Back to 2006

[StyxNCa]

I have had enough. I don't care what I try, I just can not get a man to score from third. I have gone through game logs dating back 2 weeks and in only 10% of the times I have had someone on 3rd, or 2nd & 3rd with zero or 1 out have they been able to score. I have tried H&R, bunting, stealing, and just sitting back. It doesn't matter how sorry the opposing pitcher is, one was even carrying a 7.70 ERA and an opponent BA of over .330, suddenly we can not get the ball on the ground. Any fly ball to the OF is always too short to try to score. And strikeouts really show up in these situations. The strikeouts really get to me because over all, as a team, even with pitchers in the lineup, we walk considerably more than strikeout.......but not in scoring situations. Apparently that is when we get most of our strikeouts. The ONLY way we can get a run across is by error.

I don't want to hear any rationalization for this. It sure seems like something has been programmed to make the computer pitcher have a dramatic advantage over a human team in these situations.

Another thing I am fed up with is the massive number of DP's we hit into compared to the rest of the league. Offensively, in 50 games, we have hit into 14 more double plays than the next team, and defensively, we have 13 fewer than the team ahead of us, and we are last in BOTH leagues in defensive DP's.

Again, I don't want to hear any rationalization or blaming my players. I have the same players I have had for the past 3 years. I have built a very good defensive team, and a team that, offensively, is made up of people with very good contact ratings and are very good at drawing walks. We haven't won our league 4 consecutive years with bad players. I have ONE starting every day player aged 30 or more, and the rest of my roster of batters are between 23 & 26, so aging can't be used as an excuse.

I have a young team, built on contact, speed and defense since I am playing in the 1st decade of the 1900's, so I have not bothered looking for power since our league leaders in HR's are between 8 & 13 HR's a year.

I have 5 starting pitchers who are between 23 & 26 years old, 3 of which have very high endurance ratings, yet I have a terrible time getting complete games out of any of them due to the computer teams consistantly catching fire around the 8th inning when they are behind. Out of curiosity, I have checked all the teams and they all carry 6 or 7 total pithers on their roster, 4 starters, 1 or 2 MR, and 1 closer. I have to carry 10 since I need my bullpen all the time. Most starters in both leagues are completing over 75% of their games. The best starter I have for complete games this season is at 50%. The pitcher that, up till 2007, was my best at completing games (at age 26 is 3rd all time on the lifetime complete game list..the league is into it's 6th season), has managed a mere 25% CG.

The stolen base issue has been bought up time and time again, but it doesn't seem there is any interest in fixing that problem. Once again, a problem for a team that was built on speed, like mine.

So what has been tweaked in 2007 that has given such a huge advantage to computer teams over human teams. In every game I have, the computer has a slight built in advantage to try to make things challenging, but this is really too much. These aren't just random things that happen. This has been going on all season long, every game, and I am just fed up with it.

I have no choice but to go back to 2006 for my fictional league.

[Sweed]

bye

[StyxNCa]

Gee, what a shock. Things are working more normally in 2006. Kinda knocks the idea that 2007 is the ultimate. Also shows I wasn't just imagining this stuff.

[Nutlaw]

Sorry to hear that your team isn't performing well, StyxNCa. I can certainly understand that you are frustrated, but I can assure you through experience that there is no code that is cheating to make your team lose against the AI. Sometimes teams simply get unlucky. I'm sure that once you've played out a whole season, rather than just 50 games, things will have balanced out.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

Gee, what a shock. Things are working more normally in 2006. Kinda knocks the idea that 2007 is the ultimate. Also shows I wasn't just imagining this stuff.

Isn't it odd that you are the only one posting about it? I mean it's the game right, so it must be happening to everybody. Too bad the rest of us aren't observant enough to catch on

I feel like such a fool not realizing this was going on in my league. Back to 2006

[Matter2003]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

Gee, what a shock. Things are working more normally in 2006. Kinda knocks the idea that 2007 is the ultimate. Also shows I wasn't just imagining this stuff.

I have runners scoring from third a lot...not sure what the issues might be...I will check them out and try to reproduce, but that is not something I have noticed very much, and I play out every game...

[Matter2003]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

I have had enough. I don't care what I try, I just can not get a man to score from third. I have gone through game logs dating back 2 weeks and in only 10% of the times I have had someone on 3rd, or 2nd & 3rd with zero or 1 out have they been able to score. I have tried H&R, bunting, stealing, and just sitting back. It doesn't matter how sorry the opposing pitcher is, one was even carrying a 7.70 ERA and an opponent BA of over .330, suddenly we can not get the ball on the ground. Any fly ball to the OF is always too short to try to score. And strikeouts really show up in these situations. The strikeouts really get to me because over all, as a team, even with pitchers in the lineup, we walk considerably more than strikeout.......but not in scoring situations. Apparently that is when we get most of our strikeouts. The ONLY way we can get a run across is by error.

I don't want to hear any rationalization for this. It sure seems like something has been programmed to make the computer pitcher have a dramatic advantage over a human team in these situations.

Another thing I am fed up with is the massive number of DP's we hit into compared to the rest of the league. Offensively, in 50 games, we have hit into 14 more double plays than the next team, and defensively, we have 13 fewer than the team ahead of us, and we are last in BOTH leagues in defensive DP's.

Again, I don't want to hear any rationalization or blaming my players. I have the same players I have had for the past 3 years. I have built a very good defensive team, and a team that, offensively, is made up of people with very good contact ratings and are very good at drawing walks. We haven't won our league 4 consecutive years with bad players. I have ONE starting every day player aged 30 or more, and the rest of my roster of batters are between 23 & 26, so aging can't be used as an excuse.

