Strange ERA Bug

Cusefan95 · 06-05-2002, 04:01 AM

I have played quite a few seasons and for the past 2 seasons now a strange bug has popped up.

Going into the last season of the week, everything is fine. Then around the last game or two of the season, a pitcher (in one year it was 1, in the next year it was 2 or 3) suddenly improves his ERA from 5+ to 0.47 and leads the league in ERA.

I took a closer look at this player and his stats still show him to have an inflated ERA, but the leader boards have him with a microscopic ERA. The guy was something like 5-29 on the year, with a 0.47 ERA and he wins the Best Pitcher Award.

Not really a big deal to me since I know who had the real best ERAs and who the best pitcher is (which I could edit if I chose to), but since this was so strange, I thought I would mention it and wanted to know if anybody else encountered this.

Steve Kuffrey · 06-05-2002, 05:48 AM

It must be the number of earned runs, the game only allows for 255 I believe then it rolls over to zero again. Check this out, you can always edit the history of the league and change who wins the awards.

Cusefan95 · 06-05-2002, 06:42 AM

That must be it, but why in god's name would they make the runs allowed total roll over at 255 (or any number for that matter). Terrible decision there.

Scott Vibert · 06-05-2002, 07:14 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Cusefan95:
That must be it, but why in god's name would they make the runs allowed total roll over at 255 (or any number for that matter). Terrible decision there.<hr /></blockquote>It has to do with storage size... you have to take double the memory to store to the next convient computer limit (511). It doesn't roll over per say but the computer doesn't store values creater than 255 in the same way... when it tries to store 256 into the space designed to hold a high value of 255 it looks like 0 to the game... hence why it appears to "roll over"

Secondly, its not a poor design decision, consider this that the worst pitchers in baseball only gave up 132 runs last season, just over one half of that limit... so it seems reasonable to not expect a pitcher to allow 255 runs in a season.... Even Dead ball pitchers did not allow that many runs and they pitched almost double the innings...

The only terrible decision I see is to have let that guy pitch so often...

[ 06-05-2002, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: ScottVib ]

fluharty · 06-06-2002, 10:56 AM

So you're saying its a poorly designed game, since the AI kept running him out there? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

Scott Vibert · 06-06-2002, 11:13 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by fluharty:
So you're saying its a poorly designed game, since the AI kept running him out there? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

<hr /></blockquote>Caught me there <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Not necessarily though, it could be they just didn't have anyone better, or the defense was terrible.

Besides weaknesses in the AI don't necessarily indicate poor design, sometimes there are implementation issues that crop up or sometimes you just don't think of something at the time...

(not that any of this is an Earth-shattering revelation)

Steve Kuffrey · 06-06-2002, 11:25 AM

Some other factors to be considered:

-era he was playing
-size of rotation
-injuries/roster size(early 1900 few players, etc)

Just off the top of my head.

fluharty · 06-06-2002, 11:46 AM

Yea, in reality, there could be any number of reasons why it happened. I was just taking the opurtunity to catch Scott (he doesn't leave himself open like that too often).

Still... 255 earned runs...

I started a new fictional league recently and after the initial player draft, realized I had only I catcher- doh! I was unable to convince anyone to trade me one at an acceptable cost, so I just threw an extra 1B behind the place as my backup. Then (can you guess what happened?) my catcher went down for 4-5 weeks! You could imagine a similar situation with pitchers. You literally have too few of them. I have seen cases where the AI will put a poorly rated A player in MLB if they are 1 player short (instead of trying to acquire one). If this fellow had a 0 rating I could see him giving up 256+ runs.

Honestly, though, the memory cost is not that high (my opinion, obviously). Assuming there are 5120 total players including the minors (and i certainly hope there isn't that many) storing the number in two bytes as oposed to one is only doubling the required space- 10K instead of 5K in this case. Obviously, the overall cost depends on how many of the one byte values would need changed over to two bytes.

[ 06-06-2002, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: fluharty ]

mtw · 06-06-2002, 07:04 PM

I noticed the 255 limit after my last season. Then I went back and checked some other seasons and found two more occurences. I would like to see this changed to allow for more runs, especially because the AI doesn't use performance in making roster/lineup decisions.

06-05-2002, 04:01 AM	#1
Cusefan95 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Manchester, CT Posts: 109	Strange ERA Bug I have played quite a few seasons and for the past 2 seasons now a strange bug has popped up. Going into the last season of the week, everything is fine. Then around the last game or two of the season, a pitcher (in one year it was 1, in the next year it was 2 or 3) suddenly improves his ERA from 5+ to 0.47 and leads the league in ERA. I took a closer look at this player and his stats still show him to have an inflated ERA, but the leader boards have him with a microscopic ERA. The guy was something like 5-29 on the year, with a 0.47 ERA and he wins the Best Pitcher Award. Not really a big deal to me since I know who had the real best ERAs and who the best pitcher is (which I could edit if I chose to), but since this was so strange, I thought I would mention it and wanted to know if anybody else encountered this. __________________ 81-78 2003 NCAA Division 1-A Men's Basketball Champions

