Why why why are there so many diving catches?

[DougWyatt]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

I'm not sure why this is puzzling. People must be thinking that the outfielder is running STRAIGHT back to the warning track. But, especially on a ball hit into the power alleys, can't you envision a fielder running DIAGONALLY, getting near the warning track, and then diving DIAGONALLY to try and catch the ball? Being at the track doesn't mean that you're at the wall, and it doesn't mean that you've been running straight back either.

It's puzzling because ... how many times does an outfielder get to the warning track; and then dive ? If it ever happens, it certainly does not almost every game.

If a player has enough time to run all the way to the warning track before the ball comes down, that would almost positively mean that the ball had some air under it; and he most likely wouldn't have to dive.

I just don't think I've ever seen a player

run to the warning track....
dive....

However to help myself out a little; I try to change that in my head "jump" - as if it's high.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by DougWyatt

I just don't think I've ever seen a player

run to the warning track....
dive....

However to help myself out a little; I try to change that in my head "jump" - as if it's high.

I sometimes imagine the fielder "lunging" for the ball.

[McBruce]

Along with the diving catches every 2-3 innings, I also wonder about these too-frequent plays where an infielder 'loses the handle' or 'drops the ball' and a runner so slow he would have a hard time stealing against the arm of a Little League catcher scores from second!

[battists]

A lot of these problems are subjective, and those that aren't, aren't likely to get fixed unless people post in the tech support forum about them.

So, if one or more of these particularly odd players really gets your goat, please take the time to post about it in detail in TS forum. Screen shots are the most helpful evidence.

Thanks!

[Bobble]

Allow me to throw a gyroball into this thread. Is anyone working on sprucing up the pbp xml file as a mod? I know there was a thread for work on 2006 but I don't see any activity on 2007. My only (albeit minor) issue with the pbp is that I see the SAME great plays too often :stumbles backward... but is able to hang on!: If you throw in ten or twenty more lines on the most notable occurances (like great catches), you might not notice the few that might be hard to picture as much.

Comments?

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Bobble

Comments?

Oh, so you want to be CONSTRUCTIVE. Troublemaker.

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by injury log

Some plays in-game do have a greater chance of producing an injury; indeed there are specific injuries for HBPs and for collisions, and I'm quite sure either of these play types has a far greater chance of producing an injury than an arbitrary game event. A play involving an HBP, for example, will produce an injury far more often than a pitch thrown for a ball (on max injury settings, HBPs produce injuries in about 1 in 30 events; if pitches produced injuries at that rate, you'd have about 10 pitcher injuries per game!).

If the game does distinguish between outstanding catches and normal ones, I imagine it might also make injuries more common on the former, though I've never done any tests to check (and I think that would be time-consuming). My initial suspicion is that Rich is probably right, that an F8 produces an injury equally often regardless of the pbp, but I'm curious enough now to at least try to look into it.

And let's not forget the ole injury to runner after hitting an extra base hit. I have 3 guys who went out at various times (2 went out 3 times, the other twice) this season after hitting doubles or triples. Oddly, those are the only injuries I have had on my team.

I have seen opponents get injured on HBP, and pitchers get injured. Oddly, none of my pitchers has gotten injured even a day to day.

[tysok]

This is one of the posts I did in beta, where I took an entire years worth of pbp (standard MLB setup 162 game schedule) and broke down every pbp call by category. On the whole, the averages come out within reason at the time this was done. I'm sure it could be tweaked a little more, and very well might be. Also in some of the notes I make reference to how it changed from build 215 to 216 (216 is where this data came from).

The diving catch at the track could be overused. It does happen, but in those occasions where I've heard it the mention of the track is mentioned with the dive, not the player getting ot the track and then diving... but that's a limitation of the pbp. I listen to a lot of games over the season, definitely not all. I've probably heard 2 games a night this season, and have heard diving plays on the track 5 or 6 times... it does happen, whether it's too much in OOTP is a detail that would have to be looked into.
The focus, by and large, on 2007 was getting the plays to come out reasonable (average per game over the year), getting it toned down some, and fixing some very strange and ugly problems. It's a pretty solid base now, just the details may be a little off. Anyhow, here's the post from beta with the breakdown etc...

Quote:
Originally Posted by tysok
Fielder effort looks better:

Call	Tot	P/G	Description
[216	5107	2.102	Fielder effort
[238	2437	1.003	Fielder effort leap
[248	2758	1.135	Flyball catch difficult
[250	866	0.356	Flyball catch diving infield
[251	1448	0.596	Flyball catch leaping infield
[247	1907	0.785	Flyball catch very difficult
[249	5	0.002	flyball catch robs home run
[180	2925	1.204	Groundball fielding difficult
			
[178	6553	2.697	Groundball fielding coming in
[179	1375	0.566	Groundball fielding backhand

[217	9130	3.757	Fielder effort missed3 times a game players are leaping and diving around instead of 4.

