Fundamental flaws... your chance to vent!

[ootpFox07]

A few notes of my own (sorry for an duplicates, I haven't had time to read the whole thread)

- I don't know if player weight specifically influences performance but I have not seen it change much over a players career in the game. There are numerous examples of good players (Miggy Cabrera being a very recent example) coming to spring training overweight and watching their performance drop. Or shedding soemthing like 30 pounds and having a career year. Having some justification like weight change to explain random performance changes (good or bad) would improve the player development model

- Did I mention stadiums should be importable/exportable again. I probably did but I'll do it again. Stadiums should be importable/exportable again

- When playing out games, the game routinely puts closers into tie game situations in the ninth inning, even when facing the bottom of the opponents lineup. I'm sure the AI uses a "best available reviler" approach, but unless it's a save situation, the next best MR should be picked

That's what I have for now. Great points made so far in thsi thread though.

[Jaxxvain]

Originally Posted by DesertFox07

- When playing out games, the game routinely puts closers into tie game situations in the ninth inning, even when facing the bottom of the opponents lineup. I'm sure the AI uses a "best available reviler" approach, but unless it's a save situation, the next best MR should be picked

This one is a managerial preference, and in my opinion should be controllable via a Strategy Setting, not necessarily hard coded into the AI. The AI should recognize the situation, then react according to the human manager strategy setting, or AI manager's strategy profile.

Some managers only use closers in save situations, unless in the pennant race or playoffs (of course the AI should be able to recognize all of these situations too).

[injury log]

Originally Posted by teak88

I don't know where the CEI was in this very familiar saga. What I see is a guy who hurt his arm in 2001 and then fought for 7 years to hang on "in the show"; had a couple ok years and a lot of time on the DL as he fought through it. This is what ootp doesn't model. Either he would have a CEI in 2001 and "Bam; gone": - or he would spend 6 mos on the DL and be fine

I don't want to turn this thread into a detailed debate about CEIs, so this is the last I'll say on the subject. In Mantei's case, he knew he would need to undergo an extended surgery and rehab yet again, with low or no probability of success, given his track record, hence his retirement.

OOTP's approach to CEIs could certainly be more sophisticated. Most real life CEIs fall into one of two categories:

1) a player suffers trauma so severe as to prevent him from performing at a professional level, e.g. Juan Encarnacion losing vision in one eye, Mike Matheny's post-concussion syndrome, any fatality;

2) a player who has already undergone one or more surgeries reinjures himself, and requires another surgery. In such cases, if the first surgery hasn't worked, it becomes far less likely a repeat surgery will prove successful, which can lead a player to retire. Brian Anderson, Matt Mantei, Adam Loewen (who can still hit, but can't pitch), and others are examples.

If OOTP were to track the number of SEIs a player had sustained, and made the 'instant trauma' CEI rare, and instead made most CEIs of the 'multiple SEI' variety, we'd have greater realism here. I've said all along that CEIs are too common; there should be only 1-3 per year at the MLB level according to the data I've looked at. There are, of course, many examples of players suffering serious injuries, losing ability, and eventually retiring, but OOTP models that already - too drastically, in fact - injuries can seriously affect ratings in OOTP.

Mind, if you don't like CEIs, it's dead easy to turn them off - just set all the CEI booleans in injuries.txt to zero. So I don't really understand why anyone who doesn't like CEIs should care about this part of the game. It's for those of us who want CEIs in OOTP, but want them to be realistic, that this matters.

____________________________________

And two more items to add to the list, so my post has some relation to the original purpose of this thread:

-news filters: it's possible to be swamped by an avalanche of news, and difficult to get the news I want - I want to know the Players of the Month, but don't care about DTD injuries, for example. I think a more sophisticated news filtering system was planned for last year, and it would be a welcome addition.

-the fielding model: there's a lot that could be done here. This might be a job for v11 unless someone can work out a concrete proposal, but, among other issues:

--player creation doesn't seem right here; strong-armed outfielders created with infield arm ratings of 1 out of 200, for example;

--it doesn't seem to make sense that every OOTP shortstop can be a Gold Glove first baseman. The qualities of a good fielding 1B - handedness, reach - aren't quite the same as those of a good SS;

--roster makers don't know how to rate players in fielding - I don't think anyone knows just how much of a difference fielding makes in the game, statistically;

--there likely ought to be stronger correlation between component ratings and fielding performance (Range ratings and RF, Error ratings and FPCT, etc)

The game might need a 'Tools' model to do this well, and with the sabermetric community still researching the issue, there may not be the data to come up with a realistic model. Still, something to think about.