I have a young team, built on contact, speed and defense since I am playing in the 1st decade of the 1900's, so I have not bothered looking for power since our league leaders in HR's are between 8 & 13 HR's a year.

I have 5 starting pitchers who are between 23 & 26 years old, 3 of which have very high endurance ratings, yet I have a terrible time getting complete games out of any of them due to the computer teams consistantly catching fire around the 8th inning when they are behind. Out of curiosity, I have checked all the teams and they all carry 6 or 7 total pithers on their roster, 4 starters, 1 or 2 MR, and 1 closer. I have to carry 10 since I need my bullpen all the time. Most starters in both leagues are completing over 75% of their games. The best starter I have for complete games this season is at 50%. The pitcher that, up till 2007, was my best at completing games (at age 26 is 3rd all time on the lifetime complete game list..the league is into it's 6th season), has managed a mere 25% CG.

The stolen base issue has been bought up time and time again, but it doesn't seem there is any interest in fixing that problem. Once again, a problem for a team that was built on speed, like mine.

So what has been tweaked in 2007 that has given such a huge advantage to computer teams over human teams. In every game I have, the computer has a slight built in advantage to try to make things challenging, but this is really too much. These aren't just random things that happen. This has been going on all season long, every game, and I am just fed up with it.

I have no choice but to go back to 2006 for my fictional league.

Maybe your team isn't as good as you think it is?

[RchW]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

I have 5 starting pitchers who are between 23 & 26 years old, 3 of which have very high endurance ratings, yet I have a terrible time getting complete games out of any of them due to the computer teams consistantly catching fire around the 8th inning when they are behind. Out of curiosity, I have checked all the teams and they all carry 6 or 7 total pithers on their roster, 4 starters, 1 or 2 MR, and 1 closer. I have to carry 10 since I need my bullpen all the time. Most starters in both leagues are completing over 75% of their games. The best starter I have for complete games this season is at 50%. The pitcher that, up till 2007, was my best at completing games (at age 26 is 3rd all time on the lifetime complete game list..the league is into it's 6th season), has managed a mere 25% CG.

Out of curiosity I checked the pitching staffs in my fictional (modern) league. All were 11 or 12. I carry 11. I'd be interested if you see a difference between games simmed and games played out. Have you tried that?

The game is not broken IMO. There is no way that a particular anomaly like this would not have tons of people raising it.

FWIW I lost a playoff series at 113-49 to an 87-75 team that had at least three players with contact ratings in the 30's. The lowest contact on my starting lineup was 60 and I had 4 or 5 guys at 70+. We hit .230 and lost in 6.

[Markus Heinsohn]

I say this again: There is NO code that somehow alters play results only because of certain situation or because a human is managing!!! Threads like this make me scratch my head... why in the world would I want to code something like this, it makes no sense at all and is totally unrealistic

The magic word here is 'sample size'...

[magnet]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

I say this again: There is NO code that somehow alters play results only because of certain situation or because a human is managing!!! Threads like this make me scratch my head... why in the world would I want to code something like this, it makes no sense at all and is totally unrealistic

The magic word here is 'sample size'...

A voice of reason is always a good thing around here.

[Neags23]

Is there a stat somewhere that shows % of runs scored from third with less than 2 outs? I'm guessing not, but I would venture to say I score in that situation about half the time.

Anyone know the MLB average for any year? This is from an article on ESPN.com by Peter Gammons. It shows the % through the first month of a season a couple of years ago, but it doesn't show what year for some reason.

<table id="inlinetable" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="420"><tbody><tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"><td width="101">Team </td> <td width="101"> Percentage </td> <td width="101"> Team </td> <td width="101"> Percentage </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> N.Y. (AL) </td> <td width="101"> .686 </td> <td width="101"> Minn. </td> <td width="101"> .561 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> S.F. </td> <td width="101"> .661 </td> <td width="101"> Ari. </td> <td width="101"> .560 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Chi. (AL) </td> <td width="101"> .640 </td> <td width="101"> Phi. </td> <td width="101"> .553 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Fla. </td> <td width="101"> .638 </td> <td width="101"> S.D. </td> <td width="101"> .553 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Det. </td> <td width="101"> .603 </td> <td width="101"> L.A. (NL) </td> <td width="101"> .529 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> L.A. (AL) </td> <td width="101"> .600 </td> <td width="101"> Pitt. </td> <td width="101"> .513 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Wash. </td> <td width="101"> .600 </td> <td width="101"> Hou. </td> <td width="101"> .489 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Sea. </td> <td width="101"> .591 </td> <td width="101"> Chi. (NL) </td> <td width="101"> .473 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Tor. </td> <td width="101"> .588 </td> <td width="101"> Cle. </td> <td width="101"> .457 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Bal. </td> <td width="101"> .582 </td> <td width="101"> Cin. </td> <td width="101"> .448 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> T.B. </td> <td width="101"> .580 </td> <td width="101"> St.L. </td> <td width="101"> .432 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> N.Y. (NL) </td> <td width="101"> .577 </td> <td width="101"> Mil. </td> <td width="101"> .418 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> Tex. </td> <td width="101"> .571 </td> <td width="101"> Atl. </td> <td width="101"> .386 </td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(236, 236, 236);" valign="top"> <td width="101"> K.C. </td> <td width="101"> .567 </td> <td width="101"> Oak. </td> <td width="101"> .286</td></tr></tbody></table>
So even in that small sample size, there was a team that only scored 29% of those runners. It's got to be your sample size or just that your team isn't that good.