Using the same breakdown I did in the other thread:
So we have fielders diving and leaping around just over 3 times a game.
4 times a game fielders are making very good or spectacular plays.
3 times a game fielders are coming in or backhanding to make the play (broken off since I don't consider them to be spectacular plays).
Other fielding (flyball catch, groundball fielding, and the routine categories) were called 75,487 times, or 31.06 times a game.


So in an average game:
31 times the fielder has little trouble
3 times they charge in or backhand to make the play.
4 times they make spectacular plays.
3 times they dive all over the place in a futile attempt to make the play.
3.7 times a game "fielder effort missed" is brought up (This category says things like "Just missed it", "Just out of reach", "couldn't quite get there"... 3 of those would be accounted for from the dive, leap, and lunge calls.
.1 times "fielder effort caught" is brought up.

8 of 44 times the fielder is diving or just misses the ball or makes an outstanding play.

Actually slightly less than 8, better than just under 11 that there was in 215.

I actually think this looks pretty good atm. The number is down from 215 which I thought was a bit high.

I'll put in some examples of what happens here.
"4 times they make spectacular plays."
"spectacular" may be a bad word here, they make a good to great play.

1.13 times there's "flyball catch difficult". Doesn't seem off to me. Text that comes up here is like this:
"he reaches... and makes a nice running catch."
"he dives... and makes the catch!(nl)He robbed [%game batter] on that one!"
"and he's got it, nice shoe-string catch by [%game fielder]!"
They're good plays, some diving, but never anything super fantastic. The announcer doesn't spend a lot of time celebrating it, the play happened it was good and we go on.

.78 times there's "flyball catch very difficult". Text for that:
"he dives...(nl)and he makes the catch!!(nl)WOW! fantastic catch there by [%game fielder]!"
"He reaches...(nl)off balance, he tumbles over and rolls but he HAS IT!(nl)Just an outstanding shoestring catch by [%game fielder]."
"and... you've gotta be kidding me!(nl)I can't believe he pulled that in!(nl)What a catch by [%game fielder]!"

.96 times there's infielders diving or leaping and making the catch.

1.2 times there's "groundball fielding difficult". Text for these:
"[%game fielder] somehow gets a glove on it..."
"[%game fielder] might get to it... and he spears it off balance..."
"This should get through...(nl)No! [%game fielder] somehow gets a glove on it... he sets..."

I say that 3 times a game fielders are diving around missing the ball, which now that I look closer isn't true. They make the play around 1 time per game.
So 2 times they dive or leap and miss. Which throws the final number off a little, it would 9 of 44 times a fielder is diving, or just missing, or making a good play. That's about 1/5 of plays.

These categories would have, and did, look a lot more "spectacular" in 2006. They've gotten reworked some and toned down a bit where I'm thinking they describe a slightly better play than your norm, but except for the "flyball catch very difficult" they're nothing spectacular. Even those aren't all amazing, and some of the other categories have some sprinkled in that would read as amazing.

At this point, I think these look good... I need to take a look at game logs to be sure, but from raw data I don't see a problem atm.

Just a glimpse of how I tackled the pbp during beta.

[Burgandy]

Originally Posted by Charlie Hough

I'm not sure why this is puzzling. People must be thinking that the outfielder is running STRAIGHT back to the warning track. But, especially on a ball hit into the power alleys, can't you envision a fielder running DIAGONALLY, getting near the warning track, and then diving DIAGONALLY to try and catch the ball? Being at the track doesn't mean that you're at the wall, and it doesn't mean that you've been running straight back either.

My thoughts.. The only balls you'll see an OF dive on are ones that he's taking a somewhat lateral approach to the ball, like a shot in the gap, somewhat like the above example. This, obviously, is because they have another OF to back them up. I can certainly envision an OF diving near the track, but not necessarily after he is ON it, and not all that frequently. I see more leaping catches near the wall than I do diving ones.. and not always necessarily to rob a homerun. Just my .02

[RchW]

Just watching TWIB today and during the plays of the week review I saw two diving catches at the warning track and one going up the hill in Houston.

[McBruce]

The difference is, in OOTP, one of those three plays come along about every inning.

Actually, a TWIB plays of the week might be a good feature: a text PBP of the more interesting plays of the week, or even of the day. You could play your game and then click on the sportscast and get the highlights from other games, including milestones and standings changes. Even more interesting when it goes from text to 2-D graphics like the soccer sims.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by RchW

Just watching TWIB today and during the plays of the week review I saw two diving catches at the warning track and one going up the hill in Houston.

Beltran pulled this off over the weekend at Shea, and it looked pretty routine, not a spectacular play at all.