[JadedMsFan]

Some thoughts:

1) The introduction of the fielding tools (IF arm, OF range, Turn DP, etc.) was very cool. It allowed for accurate positional switches which made developing your own players a lot more fun.

2) Unfortunately, the AI has never done many positional switches, especially at the minor league level. In my games this has resulted in teams with a poor 2B and two good SS, one of which is stuck in AAA.

3) The "learning curve" which affect the ratings growth for outfield positions needs to be changed. In previous versions, a 50 rated RF took X games to reach a 50 rating in LF. Because LF and RF are so similar, the X for LF/RF should be much smaller than X for SS-->2B, etc. Centerfielders should also be able to learn LF/RF very quickly.

4) It would be quite nice to have a quantified way to measure fielding ability. I know what a 100 rating in contact means because there is a sample stats line displayed below that tells me my player will now avg .330. I realize that defensive stats are in their infancy and many are probably not very accurate, but in OOTP we could at least have some measure. VORP (or RAA or whatever batting stat you want) gives me a good idea of a player's batting value, but there should also have a defensive run estimate. Ex: Chase Utley is worth +20 RAA with the bat and +10 runs above average with his glove.

5) The game needs to do a better job experimenting with SP->RP and RP->SP conversions. I realize this happens in real life too where pitchers get pigeon-holed into their roles (this mostly applies to closers who've never gotten the chance to try starting, etc.) Failed starters should get ratings boosts when they start relieving. I have had marginal relievers with 80+ endurance ratings never get a shot at coming out of the bullpen. I have also had dominant relief pitchers with 45-50 endurance ratings whom the AI never tries in a starting role.

6) When editing batters and pitchers, could a slider be implemented to determine their platoon splits rather than two separate ratings. This would make editing players much easier.

7) When editing a players contract in the player edit menu, it would be nice to be able to check whether the salary that year was a club, team, or mutual option. Currently there is no way to change this. I would also like to see multiple options years available, but the ability to edit those option years is more important.

[attackemu]

I realized this is buried on page 6, and so I wonder if it'll get gotten to. I also know there are a lot of important things (injuries, Spring Training, minor leagues and feeder leagues) that even I find equally important. However, the Serie Caribe is about to kick off so I'm going to tackle a pet issue.

Winter Leagues, if they're gonna be in the game, should work properly. Normally the rosters are more than 50% major league players, and much of the other 50% is former major league players. I don't think MLB teams assign their players to Winter Leagues (excepting the AFL, which is made up of low-level prospects, usually) but we ought to get a list of players who are playing in Winter ball, perhaps with the choice to tell them not to. (It'd be cool to have the Serie Caribe in the game, too, but I'll avoid being ambitious.)

For example, take a look at the roster for this year's Dominican champions, Tigres del Licey. There are 77 players listed, in large part because the roster changes as Spring Training rolls around and players have to go back to their MLB clubs. (Side note: if this is going to work, it'd be important to have pitchers/catchers report to s/t before other players as a companion.) Of those 77, 52 are currently in the major leagues or minor leagues. 25 of those 52 are currently on the 40-man rosters of their MLB clubs. Of the 25 non-MLB players, 22 are former MLB players and 3 are *** players.

In a perfect world, then, OOTP's Dominican League temas would be set up the same way. They're not teams that have the same players year in and year out, or sign guys to 5-year contracts, or whatever. This also applies to the winter leagues in Mexico and Venezuela, though those leagues are more likely to have players who've never played in the majors and instead play in the Mexican summer league, or only in Venezuela.

If it's too much to incorporate the Serie del Caribe into the game, and therefore ridiculous for Tigres del Licey to have a 77-man roster, then their 25 man roster ought to be at least set up the same way as the real one, in the same proportions. On a 25-man roster, there should be 16 or 17 active major/minor league players. 7 or 8 of those should be AAA or major league level, and the rest should be former major leaguers or fringe type free agents. There should be 1 non-MLB player if we're running other leagues - this applies to fictional leagues, too, obviously and you could set up the Winter Leagues in much the same way as minor leagues in terms of telling them which other leagues to get most of their players from. This should fluctuate year to year, but not much. (Actually, to get it exactly right within OOTP confines, we should be able to set the % of players in a given winter league that come from each place.)

That way, as major league managers, we'd have a chance to gauge the progress of our young stars in the winter and also check out aging free agents to see if we still think they've got anything left.