06-05-2002, 05:48 AM	#2
Steve Kuffrey Administrator Join Date: Jul 1999 Location: S.E. TN - Georgia born and raised Posts: 17,036	It must be the number of earned runs, the game only allows for 255 I believe then it rolls over to zero again. Check this out, you can always edit the history of the league and change who wins the awards. __________________ Steve Kuffrey DABS Atlanta Braves - 2008 Eastern Division Champ *DBLC Atlanta Braves - 2011, 2014 East Division Champ, 2012, 2013 NL Wildcard Baseball Maelstrom-Montreal Expos-2013 Tourney winner, 2014 WC Team Sparky's League - Tampa Bay D'Rays Epicenter Baseball League - Astros 2014 The CBL Rewind - Phillies '95

06-05-2002, 06:42 AM	#3
Cusefan95 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Manchester, CT Posts: 109	That must be it, but why in god's name would they make the runs allowed total roll over at 255 (or any number for that matter). Terrible decision there. __________________ 81-78 2003 NCAA Division 1-A Men's Basketball Champions

06-05-2002, 07:14 AM	#4
Scott Vibert Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: My Computer Posts: 8,249	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Cusefan95: <strong>That must be it, but why in god's name would they make the runs allowed total roll over at 255 (or any number for that matter). Terrible decision there.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It has to do with storage size... you have to take double the memory to store to the next convient computer limit (511). It doesn't roll over per say but the computer doesn't store values creater than 255 in the same way... when it tries to store 256 into the space designed to hold a high value of 255 it looks like 0 to the game... hence why it appears to "roll over" Secondly, its not a poor design decision, consider this that the worst pitchers in baseball only gave up 132 runs last season, just over one half of that limit... so it seems reasonable to not expect a pitcher to allow 255 runs in a season.... Even Dead ball pitchers did not allow that many runs and they pitched almost double the innings... The only terrible decision I see is to have let that guy pitch so often... <small>[ 06-05-2002, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: ScottVib ]</small>

06-06-2002, 11:13 AM	#6
Scott Vibert Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: My Computer Posts: 8,249	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by fluharty: <strong>So you're saying its a poorly designed game, since the AI kept running him out there? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Caught me there <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> Not necessarily though, it could be they just didn't have anyone better, or the defense was terrible. Besides weaknesses in the AI don't necessarily indicate poor design, sometimes there are implementation issues that crop up or sometimes you just don't think of something at the time... (not that any of this is an Earth-shattering revelation)

06-06-2002, 10:56 AM	#5
fluharty All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Morgantown, WV Posts: 1,023	So you're saying its a poorly designed game, since the AI kept running him out there? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

06-06-2002, 11:25 AM	#7
Steve Kuffrey Administrator Join Date: Jul 1999 Location: S.E. TN - Georgia born and raised Posts: 17,036	Some other factors to be considered: -era he was playing -size of rotation -injuries/roster size(early 1900 few players, etc) Just off the top of my head. __________________ Steve Kuffrey DABS Atlanta Braves - 2008 Eastern Division Champ *DBLC Atlanta Braves - 2011, 2014 East Division Champ, 2012, 2013 NL Wildcard Baseball Maelstrom-Montreal Expos-2013 Tourney winner, 2014 WC Team Sparky's League - Tampa Bay D'Rays Epicenter Baseball League - Astros 2014 The CBL Rewind - Phillies '95

06-06-2002, 11:46 AM	#8
fluharty All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Morgantown, WV Posts: 1,023	Yea, in reality, there could be any number of reasons why it happened. I was just taking the opurtunity to catch Scott (he doesn't leave himself open like that too often). Still... 255 earned runs... I started a new fictional league recently and after the initial player draft, realized I had only I catcher- doh! I was unable to convince anyone to trade me one at an acceptable cost, so I just threw an extra 1B behind the place as my backup. Then (can you guess what happened?) my catcher went down for 4-5 weeks! You could imagine a similar situation with pitchers. You literally have too few of them. I have seen cases where the AI will put a poorly rated A player in MLB if they are 1 player short (instead of trying to acquire one). If this fellow had a 0 rating I could see him giving up 256+ runs. Honestly, though, the memory cost is not that high (my opinion, obviously). Assuming there are 5120 total players including the minors (and i certainly hope there isn't that many) storing the number in two bytes as oposed to one is only doubling the required space- 10K instead of 5K in this case. Obviously, the overall cost depends on how many of the one byte values would need changed over to two bytes. <small>[ 06-06-2002, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: fluharty ]</small>

06-06-2002, 07:04 PM	#9
mtw All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 653	I noticed the 255 limit after my last season. Then I went back and checked some other seasons and found two more occurences. I would like to see this changed to allow for more runs, especially because the AI doesn't use performance in making roster/lineup decisions. __________________ Over-Zealous Apologist