Return of the .400 hitters!

OldGiants · 12-12-2002, 01:18 PM

Has anyone else generated a league like this one of mine? .400 hitters galore, and several of them are rookies that were drafted and developed by the AI. I'm running a four division, 32-team league using the default "Modern Era" settings. I expected lots of HRs, instead I've gotten this:

2004 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.415 John Hall(Tex,AL)
.372 Antonio Martinez(Hou,NL)
.370 Lamont Diaz(Chi,NL)
.369 Carmen Cruz( PhA)
.366 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL)

2005 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.419 Nicholas Dunwich(Chi)
.402 Chris Miles(Min,AL)
.400 John Hall(Tex,AL)
.383 Leon Marrufo(SF)
.379 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB)

2006 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.405 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL)
.380 John Hall(Tex)
.376 Antonio Martinez(Hou,NL)
.372 Lamont Diaz(Chi,NL)
.371 Chris Miles(Min,AL)

2007 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.403 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL)
.402 John Hall(Tex,AL)
.385 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL)
.380 Carmen Cruz(STB)
.375 Nicholas Dunwich(Chi)

2008 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.396 John Hall(Tex TB)
.389 Nicholas Dunwich( Mia)
.385 Ronald Duong(Phx,NL)
.381 Chris Miles(Min,AL)
.381 Jerry Anderson(SF,NL)

2009 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.430 John Hall(TB,AL)
.419 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL)
.373 Nicholas Dunwich(Mia)
.373 Mark Henderson( Chi,NL)
.372 Valentino Aiello(LA)

2010 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.426 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL STL)
.400 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL)
.396 Chris Miles(Min,AL)
.387 John Hall(TB,AL)
.382 Antonio Martinez(NYM,NL)

2011 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.418 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL)
.411 Ronald Duong(CWS)
.404 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL)
.401 John Hall(TB)
.400 Lamont Diaz(Atl)

2012 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.424 John Hall(TB,AL)
.401 Ronald Duong( Col)
.391 Tony Rivera(Mil,AL)
.385 Charlie Stypers(Was,AL)
.381 Chris Miles( NYY,AL)

2013 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.435 Ronald Duong(Col,NL)
.402 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL)
.396 Jon Fishman(Sea,AL)
.384 John Hall(TB,AL)
.383 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL)

2014 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.417 Brad Brown(Brk,NL)
.402 Ronald Duong(Col,NL)
.397 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL)
.393 Charlie Stypers(Was,AL)
.393 Valentino Aiello(SF CWS,AL)

2015 RECAP:

TOP 5 in BATTING AVG :
.443 Ronald Duong(Col,NL)
.417 Charlie Stypers(Was,AL)
.399 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL)
.390 Bobby Old(Tex)
.387 Todd Hollingsworth(NYY)

John Hall is basically shot at age 42. I signed him to a minor league contract simply to prevent an AI team from using him and watering down his lifetime .392 average.

Charlie Sytypers, like Hall, was an original player and is still going strong at age 41. His lifetime BA is only .377, but he's hitting .391 so far in 2016.

Ronald Duong was drafted 3rd in the 2004 amateur draft. He's a LH batter who is 7/8 in Batting Average. But he's now 30-years old with a lifetime BA of .402 after hitting an amazing .443 last season. He's currently at .437.

George Wilkins was the 15th pick in the 2004 draft and he's a 7/9 who is only at .361 lifetime.

Ezequiel Esquivel, The Aesthetic Eskimo, is now in the HOF, having hit over .400 four times and is the leader in the club house with a lifetime BA of .376.

I hope this keeps up, its been loads of fun so far.

Nukester · 12-12-2002, 02:15 PM

Im not sure how familiar you are with the "League Settings" section, but if you increase the number of "Hits" and leave the number of "At Bats" alone, this will reduce the overall league batting average, which will in effect lower individual batting averages.

If you decrease the number in the "Home Runs" spot, this will INCREASE the overall number of home runs hit, thus increasing some of the individual number of HR's.