Non-foreign winter leagues are simpler to explain. The Arizona Fall League, for example, has 6 teams, each of which acts as a feeder for several MLB clubs' younger players. Usually guys who are not bonafide future stars, but more like b-list prospects and/or very young a-list prospects. For it, or leagues like it, to work, we'd need to be able to set more than one club as the parent club to an affiliate. Then, the roster is divided proportionately among the clubs it's affiliated with. For example, if there are 5 major league teams affiliated and a 25-man roster, everybody sends 5 players. As managers, it'd be very cool to get an e-mail saying "You need to decide which 5 players are going to be playing in the AFL this year, your assistant recommends the following." Then it gives us an extra something to do in the offseason, besides. (Aside, the late great Hawaiian Winter League was actually an affiliate of both MLB and ***. If we could get minors and winter leagues to do the same thing - be affiliated with more than one parent league - that'd be aces.)

Anyway, I know this is buried as post 200-and-something, and I know it's long. But I'd be happy, even, to do some serious research into winter leagues to demonstrate how they could possibly work. At the very least, they should be divided into Foreign Winter Leagues (which are not officially affiliated with big league clubs) and Domestic Winter Leagues (in which teams are affiliated with several) and the players should come from the right places.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by conception

This is a great thread and I hope people haven't gotten too sidetracked.

I agree. Let's get back to Juan Encarnacion.

[Solonor]

Originally Posted by attackemu

Winter Leagues, if they're gonna be in the game, should work properly.

Totally agree with that statement.

I think it's debatable as to whether they should have been in the game to begin with, but if they're there, they should work. That they don't is a fundamental flaw.

[Jaxxvain]

Coaches and Scouts off?

So, I play a solo league with coaches and scouts off, as I have for previous versions of ootp.

I remember in the past speculation that coaches and scouts are never really turned off, or should I say, they are only made to be invisible.

My direction questions:

If I have coaches and scouts are turned off, why do I get in game emails about coaches/scouts retiring?

If I have coaches and scouts are turned off, why does the .csv file (forget which one) contain coaches and scouts, their teams and their ratings?

And most importantly, if they are turned off, but still exist (according to the data dump file), are they still affecting teams and player development?!!

This is fine if it is happening in solo leagues, since I am already playing against the AI. But if this is happening in online leagues, it is simply not fair.

[RchW]

Fix post season rosters so that only injured players can be replaced and then only in-between series. Right now it's a free for all and the AI moves players from game to game.

Don't allow waiver claims to go on the active roster during the playoffs. Recently I had an AI team win the WS with a player who did not play for them in the regular season.

This is fundamentally flawed.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by RchW

Fix post season rosters so that only injured players can be replaced and then only in-between series. Right now it's a free for all and the AI moves players from game to game.

Don't allow waiver claims to go on the active roster during the playoffs. Recently I had an AI team win the WS with a player who did not play for them in the regular season.

This is fundamentally flawed.

Good post, I agree with everything you said. .

[teak88]

On the Player Page, the box in the lower right hand corner that has "current yr stats" and "past 3 yrs" below it, does not always show the player's teams in chronological order. If he gets traded mid year - and has a mix of major/minor leagues, the stat lines by team are somewhat random. Wish I knew how to copy/paste a screen from the game, but one example looks something like this...

2009 Richmond (AAA) ...
2009 Louisville (AAA)...
2009 Atlanta ...
2009 Cincinnati ...

When in fact he started 2009 w/ Cincy, went down to their Loisville AAA team, was traded to Atlanta; was later sent down to their Richmond AAA team.

[RonCo]

Bad stats alone should not cause talent hits. Talent causes ratings causes stats...not the other way around.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Bad stats alone should not cause talent hits. Talent causes ratings causes stats...not the other way around.

RonCo is absolutely correct. Playing better competition makes you better. It may be frustrating, but you do not lose your skills.

[darkcloud4579]

The whole active/inactive leagues feature was supposed to work about 3 versions ago and got put on ice. We should be able to do this, because it really mucks up leagues when you can't delete old leagues completely or when you can't pick back with a league where it's left off.

[injury log]

I've become increasingly bothered by the predictability of the development model. Because Potential ratings act as targets for Overall ratings, if you have a 25 year old player, and his ratings start to drop (after injury, say), you can be pretty sure his Potential is less than his current ratings, and you can expect him to continue to get worse. I'd need to think more about whether it would be a good idea, but perhaps overall ratings should change more suddenly, rather than trending gradually.

More importantly, the AI does not value declining players correctly - the AI doesn't seem to notice that a player is declining, and will happily trade the farm for a good player who is dropping precipitously, or give a contract extension to a player who is likely to be worthless in a year's time. The problem seems to be that the AI treats current ratings as static entities - the AI will give a massive contract to a 28 year old with 80/80/80 ratings, expecting him to be a superstar for a while, even if the player had 100/100/100 ratings a year ago. If the AI were to project trend lines based on past ratings, it could more appropriately value declining and aging players - the AI might anticipate, in the example above, that the player could drop up to 20 points over the next year, and trade or offer contracts accordingly.

