Big Spike in CF Plays in OOTP17

[IanIachimoe]

I manage every game & when I had Billy Hamilton in CF he was making catches down the right field & left field lines (?). never understood that, but rolled with it.

[Hoiles]

Originally Posted by Barkingturtle

I just suffered through an August swoon wherein I lost three center-fielders and two of each right and left-fielders for the majority of the month. That's seven injured outfielders, all sitting in the jacuzzi at once. I lost sixteen games in a row, a new personal worst. I fell from contention like seven outfielders leaping from a plane without parachutes. I'm going to blame OOTP's injury engine combined with the data in this thread. It is some small consolation.

The most vexing is when my franchise CF (inevitably) takes himself out for the rest of the season in the middle of a pennant race making a super-amazing wowie-zowie catch, in an 8-1 game.

[BoomerSoonerAMH]

Originally Posted by NoOne

back on topic:

averages are a start... but distribution and volatility are required to give a real comparison... and definitely not based on small samples, like the ones above.

batted ball stats are a %$#@. good luck with that stuff. one website i go to only has info for the last 10-12 years or so. then, you have the problem of conflicting definitions of what a line drive / fly ball is, etc... at this moment in time the data is a bit murky and difficult to use in a precise way. i.e. you can get 2 data sets from the same period of time in the MLB and get 2 completely different results. so, what kind of integrity is there at the moment? not much.

I understand your point about the variable definitions for fly balls, ground balls and line drives. That is the reason that I included data on Ground ball outs and Air ball outs. Those definitions are pretty concrete.

With regard to sample size, I would agree that the data from 2014, 2015 and 2016 (YTD) doesn't provide a huge sample size (certainly not enough to provide the kind of statisical analysis I'd prefer that would include distribution and standard deviation analysis), but the consistency of the data between the 3 sets of data is significant enough to support the idea that there shouldn't be as significant a deviation from prior years data as what is show by the OP's data. I gradual change indicating a shift in the way the game is played (such as a greater emphasis on hitting the ball in the air), but a rapid switch like that detailed in the OP is most likely the result of an outside influence (in this case a change in coding/setting/etc). If this type of statistical shift in the span of a single season were seen in real life, one would expect some outside influence to be the cause (i.e. lowering the mound, raising the strike zone, etc).

[Andy]

Originally Posted by IanIachimoe

I manage every game & when I had Billy Hamilton in CF he was making catches down the right field & left field lines (?). never understood that, but rolled with it.

As someone who watches him on a nightly basis that's not really outside the realm of possibility. Ok, maybe it is, but he can fly. I think the other night he ran 123 feet to make a catch at 22 mph.

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by Andy

As someone who watches him on a nightly basis that's not really outside the realm of possibility. Ok, maybe it is, but he can fly. I think the other night he ran 123 feet to make a catch at 22 mph.

LOL. I'm OK with it.

[BigRed75]

Yeah, if you had said anyone else I would have been like "ZOMG THE GAME IS BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!" But because you said Billy Hamilton I tilt my head and say "I guess I can see that."

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Barkingturtle

I just suffered through an August swoon wherein I lost three center-fielders and two of each right and left-fielders for the majority of the month. That's seven injured outfielders, all sitting in the jacuzzi at once. I lost sixteen games in a row, a new personal worst. I fell from contention like seven outfielders leaping from a plane without parachutes. I'm going to blame OOTP's injury engine combined with the data in this thread. It is some small consolation.

funny stuff... the only way to avoid that is to play with draft pick trading on.... then you are so deep and so talented even a spate of injuries like that cannot stop your team. it will happen to any team even if they are all 22-27 years old with "1s" for injury ratings, eventually.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by BoomerSoonerAMH

I understand your point about the variable definitions for fly balls, ground balls and line drives. That is the reason that I included data on Ground ball outs and Air ball outs. Those definitions are pretty concrete.
....

it wasn't criticism or anything, more that it's all that we have to work with at the moment and it makes things a bit murkier than they should be. i think this thread thoroughly showed somethign was off but not in any precise way, that's all. and if it's only off by X% that could be within the error caused by shoddy data or the like -- at that point we aren't sure if we are off or the data is off, lol. the CF things looks to be more than just a negligible difference, obviously. but i also never really saw it compared in a thorough way in the thread. i'm doing the same things that's being done to the game... loosely looking at it and saying that's not quite right etc, lol.... as long as ootp does the collection/research right, that's the important part. recognizing it's off is easy with somewhat bad data.

like 'they' said or someone said about them, they will hand it off to people to do some number-crunching and do a far better job than someone in their pj's on sunday morning (us) messing around with some spreadsheets and likely much more limited data in comparison.

[JMDurron]

Originally Posted by NoOne

it wasn't criticism or anything, more that it's all that we have to work with at the moment and it makes things a bit murkier than they should be. i think this thread thoroughly showed somethign was off but not in any precise way, that's all. and if it's only off by X% that could be within the error caused by shoddy data or the like -- at that point we aren't sure if we are off or the data is off, lol. the CF things looks to be more than just a negligible difference, obviously. but i also never really saw it compared in a thorough way in the thread. i'm doing the same things that's being done to the game... loosely looking at it and saying that's not quite right etc, lol.... as long as ootp does the collection/research right, that's the important part. recognizing it's off is easy with somewhat bad data.

like 'they' said or someone said about them, they will hand it off to people to do some number-crunching and do a far better job than someone in their pj's on sunday morning (us) messing around with some spreadsheets and likely much more limited data in comparison.

Well said. I'm not sitting here thinking that we've proven anything, beyond that there's something that merits OOTPD taking a second look at whether the appropriate G/F outcomes are being generated in a Modern MLB environment. There could be various league-specific settings or talent distributions mucking things up, not the internal game mechanics, but we're not really in a position to evaluate that thoroughly from the outside.

[NoOne]

sometimes the full message isn't conveyed in text... just making sure i wasn't being too offputting by mistake.