting long enough to have productive careers and hit milestones needed to be added to the HOF. We went over this in the ageing thread and I saw this in my test sims of years and years. Fewer HOFers, fewer guys hitting 300+, 400+ home runs, and other major milestones. The game's default ageing settings have too many players declining much too early in their careers and thus less of a chance of hall of famers. Turn them down and it should help to a certain extent.

I have not independently tested this but problems with ageing modifers seem like they would impact players across all generations equally. I must, however, defer to you in this matter. Nevertheless, I do not understand how players ageing too quickly relate to his specific issue.

His problem is not that there are not enough HOF'ers, necessarily, but rather, they have been steadily declining over time. It doesn't sound like an ageing issue. This sounds like a different problem.

[Cras]

check out the aging thread. Lot of good information in there on this. I highly recommend everyone should read it and thus adjust their modifiers accordingly.

[hfield007]

Originally Posted by Cras

check out the aging thread. Lot of good information in there on this. I highly recommend everyone should read it and thus adjust their modifiers accordingly.

I have mine adjusted but I'm interested to see what others have done. link?

[Cras]

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...lb-league.html

Cheers!

[damientheomen3]

Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn

This won't help contrary to popular opinion. Talent levels are a zero-sum game. Each bump is offset by a lump. It is this way so that leagues do not spiral out of control. Only changing the creation modifiers will change the talent level in a league.

A few things.

1. You would think that my method wouldn't work, but it actually does. Trust me, I've been doing it for a while. But that's because...

2. ...I use it the same way that SandMan would want to. That is, he doesn't want to improve the quality of my players, he wants to improve the likelihood of a high-end top flight type player being generated. The more prospects generated, the higher chance of a better player coming along.

[fhomess]

Athletic talent is not bell-shaped.

[Cras]

the way the draft and number of rounds generated plays out in terms of good/bad players is, at least I thought, pretty well documented and understood.

Read up on the draft guide, which I believed was included in the manual this time 'round.

[OakDragon]

I would have thought athletic talent would be distributed linearly.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by OakDragon

I would have thought athletic talent would be distributed linearly.

The z squared on most of the stats in the game graphed against a 6th degree ploynomial (cuttting off the peaks and valleys on the left and right) is usually around a .95 to .98. I haven't graphed the talent levels yet (I will this weekend) but I'd imagine they are just about the same.

As far a linear...Probably not. It has to be at least f(x)=ax^2+bx+c at a minimum for sure.