[Ktulu]

More importantly, the AI does not value declining players correctly - the AI doesn't seem to notice that a player is declining, and will happily trade the farm for a good player who is dropping precipitously, or give a contract extension to a player who is likely to be worthless in a year's time. The problem seems to be that the AI treats current ratings as static entities - the AI will give a massive contract to a 28 year old with 80/80/80 ratings, expecting him to be a superstar for a while, even if the player had 100/100/100 ratings a year ago. If the AI were to project trend lines based on past ratings, it could more appropriately value declining and aging players - the AI might anticipate, in the example above, that the player could drop up to 20 points over the next year, and trade or offer contracts accordingly.

The AI doesn't know how to properly evaluate players period.

[Cooleyvol]

Originally Posted by RonCo

Bad stats alone should not cause talent hits. Talent causes ratings causes stats...not the other way around.

This is easily the most glaring flaw and the first thing that should be fixed IMO.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

This is easily the most glaring flaw and the first thing that should be fixed IMO.

The more I think about this, the worse it gets. The other thread around here an the subject shows a way that you can use this to your favor by putting older, developed players into your lower minors. This causes your opponent's younger, under-developed players (relative to a now inflated league average rating) to perform more poorly and be stronger candidates for development hits.

This design decision is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be fixed.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by RonCo

The more I think about this, the worse it gets. The other thread around here an the subject shows a way that you can use this to your favor by putting older, developed players into your lower minors. This causes your opponent's younger, under-developed players (relative to a now inflated league average rating) to perform more poorly and be stronger candidates for development hits.

This design decision is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be fixed.

You vastly overlook the mental aspect of development. Players who are performing poorly will become discouraged and depressed and they wont perform to their potential. Conversely, some players with less talent will end up having better careers and stats because their mental and emotional makeup is stronger. Markus's system is a lot more nuanced than the 'talent decides all' school of thought.

[struggles_mightily]

Originally Posted by andymac

He can still physically swing a bat...he can play baseball. How well he can play it should not play a role in whether he has to retire. He may retire himself or become retired by default because no one offers him a contract, but hard coding career ending injuries is fundamentally wrong.

I basically agree.

The Juan Encarnacion example has been brought up as a counter to this way of thinking, but it doesn't work. In late 2007, after he sustained the injury, there was a consensus that it was extremely serious.

In January 2008, reports confirmed that he would miss the entire 2008 season, and there was speculation that the injury would end his career. In May, Mozeliak said, "I'm sorry to say that he will not [return to the team]. His injury will likely result in his career ending." It's instructive to look at the language in that quotation, because it hints at the strong reluctance (both for practical and emotional reasons) to simply declare an injury 'career ending'. Even if attempts at rehabilitation and recovery are tokenistic in some very extreme cases, they do occur.

I do think there are some cases where an injury simply 'ends' a career, though. But those happen in certain circumstances. It's easy to see why a veteran on an NRI deal or similar who picks up a reasonably serious injury in the spring would choose to just say, "so long and thanks for all the memories". There's no incentive for him to continue. Still, that's not a 'career ending injury' in the present OOTP sense of the term -- it's a guy picking up a serious injury, weighing up his options, an deciding to call it a day. This is a process, not just an event.

The way I've always had in mind that things should work is that, when a player develops a reasonably serious injury, there should be the possibility (particularly for older or injury-prone players) that the prognosis worsens over time, or that the recovery process goes poorly. Thus, as the injury process lengthens and worsens, the player's skills take a bigger and bigger hit and more and more of his 'useful' career span is used up. Older guys might decide that they've made enough money, don't need to put the strain on their body and at some point decide to just call it quits. Younger guys might experience such a ******ation in skills that they can't be useful to a big-league club, and decide to retire because there's no money there for them.

Either way, I think the 'process, not event' way of thinking would be much more realistic and much cooler as well -- it would be kind of neat to follow an injured player's progress, wondering if he'll ever pick up a ball or bat again, knowing that there's a realistic chance he might not.

You vastly overlook the mental aspect of development. Players who are performing poorly will become discouraged and depressed and they wont perform to their potential.

I'm kind of suspicious of this way of thinking, mostly because there's no way of proving that it's correct. One could make an equal(ly poor) conjecture that accumulating poor stats drives a player on to improve, or that having good stats makes a player 'over-confident' or whatever. We just don't know what the tangible effects of these things are. Talent might not govern 'all' (I'd guess that it's at least 90-95% of performance, though), but judging what percentage of results comes from 'psychological makeup' is extremely spurious, and I'd rather OOTP stayed out of such shady avenues.