If you like the .400 hitters, leave it the way it is. If you want .500 hitters, you can do that too ! Just decrease the # in the Hits spot

(Increasing # = Less stats)
(Decreasing # = More stats)

JWay · 12-12-2002, 02:30 PM

I wonder if they'll just move it to sliders or something.. It would be a ton easier I'd think. OR maybe I'm just missing something.

ctorg · 12-13-2002, 10:52 AM

Yeah, when I get results like those, I know it's time to alter the league settings.

fantom1979 · 12-13-2002, 02:10 PM

I have had one .400 hitter is 45 years... Thats pretty cool, when the guy hit .400 I was pretty pissed, because I thought the floodgates had been opened.. He is still the only one to do it,and that was like 20 years ago.

OldGiants · 12-14-2002, 12:52 PM

Yeah, I'm aware of how to change the settings. I'm more interested in why this particular group of players is churning out .400 hitters when other leagues I've started using the same default settings have never done this, not even close.

OldGiants · 12-14-2002, 04:02 PM

Let me state this differently:

If I change the settings, the league totals will change (presumably downward, to lower the .400 hitting). But the league totals are fine. Nothing is out of line. Team BAs range from .240 to .290 and the league hits around .265 to .270. Most teams have ERAs in the 4.00s, averaging around 4.50. So its not the settings, I don't think.

What I've been getting is an extraordinary crop of .400 hitters in a standard population of players. In mathematical terms, I've got a Bell curve with long tail toward the great BA hitter (and not HR hitters).

PItching is OK, perhaps not as many stars as I'm used to seeing, but the overall is right on line.

I've just never had a crop of players like this before.

Drood · 12-14-2002, 05:31 PM

Problem is, if you change the league settings to lower bat avgs. etc... Your record book is shot to hell because some of the records will never be beaten.

OldGiants · 12-15-2002, 11:53 AM

good point about the records.

also, if I lower the top of the heap, I also lower the bottom and thus far I haven't had many sub-.200 regulars, if any. Noticed 2-3 players in the past few seasons with 8 in HR tratings hitting around .202, but no one less than that. I would not like these guys to be around .180.

ctorg · 12-16-2002, 09:28 AM

So it sounds like you're having a wider deviation, at least on the top end. Here's a theory: try doubling all the numbers in the league totals. I don't know if this really will affect anything, but in theory it could reduce the deviation a bit if it works the way I suspect it might.

OldGiants · 12-16-2002, 03:03 PM

ctorg, I'll give it a try, but the league seems to be 'correcting' itself on its own. I'm into 2021 now, and only Wilkins is still hitting .400 and he's 35 now. Duong has tailed off to .363 or so. No rating has changed for either guy. The entire 32-team league got to .281 in 2018 and 2019 and I was afraid things were out of control, but in 2020 the total BA dropped back to .265. So I'll see about 2021.

One thing I did do that I'd never done before is start out with only a 30 player draft. I deleted all the unchosen FAs so each orgaization started out with 30 players, only 5 in the minors. I wanted to focus on player development and its effects on the league when they don't have many folks to fall back on. Most teams have peaked at 15-18 players on their minor league rosters, and few, if any, players remain unsigned. Although they don't play in the majors. Very few teams have anyone at AAA level.

The draft was 3 rounds, so replacements barely outpaced retirements for the league as a whole. Beginning in 2019, I went to five rounds, to add players, and that's when the 'correction' became noticable. Can't say for sure if they are related.

Captain Spaulding · 12-17-2002, 01:15 AM

I have paid no attention to individual numbers, instead concentrating on keeping the league totals as close as possible to the year I'm playing. Using fictional players and playing from 1900 to 1987, I got a much bigger deviation in BA than in homers. I have had a good number of .400 hitters and the league's top BA hitters have gone as high as .455 during the 1930s. However, I haven't seen many homerun hitters get above 50.

OldGiants · 12-21-2002, 11:10 AM

One last note on the hitting trend.

All the the .400-hitters are gone. The leaders are around .360 to .380, two teams have dropped into the .220's for team BA, and two more are in .240s. Two teams in the .280s, and the rest withing 5 points of .255. That's for 2024.

The oddest occurance came in the 2025 all-star game. The AL stars had a perfect game going into the bottom of the ninth against the NL, but the leadoff hitter singled, then got erased on a double play, before the last batter popped out. 'there haven't been many no-hitters in this league, perhaps 3, so a near-perfect game in the all-star game is a real stick-out performance.

