I've never seen anything like this in all my years

['94 EXPOS]

Originally Posted by ootpyeahyouknowme

It leads me to believe OOTP fixes it beforehand. I added the likes of Boegarts, Wong, Kershaw, Stanton, Sale, Oscar Taveras, Kimbrel, and other 4 and 5 star players. Nearly every spot on the roster was 4-5 stars.

I finished 3rd in runs scored and 1st in runs against, yet finished 4th and missed the playoffs. I think it's because OOTP had me punched in for 4th anyway, and so had to unnaturally jack up what the Phillies did.

The Phillies won 92 games with basically a hodgepodge of 1 star and 3 star players.

I guess the best way to prove your theory would be to replay the year in question. Go to Commissioner mode. Strip down every team in the NL East to bums and utility players. Make the Mets a team of all stars. If the Mets still finish 4th then you may have something.


IRL I have played ball my whole life. I have been on very talented teams that went nowhere. I have also been on teams that had no business winning but when the dust settled we were the last one's standing. It's part of what makes baseball great. I think because each game is broken down in to so many slower observable pieces that we think we can analyze it to the point where it is a known science. I enjoy the stats aspect to baseball, hence why I play OOTP. All the same, look at all the new stats used to analyze players. A lot of people worship the stat God but the fact is you need talent, training, luck, mental fortitude, team cohesion, professionalism and a little bit of something no one has ever figured out in order to have a great team. If it is so easy to predict who is better then who then why don't they crown the World Series winner in April. Did you have the Red Sox down as champs this year? Not many did.


For myself, when I first started playing OOTP I too thought I could see certain patterns that appeared to be programming related fixes. From changing strategies to reading posts on this site I learned that many of these 'fixes' were myths.


In the end, I think you have to ask why you play the game. Is it possible what you say is true? Yes it is. I see that you joined just this December but say you have been playing for years. There is nothing wrong with this. I played for many years before posting or reading on this site but if you are just stirring up crap then beat it. If you truly believe the fix is in then why continue to play?

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

I'm still waiting for evidence of any of these claims.

And you are not alone.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by ootpyeahyouknowme

I'm really not so sure about that. On a consistent basis entire lineups will often underperform the entire season. Adding players, switching lineups, does nothing to change anything. The entire pitching staff will be overall atrocious sometimes, with even elite pitchers getting shelled.

I've always felt that it fixes you in for a certain offensive pattern or pitching pattern which you can't change. When things are going good, every player you put in hits, when bad, none of them do.

There's also patterns around the time of the season. I've noticed that at the end of the season, teams will generally either collapse totally or streak to the playoffs.

Or players will not hit for an entire half, then turn it on the 2nd half, ending up where his ratings are. Over the years I've seen a lot of these patterns in the game.

My answer to most of what you said here, but especially the bolded part, is: Dude, that's baseball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes (though it doesn't cause rainouts in OOTP) it rains. There's a helluva lot of luck in baseball ya know, real and OOTP.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by endgame

Actually, what strikes me most odd about your OP is the overall winning percentages across the board. All the teams in that division did extremely well, and whether that should surprise me can be argued, but it does.

I think the OP should show the complete standings and indicate the schedule used.

What we see suggests a variant schedule (not division loaded) or an irregular distribution of talent across the league(s). I'd say that its mathematically improbable to achieve 90+ wins with 4 teams in a 5 team division with a standard schedule when the fifth team is competitive with 81 wins. The rest of the league must suck badly for teams to find the wins needed.

In 2013 teams played 76 division games 66 games against the rest of the league and 20 inter-league games.

In order to win 90 games a team would have to go 40-36 in the division (remember there are 4 good teams) 38-28 vs the other ten teams in the league and 12-8 in inter-league play. That's very good by any standard. Take a few wins off any one set of results and the remaining two would have to be even better!

Any single team getting one or two of these results is reasonable. Any one or two teams getting all three results would be interesting. Having 4 teams in one division achieve all three results is close to lottery odds unless there are a lot of bad teams for them to play.

To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, "Show me the standings".

[The Game]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes (though it doesn't cause rainouts in OOTP) it rains. There's a helluva lot of luck in baseball ya know, real and OOTP.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by RchW

I think the OP should show the complete standings and indicate the schedule used.

What we see suggests a variant schedule (not division loaded) or an irregular distribution of talent across the league(s). I'd say that its mathematically improbable to achieve 90+ wins with 4 teams in a 5 team division with a standard schedule when the fifth team is competitive with 81 wins. The rest of the league must suck badly for teams to find the wins needed.

You know, I hadn't even thought about that, but this is a very good point. I had a standard MLB season in which 4 of the teams in the AL East (everyone but the Blue Jays, of course) found themselves all contending for the division down the stretch, and it ended with only 1 team breaking the 90-win mark. The others were all mid-80s (and two of them did make the Wild Card game). And that was all with an absolutely terrible 5th team (poor Toronto).

It's not impossible for the OP to wind up with those final standings, but it would have to have been far and away one of the best divisions the modern-day MLB format has ever seen.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by le receveur

have not seen the need for veteran presents on OOTP so far. Defense, yes. Solid BP yes...

Hmm...Veteran presents...You wouldn't happen to be a DJF reader would you? Awesome blog.