[Burgandy]

Originally Posted by RchW

Just watching TWIB today and during the plays of the week review I saw two diving catches at the warning track and one going up the hill in Houston.

Exactly, they had 1 or 2 to show you in a highlight reel of a weeks worth of games from an entire league!

I didn't see the hill catch you're talking about, but most of those are because it is a hill, it slows the outfielder down, and they either stumble, or feel the desperation to dive because they had a bead on it, then lost ground as it ascended. I personally hate the idea of a hill in field of play that isn't a pitching mound. What's next? A water fountain in front of second base? I can see it now... a catcher is charged with an error because he couldn't throw around the fountain's spray.

[DougWyatt]

How about 1 handed grabs ? I see that one at least every game too. I mean, do alot of guys make 2 handed grabs in baseball ?

[TheSayWhatKid]

I don't see that many players in the outfield diving for fly balls ever anymore. I think I have probably seen that this season in the games I've watched, 6 or 7 times at the most.
I see alot of dives in the infield to try to stop groundballs from getting through, but hardly ever in the outfield.

[t-bone shuffle]

Sorry to report that I just introduced my very baseball savvy 15 (almost 16) year old to OOTP on a recent long vacation. One of his first comments about the game had to do with "all of the fantastic catches in the outfield".

If a kid notices it on his first test drive, it's probably an issue.

[tysok]

Going to revive this so I can find it. It seems there is a huge problem here.

I've got another 3,000 lines I want to go through to collect the data I want, then I'll compile and post here. It's very ugly so far though.

[tysok]

All right, there is definitely a problem here. I've been through 1 month of games, every game played in April (30 days, 391 games).

During this time:
An infielder made 707 diving attempts. (Only category 216, fielder effort)
The infielder caught the ball 191 times, missing 516 times.
The infielder made a difficult play 414 times.

A couple examples of category 180, the one called 414 times:
[%game fielder] knocks it down... recovers...
Amazing stop by [%game fielder]...
[%game fielder] lunges... he has it...

Watered down a bit since these don't cover all the difficult plays on the infield, but for this... the infielder MAKES a great play 1.5 times per game, and is close enough that he tries to make another 1.3 great plays per game. Figure another .5 plays per game on plays I haven't counted up and infielders are close to making, or making, 3.3 great plays per game.
I don't know that this is bad, figuring 2 pitchers striking out 10 each and giving up 6 hits each... that's 46 balls in play per game. 60% ground balls, that'd be about 28 ground balls per game... 3.3 of them are fielded by the infield with better than average defensive play. Seems okay to me, especially given the text for category 180 (groundball fielding difficult which occured 414 times). But this wasn't the focus of this discussion....

In the outfield things get a little silly IMO.
An outfielder made 390 diving attempts. (Only counting category 216, fielder effort).
Of those attempts, they caught 0, yes ZERO.
Of those attempts, 149 of them happened at the warning track.
An outfielder also made 460 difficult catches (category 248).
Of those catches, 84 happened at the warning track.
An outfielder also made 371 very difficult catches (category 247).
Of those catches, 62 happened at the warning track.

A couple examples of category 248:
he stretches out and makes the running catch... nice play!
that ball is sinking fast... he dives...(nl)and makes the catch!
he makes a nice sliding catch.

A couple examples of category 247:
he dives...(nl)and he makes the catch!!(nl)WOW! fantastic catch there by [%game fielder]!
stretching for it... huge reach...(nl)he brings it in!(nl)[%game fielder] with a tremendous effort!
he's reaching for it...(nl)off balance and trips to the ground!(nl)He rolls up WITH THE BALL!(nl)Oh, man! What a nice catch!

This one isn't watered down quite as much, but probably still a little bit. Although I won't add anything for what I may have missed with other categories.
An outfielder is going above and beyond the call 3.1 times per game. He's doing so at the warning track .75 times per game.
Going back to the layout I chose for infielders, there are 18 flyballs per game. And the outfielder is in position (or maybe far enough out of position) to display better than average defense for 3 of them. That's the same number of times as the infield displayed a chance, but with 10 fewer opportunities. 16% of hits to the outfield result in a good performance, 12% of hits to the infield do....

Taking this in a different direction...
Every game that's played will have at least 1 infielder making a "webgem" play (191 diving stops, plus another .5 per game consisting of plays I missed with my limited infield look and a portion of the 414 difficult calls).
In every game that's played an outfielder will make a "webgem" play (371 very difficult catches, plus a portion of the 460 difficult catches).
That's not even counting the fact that ESPN will have to expand to a 2 hour show to see the great defensive plays that aren't "quite" good enough to make it as a webgem.

There's also the problem of 390 diving plays in the outfield that are never caught... once per every game an outfielder dives and misses the ball giving an easy double or triple to the hitter.