JAttractive · 12-21-2002, 03:18 PM

Having a 30 player draft is the root of the problem. Even a 50 player draft is not enough to create proper depth I find because the game when it creates prospect-level players almost entirely makes A ball level players. This means teams have almost really no minor league depth to draw from even though they have players down there. So when a pitcher/regular is not performing they have almost no one to call up and have to let the guy get blown away over and over. As a result the good players eat them alive and are able to boost their statistics. This is why in a regular 50 round draft you often see odd records for the first 5 or so years until enough of the original (and future drafted) A ball players move up to replace retired players and provide much needed depth and options.

In a 30 round draft I imagine the above situation is FAR worse. Your good players are feasting off the weak and that is why you see .400 hitters. I am surprised you aren't seeing the same with HR's too but I still think that is the root of the problem and is why it is normalizing now that you have had rookies move up the system.

In my own solo leagues I usually do a 50 round draft + hit the Fill AAA with fictional players button. That way teams have some immediate prospect depth at AAA and I don't see crazy records made as often in the first few years. These guys are basically scrubs, are often about 23-25 years old, and don't affect development of the other rookies too much because they are usually cut in a couple years anyway. It is just that I prefer to see records broken by players I have had time to watch over multiple seasons.

voxpoptart · 12-22-2002, 08:05 PM

I'm just writing to agree, strongly, with JAttractive. I not only drafted 50 rounds, i actually filled AAA and AA and A in the first season of my league. This is arguably going overboard, but i've been quite happy with the results. A few of the fictional fill-in players are turning into stars over time, which is fine. I consider it the equivalent of a Dan Quisenberry or a John Kruk being overlooked by scouts until his results demanded attention.

Even with the fill-ins, only one of the four Rookies Of The Year in seasons two and three actually played well; only in the fourth year have serious prospects emerged. But teams have been able to shuffle regulars at two or three positions per season in the meantime, because the bench depth has been created.

12-12-2002, 01:18 PM	#1
OldGiants Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 211	Return of the .400 hitters! Has anyone else generated a league like this one of mine? .400 hitters galore, and several of them are rookies that were drafted and developed by the AI. I'm running a four division, 32-team league using the default "Modern Era" settings. I expected lots of HRs, instead I've gotten this: 2004 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .415 John Hall(Tex,AL) .372 Antonio Martinez(Hou,NL) .370 Lamont Diaz(Chi,NL) .369 Carmen Cruz( PhA) .366 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL) 2005 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .419 Nicholas Dunwich(Chi) .402 Chris Miles(Min,AL) .400 John Hall(Tex,AL) .383 Leon Marrufo(SF) .379 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB) 2006 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .405 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL) .380 John Hall(Tex) .376 Antonio Martinez(Hou,NL) .372 Lamont Diaz(Chi,NL) .371 Chris Miles(Min,AL) 2007 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .403 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL) .402 John Hall(Tex,AL) .385 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL) .380 Carmen Cruz(STB) .375 Nicholas Dunwich(Chi) 2008 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .396 John Hall(Tex TB) .389 Nicholas Dunwich( Mia) .385 Ronald Duong(Phx,NL) .381 Chris Miles(Min,AL) .381 Jerry Anderson(SF,NL) 2009 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .430 John Hall(TB,AL) .419 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL) .373 Nicholas Dunwich(Mia) .373 Mark Henderson( Chi,NL) .372 Valentino Aiello(LA) 2010 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .426 Charlie Stypers(PhN,NL STL) .400 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL) .396 Chris Miles(Min,AL) .387 John Hall(TB,AL) .382 Antonio Martinez(NYM,NL) 2011 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .418 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL) .411 Ronald Duong(CWS) .404 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL) .401 John Hall(TB) .400 Lamont Diaz(Atl) 2012 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .424 John Hall(TB,AL) .401 Ronald Duong( Col) .391 Tony Rivera(Mil,AL) .385 Charlie Stypers(Was,AL) .381 Chris Miles( NYY,AL) 2013 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .435 Ronald Duong(Col,NL) .402 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL) .396 Jon Fishman(Sea,AL) .384 John Hall(TB,AL) .383 Ezequiel Esquivel(TB,AL) 2014 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .417 Brad Brown(Brk,NL) .402 Ronald Duong(Col,NL) .397 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL) .393 Charlie Stypers(Was,AL) .393 Valentino Aiello(SF CWS,AL) 2015 RECAP: TOP 5 in BATTING AVG : .443 Ronald Duong(Col,NL) .417 Charlie Stypers(Was,AL) .399 Geo Wilkins(Bos,AL) .390 Bobby Old(Tex) .387 Todd Hollingsworth(NYY) John Hall is basically shot at age 42. I signed him to a minor league contract simply to prevent an AI team from using him and watering down his lifetime .392 average. Charlie Sytypers, like Hall, was an original player and is still going strong at age 41. His lifetime BA is only .377, but he's hitting .391 so far in 2016. Ronald Duong was drafted 3rd in the 2004 amateur draft. He's a LH batter who is 7/8 in Batting Average. But he's now 30-years old with a lifetime BA of .402 after hitting an amazing .443 last season. He's currently at .437. George Wilkins was the 15th pick in the 2004 draft and he's a 7/9 who is only at .361 lifetime. Ezequiel Esquivel, The Aesthetic Eskimo, is now in the HOF, having hit over .400 four times and is the leader in the club house with a lifetime BA of .376. I hope this keeps up, its been loads of fun so far.

12-13-2002, 10:52 AM	#4
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	Yeah, when I get results like those, I know it's time to alter the league settings. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

12-13-2002, 02:10 PM	#5
fantom1979 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Detroit, MI Posts: 3,498	I have had one .400 hitter is 45 years... Thats pretty cool, when the guy hit .400 I was pretty pissed, because I thought the floodgates had been opened.. He is still the only one to do it,and that was like 20 years ago. __________________

12-16-2002, 09:28 AM	#10
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	So it sounds like you're having a wider deviation, at least on the top end. Here's a theory: try doubling all the numbers in the league totals. I don't know if this really will affect anything, but in theory it could reduce the deviation a bit if it works the way I suspect it might. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

12-17-2002, 01:15 AM	#12
Captain Spaulding Bat Boy Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 8	I have paid no attention to individual numbers, instead concentrating on keeping the league totals as close as possible to the year I'm playing. Using fictional players and playing from 1900 to 1987, I got a much bigger deviation in BA than in homers. I have had a good number of .400 hitters and the league's top BA hitters have gone as high as .455 during the 1930s. However, I haven't seen many homerun hitters get above 50. __________________ CUBL: Kitchener Fighting Beavers DK: Kansas City Royals

12-12-2002, 02:15 PM	#2
Nukester All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Newburgh, NY Posts: 1,923	Im not sure how familiar you are with the "League Settings" section, but if you increase the number of "Hits" and leave the number of "At Bats" alone, this will reduce the overall league batting average, which will in effect lower individual batting averages. If you decrease the number in the "Home Runs" spot, this will INCREASE the overall number of home runs hit, thus increasing some of the individual number of HR's. If you like the .400 hitters, leave it the way it is. If you want .500 hitters, you can do that too ! Just decrease the # in the Hits spot (Increasing # = Less stats) (Decreasing # = More stats)

12-12-2002, 02:30 PM	#3
JWay Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sioux Falls, SD Posts: 5,021	I wonder if they'll just move it to sliders or something.. It would be a ton easier I'd think. OR maybe I'm just missing something.

12-14-2002, 12:52 PM	#6
OldGiants Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 211	Yeah, I'm aware of how to change the settings. I'm more interested in why this particular group of players is churning out .400 hitters when other leagues I've started using the same default settings have never done this, not even close.

12-14-2002, 04:02 PM	#7
OldGiants Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 211	Let me state this differently: If I change the settings, the league totals will change (presumably downward, to lower the .400 hitting). But the league totals are fine. Nothing is out of line. Team BAs range from .240 to .290 and the league hits around .265 to .270. Most teams have ERAs in the 4.00s, averaging around 4.50. So its not the settings, I don't think. What I've been getting is an extraordinary crop of .400 hitters in a standard population of players. In mathematical terms, I've got a Bell curve with long tail toward the great BA hitter (and not HR hitters). PItching is OK, perhaps not as many stars as I'm used to seeing, but the overall is right on line. I've just never had a crop of players like this before.