Now the problem is, what should it look like? Obviously we need to cut way down on the diving at the track, we need to cut down the great plays, and we need outfielders to stay on their feet for at least the majority of the game....
What kind of ratios might you expect? I'll take what you say, mix with what I think and figure out how this TT should go in.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by tysok

All right, there is definitely a problem here. I've been through 1 month of games, every game played in April (30 days, 391 games).

During this time:
An infielder made 707 diving attempts. (Only category 216, fielder effort)
The infielder caught the ball 191 times, missing 516 times.
The infielder made a difficult play 414 times.

A couple examples of category 180, the one called 414 times:
[%game fielder] knocks it down... recovers...
Amazing stop by [%game fielder]...
[%game fielder] lunges... he has it...

Watered down a bit since these don't cover all the difficult plays on the infield, but for this... the infielder MAKES a great play 1.5 times per game, and is close enough that he tries to make another 1.3 great plays per game. Figure another .5 plays per game on plays I haven't counted up and infielders are close to making, or making, 3.3 great plays per game.
I don't know that this is bad, figuring 2 pitchers striking out 10 each and giving up 6 hits each... that's 46 balls in play per game. 60% ground balls, that'd be about 28 ground balls per game... 3.3 of them are fielded by the infield with better than average defensive play. Seems okay to me, especially given the text for category 180 (groundball fielding difficult which occured 414 times). But this wasn't the focus of this discussion....

In the outfield things get a little silly IMO.
An outfielder made 390 diving attempts. (Only counting category 216, fielder effort).
Of those attempts, they caught 0, yes ZERO.
Of those attempts, 149 of them happened at the warning track.
An outfielder also made 460 difficult catches (category 248).
Of those catches, 84 happened at the warning track.
An outfielder also made 371 very difficult catches (category 247).
Of those catches, 62 happened at the warning track.

A couple examples of category 248:
he stretches out and makes the running catch... nice play!
that ball is sinking fast... he dives...(nl)and makes the catch!
he makes a nice sliding catch.

A couple examples of category 247:
he dives...(nl)and he makes the catch!!(nl)WOW! fantastic catch there by [%game fielder]!
stretching for it... huge reach...(nl)he brings it in!(nl)[%game fielder] with a tremendous effort!
he's reaching for it...(nl)off balance and trips to the ground!(nl)He rolls up WITH THE BALL!(nl)Oh, man! What a nice catch!

This one isn't watered down quite as much, but probably still a little bit. Although I won't add anything for what I may have missed with other categories.
An outfielder is going above and beyond the call 3.1 times per game. He's doing so at the warning track .75 times per game.
Going back to the layout I chose for infielders, there are 18 flyballs per game. And the outfielder is in position (or maybe far enough out of position) to display better than average defense for 3 of them. That's the same number of times as the infield displayed a chance, but with 10 fewer opportunities. 16% of hits to the outfield result in a good performance, 12% of hits to the infield do....

Taking this in a different direction...
Every game that's played will have at least 1 infielder making a "webgem" play (191 diving stops, plus another .5 per game consisting of plays I missed with my limited infield look and a portion of the 414 difficult calls).
In every game that's played an outfielder will make a "webgem" play (371 very difficult catches, plus a portion of the 460 difficult catches).
That's not even counting the fact that ESPN will have to expand to a 2 hour show to see the great defensive plays that aren't "quite" good enough to make it as a webgem.

There's also the problem of 390 diving plays in the outfield that are never caught... once per every game an outfielder dives and misses the ball giving an easy double or triple to the hitter.

Now the problem is, what should it look like? Obviously we need to cut way down on the diving at the track, we need to cut down the great plays, and we need outfielders to stay on their feet for at least the majority of the game....
What kind of ratios might you expect? I'll take what you say, mix with what I think and figure out how this TT should go in.

I always keep score at games I attend. I mark my scoresheet with an asterisk when a player make an outstanding play.

In my guesstimation, there are only 1-3 very good plays a game in the normal baseball game. Nowhere as many as in OOTPB.

An outstanding play should be something special and not commonplace as in OOTPB.

tysok, you make the call and adjust it as best you can. You and pstrickert know more about the PBP than anyone I know of.

Whatever you do to cut down on great plays would be fine with me.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by tysok

Now the problem is, what should it look like? Obviously we need to cut way down on the diving at the track, we need to cut down the great plays, and we need outfielders to stay on their feet for at least the majority of the game....
What kind of ratios might you expect? I'll take what you say, mix with what I think and figure out how this TT should go in.

I think you've already put your finger on two of the problem areas: too many diving attempts in general and too many diving attempts on the warning track in particular. I'm not sure what it means to go from 1 per game to .5 per game (in whatever category). By that I mean I'm not sure how much I'd notice the reduction. Personally, I'd err on the side of having too few "great" plays than having too many.