12-14-2002, 05:31 PM	#8
Drood Registered User Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 425	Problem is, if you change the league settings to lower bat avgs. etc... Your record book is shot to hell because some of the records will never be beaten.

12-15-2002, 11:53 AM	#9
OldGiants Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 211	good point about the records. also, if I lower the top of the heap, I also lower the bottom and thus far I haven't had many sub-.200 regulars, if any. Noticed 2-3 players in the past few seasons with 8 in HR tratings hitting around .202, but no one less than that. I would not like these guys to be around .180.

12-16-2002, 03:03 PM	#11
OldGiants Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 211	ctorg, I'll give it a try, but the league seems to be 'correcting' itself on its own. I'm into 2021 now, and only Wilkins is still hitting .400 and he's 35 now. Duong has tailed off to .363 or so. No rating has changed for either guy. The entire 32-team league got to .281 in 2018 and 2019 and I was afraid things were out of control, but in 2020 the total BA dropped back to .265. So I'll see about 2021. One thing I did do that I'd never done before is start out with only a 30 player draft. I deleted all the unchosen FAs so each orgaization started out with 30 players, only 5 in the minors. I wanted to focus on player development and its effects on the league when they don't have many folks to fall back on. Most teams have peaked at 15-18 players on their minor league rosters, and few, if any, players remain unsigned. Although they don't play in the majors. Very few teams have anyone at AAA level. The draft was 3 rounds, so replacements barely outpaced retirements for the league as a whole. Beginning in 2019, I went to five rounds, to add players, and that's when the 'correction' became noticable. Can't say for sure if they are related.

12-21-2002, 11:10 AM	#13
OldGiants Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 211	One last note on the hitting trend. All the the .400-hitters are gone. The leaders are around .360 to .380, two teams have dropped into the .220's for team BA, and two more are in .240s. Two teams in the .280s, and the rest withing 5 points of .255. That's for 2024. The oddest occurance came in the 2025 all-star game. The AL stars had a perfect game going into the bottom of the ninth against the NL, but the leadoff hitter singled, then got erased on a double play, before the last batter popped out. 'there haven't been many no-hitters in this league, perhaps 3, so a near-perfect game in the all-star game is a real stick-out performance.

12-21-2002, 03:18 PM	#14
JAttractive All Star Starter Join Date: May 2002 Location: St. Catharines, Ontario Posts: 1,135	Having a 30 player draft is the root of the problem. Even a 50 player draft is not enough to create proper depth I find because the game when it creates prospect-level players almost entirely makes A ball level players. This means teams have almost really no minor league depth to draw from even though they have players down there. So when a pitcher/regular is not performing they have almost no one to call up and have to let the guy get blown away over and over. As a result the good players eat them alive and are able to boost their statistics. This is why in a regular 50 round draft you often see odd records for the first 5 or so years until enough of the original (and future drafted) A ball players move up to replace retired players and provide much needed depth and options. In a 30 round draft I imagine the above situation is FAR worse. Your good players are feasting off the weak and that is why you see .400 hitters. I am surprised you aren't seeing the same with HR's too but I still think that is the root of the problem and is why it is normalizing now that you have had rookies move up the system. In my own solo leagues I usually do a 50 round draft + hit the Fill AAA with fictional players button. That way teams have some immediate prospect depth at AAA and I don't see crazy records made as often in the first few years. These guys are basically scrubs, are often about 23-25 years old, and don't affect development of the other rookies too much because they are usually cut in a couple years anyway. It is just that I prefer to see records broken by players I have had time to watch over multiple seasons.

12-22-2002, 08:05 PM	#15
voxpoptart Major Leagues Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 387	I'm just writing to agree, strongly, with JAttractive. I not only drafted 50 rounds, i actually filled AAA and AA and A in the first season of my league. This is arguably going overboard, but i've been quite happy with the results. A few of the fictional fill-in players are turning into stars over time, which is fine. I consider it the equivalent of a Dan Quisenberry or a John Kruk being overlooked by scouts until his results demanded attention. Even with the fill-ins, only one of the four Rookies Of The Year in seasons two and three actually played well; only in the fourth year have serious prospects emerged. But teams have been able to shuffle regulars at two or three positions per season in the meantime, because the bench depth has been created.